Why can't 'amp in the room' feel be modelled?

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Getting the amp-in-the-room feeling/experience/tone from a power amp + guitar cabs rig isn't the issue.

Getting that sound/feel/tone from an FRFR monitor is the issue.

I did an experiment once with Matt from Matrix
we popped a pair of FRFR monitors in front of me... and yes.. it sounded exactly as you'd expect.. it was great..
then we placed them behind, on their side and raised.. sounded great again.
and personally I preferred this, but that's more about me being so used to the sound coming from behind [fnarf fnarf] I guess..
but to me there was something missing compared to my real cabs... I couldn't put my finger on it..
then we added another pair of monitors.. 2 in front and 2 behind... and it was absolutely stellar...

I have absolutely no idea about the physics / engineering in all this..
but to my ears / feel, it seemed to be about a good amount of volume and a good square footage of speaker cone moving it..
and maybe I'd also guess the cubic footage of cabinet joining in..

maybe I'm talking total shite here... but that's the only way I could understand all this...
what I can confirm though is that 4 1x12 FRFR monitors gave me a very similar feeling to my real pair of 4x12 cabs
 
Getting the amp-in-the-room feeling/experience/tone from a power amp + guitar cabs rig isn't the issue.

Getting that sound/feel/tone from an FRFR monitor is the issue.

I get that.

But getting the "amp in the room" feel *from a modeler* IS the issue for a lot of folks.

Tying it to FRFR, makes it WAY more difficult to achieve. And reinforces the internet myth that modelers can never sound as good as real amps.
 
To a certain point? It's literally the only point.
It's completely beyond me why people have been chasing the "Amp in the room" sound with modellers forever, but always ignore the damn room in the equation.

If you want the "amp in the room" sound, how about adding the room for a change? There is a reason farfield IRs (and "backside" IRs) exist.

What he said...

A monitor in general is constructed for FRFR, cabinet resonance is unwanted, this would color the sound. Not so with guitar cabs, cabinet resonance is part of the overall sound.
In both cases materials are selected accordingly, monitor cab acoustically dead, guitar cab resonant. In general IRs are missing 2 components, the cab and the room. To an extent CabLab is your friend, so mix up your cone, cab and optional room IRs.
 
I get that.

But getting the "amp in the room" feel *from a modeler* IS the issue for a lot of folks.

It shouldn't be.
As others have said in this thread, the Axe played through a flat power amp and a guitar cab IS the amp-in-the-room sound.
Whatever amp sim you choose will sound like it would if you ran that amp into that cab.
I thought everybody knew this.
I disagree with anyone who says you need to use a tube power amp for this to be realistic though.
There are so few tube power amps that are designed to operate as flat as needed for this.
The Matrix amps are OK.
Their main feature is form factor though (weight plus headroom), not tone. IMO.
But everybody should try a REAL good power amp like a Bryston one time before you totally give up on SS power.

Tying it to FRFR, makes it WAY more difficult to achieve. And reinforces the internet myth that modelers can never sound as good as real amps.

Well I've always preferred the sound of my cabs over any IR I've ever heard through any FRFR speaker.
I've always thought that mic'ing was a compromise and never sounds as good as the thing being mic'd.
That's true whether it's a human voice, a saxophone, an orchestra or a guitar amp.
But it's all we've got.
 
I just had some stellar results with a Rocktron Velocity 250 with the Resonance and Presence maxed (Presence maxed to help compensate for the cabIR through a 'real' set of cabs and 'Resonance' in Velocity 250 is not an EQ-type thing it is how much vacuum tube feel it produces).
 
I'm not sure where this misconception about amp in the room can't be modeled comes from.

Compare a 112 combo to an Active CLR and it's the same to me. I also tried running 1/2 a 412, basically then a 212, and compared side by side with my pair of active CLRs and while the marshall cab had more of a beam the tone and feel and interaction was almost indistinguishable from one another.

The problem starts when people try to compare a 412 cabinet to a single 112 FRFR cabinet , and then they think the FRFR cabinet cannot produce amp in the room fullness.

YMMV, but IMO if you dial in the FRFR to your real cab you can get it there, but you need the same physical load.
 
If you have only a FRFR solution IMHO the nearest "amp in the room" recipe is:
1) go all mono!
2) big speaker monitor (at last with an 12" cone)
3) good pushing volume
4) no verb or just a little (best if spring)
5) not too much delay... and in general don't overdo with ambient and modulation fx
6) push some motor drive in the cab IR block
7) push some mids in the amp EQ
this way you can maximize the punch in the stomach and kick in the a** perception of an amp in the room
 
It shouldn't be.
As others have said in this thread, the Axe played through a flat power amp and a guitar cab IS the amp-in-the-room sound.
Whatever amp sim you choose will sound like it would if you ran that amp into that cab.
I thought everybody knew this.
I disagree with anyone who says you need to use a tube power amp for this to be realistic though.
There are so few tube power amps that are designed to operate as flat as needed for this.
The Matrix amps are OK.
Their main feature is form factor though (weight plus headroom), not tone. IMO.
But everybody should try a REAL good power amp like a Bryston one time before you totally give up on SS power.



Well I've always preferred the sound of my cabs over any IR I've ever heard through any FRFR speaker.
I've always thought that mic'ing was a compromise and never sounds as good as the thing being mic'd.
That's true whether it's a human voice, a saxophone, an orchestra or a guitar amp.
But it's all we've got.

funnily, the thing I really like about the Matrix GT1000FX is that it has pretty much no tone of its own..
in addition of course that they are light, really powerful and look like they have molten lava inside..
 
Why have FRFR at all, then?

because one size don't fit all… we all have different needs…
not just tone, but stage size and transport too

FRFR monitors:
someone in a covers band that plays on a tight stage and don't want / need a wall of 4x12 cabs
a session guitarist playing in the pit with a show band / TV or theatre orchestra will need to be compact and will need great tonal flexibility
someone that's plain tired of hauling big-ass boxes around night after night

my needs and desires though are very different…

horses for courses.. and they all offer great / valuable solutions...
 
Perhaps the solution is for someone to invent FRFR speakers that are directional.

I'm guessing that that is a joke.

The directionality of a guitar cab is not the thing that's missing from the way that FRFR system approximate the cab-in-the-room.
It's the very last thing we'd like to replicate.
When we play with guitar cabs we find a spot that sounds good and we usually don't move from there.
And that spot is not usually with our ears right in front of and on-axis to the driver.
It's the duplication of that sweet spot along with the greater dispersion and *lack* of directivity of an FRFR system that I'm after.

In my experience, the things that I've never been able to get out of an FRFR speaker that I do get out of a guitar cab are:

1. The attack transients of guitar cabs are less peaky and sharp and are, to me, more musical sounding.

2. The top end never seems just right from an FRFR speaker.
Most IRs have too much top end, especially for mid or hi gain tones, and when you EQ it out it ends up sounding flat and uninteresting.
And EQ'ing a dull IR never seems to work either.
And even if you do get the top end tapered in a musical way it's just a different type of top end than you hear coming out of a guitar cab.
I notice this the most when using my EMG-SA loaded Strat and going back and forth between my EV cabs and my CLRs when using a hyper clean and bright tone.
The CLRs just seem to be incapable of reproducing the same type of musical sounding top end that the EVs do.
The same is true for any other FRFR speaker I've used.
This probably has more to do with the way that horns and tweeters reproduce top end than it does with the way the IRs were recorded.
I.e. The way a 12" woofer reproduces these frequencies is just different than the way that a horn or a tweeter does it.
I thought the concentric drivers of the CLR might mitigate this issue for me but they don't.

3. The mids often seem quite scooped as well as cold sounding in most of the IRs I've tried.
There's just more mid girth from a guitar cab.
This probably has more to do with the way a guitar cab vibrates and resonates in a room than it does with the way the IRs are recorded.

4. Bass boominess from an FRFR system is more of an issue as the SPL increases than it is with a guitar cab.
A guitar cab seems to work better at both bedroom levels and gigging levels whereas an FRFR system seems to exaggerate the Fletcher-Munson effects.

5. When I play live with a power amp + cabs rig I have several amp sim types (hyper clean and bright, hyper-clean and dark, bluesy breakup, hi-gain 1, hi-gain 2) that I run into that system and they all sound good through that one speaker.
When I find an IR that works satisfactorily with one of my amp sim types it invariably sounds unsatisfactory with the other amp sim types.
I've never understood why this should be.
Even a mic'd cab signal will work with several different and contrasting amp tones.

BTW
I know I'm peeing into the wind on all of this.
I'm just thinking out loud here.
 
funnily, the thing I really like about the Matrix GT1000FX is that it has pretty much no tone of its own..

You might not feel that way after you've spent some time A/B'ing your Matrix with a true reference amp like a Bryston 2B.

in addition of course that they are light, really powerful and look like they have molten lava inside..

To me, that's the best case to be made for the Matrix amps.
IMO The ART SLA amps sound more musical than the Matrix amps too.
 
5. When I play live with a power amp + cabs rig I have several amp sim types (hyper clean and bright, hyper-clean and dark, bluesy breakup, hi-gain 1, hi-gain 2) that I run into that system and they all sound good through that one speaker.
When I find an IR that works satisfactorily with one of my amp sim types it invariably sounds unsatisfactory with the other amp sim types.
I've never understood why this should be.
Even a mic'd cab signal will work with several different and contrasting amp tones.

I have wondered this same thing.

I wondered if the amp block spkr page settings are at play here?

If you don't alter the amp block spkr page (and I don't), then auditioning IR's is somewhat of a match game, finding an IR that plays well with the default amp block spkr page parameters.
 
I have wondered this same thing.

I wondered if the amp block spkr page settings are at play here?

If you don't alter the amp block spkr page (and I don't), then auditioning IR's is somewhat of a match game, finding an IR that plays well with the default amp block spkr page parameters.

I don't think the Spkr Page settings affect things anywhere near as dramatically as some folks tend to think they do (unless we're talking about extreme settings).
Nevertheless, with my power amp + cabs rig I always set the LF Res to 65hz because supposedly that's about where a n EV in an open back cab tends to have its LF Res.
It does seem to help with realism but not all that much.

I actually haven't spent much time tweaking the Spkr Page settings when I'm trying out IRs.
I've usually got other things I'm worried about like choosing one IR out of a few thousand.
And I'm usually looking for IRs of EVs in open back cabs which should, in theory, sound good with a LF Res setting of 65hz anyway.
 
Now, if you connect your Axe-Fx to a power amp and traditional 1x12, 2x12, etc. then you will get "amp in the room"
This is what I've settled on. I run AxeFXII > QSC poweramp > 1x12 cabs. Turn off cab block (so no IRs for this rig). Then dial in the amp for the current cab. What's been most interesting in running this way is each of the three 1x12s have dramatically different characteristics. One is super dark, one is pretty bright and not so pleasant, and the third actually sounds best (to my ears) and is just like playing through a traditional amp. Surprisingly, it's a Blackstar ID60 cab with one of their custom speakers. Sounds great to me. Guess that's all that matters.

Experiment. Don't settle on FRFR if it doesn't sound or feel great to play through. Have fun!
 
In my experience, the things that I've never been able to get out of an FRFR speaker that I do get out of a guitar cab are:

1. The attack transients of guitar cabs are less peaky and sharp and are, to me, more musical sounding.

2. The top end never seems just right from an FRFR speaker.
Most IRs have too much top end, especially for mid or hi gain tones, and when you EQ it out it ends up sounding flat and uninteresting.
And EQ'ing a dull IR never seems to work either.
And even if you do get the top end tapered in a musical way it's just a different type of top end than you hear coming out of a guitar cab.
I notice this the most when using my EMG-SA loaded Strat and going back and forth between my EV cabs and my CLRs when using a hyper clean and bright tone.
The CLRs just seem to be incapable of reproducing the same type of musical sounding top end that the EVs do.
The same is true for any other FRFR speaker I've used.
This probably has more to do with the way that horns and tweeters reproduce top end than it does with the way the IRs were recorded.
I.e. The way a 12" woofer reproduces these frequencies is just different than the way that a horn or a tweeter does it.
I thought the concentric drivers of the CLR might mitigate this issue for me but they don't.

3. The mids often seem quite scooped as well as cold sounding in most of the IRs I've tried.
There's just more mid girth from a guitar cab.
This probably has more to do with the way a guitar cab vibrates and resonates in a room than it does with the way the IRs are recorded.

4. Bass boominess from an FRFR system is more of an issue as the SPL increases than it is with a guitar cab.
A guitar cab seems to work better at both bedroom levels and gigging levels whereas an FRFR system seems to exaggerate the Fletcher-Munson effects.

5. When I play live with a power amp + cabs rig I have several amp sim types (hyper clean and bright, hyper-clean and dark, bluesy breakup, hi-gain 1, hi-gain 2) that I run into that system and they all sound good through that one speaker.
When I find an IR that works satisfactorily with one of my amp sim types it invariably sounds unsatisfactory with the other amp sim types.
I've never understood why this should be.
Even a mic'd cab signal will work with several different and contrasting amp tones.
+1 on this joegold. Especially #2 and #3.
 
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