KVR Audio

zeoy · Post by **zeoy** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 12:28 pm

jens wrote: at first I just went for a quick f**k but then I fell in love

Shit happens all the time

My first axe was Kawai

. You know I was young and inoccent. This guitar looked awesome so I fell in love and bought it. Electronics were shit but was neck through body with 24 frets and sustained for days. I replaced the pickups with EMGs and still have it. Next I bought my Levinson R1 and then a friend gave me

his Vintage Tokai strat. Both lovely guitars

jens · Post by **jens** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 12:30 pm

e-modic wrote:
jens wrote: - when I saw it in a shop-window I actually just had to try it because it looks so gorgeous but then I ended up spontaneously buying it - at first I just went for a quick f**k but then I fell in love
hm, I don´t know, this yellow looks like a pudding from Dr. Oetker.

exactly

- it looks completely artificial in a retro kind of way - that's what I love so much about its look

DaPelikan · Post by **DaPelikan** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 12:43 pm

Another praise for Cortex, i use it all the time alongside Simulanalog.
I like the way you can experiment with the sound by trying all the different combinations, although sometimes i wish i could just play and get 'that' sound that i have in my head.

I agree with what you said championrabbit, but i also think that most guitar players are used to playing real amps and they are necesseraly going to look at getting the same sound from a plugin.
It might be a little unaventurous of them, but you have to consider that playing electric guitar also involves knowing how the amp reacts to your playing, and that can take some time.
So it's nice if the plugin reacts the same way than the real thing.
That's what i like about the jcm900 emulation in the guiatr suite, it feels like playing a Marshall amp, so i'm knowing what i can get from it, and i can concentrate on playing and getting my ideas on tape rather than fiddling with knobs.

I must say in the early days i used Quadrafuzz

and got nice guitar sounds of it, maybe not very 'subtle' sounds but nice nevertheless.
I hate Amplitube and Guitar rig because they sound 'confused', digital etc. I can understand that type of sound may be useful in a certain context, only it's not what i'm looking for ...

Anyway, still waiting for a nice clean guitar amp sim with a 'Fender' sound, with that subtle silky shine in the high frequencies that seems to be lacking in all amp sims i've tried.
I think aliasing problem are responsible for the harsh sound in the high frequency area, surely someone will find a solution to this at some point.

I'm looking forward to trying Amplitube 2 when it comes out, because i saw IK hired Thomas Serafini who developped a method to model non-linear analog circuitry in an efficient manner.
Hearing what he did with Simulanalog Guitar suite and limited resources, Amplitube 2 ought to be great !

zeoy · Post by **zeoy** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 12:47 pm

DaPelikan wrote:Anyway, still waiting for a nice clean guitar amp sim with a 'Fender' sound, with that subtle silky shine in the high frequencies that seems to be lacking in all amp sims i've tried.

Amen

veseli koljac · Post by **veseli koljac** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 12:50 pm

jens wrote:
zeoy wrote: Looks nice jens. What is it? I recognise the Godin pickups though ...

it's a Godin Radiator - dead cheap although 'hand-crafted in U.S.A. from parts made in Canada'

- when I saw it in a shop-window I actually just had to try it because it looks so gorgeous but then I ended up spontaneously buying it - at first I just went for a quick f**k but then I fell in love

this looks like "barbie rock star" guitar...very ugly

championrabbit · Post by **championrabbit** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 12:55 pm

platinumears wrote:
championrabbit wrote: 1. There is no such thing as a GOOD guitar sound.
Bullshit.

I've mixed dozens of live rock bands. I don't care what type of guitar sound it is, but a "good" guitar sound will sit comfortably in the mix and sound great with minimal EQ, while a "bad" one either dissapears in the mix, or drowns out the rest of the band, unless I EQ the hell out of it..

That's a truism; your point is that a good guitar sound is one that works.

The 'sounding great' part is entirely subjective; there are a million good/great records all of which have entirely different guitar sounds from The Smiths to Led Zep to Metallica to Beck to Slint to Joy Division to Husker Du to Bill Frissel to Charlie Christian to Hendrix to Duran Duran to Stooges etc etc

The sounds have little in common, but they 'sound' right in their context. Thus arguing about good guitar sounds with no context is entirely pointless.

jens · Post by **jens** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:01 pm

veseli koljac wrote: this looks like "barbie rock star" guitar...very ugly

yes, it looks a bit like a toy - as I said: that's what I love about it

it doesn't scream at you: 'look at me - I am an evil metal guitar and I will destroy your ears!'

it rather says: 'ian't I cute?' - and yes it is!

(oh and anpther thing about it: below the huge pickguard the corpus is hollow which leads to a very percussive sound

)

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:08 pm

jens, you must have hands of steel to play strings like that

yavli · Post by **yavli** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:36 pm

championrabbit wrote: What is a 'proper' recording?

Does Beck make proper recordings? What about Orbital? Were the Joy Division recordings 'proper'? Or U2? Or Aphex Twin?

Do Godspeed You Black Emperor make proper recordings? Or Metallica?

See my point?

A 'proper' recording is a recording that makes somebody happy.

It has nothing to do with whether an amp sim sounds like a Marshall from the late 60s.

I think you miss the point, my friend...
In fact, ALL of them (U2, Orbital, Beck, Metallica, Aphex Twin) are for sure PROPER recordings. That is, recordings that translate the artists' ideas into the CD magic bits. We are not talking about guitar tone in general here, but COMPUTER SIMULATIONS of guitar tones.
I agree with DaPelikan that, in this area, the best are to come... I'm also waiting for Amplitube2...

cheers

IIRs · Post by **IIRs** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:39 pm

championrabbit wrote: The 'sounding great' part is entirely subjective; there are a million good/great records all of which have entirely different guitar sounds from The Smiths to Led Zep to Metallica to Beck to Slint to Joy Division to Husker Du to Bill Frissel to Charlie Christian to Hendrix to Duran Duran to Stooges etc etc

Forget the "sounding great" part then. A good guitar sound fits in the mix with minimal EQ; a bad one doesn't. Just because its impossible to define the differences more specifically doesn't mean there is no difference.

Your original comment implied that time spent honing your sound is wasted. As a live sound engineer I gurantee you are wrong: whatever the type of sound you go for, improving it will improve the whole band / mix sound.

yavli · Post by **yavli** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:47 pm

platinumears wrote:
Forget the "sounding great" part then. A good guitar sound fits in the mix with minimal EQ; a bad one doesn't. Just because its impossible to define the differences more specifically doesn't mean there is no difference.

That's right! I can see now why you call yourself "platinum ears!"

finnbio · Post by **finnbio** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:50 pm

DaPelikan wrote: Anyway, still waiting for a nice clean guitar amp sim with a 'Fender' sound, with that subtle silky shine in the high frequencies that seems to be lacking in all amp sims i've tried.

Hi Pelikan,

have you given izotope's Trash a try? It might have what you're looking for!

What's a great guitar sound? I suppose you will get different answers depending on how you ask. Carlos Santana's opinion will probably differ from James Hetfield's view on this, and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore may disagree with either of them....

A big "Thank You" to the Cortex developer - there's a lot of good sounds in that plugin. The versatility is almost a bit overwhelming; not quite a "plug-and-play" solution - that makes it heavenly for tweakers, though. But a collection of presets to start up from would be nice....

jens · Post by **jens** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 2:03 pm

S_A_P wrote:jens, you must have hands of steel to play strings like that

yup

meanwhile I recorded a short stoopid guitar wank with the Barbie-pudding and Cortex

http://www.zone-x-music.com/mp3/cortex.mp3

IIRs · Post by **IIRs** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 2:14 pm

jens wrote:meanwhile I recorded a short stoopid guitar wank with the Barbie-pudding and Cortex

http://www.zone-x-music.com/mp3/cortex.mp3

Bet you couldn't get that sound with thin wimpy strings!

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 2:25 pm

I'm not 100% sold on the Cortex yet, though I have coaxed a few good sounds from it. I'll be watching it, though.

I spell-checked and re-formatted the manual for the guy (without actually asking, I was just bored) and sent it to him. I'm surprised he didn't use it or include it in this release, as I didn't change any of the information or much of the wording.... He must LIKE people perceiving the product as unprofessional.

Veseli-- the sound of your guitar on that track was great. Don't listen to Jens. Jens, the sound on your track was sweet, too, if a bit nasal for my normal tastes. I can see that tone being a very useful one for certain kinds of tracks.

Regarding the Godin-- I think it's beautiful, too. Never before have I seen that much "mother-of-toilet-seat" on a guitar! The mini-humbuckers sound great on that recording, and I'd love to have a guitar equipped with them for general dicking around.

13-54 is an easily-doable guage for me when I'm not planning on doing a lot of string-bending, but I have to admit, when it's bending time it takes a bit of effort. I use 13-? on my acoustic, on which I DO bend a lot, but eventually I get tired of bending on it.

I keep my electrics silly 'light' with a set of 10-46.

Greg

CORTEX: Guitar Amp that really ROCKS!