Why are we chasing the amp in the room sound?

Its like comfort food and what guitarists know , when you go to a guitar store they dont give you a set of headphones or put you in a room w a FRFR or a mic‘d amp
so it just kind of a feel and sound most
are used too unless you work in a studio
 
luke said:
If you want the in the room sound, run Farfield IRs in parallel.
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Just curious what benefit you think it's achieved by running them in parallel? The same signal is running into them... I think you can just use the IR mixing in a single Cab block and save a bit of CPU. Maybe I'm missing something?
 
I was 17 the first time I plugged into a real full stack 4x12 setup. It was at a friends (his parents bought him anything he wanted) mesa dual rectifier. At the time I was a Metallica fanatic. It was sort of like sex for the first time or something along those lines - unforgettable. Huge full sound, and response that you could feel all through your body.

So ever since then I've been trying to chase that feeling at lower volumes. it just doesn't happen. If back then it was actually an axe fx running into some big PA speaker setup the feeling would have been the same. So its not really the "amp in the room" were after , its the speakers in the room. I'd bet a pair of those Headrush FRFR 108 would be pretty satisfying at home, but my wife probably wouldn't agree :laughing:
 
cleanplanets said:
If back then it was actually an axe fx running into some big PA speaker setup the feeling would have been the same. So its not really the "amp in the room" were after , its the speakers in the room.
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Not really... Or FRFR would already be the answer. And it's not...

But it can sound glorious!
 
unix-guy said:
Just curious what benefit you think it's achieved by running them in parallel? The same signal is running into them... I think you can just use the IR mixing in a single Cab block and save a bit of CPU. Maybe I'm missing something?
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I could never get the sound quite the same. I do as you describe when forced by running piezo into a cab block as well.
 
I'm happy with the sound through FRFR. In fact, happier than with my amps in the room-sound. But I'm usually cutting highs and lows drastically, when going direct. I made a video about that:
 
I'm chasing the sound / tone & feel of playing a stadium to 50,000+ on a 300 ft stage.

After 30+ years, my journey has me going 4CM with an FM3 when playing live.
 
Kram said:
I'm happy with the sound through FRFR. In fact, happier than with my amps in the room-sound. But I'm usually cutting highs and lows drastically, when going direct. I made a video about that:
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You use a eq block to do bass and high cuts ? Why don’t you do this in the cab section ?
 
I run both FRFR and direct to cabs

for AITR you just need volume ... add in a kilowatt+ of your fav solid state amp ... I use it matrix GT1000FX out to 2 Friedman 2x12s

super simple ... just as nasty as you recall
 
I was never really that impressed by real amps in the room as a metal / high gain player.

All the tones in my head are recorded tones and not live tones.

As such I genuinely as well prefer playing FRFR with IRs over a real guitar cab setup.

I honestly believe it sounds better than using a “real” tube amp into a “real” guitar cabinet.

Also in my opinion, the chasing a “room” sound with mics is a complete waste of time. Just because an IR says it’s a room mic setup doesn’t mean it will sound remotely like an amp in a room.

Every time a metal guitar player sticks a bunch of dark sounding mics into a guitar cab on YouTube the sound is so bad I can’t believe they posted the videos to YouTube feeling good about the sound. Literally just sounds like a guitar tone with a blanket over it. At least to me. The trend of trying to get a “room” sound has almost ruined metal guitar tones all together. Give me a SM57 straight on the cab over that any day all day.
 
"AITR"

Funny that there isn't a similar desire/demand for a VITR or IITR (voice / instrument) "in the room" as we prefer isolate these from "the room" so as to be able to control them better (free from resonances, reverberation, etc) while potentially adding these synthetically later.

By the way, for AITR exactly which room are we talking about? ;) 🤯

As a thought experiment (not intended to be offensive), I would imagine that if each us were members of different indigenous groups growing up with amplified guitars we'd want the Axe to give us: AITF (forest), AITV (valley), AITM (mountains), AITP (plains), AITS (snow), etc. Different tribes would argue over which provides the BEST tone. And some wise shaman/woman might suggest that there is no "best" tone, but only tone appropriate to the context, purpose, and preference. Another sage might suggest panning 4 of these IRs L/R/F/B to get "quad enviro-surround" sound.
 
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I think most guitar players chase the amp in the room tone because if you think about it, the average guitar player puts way more money into guitar amps than stereo equipment, and has probably personally heard (or just paid more attention to) much better tube amp + cab combos than quality stereo or PA systems.

Think about it. A guitarist's amps are usually better and more powerful than his stereo / monitoring setup. His brain just associates real guitar rigs with more powerful, more pant-flapping hardware.

I bet if the same musician was regularly able to compare the "real thing" in the room against that same "real thing" mic'd up far away somewhere being basted through the same PA that Metallica uses or whatever, they'd probably prefer the mic'd PA tone.
 
Great Topic!
2002, I had waited 9 months for the Mesa Boogie Road King (V1) to ship. My friend was a dealer and ordered SN 185 from the NAM show in LA. I still own that amp today. Anyway, I loved the sound of it, plugged into a Mesa 2-12 cab. Took it to my first gig, put a $75 SM57 mic on it and transformed that $2500 amp into a "bees in a can coulda been a $50 amp" kinda sound out front. I was not happy. I upgraded to large condenser mics and that helped a lot, still a pain and expensive. First live gig with my AXE FXII, direct to FOH back in 2012 - awesome! At home I play it thru studio monitors, and once in a while I'll send it thru my 2:90 and a 2-12 cab. Both sound great to me, but once I'm at a gig, the sound I get sitting at my desk doesn't matter compared to whats coming out the PA system. Regardless of location, I just need a little air contact to help the strings sustain correct.
 
yyz67 said:
"AITR"

Funny that there isn't a similar desire/demand for a VITR or IITR (voice / instrument) "in the room" as we prefer isolate these from "the room" so as to be able to control them better (free from resonances, reverberation, etc) while potentially adding these synthetically later.

By the way, for AITR exactly which room are we talking about? ;) 🤯

As a thought experiment (not intended to be offensive), I would imagine that if each us were members of different indigenous groups growing up with amplified guitars we'd want the Axe to give us: AITF (forest), AITV (valley), AITM (mountains), AITP (plains), AITS (snow), etc. Different tribes would argue over which provides the BEST tone. And some wise shaman/woman might suggest that there is no "best" tone, but only tone appropriate to the context, purpose, and preference. Another sage might suggest panning 4 of these IRs L/R/F/B to get "quad enviro-surround" sound.
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This might be a good point if one was chasing the "room" part of AITR, but that's not the case, at least for me. The room can easily be the same for both an FRFR and a real cab, that's why the term AITR is misleading imho.

What's different is the frequency and transient response, the dispersion pattern, and all the behaviours of listening directly to a real cab vs an IR of that cab played thru an FRFR speaker.
A close mic IR will always have a sort of comb filter baked in caused by the position of the mic itself plus emphasized ranges of frequencies due to proximity, polar pattern and frequency response of the mic.
A good far-field IR comes closer in that regard but still lacks in other departments.
 
GreatGreen said:
I think most guitar players chase the amp in the room tone because if you think about it, the average guitar player puts way more money into guitar amps than stereo equipment, and has probably personally heard (or just paid more attention to) much better tube amp + cab combos than quality stereo or PA systems.

Think about it. A guitarist's amps are usually better and more powerful than his stereo / monitoring setup. His brain just associates real guitar rigs with more powerful, more pant-flapping hardware.

I bet if the same musician was regularly able to compare the "real thing" in the room against that same "real thing" mic'd up far away somewhere being basted through the same PA that Metallica uses or whatever, they'd probably prefer the mic'd PA tone.
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Not really. That is one reason why I stand as close to the stage as I can, so I can hear the raw sound of the band instead of what's coming through the PA. This preference for a PA sound seems to come mainly from metalheads, based on what I read here.
 
Why chase amp in the room? For me, it’s because I want it. For years, we’ve been able to get something that sounds fine “on tape”. Modern modelers promise to deliver the actual amp and speakers. We perform live, mostly in clubs. Unless in a very large concert venue, the band and the audience want the dynamics of instruments in the room. My Axe FX III delivers. One OUT block to the FOH mixer. A second OUT block to a SS amp and to the Talk Box. A third OUT block to a SS amp, and then a 2x12” speaker guitar cab. This third chain doesn’t use a CAB block.

I don’t need to chase anything. It’s all captured with the Fractal. “Amp in the room” equals the right frequencies, at the right volumes, pushing the right amount of air.

Yay Fractal Audio!
 
I have a 2000 watt sub to run with my stereo FRFR setup for when I want to hear and FEEL some air movement when I crank up the volume. IMO, it's the way to go.

Fun Side Effect - In doing so, it sets off every window and door alarm with my home's security system if I forget to deactivate it. Lol
 
I just use a power amp and cab. Never had to chase it through IRs and FRFR. That just seems as weird as trying to make a real cab sound like an IR. I get that people want to feel like they own 2000 cabs the way it feels like you own 250 amps, but those aren't models of cabs, they're IRs of cabs with a mic. Appreciate it for what it is and enjoy that. Otherwise, get a cab.
 
Sure but who ever thought anything like the AF3 would have existed 40 years ago. Now in the last 10-20 years there’s a lot of focus on getting modelling experience to be as real as possible. For example do you feel like you have 250 amps when you’re playing through your cab? I agree at the moment we are stuck with IRs of mic’d cabs but someone might figure out how to neutralize the effect of the mic at some point which may get us part way there.
 
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