KVR Audio

TheStorm · Post by **TheStorm** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 12:48 pm

I appreciate how difficult and painstaking the work must be that modeler developers are doing when coding emulations of guitar amps. But I'm usually just looking for a certain general type of tone when I'm recording my guitar. Even when I'm doing a cover, I really don't care how authentic the tone is compared to the original; I usually mix up the arrangement a bit, too.

Usually I just start out with a sim that's close to the tone in my head, then tweak from there until I get the tone I want.

So...am I alone in this? Does the authenticity of the tone matter to you?

shanecgriffo · Post by **shanecgriffo** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 12:59 pm

authenticity? .. not really
I just get happy if its a nice tone and reminds me of guitar sounds i like..
As long as the top isn't harsh is probably the thing that concerns me most often
I get the sounds i like best with amplitube Jimi Hendrix edition and Overloud TH1. I have line 6 stuff (pod xtl, podfarm)but that's mostly got a bit of the harsh top end going on, it can sound ok but it takes a fair bit of work.

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 1:07 pm

Not for me! If it sounds good - it IS good! As an aside: Hardware can sound really crap. It doesn't always 'magically' or 'automatically' sound GREAT!

nickm · Post by **nickm** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 1:24 pm

+999

I was just thinking this to myself this morning. I couldn't tell you what a Fender blackface combo sounds like, but I could tell you what sounds I like.

shogger · Post by **shogger** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 3:55 pm

Aloysius wrote:Not for me! If it sounds good - it IS good! As an aside: Hardware can sound really crap. It doesn't always 'magically' or 'automatically' sound GREAT!

Exactly. Couldn't have said it better.

Shogger

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 5:02 pm

I said it in another thread, and I'll say it here. While I don't care much about the "authenticity" of the emulation I'm playing, I do consider the reason the hardware is being emulated. Played the latest Create amp emulator? No, because their hardware is nothing special. The reason stuff like a Fender Blackface is emulated is because it's a classic. Something that was developed over many years and deemed desirable. It's no accident. So why not start at a place where we know most of us agree was a successful place? Makes sense. Of course, I appreciate the developers who say, Well, we know the Blackface never had x, so let's improve on it..."

eduardo_b · Post by **eduardo_b** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 5:15 pm

I've always wondered about how someone would know how authentic an emulation is without having personal experience with that hardware, and there are a multitude of emulations, so it's unlikely anyone would have intimate knowledge of each and every one. Outside of A/B testing, personal experience seems the only criterion to judge the quality of an emulation.

LlukaX · Post by **LlukaX** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 5:16 pm

Authenticity matters to me. Maybe I'm just a picky bastard. So far I am not completely satisfied with any amp sims. Amplitube 2 is still the best for me. But I haven't yet tried NI's guitar rig 4.

The reason, I think, is credibility. Keeping high standards will improve the quality of products in the future.

Steve Bolivar · Post by **Steve Bolivar** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 5:25 pm

Aloysius wrote:Not for me! If it sounds good - it IS good! As an aside: Hardware can sound really crap. It doesn't always 'magically' or 'automatically' sound GREAT!

Same here.

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 5:37 pm

susiwong · Post by **susiwong** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 5:37 pm

If somebody creates something entirely new I'll judge it on its own merits.

With emulations however I can't see how anything less than 100% would cut it as a design goal.

The more you're familiar with the real amps the more you'll benefit from emulations that really deserve the name. On my hardware amps I can dial in the sound for a certain guitar "blind" mostly, switch on standby and bam !
With sims, until recently endless tweaking was necessary to get in the ballpark at least

, fortunately GR4's CR is a huge step in the right direction for me, also giving more authenticity to AT and TH-1.

And re the argument of technological progress, like zerocrossing said, walk before you fly.

Once you got an authentic emu going, nothing's gonna stop you to offer additional parameters/tweaks/goodies, but these should be on a 2nd GUI page or behind a cover like in GR and bypassed by default.
Ymmv,
susiwong

pgvpgv333 · Post by **pgvpgv333** » Sun Oct 25, 2009 1:08 am

Intresting tread. I thought it was only me that was satisfied with what sounded good to my ears. And I cant hear the diffrence among diffrent amps. Shure I hear that that is probaply an Fender or an Mrshall etc. But I feel more what is right for this or that song. Also how you are play is a big key, but you knew that already of course. There is though a real diffence when you play a tube amp. And I have get to find anything with the same attack.

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sun Oct 25, 2009 1:31 am

susiwong wrote:If somebody creates something entirely new I'll judge it on its own merits.

With emulations however I can't see how anything less than 100% would cut it as a design goal.
The more you're familiar with the real amps the more you'll benefit from emulations that really deserve the name. On my hardware amps I can dial in the sound for a certain guitar "blind" mostly, switch on standby and bam !
With sims, until recently endless tweaking was necessary to get in the ballpark at least , fortunately GR4's CR is a huge step in the right direction for me, also giving more authenticity to AT and TH-1.
And re the argument of technological progress, like zerocrossing said, walk before you fly.
Once you got an authentic emu going, nothing's gonna stop you to offer additional parameters/tweaks/goodies, but these should be on a 2nd GUI page or behind a cover like in GR and bypassed by default.
Ymmv,
susiwong

so what you're saying is that if the emulation is precise then it's easier because you can set it up like your physical version of the amp and you're good to go? This kind of confuses me, you me and many others here understand the days of 1-3 (tops) sounding amps because we lived it. I honestly think that quite a few guitar players back in those days chose their style by the amp they had. With tube amps for a long time there weren't a whole lot of amps with more than one channel.

I wonder if the endless tweaking you do is because you can and the grass is always greener. When I choose an amp model I familiarize myself with "knobs" and then work that knowledge into setting my sound. Naturally the process of that is nearly instantaneous because I'm calcuating the data (for lack of a better term) in my head, I hate say it but for me that really is a no brainer. I never actually think about it, I just seem to know what I'm going to get with a sim quick and I adapt my thinking to the response of the controls.

So I think I spend a lot less time tweaking than playing, however that may not be true with an amp. I wish I had all the time back I've spent trying to get the mic just right, trying to set the amp for the room I'm in, there's really so many variations that can happen to the sound, or perhaps nothing but in my head I'm sure something is off. This is what I think presets are for, I can save the tone for whatever I'm working on and I know it will always be the same.

So even though turning everything to 10 on an amp doesn't take long I think I get quicker results I'm happy with using sims. (though I do use the sansamp a lot)

pattonfreak1 · Post by **pattonfreak1** » Sun Oct 25, 2009 2:22 am

But what if the sound you like happens to come from a specific kind of emu?
Here's what I'm gettin at:
I like high gain tones. Before I got PODFarm I was a fierce devotee of Dirthead. I got PODFarm and fell in love with the Angel P-ball. Then LePou releases LE456 and that smokes any tone I can get outta the Angel P-ball emu. My point? I knew the P-ball emu in PODFarm was an emu of on ENGL Powerball. I was not aware, until recently, that both Dirthead and LE456 were Powerball emu's as well. I just naturally gravitated toward that "sound" totally unaware of the fact that they were based on the same schematics.

hivefleetmegalon · Post by **hivefleetmegalon** » Sun Oct 25, 2009 2:51 am

For me at least, I would love cranking up an old Mesa Boogie Mark IV, or my friend's Carvin head, but I don't have the cashflow to throw at a real amp right now, nor do I have the space to actually house one. When I found out about virtual amps, I was in heaven. I'd love to be a purist, but I'm more concerned with making music... besides, these days I seem less bent on making real guitar noises (it's too much fun running my classical guitar through a synth emu!)

Does the authenticity of your guitar amp/cab emulaton matter to you?