Jason Scott
Fractal Fanatic
The answer to the question posed in the OP (ie. WHY are we chasing the amp in the room sound?) is that some people simply like/prefer it.
Umm, you basically agreed with what I said - not many have heard an unmic’ed Leslie. Otherwise I haven’t a clue as to the rest of your comment.I have. Even recorded and engineered a record for papa in ‘91!
You might stop assuming so much about people. I don’t think it serves anyone very well.
I guess true live music ended in ~1972.
I’m just throwing this out there because I found that in watching and reading reviews of modellers as well as being part of forums that I have been influenced by all of this discussion to such a degree that I thought I wanted it too.
I have had my Axe FX III since January 8, 2020 ( I don’t think I’ll ever forget that date). After almost a year I am getting to the point that I can tweak a patch in the headphones and it actually sounds close through the PA which I have never been able to do with any other gear ever. I use in ears on stage so this is a great advancement for me. I absolutely love the tones I am getting, they are so satisfying to play. By the way I am 59 years old and have been playing guitar since I was 11. I have owned tons of great amps over the years including Fender, HiWatt, Marshall, Mesa/Boogie and other offerings that I experimented with here and there. Naturally there were some I loved more than others and they all had their “thing”. The Hi Watt was my first really good amp and I think I liked it the best but it was big and heavy and I was looking for an easier route. Here’s the thing, sure it sounded great in the room but I looked forward to the huge power of mic’ing it up in a club and hearing it through a big PA. I also liked hearing it on recordings if we managed to get the mics positioned correctly. It also occurs to me that any time I have heard inspiring guitar tones from my favourite players it’s only been on recordings or through a PA.
The amp in the room unless it was a stack was usually best heard by my lower legs and in the smaller clubs where i just used the amp the audience wasn’t hearing what I was hearing. That has changed since switching to modellers and now with the AF3 when doing a sound check it’s super satisfying to take my wireless guitar out into the room and listen the cranked up sound. It sounds like the ton I crafted just louder and bigger since I am in a bigger space.
This discussion, if anyone is interested enough to participate, is not going to have a right or wrong answer. It’s going to be completely subjective. I put this forward not because I don’t recognize there is a difference, there absolutely is. I think what I am getting at is WHY are we chasing that? Not WHAT it is. I recognize there is a link between the “what“ and the “why” but I am as happy and satisfied with the sound of my Axe Fx III recorded, through the PA and even in headphones as I have ever been with any amp in the room I‘ve played myself or listened to others play. I will admit that wasn’t always the case, with other modellers that I previously owned it was about the dynamics and feel but AF3 takes care of that. I guess it’s more about, if Cliff figures out a way to nail it so that everyone says “yes there’s that amp in the room sound I was looking for”, what will it do for us. And if i dial up a Fender Twin with a 2 X12 cab will I have to walk 10 feet from the sound source to hear the high end? (That was a joke).
Of course the more SPL’s you subject your ears to the worse your hearing becomes over time, and not just auditory thresholds, but also declines in frequency discrimination and temporal processing ability.
Then everything sounds like it’s got a blanket over it, so you crank the highs but then everyone complaints about your ice pick tone, and how your to loud et al.
I don’t think anyone who has made a career out of loud guitar amps/great tone hasn’t suffered some hearing loss as a result.
I grew up with a 2203 and 4x12 in my bedroom, and it’s a beautiful thing, but these days I don’t like even my Princeton louder than 3
if I have to be in the room with a loud amp these days it better go in an iso cab or closet. Last thing my remaining hearing wants is to ever be stuck in the room with a cranked amp
Umm, you basically agreed with what I said - not many have heard an unmic’ed Leslie. Otherwise I haven’t a clue as to the rest of your comment.
you missed the point by a country mile so I’ll spell it out for you…
There are probably far more people who have heard a real Leslie and either live or recording situation that you assume haven’t … Perhaps you’re just too young?
Probably “in” - LoLI’m not sure I understand what you’re spelling out. The sentence is hard to decipher. As far as I can tell the debate here is about how many people have heard a real Leslie live in a room, un-mic’d vs how many have only heard it mic’d at a concert or on a recording. Which are you claiming? Your sentence says “more people who have heard a real Leslie and either live or recording situation”. Did you mean to type “than”?
You can say the same about a lot of instruments. The number of people who've heard a piano in a room is dwindling. Heck, the number of people who've heard an actual piano in a recording that's not just samples is dwindling.I’m sure the number of people who have heard a Leslie in the room is similar to the number who have used a rotary phone, or a dial up modem, or know what a cassette tape is et al...... in other words, dwindling.
heck, my daughter may end up driving and not even knowing what an internal combustion engine feels like to drive.
time, technology and experiences change, both in our day to day lives and in terms of making music.
guitarist on forums (myself included) are often older guys who want to sound like the tones of the 70/80’s ideally using gear from the 50/60’s. More power to is all, but let’s not think we really represent any majority in terms of taste, aesthetics etc lol
Umm, perhaps you assume too much in your very condescending manner. But please, go ahead and spell it out. Let’s see how you do. Hmm...you missed the point by a country mile so I’ll spell it out for you…
There are probably far more people who have heard a real Leslie and either live or recording situation that you assume haven’t … Perhaps you’re just too young?
Umm, perhaps you assume too much in your very condescending manner. But please, go ahead and spell it out. Let’s see how you do. Hmm...
So far you’ve mentioned that YOU have been in a room with an unmic’ed Leslie some 30 years ago. That’s your proof? FWIW, it’s been around 20 years for me. Where/who is the rest of this mass of people?
As far as being too young, I’ve been collecting my Social Security checks for a few years. Take from that what you will. Perhaps you’re just too old?