Can you tell the difference between amp sims and a mic'd amp recording?

[jens]

Does even the best of amp sims sound the same through the studio monitors vs. real tube amps through the real cabs?

Of course not - how would that be possible?

[b4serenity]

What about regular pop music recordings you hear on the radio?
What percentage of them have Line 6 and other amp sims going on now?

I said pop music because I THINK most rockers use mainly tube amps, but maybe some use sims as well.

[jens]

no, not really. sound has a finite speed. a typical ampsim latency will get you in the ballpark of standing a few meters away from the cabinet, less if you're using something faster than 256 samples @ 44.1 kHz. there is latency through the real amp too, it's just the latency isn't due to processing, but due to the sound taking time to reach your ears.

Yes, but don't forget to calculate the roundtrip...

[jens]

I plan on buying a Fender Princeton Reverb reissue in the next few months, and I'm sure one of the first things I'll do is mic it up with a 57, use my DI to ABY, and compare it to the Amplitube version at the same settings.

My guess: Amplitube will sound better. Why do I think that? I think the "microphones" are a bit idealized in AT3 and not at all representative of an un-EQ'd microphone. I suspect a lot of the 57 honk will be mixing and Amplitube will sound more hifi and polished, whereas the mic'd version will sound more raw and lofi without any EQ.

Hogwash.

[subterfuge]

i'm not sure i understood what you said correctly, but if i did, that's exactly what i said. the "natural" environment of an amp sim is recorded guitar sound, not a live guitar sound. therefore, comparing both in their "natural" environments is apples to oranges comparison. so in order for a comparison to even make some sense, either real amp has to be recorded (or listened to from the control room), or the amp sim has to go through a real cabinet.

Yes, we are saying the same thing, I just seem to make my point too vague. Again, no, I cannot tell for sure what is an amp sim and what is a miced amp in the usual mixed recording, unless I know those details myself.

That aside, even if I'm recording my guitar through an amp sim, I still want the real amp to breath in the room with me if possible, simply because it's not the same to play through a sim compared to a real amp/cab.

[transmetropolitan]

The whole concept of 'ABY can you tell the difference?' for this kinda thing is both flawed and old IMO.

Context is everything with these things, but even at that it's completely missing the point of the problem with such a test.

Speaking as a guitarist, an amp in the room vs a plugin guitar amp is often the difference between feeling, working with, being inspired by your tools and spending the whole time fighting them.

Now I'm not saying every guitarist feels that way, and certainly I'm always open to inspiring new software.

But the question you should be asking isn't 'can you tell the difference in the context of a track or ABY?', but 'could the guitarist tell the difference while she or he was recording and what impact did it have on her/his performance?'.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I plan on buying a Fender Princeton Reverb reissue in the next few months, and I'm sure one of the first things I'll do is mic it up with a 57, use my DI to ABY, and compare it to the Amplitube version at the same settings.

My guess: Amplitube will sound better. Why do I think that? I think the "microphones" are a bit idealized in AT3 and not at all representative of an un-EQ'd microphone. I suspect a lot of the 57 honk will be mixing and Amplitube will sound more hifi and polished, whereas the mic'd version will sound more raw and lofi without any EQ.

Hogwash.

Might be. I'll give it a go and we'll see. Every time I mic an amp, whether me doing it at home or working with another engineer in a studio, there's a "rawness" to a mic'd up amp that I don't hear in sims. Amplitube just sounds more polite and polished to me. Maybe not "better," but trying to be more slick and mix ready maybe. I fully expect the amp in the room will kill the sound of playing the amp sim through my monitors, but I'm talking specifically of the recorded sound in the DAW. Just a 57 and nothing else 2" off the speaker.

Again, well see. I'm more curious than anything and the Princeton Reverb is about as much amp as I need at home, so it just happens to work out that I also have an Amplitube model of it I'll be able to compare to.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

The whole concept of 'ABY can you tell the difference?' for this kinda thing is both flawed and old IMO.

Context is everything with these things, but even at that it's completely missing the point of the problem with such a test.

Speaking as a guitarist, an amp in the room vs a plugin guitar amp is often the difference between feeling, working with, being inspired by your tools and spending the whole time fighting them.

Now I'm not saying every guitarist feels that way, and certainly I'm always open to inspiring new software.

But the question you should be asking isn't 'can you tell the difference in the context of a track or ABY?', but 'could the guitarist tell the difference while she or he was recording and what impact did it have on her/his performance?'.

The usefulness depends on the question you're trying to answer. If you're looking to find out " how well does the modeled amp sound through the modeled cab and modeled microphone when compared to the real things," then it's a valid exercise.

If you're looking to have a conversation about inspiration, that's something else entirely. No amp sim provides as visceral a feeling a feeling to me as a real amp, but in honesty, I can't wake up the neighbors when I want to record a guitar amp at night, so there's trade offs. My short term goal is to start mic'ing an amp again, but I need something a lot less loud than my Twin Amp, which I can almost never play.

[hibidy]

I have no horse in this race, I just wanted to say that monster cables sound better.

I mean, it's not like I've spent most of my hours constantly a/b'ing guitar amp sim tones and searching for the holy grail.

[Burillo]

regarding feedback, check out Vibesware Guitar Resonator. i love feedback sounds too, and though it's a bit unwieldy to use, it sounds quite natural to my ears. it's not a plugin, it's a magnetic string exciter, kinda like an ebow but better.

[Burillo]

The whole concept of 'ABY can you tell the difference?' for this kinda thing is both flawed and old IMO.

no, it just considers the end result only. how you feel during performance is irrelevant for the purposes of this comparison.

Context is everything with these things, but even at that it's completely missing the point of the problem with such a test.

Speaking as a guitarist, an amp in the room vs a plugin guitar amp is often the difference between feeling, working with, being inspired by your tools and spending the whole time fighting them.

Now I'm not saying every guitarist feels that way, and certainly I'm always open to inspiring new software.

But the question you should be asking isn't 'can you tell the difference in the context of a track or ABY?', but 'could the guitarist tell the difference while she or he was recording and what impact did it have on her/his performance?'.

my experience is different. maybe it's because i play almost exclusively through amp simulations. i started with a sim, i still use sims to this day. meaning, i'm quite comfortable with amp sims and i don't "spend the whole time fighting them" - on the contrary, it takes me two minutes to find the sound i want, and off i go. i am quite inspired by the sheer variety and quality i have at my finger tips. it seems to me that the point i made earlier in the thread stands true here - amp sim is a tool just like everything else and you need to learn it in order to be proficient with it. i've played through a few amps (including an awesome Marshall half stack, can't remember the exact model but it was one of the modern 4 channels), and as far as i'm concerned the only major difference from playing an amp sim is that it was LOUD and the sound filled the room as opposed to being in my headphones. it's entirely possible that my ears suck and i am missing some subtleties others don't, and maybe i'm not a good enough guitar player to notice (i suck on guitar - and i know everyone says that, but i really, really do), but still, my experience is vastly different from yours.

speaking of rockers using amp sims, there are loads of examples. Boston and Def Leppard were the early examples of using an "amp sound" that wasn't really coming from an amp. software sims - i believe Steven Wilson from Porcupine Tree uses amp sims for demos, with quite a few takes ending up in the final product (i.e. he doesn't care, as long as it sounds like what he wants to hear).

[jens]

I plan on buying a Fender Princeton Reverb reissue in the next few months, and I'm sure one of the first things I'll do is mic it up with a 57, use my DI to ABY, and compare it to the Amplitube version at the same settings.

My guess: Amplitube will sound better. Why do I think that? I think the "microphones" are a bit idealized in AT3 and not at all representative of an un-EQ'd microphone. I suspect a lot of the 57 honk will be mixing and Amplitube will sound more hifi and polished, whereas the mic'd version will sound more raw and lofi without any EQ.

Hogwash.

Might be. I'll give it a go and we'll see. Every time I mic an amp, whether me doing it at home or working with another engineer in a studio, there's a "rawness" to a mic'd up amp that I don't hear in sims. Amplitube just sounds more polite and polished to me. Maybe not "better," but trying to be more slick and mix ready maybe. I fully expect the amp in the room will kill the sound of playing the amp sim through my monitors, but I'm talking specifically of the recorded sound in the DAW. Just a 57 and nothing else 2" off the speaker.

Again, well see. I'm more curious than anything and the Princeton Reverb is about as much amp as I need at home, so it just happens to work out that I also have an Amplitube model of it I'll be able to compare to.

I am not quite sure how they usually "emulate" the microphones - are they using impulse responses?
That would mean Amplitube would have to calculate 4 IR in realtime (2 for the speakers and 2 for the mics) sounds like a lot of number crunching to me - and how are they going around the potential phase issues you might get with two real mics? I think the mics are just some filter settings that kind of mimic the responses you get with the different microphones - and that is also what it sounds like... the end result sounds perfectly fine - but the moving around of the mics does not behave at all like real microphones do - and don't expect the AT SM57 to sound like a real SM57 - so yes, it might sounds nice because they do not /can not emulate the issues you have when miking a real amp. It's apples vs. oranges really. "Raw"? Can you be a bit more specific? And where does this "rawness come from?
A moisty capsule? A mic position which could have been chosen more suitably? Distortion in the mic pre? (what pre are we talking about anyway?) Clipping A/D converters? Again: what converters? And what amp? What size, type and number of speaker(s), etc.?

[Burillo]

i believe they are indeed calculating and interpolating impulse responses. probably some filters thrown in there too, but the basis is certainly IRs. and phase issues are a plenty with Amplitube's mics - most of the mic positions are impossible to use (which is why i tend to use external cabs when i need more than one mic).

[yessongs]

probably helps to get an RME or similar rated interface to play through where the round trip latency is lower. Then the feel should be more realistic. just an idea and an opinion that I base on bench tests results for daws that tell you what the RTL is.Funny RME is the only USB interface worth a damn the rest of the leading interfaces are mostly PCI or fire wire. best $200 interface is a pci by ESI $500 snag the mackie onyx blackbird FW and if you got more to spend the best USB is the RME baby face for $749.

http://forum.dawbench.com/showthread.ph ... ase/page14 image above from this link

just finished an article at the cakewalk blog on latency here http://blog.cakewalk.com/recording-latency/#more-19499

it makes some incredible claims I find hard to believe about tascam gear. If the #'s on rtl are as they claim then the interfaces in the article may be worthy of being touted along with the ones mentioned above. They say RTL is under 5 milli seconds playing through these interfaces when playing at 96khz.

[egbert]

5 milliseconds?