Guitar players, The soundclick MP3 demo page got updated !

[fritzman]

guitars suck....you guys gotta learn to play a real instrument...

So Hinky, whatcha recommend then?

spoons

<jokealarm!> But can they do the woody resonances of a fine Dobro? </jokealarm!>

[Lunch Money]

Don't know if you have ever heard of the Kiwi band Split Enz - Tim and Neil Finn from Crowded House started their careers in this 70s-80s band. On Australia's Radio National (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/)
they have just been running a multipart documentary on the history of that band.

If someone asked me to name my favourite artist of all time, despite many other huge favourites, I might have to say Neil Finn. I Looooooooove Neil Finn, and of course his work with Crowded House and with his brother Tim. I got to see them live in Toronto in 2004, which was quite a great show. I have to admit, though, I only know about 10 Split Enz songs really well. My sister's a maniac, though.

[description of mic techniques]

I can't disagree with any of that. Despite not having personal experience with a saxophone, for example, everything you said makes sense. A lot of the emulators, though, have distant mic settings, so it's not always just 'right up to the cone with a 57'. Also, if you're someone who really likes a room sound, there are scads of quality convolution impulses out there.

I'm not against micing a real amp, and I'm not even particularly against the 'big room' theory. If it works, that's all that's needed! I'm just against voodoo, and some people (not you, Egbert, you clearly seem reasonable!) place too much mysticism into guitar tone formulas. I'm not even saying that we're currently at the right stage of guitar processing software, but I think it should be clear to anyone with a bit of vision that not only will we get there sooner than later, but that the available technology makes it possible to do things either within the realm of earthly physics, or completely beyond it-- which will ultimately make it a more desirable technology except to purists who get a 'placebo effect' from a real tube.

Even the 'placebo effect' can't be totally discounted. It's like when you give a vocalist the right reverb and/or delay in order to inspire a more confident performance. If you're stoked by the real amp and 'vibe' off it, that's something that can't be quantified.

Greg

[Midiworks]

The new year is starting great !

Distortion now up to x25 times !!

My new modeling engine is the coolest thing on earth now.
(works perfect since 1.1.2006)

I still cant belive it, the results are simply amazing !

Its crazy...

Happy new year 2006 !!!

[Lunch Money]

Looking forward to it.

[Vervil]

Vervil, you're agreeing with points already made, but making it seem like you're arguing against them. OK, so maybe a virtual amp doing something new isn't a "simulation" but rather a "guitar processor". Fair enough, but I think you knew what we all meant, which means that you're just talking semantics and not addressing the point. But, just to be clear:

I am not arguing against you, but I think you imply that other people saying that amps sims are almost there know thing you do, and think the way you do. Actually a lot of them does not know what good miced amp sounds like soloed thru monitors in studio, they have a little idea about good tone, and they do not recognize differences between some really bed simulations and good recorded tone at all. I have met a lot of people making tones that maybe remotely recollect sound from their favorite records, asking me what is problem, why their tone does not sounds good in mix, and they are not able to recognize that their tone is shitty. It is similar to people buying audio software and few plugins, and thinking that they know about recording even if they have never being in studio. So then happens that someone starts thread on forum here or somewhere with question like "I look for good guitar tone, is Guitar Rig worth bying" and gets a responses like "Yeah, it is great, it was already great at first place and now in version 2 it is even better! Buy it!". I mean... It is misinformation I am against, and lowering of expectations. So I am not preaching because I think you should understand, you already know what I am talking about, but because someone else may read or jump into conversation. It is just about getting the real perspective back. The expectations from software companies SHOULD be higher, in my opinion, if they want to sell their software for the price they are asking. I actually think it is intentional lying in some cases, trying to sell lower quality at higher price, and this is another reason, why I think there should be talking about this.

I mean, I have a friend that was thinking guitar rig is great, that is not so experineced. Then I have played to him few mp3's of properly miced high gain amps and few guitar rig demos, official and few I got from different forums. He was laughing, like "I can't belive, it is so different"

So this is my point, to get real proportions, and real sense what is good and what is not. Yes, soft ampsims are handy. Yes, they are very useful. But they are not quality for the money, especially existing software ones. I am not sure that a lot of people into software know that and belive the hype and marketing more then their ears... If they can belive their own ears at all, because ears need time and training too. I am not about bashing ampsims, so there is no sense repeating that "they are almost there". Almost there is different than being there NOW, and difference is dependent on situation, and skills. And on personal perception, naturally. In a lot of situations, that difference is obvious.

[Vervil]

I don't understand where this whole room sound thing is coming from. Many engineers go to great lengths to isolate the amp and dampen any room reflections. Sure, there are good guitar recording rooms (studios and engineers will have their favourite spaces), but I've rarely heard of anyone picking a room and intentionally getting a lot of 'natural reverb' into the mix. Some will even use isolation boxes and the like.

Different concepts of "big sound" I guess. For a metal head, big sound is a lot of layered distorted guitars far left and right in stereo field, very focused and with no room reflections. For someone else big sound can be amp miced in more reflective room with few different mics, just one take. Close miced sound is mixed with sound from other mics that has a lot of early reflections, in a way that gives guitar enough presence, but a lot of space at the same time. DIfferent sounds, different approaches to music styles.

EDIT> Egbert has already gave answer, just noticed, so I am repeating his words... Never mind

[kilroy]

Right then...discussion thus far summarized in two phrases.


Nothing sounds quite like a real guitar amp.



and...



Nothing sounds quite like a real guitar ampsim.




I guess I'm down with that.

[fritzman]

Right then...discussion thus far summarized in two phrases.


Nothing sounds quite like a real guitar amp.



and...



Nothing sounds quite like a real guitar ampsim.




I guess I'm down with that.

Yeah,

and while it's not OnePingOnly vs. Virus I can live with that. The real thing sounds better. Astonishing to say the least. Did I hear somebody whisper Tubescreamer, DS1, Fuzzface, etc.? Come on ...

[fritzman]

The new year is starting great !

Distortion now up to x25 times !!

My new modeling engine is the coolest thing on earth now.
(works perfect since 1.1.2006)

I still cant belive it, the results are simply amazing !

Its crazy...

Happy new year 2006 !!!

That sounds a little confuzing to me but somehow good. A new modeling engine?
Better than what we already heard? Audios at least, please!
25 times the distortion as before? I would call that Ultra high mega gain then.

Thanx Rene for the additional cab.


I wish you all the best and great success, FRitz

[Midiworks]

The new year is starting great !

Distortion now up to x25 times !!

My new modeling engine is the coolest thing on earth now.
(works perfect since 1.1.2006)

I still cant belive it, the results are simply amazing !

Its crazy...

Happy new year 2006 !!!

That sounds a little confuzing to me but somehow good. A new modeling engine?
Better than what we already heard? Audios at least, please!
25 times the distortion as before? I would call that Ultra high mega gain then.

Thanx Rene for the additional cab.


I wish you all the best and great success, FRitz

Thanks FRitz,
the 2 "guess amp" mp3's and the DualPlex were made with it,
while XmasTube was the older way to do it.

Anyway here is one:
http://www.soundspectral.com/What_is_what.mp3

I tried to simulate the JMC900 VST,
sure there is a difference,
But what is what ? Is it 1 or 2 ?

FRitz, you are welcome.

[MrM]

Isn't a soft like 'MS Word' or 'Corel WordPerfect' a better simulation then the original: the typewriter?

You may swap 'a better' with 'an enhanced' if that suits you.

[Sascha Franck]

From another point of view:
Right now we consider a "good" amp sim to be one being able to emulate "classic" amp tones, those we know from recordings and the likes.

Just the sort of tones you're being asked for when doing a recording session as a guitarist.

Now, couldn't it just be that those "cold", partially grainy tones of all the "bad" amp emulations will become the new classics?

I mean, look at other recording techniques. A few years/decades back, all those autotune/stepping and stuttering effects would've simply been considered wrong. Most likely you'd have a technician running around, looking for what's broken.
These days such effects are sort of highly sought for. No, not even that anymore. They're standard.

In terms of "great" guitar sounds, the standards are really dated. For clean/crunch sounds they're almost half a century old. For high gain it's still allready around 20-30 years. Just those deep "chugga chugga" things are relatively new (but they would've been possible quite some years ago as well).

Doesn't searching for the ultimate vintage guitar tone make use guitar players look really conservative?

I mean, seriously, one thing I really love about computer based sound mangling is that I can get tones out of it that simply aren't possible using a Marshall, Fender, Vox or whatever.

Yes, to get certain jobs done I'd truly love an amp sim giving me "authentic vintage" tones.
But as said, I really love all the new opportunities as well.
That's why I usually don't give all too much of a damn whether some amp sim will give me the original Bassman tone or whatever - I can have those tones allready.

Now, one may argue that all the new wierdo FX options are allready existing, but that's simply not the case.
There's no truly satisfying solution for simulated distortions - not even for the more experimental folks among us. Regardless of their sonic quality (which, as said, doesn't have to be vintage or "authentic" at all), most distortion FX simply don't interact well with guitars. And that kind of interaction is just as important for anything experimental as well.

Anyways, all I want to say is that we seem to be quite conservative when it comes to guitar sounds, whereas the synth folks (at least at KVR) seem to like new stuff not trying to be the umpteenth Moog emulation.

[Lunch Money]

Vervil, I wasn't criticising you for arguing in general. I just meant that your particular part of the argument, "There can't be a better simulation, only a better guitar processor" is a given, and it's just the word "simulation" that you were addressing in that particular part of your previous post.

Like you, I also mainly want to make sure people have the right information. My main problem with the amp purists is that they seem to make it sound like good amp = good tone. While you were saying "good recorded tone does not equal bad simulation," I think that argument is fairly fruitless, because "good recorded tone" ALSO does not equal "bad recorded tone."

Good does not equal bad, period. At the end of the day, it's less about the genuine tube amp and more about understanding what a good tone is, and more importantly, what a good tone for the song is. As I mentioned earlier, lots of "legendary" recordings have poor guitar tone when you focus on the guitar itself too much. But those same "poor" tones are usually good for the song.

I find it conceivable and even likely a common occurrence that an amateur musician like myself will be able to get a better and even more "genuine" amp sound from a simulation than from trying to record a 'good' amp in a crappy room with a mediocre microphone and some "read about, then trial-and-error" engineering techniques. While I'm sure the real amp would be hella fun and would in the end teach you more about recording, two factors make it a non-starter: 1. As just mentioned, the wrong environment will make for a crappy recording; and 2. (a point we've all agreed with, so I'm not arguing against anyone here) neither my neighbors nor my own ears would be able to tolerate it.

Greg

[AndrewSimon]

The new year is starting great !

Distortion now up to x25 times !!

My new modeling engine is the coolest thing on earth now.
(works perfect since 1.1.2006)

I still cant belive it, the results are simply amazing !

Its crazy...

Happy new year 2006 !!!

That sounds a little confuzing to me but somehow good. A new modeling engine?
Better than what we already heard? Audios at least, please!
25 times the distortion as before? I would call that Ultra high mega gain then.

Thanx Rene for the additional cab.


I wish you all the best and great success, FRitz

Thanks FRitz,
the 2 "guess amp" mp3's and the DualPlex were made with it,
while XmasTube was the older way to do it.

Anyway here is one:
http://www.soundspectral.com/What_is_what.mp3

I tried to simulate the JMC900 VST,
sure there is a difference,
But what is what ? Is it 1 or 2 ?

FRitz, you are welcome.

Sounds good, the first part that is.
I just love "hifi" type guitar sound in most cases.
I think if I would own a guitar amp today I would install tweeters in them...... ok purists bring it on!

[egbert]

Different concepts of "big sound" I guess. For a metal head, big sound is a lot of layered distorted guitars far left and right in stereo field, very focused and with no room reflections. For someone else big sound can be amp miced in more reflective room with few different mics, just one take. Close miced sound is mixed with sound from other mics that has a lot of early reflections, in a way that gives guitar enough presence, but a lot of space at the same time. DIfferent sounds, different approaches to music styles.

EDIT> Egbert has already gave answer, just noticed, so I am repeating his words... Never mind

Actually that was pretty useful info for anyone recording guitar amps.

One guitar sound that amuses me somehow is this sound I hear in sections of some pop tunes - there might even be just strummy acoustic guitars until the chorus and then in the chorus this huge wall of distortion with no dynamics whatsoever is laid behind more or less similar vocals - not metal style screaming over the din.

That distorted power chord sound seems like it has a zillion layers panned everywhere and is compressed and EQed to hell so that the same sort of vocal that sat with the light arrangement can sit on top of what would in reality be a wall of shrieking guitar amps