Why are we chasing the amp in the room sound?

[yoitsmegabe]

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.

Yes, I do feel like I have access to those amps. The differences aren't as stark as changing speakers in a cab but there are differences for sure. As you know AxeFx amp models are not a snapshot so it's not the same as an IR. I think if an IR the way I think of a tone match or the kemper. Its one snippet of one thing at one setting.

 

[Neill00]

I partially agree with you. I think where we start to drift is where it gets subjective. The word snippet is a little bit loaded as it implies a really small portion. If your experience is that the IRs only capture a snippet, no one can argue with how this tool works for you which explains why you prefer cabs.

 

[luke]

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.

This is why I prefer the old V30 IR with the dyn 112 mic for live, it imparts the least microphone signature, thereby giving the most “amp in the room” experience. It’s a shame no one does other IRs with it. And yes I understand it is not a traditional “guitar microphone”.

 

[Dave Merrill]

This is why I prefer the old V30 IR with the dyn 112 mic for live, it imparts the least microphone signature, thereby giving the most “amp in the room” experience. It’s a shame no one does other IRs with it. And yes I understand it is not a traditional “guitar microphone”.

Can you point me to "the old V30 IR with the dyn 112 mic" please? Is it a factory cab in the III?

 

[yoitsmegabe]

I partially agree with you. I think where we start to drift is where it gets subjective. The word snippet is a little bit loaded as it implies a really small portion. If your experience is that the IRs only capture a snippet, no one can argue with how this tool works for you which explains why you prefer cabs.

I use the word snippet because if you move the microphone to another location you get a different sound. There are a lot of places you can move that mic and changing the mic alters the sound as well. Look at how many different 4x12 v30 sm57 IRs exist that sound different. How is that not a small portion of the possible results? I don't use the word to trivialize the process, its utility, or sophistication.

 

[luke]

Can you point me to "the old V30 IR with the dyn 112 mic" please? Is it a factory cab in the III?

It is not. The V30 was a cab in the II, and you could chose your microphone back then. Someone converted it for me. I’ll attach it later when I get a free moment.

 

[Dave Merrill]

I'm sure some of you have been through some of the Jay Mitchell far-field IR discussions, yes?

IMVVVHO, removing the mic from the tone, at least that way, doesn't result in tones that are a) intuitively recognizable as more like what you hear in a room with the cab in question, b) easily usable to get close to the tones on records I'm familiar with, or c) inherently more pleasing in their own right than other approaches.

YMMV for sure, to the point that I hesitated to even bring this up, for fear of the near-religious brouhaha that ensued in some circles around it. It's not an easily resolved topic.

 

[RevDrucifer]

I was really curious about the ‘amp in the room‘ thing when I first got my III, but then I ran it into the return of a Peavey XXX, shut off the cab block and turned the amp on. I played for 15-20 minutes and not once did I NOT feel like I was playing through a real amp. I was actually surprised how similar the tone was between the IR and the 2x12 I have with WGS Retro 30’s. I thought for sure I’d experience this lack of depth or everything else I’ve heard come from the naysayers, or those who are searching for this amp in a room sound. Alas, it sounded like a normal amp.

And it’s not that I haven’t spent years in a room with loud amps, I’ve done it for 25+ years and frankly, have zero desire to do it again. All those band practices with guys noodling between songs or tweaking amps at 100DB....I’m just over it. Sure, it’s fun to crank up an amp to that point you have controllable feedback on demand at all times, but for me, it’s a hell of a lot more fun to sit in a practice space where everyone has their shit dialed in, EQ and volume wise, to sound GREAT before anything hits the PA.

 

[luke]

Sure, it’s fun to crank up an amp to that point you have controllable feedback on demand at all times, but for me, it’s a hell of a lot more fun to sit in a practice space where everyone has their shit dialed in, EQ and volume wise, to sound GREAT before anything hits the PA.

Just use the Mark Day feedback preset and do it at 75db and open the gate more.

 

[GreatGreen]

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.

I’ve experienced this before. Dialing in an amp to sound good in the room is a completely different thing than dialing it to sound good through a mic, especially something like an SM57.

I used to regularly dial in a 5150 > 4x12 > SM57 rig for people who recorded at a studio owned by a friend of mine. Every time, by the time the rig was good to go, it sounded like flubby ass in the room with the 4x12. Almost no definition or clarity, it was mushy, almost farty, etc. but in the control room, it was exactly the opposite, and exactly what we wanted. Defined, clear, full, punchy, saturated but with detailed highs, clear mids, and punchy lows. Basically everything you’d want from an amp like the 5150.

If you find yourself able to dial that Road King solely using an FRFR setup while being unable to hear the cab itself, I bet you could make it sound incredible mic’d with an SM57 straight into the PA. It will probably sound like hot garbage standing in front of the cab though.

In a perfect world, I’d have an amp and cab dialed in just for being mic’d and another separate rig just for stage volume. Luckily with the Axe III you can do that. Or, you can at least dial in your tone primarily for Front of House, then split your signal to a heavily EQ-compensated secondary output to your poweramp+cab rig for stage volume.

 

[luke]

It is not. The V30 was a cab in the II, and you could chose your microphone back then. Someone converted it for me. I’ll attach it later when I get a free moment.

Found it here:

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/home-grown-from-the-ground-up-presets.166384/

It is U2001, btw 13 & 14 are my Farfield’s I use. All V30 based.

If you download the preset you can see how I set the cabs and mix them in.

edit to add: this preset version is older and not optimized for 15.01.

 

[RevDrucifer]

Just use the Mark Day feedback preset and do it at 75db and open the gate more.

I got a Digitech FreQout in loop 3 that i turn on/off with a momentary switch on my board. I don't sit far from my monitors, so it doesn't take absurd volume levels to get real feedback, either.

 

[James Nash]

In a perfect world, I’d have an amp and cab dialed in just for being mic’d and another separate rig just for stage volume. Luckily with the Axe III you can do that.

Curious if anyone is doing this. I've used my Fractal gear exclusively with FRFR, and usually with ear monitors. It sounds great in my ears, and the sound engineers have been happy, so all's good. But I do wonder if the stage feel might be different with a conventional cab, and whether the rest of the band would like it more or less... worth trying (whenever we're actually in clubs doing real gigs again...)

 

[yeky83]

Live music with actual instruments sounds better to me than the recorded music of those instruments.

I prefer the sound of a great acoustic guitar in person to the recorded sound of that acoustic guitar. Same with a piano, or any other instrument really.

I don't want to sound like the recordings of my favorite guitarists. I want to sound like my favorite guitarists.

Would you ask the same question to a Hammond or pipe organ player? "Why chase the sound of your Leslie or cathedral pipes when that's not the sound you hear on your favorite recordings?"

Etc., I could go on.

 

[Joe Bfstplk]

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 laugh my ass off when driving around in parking garages in the MINI and its exhaust rumble sets off car alarms. 1.6L 4-banger. Scares the pee out of Fiats, Hondas, Toyotas, Chevies, and Fords....

For my two cents on the topic:
I dial in a good FOH sound over FRFR studio monitors, and when I run that through my SpaceStation XL, I am happy with the results. The big difference is that I am only trying to sound like me most of the time, and most of the time, that works.

 

[James Nash]

I disagree about recording vs. live. For some kinds of music, yes, the goal is to capture the acoustic event accurately, and the reproduction will always be judged against the "ideal" original.

But electric guitar tones are largely a studio creation. What we hear on an album is almost never what it sounds like in ANY location in a venue, much less everywhere. Most guitarists don't even use the same equipment to record vs. live.

And with very few exceptions, I prefer the tone of my favorite electric guitarists on album vs. live when I've seen them. I've seen so many guitarists PLAY great live. But IMO it's rare to hear live tone that's truly exceptional, even from legendary players who are known for their tone.

I think Jeff Beck is an exception. He's one of the few players I've heard sound better live than on any album.

 

[yeky83]

But electric guitar tones are largely a studio creation. What we hear on an album is almost never what it sounds like in ANY location in a venue, much less everywhere. Most guitarists don't even use the same equipment to record vs. live.

What you’ve listed out here stands true for any number of instruments, in that what we hear in a recording is never what they sound like in a venue, nor are the same equipments used to record them vs. live. This isn’t unique to electric guitars as (I think) you’ve tried to suggest, so why are electric guitar tones largely a studio creation in a way other instruments aren’t? You haven’t given any reasons here.

 

[James Nash]

I don't think electric guitar is unique in that way. There are many other examples. Take vocals, for instance. Unless we're talking about opera or choral music, the goal is not even remotely to capture a "natural tone in a room." We use microphones and processing to create a sound that is very much "unnatural" in an acoustic sense.

Violin in a concert hall. That is a sound that has been cultivated over centuries. It's the gold standard for violin tone (in many genres, not all).

I don't believe there's an analogue for electric guitar. There is no "natural setting" for electric guitar. In most live situations (post 1970ish), what we hear in the audience is a mixture of stage bleed and close-microphone PA feed. The natural "amp in the room" only exists in very small clubs where the sound usually isn't that great anyway.

 

[yeky83]

I don't think electric guitar is unique in that way. There are many other examples. Take vocals, for instance. Unless we're talking about opera or choral music, the goal is not even remotely to capture a "natural tone in a room." We use microphones and processing to create a sound that is very much "unnatural" in an acoustic sense.

Violin in a concert hall. That is a sound that has been cultivated over centuries. It's the gold standard for violin tone (in many genres, not all).

I don't believe there's an analogue for electric guitar. There is no "natural setting" for electric guitar. In most live situations (post 1970ish), what we hear in the audience is a mixture of stage bleed and close-microphone PA feed. The natural "amp in the room" only exists in very small clubs where the sound usually isn't that great anyway.

I'll take my favorite vocalists' live acoustic tone over an "unnaturally" recorded tone of them any day.

"Natural setting" is really neither here nor there to the topic at hand. Would a violinist prefer and chase a recorded tone all of a sudden because they were not in a concert hall? No. And a crappy sounding club sounds crappy with both guitar cabs and playbacks of recordings.

 

[RLD]

Electric guitar is not an acoustic instrument. It uses a speaker. The analogy to an acoustic piano or acoustic guitar is flawed.