KVR Audio

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 9:09 pm

And the cost of such a device is...?

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 9:34 pm

Lunch Money wrote:And the cost of such a device is...?

I think he speaks of the scholtz talent soak or the marshall power break your tubes (Power soak and power brake

), their popularity was short lived, but I'm sure there are plenty of the marshalls on ebay...however the cost of the units is absolutely nothing compared to the cost of the power tubes you'll be killing...hence the reason they were short lived...

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 10:06 pm

championrabbit wrote:Also, have none of you consider attenuators? You can drive you amp hard, take a line-out from the attenuator and run it into an impulse of a speaker/mic while still piping some signal to your physical speaker cab to maintain interaction twixt speaker and guitar.

You should give it a try!

I've done that for a while, using the Marshall one and later on the "Juice Extractor" from Rocktron.
Also had the ADA cab sim borrowed for a while (which was pretty nice and flexible, didn't buy it though).
Defenitely not bad, but still somewhat different from a true cranked up amp. Seems as if the power tube and speaker interaction is quite something.

Really, if you don't have an extra recording room, a dead box seems to be the best way for the home studio guy to get a kickass guitar sound. A friend of mine is using one and it's just great. Mind you, he's got a Brunetti amp (man, those totally rock!) and he's even placing his oversized Engl 4x12 in that dead box. The thing must weigh a ton or so. Defenitely not moveable at all. And of course it's almost as huge as a vocal booth...
I'm sure you could get rather close with a low powered amp and some 1x12 though.

However, gave the half-broken Soldano pre another try today (it's gonna see the repair dude on monday), and what can I say? Need to think about some solution to integrate it. Quite a difference to all the amp sims. Not necessarily by the final sound but by means of playability. The response is just marvelleous.

silicon/silicium · Post by **silicon/silicium** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 11:00 pm

well I have to agree, nothing sounds like the air moved by a real 4*12 powered by a good amp. the real problems with those are: cost, need place and deaf neighbourhood, need excellent mics.
I usually prefear the solution of micing a good amp if it's possible. and I don't like deafboxes as they usually give a strange compression to the sound. my guitar micing rig is based on a sm57, and a static mic (usually oktava mk 012, or 319, you need to have a good acoutic in the room you record) two meters further. I always add either a DI if effectboard of the guitarist is good, or line output or vamp on a clean channel. then if needed I reprocess this track, and mix the three tracks depending on my needs. but again, it needs an heavier logistic than a sim or software, and the benefits are not proportional to the needs of such a take.

guitarzan · Post by **guitarzan** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 10:49 am

championrabbit wrote:Also, have none of you consider attenuators? You can drive you amp hard, take a line-out from the attenuator and run it into an impulse of a speaker/mic while still piping some signal to your physical speaker cab to maintain interaction twixt speaker and guitar.

You should give it a try!

Ted Weber makes some really nice attenuators that use actual speaker motors for the load, they can be seen here: http://www.tedweber.com/atten.htm

Also, there is the most well known attenuator/cab sim, the Palmer PDI-03 ( http://www.palmergear.com/recording_studio.shtml ) used by Van Halen, Satriani, etc.

Maybe some attenuators cause problems with power tubes, but mainly it is just that people crank everything up not understanding that they are still working the amp extremely hard even if it isn't loud anymore.

guitarzan · Post by **guitarzan** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 11:46 am

Sascha Franck wrote:I would gladly know about some dead box schematics as well - couldn't find any so far. Would be great if someone had a link (preferably to some 1x12" cab).

These aren't schematics, but there are some articles about building speaker isolation boxes here: http://amptone.com/#diyibox
"DIY Iso-Box" is the heading, with three articles listed

championrabbit · Post by **championrabbit** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:21 pm

guitarzan wrote:
championrabbit wrote:Also, have none of you consider attenuators? You can drive you amp hard, take a line-out from the attenuator and run it into an impulse of a speaker/mic while still piping some signal to your physical speaker cab to maintain interaction twixt speaker and guitar.

You should give it a try!

Ted Weber makes some really nice attenuators that use actual speaker motors for the load, they can be seen here: http://www.tedweber.com/atten.htm

Yeah, I use a Weber Mass attenuator with my Selmer head. I think maybe people don't realise that it's possible to buy an attenuator which features an exact speaker load (as the Weber ones do). I find it to be a fabulous box. Good value too!

Also, while an iso-box is unarguably a cool tool to have at home, it's still not going to sound like a proper cab miked in a room, sharing space with the guitar.

For my money, I'd rather have the option of driving the amp as hard as I like into an attenuator and cab, thus allowing the guitar and speaker to interact than having an isolated speaker which (although is unquestionably a 'real speaker' is not experiencing the air/sound pressure that an un-isolated cab would, not capturing any ambience and not interacting with the guitar...

Neither option is perfect!

silicon/silicium · Post by **silicon/silicium** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:59 pm

well, not only the amp and the tube depend on the drive you have. 4*12 behaviour changes A LOT when fueled with 100W (a lot more in peaks) compared to what a powerbrake can provide.

guitarzan · Post by **guitarzan** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:25 pm

If you really wanted to go all out, Ted Weber can also build custom speakers for you that would match the output of the attenuator. He's really most known as a custom speaker builder.
His site is: http://www.tedweber.com/
I'm not affiliated in any way - just real happy with his work and prices - I have two of his Mass attenuators, a custom speaker for my Champ, a custom Copper-Cap rectifier for that Champ with a sag control, and his recommended speaker for my Princeton Reverb.

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:30 pm

Thanks for all the iso cab and attenuator links.
I also found this:
http://www.jlhproducts.com/axetrak/
The samples on the site really don't sound all that bad (maybe a little tasteless).
Not exactly cheap but seems handy.

silicon/silicium · Post by **silicon/silicium** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:45 pm

the problem is that if we are into not sounding all that bad, amp sim are cheaper, easier to use, and more convenient. I agree for excellent takes micing a good amp is better, but I m not sure if the deal of having custom brake + custom hp or isobox is really that better in term of sound quality and fidelity to the guitarist sound.

guitarzan · Post by **guitarzan** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:56 pm

silicon/silicium wrote:the problem is that if we are into not sounding all that bad, amp sim are cheaper, easier to use, and more convenient.

I couldn't agree more!! I'm getting the best line level tone I've ever got using a bunch of free VST's in energyXT! I'm half-assed contemplating ditching all of my crap in favor of digital modeling to tell you the truth!! I won't, though....too many memories and there's always the chance of somebody actually wanting to jam again.

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 3:12 pm

I'm just doing that: Ditching the old hardware, at least for live useage.
As said a few posts before, I may keep my Soldano preamp involved, but I'll even go as far as to actually aquire some nice pair of active live monitors - so even the Twin or Boogie plus the monsterous speaker cabs can just stay at home.
I will defenitely keep the Boogie for recording purposes and the occasional "raw" gig, but others than that it's gonna be the laptop and whatever I may finally be using (I'm almost done with my selection).

But then, I'm not after that "vintage" sound too much, I'm planning on some rather esoteric, highly electronic sounds.
Of course some "working horse" patches will still be involved as well. But I'm rather happy with them allready.
And, assuming I only need a small personal monitor, I can reduce my rig as much as to carry it with me on the bike! I quite like that (I *hate* driving car in the city).

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 3:19 pm

silicon/silicium wrote:the problem is that if we are into not sounding all that bad, amp sim are cheaper, easier to use, and more convenient. I agree for excellent takes micing a good amp is better, but I m not sure if the deal of having custom brake + custom hp or isobox is really that better in term of sound quality and fidelity to the guitarist sound.

I really have to agree with this....and trust me there are times I feel guilty letting my stack sit for so many days on end with out touching it. But the truth is that it's pretty inflexible and not very practical. Sure if I need it, it sure kicks ass. But for me I look at myself as being a recording artist. (the industry uses that for stars, but the truth is I am an artist and my art comes from recording)

So something like the xt live or other sims are better for my art. Yeah my amp can sound great, but ear fatigue can also set in. With today's choices the recording artist has myriad of choices for instruments and tools. The guitarist shouldn't put a limit upon themselves by using one or two tone amps. Just the act of trying out new combinations in my xt live inspires creativity...not something I can do as easily with the Marshall, not to mention being able to really customize my tone for the song/style...something that in the past was just not available to home based recording artists such as myself. It's tough in a small place to have room for a bunch of amps, it's really hard to play at level that makes it worth it at 4am...it isn't tough when I turn to my line6 stuff. Don't forget you can also save the exact preset so that if you put the song on the back burner for a while and comeback to it you can get the exact same tone you had before...more things that are not possible any other way...basically using a POD2.0 or xt live just doesn't limit me the wat using an amp would...I do not want limits...

championrabbit · Post by **championrabbit** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 3:32 pm

silicon/silicium wrote:the problem is that if we are into not sounding all that bad, amp sim are cheaper, easier to use, and more convenient. I agree for excellent takes miking a good amp is better, but I m not sure if the deal of having custom brake + custom hp or isobox is really that better in term of sound quality and fidelity to the guitarist sound.

I think this is indicative of the confusion that seems to infect these discussions.

The way I see it is that there are two disparate angles to approach the subject from, and the opt-heard arguments relating to this subject are mostly (IMO) due to a clash of the two perspectives.

The perspectives are:

1. I want a pretty good guitar sound. I can't record an amp at full tilt because of volume issues (neighbours). I want my guitar to sound a bit like ACDC/Slayer/Clapton/Hendrix/Nirvana/Whatever. So long as my guitar sounds pretty good, I'm happy.

2. I have volume issues when recording, but I know exactly how my guitar should sound. It should sound like it does when I plug my Crapocaster Deluxe into my vintage PooMaster 1000 head and 6x12, rabbit-skin cab. I accept that other people might not share my taste, but I know what my guitar should sound like.

Clearly those who approach the subject from perspective 1 would be well served by software, whereas perspective 2 folk should consider an attenuator or maybe iso-box.

Amplitude & GuitarRig Vs. Vamp2 & Pod2