VIDEO: The power of a cab block

Danny Danzi

Power User
Hey guys,

Talked about this in another thread. Nothing spectacular and I apologize in advance for the bad playing. Operating on very little sleep and loads of stuff going on here (all good stuff) but I wanted to get this out to you as promised.

This vid just feeds your head a bit on tweaking cab blocks. I took one that I'd never use and made it into something totally usable for quite a few mid gain/classic rock to blues type amps. Hope it helps you guys.

 
Your stuff is GREAT man, I really like and appreciate it! The 'vowel like' explanations of tones to listen for make perfect sense in this context, I like the way you explain these sounds.

BTW, I grew up in NE and spend a lot of time in the tri-state area to this day. You may be from the tri-state area of your first name ends with a 'y' even after you're an adult....:) Gotta love it!
 
Nice video. I like your approach to showing how to manipulate different settings and what you listen to when editing.

You turned me on to some new settings to try out in the cab block. Thanks so much!!!
 
Danny, I always learn something interesting from your videos. Keep up the good work and screw the guy that gave you a thumbs down!

While I grew up on guitar during the late '80s and appreciate your heavy tones, I almost never use those tones these days so I truly appreciated hearing you play some lower gain stuff! I would love to see more of that from you.

Would you mind sharing the preset or block settings you used in the video so I can dissect them for my own knowledge? I was trying to pause the video to see some, but I was really digging the overall vibe.

Thanks,

Kevin
 
Question for the gallery...do most of you use High Res or normal? I've dropped from high to normal for cpu sake, but I do feel like there's a sacrifice in the sound. That said, after I've played on normal for a while, I forget about that. I know it's entirely subjective, and if I feel like it sounds better it just does. I might have pushed myself off the fence just with that and maybe I should take out effects I'll probably never end up using instead. Still, what's the general consensus on high vs. normal.

Not to hijack the thread, very informative video, much thanks!
 
Danny, that video is really helpful for me, and will change my workflow when making new sounds. It never occurred to me to tweak BMT in a cab block to minimize tweaking on amp side. I also dismissed the speaker size parameter early on, but you used it to great effect along with tweaking other settings. Thanks a bunch.

And the video format of talking over the AxeEdit screen while playing seems the best for sharing the key concepts that are hard to get in just words. Really great stuff.
 
Yet another awesome video Danny. I bet no one imagined all that time ago when they shot that 1x8 Tweed IR that a bunch of guys were gonna go scrambling to tweak the heck out of it and make it work for whatever amp they want :D
 
Question for the gallery...do most of you use High Res or normal? I've dropped from high to normal for cpu sake, but I do feel like there's a sacrifice in the sound. That said, after I've played on normal for a while, I forget about that. I know it's entirely subjective, and if I feel like it sounds better it just does. I might have pushed myself off the fence just with that and maybe I should take out effects I'll probably never end up using instead. Still, what's the general consensus on high vs. normal.

Not to hijack the thread, very informative video, much thanks!

I personally don't notice anything major that makes me think "oh I so gotta use high res!" The difference to my ears is so minimal, it's like splitting hairs. Here's my rule of thumb for listening to things and making decisions.

I've done so many tests in my time....from amps to cabs, to interface converters, bit and sample rates, real hardware vs. modeled hardware, man....I can't even begin to tell you how many comparisons I've done. These rules below really help me though.

1. Always have a completely unbiased and fool-proof way of listening to compare. Make two files and make sure you are NOT the one that initiates your medial player. Let your girl, your friend, your kid, anyone but you, play the file so that you have no clue what is coming.

2. If you are literally creating something where you play the part twice, beware NOT to play one part differently than the other or you'll know in an instant which you are listening to.

3. Most important: If you cannot tell a difference in 3 listens, there is no major difference to waste any time on. If you can't hear it, no one else will...nor will they care unless they are tone junkies like us.

I've gotten a bit more relaxed in my judgement on things these days. I've gone from completely anal and out of my tree to accepting just about anything that sounds good or is an artistic approach to something. Even as a sound engineer/mastering engineer/producer, there are so many artistic approaches to something, unless it's blatantly horrible (like that tweed cab without touching anything lol) it has a place.

At the end of the day, the world as we know it listens to our years worth of work through freaking earbuds! If that isn't enough to make you settle for something that is decent, I don't know what is. This sucks so bad my clients and I have decided to release two forms of media on CD. The iTunes people that could care less about fidelity (we literally mix and master for buds...makes me wanna throw up) and the gear snobs like us that actually listen through good studio monitors or cool car speakers.

I got two pretty cool cars (Corvette Z06 and a Jeep) with killer sound systems in them. How people can listen to crappy earbuds all the time over a killer system is beyond me. I see more earbuds while people drive than I want to see around here....next to the people texting and driving....ugh!

But seriously, don't go mad over your tones. When you hear professional bands putting out stuff that sounds good on earbuds that sounds like crap on real systems, you know times have changed and you don't have to beat yourself up. Sure, always try to get the best tones you can get to where you have that happy medium of "good on all systems" but don't spend a bunch of hours comparing things that make little to no difference.

There are lots of things that play into how something changes. I know nothing of the high res other than it may be a little brighter in certain situations? Or....at louder volumes it may react differently?

For some things, you can notice "something" going on that compliments the sound. For other things, in my opinion it takes away from the sound. And yet in other instances, I notice nothing. From my experience, the "normal" setting is a bit like analog, the hi res, more digital maybe? Don't hold me to any of that. Just sharing my personal experience. Let your ears be the judge...never let a title sway your opinion unless you can blind test and pass every time. :)
 
Danny that was a massive help for me! I have a few goto presets that I'm 95% happy with, some were a little to bassy and sizzly, after a few tweaks you mentioned it made such a difference! way more definition. Thank you, hopefully you keep these videos coming.

Alan
 
Danny that was a massive help for me! I have a few goto presets that I'm 95% happy with, some were a little to bassy and sizzly, after a few tweaks you mentioned it made such a difference! way more definition. Thank you, hopefully you keep these videos coming.

Alan

Yeah I was going to do another using a cab with that low end blanket sound. But I felt the sizzle cab I used might have been more helpful. For the cabs with low end, keep rolling off until that whoom sound I mentioned is gone or at least acceptable. Don't worry if the low cut says 400-600 hz, remove that blanket. :)
 
Seriously man - consider me one person helped. Honestly I was little skeptical about using the cab blocks with a real cabinet. I know I said before I spent time tweaking and couldn't get the blanket off of my tone. After taking some of my existing patches and only adding a cab block and making some tweaks in the video and bam - there was my tone more defined than ever. I even A/B'ed the patches with my wife - who by her own admission, knows nothing about guitar tone. She used terms like "clarity", "definition", and "punchy" to describe the tone with the cab block. And as for my old tone, I believe her exact quote was " sounded like ass compared to the other one". And really - when we perform, thats who we're playing for. Most audiences know nothing about tone, only that it sounded good or bad.
Thanks again man - you seriously woke my ass up to a new world.
 
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