Virtual guitar amps/analog guitar amps

In a casino, the stage is usually bigger than the clubs you have to win to get the casino gigs. The phase cancelling mush never even makes it to the front line.

If it works for Madison Gardens, it oughtta ROCK Joe's 50 seat Bar n Grill, right?
 
Jay Tee 4303 said:
Now...why do studios put 412s in a box or closet...and not on the meter bridge?
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Really....WTF are you talking about?

Why do you keep bringing up 412 guitar cabs and the meter bridge?


Jay Tee 4303 said:
....look behind your head of choice for a hole that says line out.
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Obviously you think that's what guitar sound is all about (or something you read in Slipperman's diatribes)....but honestly, some of the BEST guitar tones have come from those "boxes".
You wanna go and reinvent the wheel...knock yourself out, but don't make it seem like the problem is the "box".
Maybe the problem is the user and how he creates the signal chain with the "box".
 
Jay Tee 4303 said:
In a casino, the stage is usually bigger than the clubs you have to win to get the casino gigs.?
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At the clubs I've worked at prior to the casino, you know what we always did? It was a club. We told the drummer to play his drums, told the guitarists to turn up their amps as loud as the drums, then ran bass and vox through the PA. That was it. And it sounded great because there was no need for any guitars or drums in the PA. If we really wanted to, we would put the kick's low end in the PA to give it some thump, but that's pretty much it. We didn't need anything but vocals in the monitors because everything else was loud enough to hear, and because we had so much vocals in the main speakers, they were practically acting as monitors as well so everyone could hear everything without adding unnecessary stage bleed, as you would with amp sims.

I think you just don't know how to run live sound, and neither do any of the club venues you've been to. Which in my experience, most cheap bars will just have a family member who vaguely understands what a fader does run sound, and that's why it usually sounds like "mush" as you say.
 
We always drag our amps up on those little 10 by 10 foot stages at the local clubs. I usually record with a combo, but I've wheeled a 4x4 cab into the studio because it has a certain sound I wanted on a certain track.

I've never been asked to DI into a sim while recording or playing live. Those would be fighting words to every guitarist I know.

I've seen "acts" who use computers and drum machines and other bullshit on stage, modeling amps have been around for a long time now and you seldom see them in clubs or concerts. Hell, I have Palladia on the tv most of the time, and even the pop bands have half stacks these days.

99% of the guitarists I know chase tone, and every single one I know who was stoned enough to pick up a Line 6 ended up going back to tubes within a few months. That cold harsh tone causes fatigue.

Hell, electric keyboards sound great, but I don't know any keyboard player who doesn't want a big grand piano.

As long as rock, blues, and country are guitar driven, there will be tube amps, and while sims are here and some people use them, they're niche, and the future of nothing.

So now that I've introduced myself here, can we talk about drum machines vs. real drummers next? :-)
 
That's kind of what I'm thinking. I know most live sound guys at the local bar/club level are wastoid flunkees that use their job as a vehicle to drink all night, so yeah, often the sound is shit. That's not a guitars cab's fault. Only a buffoon would think that.
 
Greg_L said:
I know most live sound guys at the local bar/club level are wastoid flunkees that use their job as a vehicle to drink all night.
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They all try to have all the control over the musicians too. They tell the guitarists to turn down their cabs to 0.5 so that they can push it through their cheap PA power amps, and tell the drummer to play quietly, so they can get his instruments in the PA... Just let the guys play their instruments. I mean shoot, in a small club, that cab will FILL the room, and drums are always loud as it is. Use all of your cheap power amp's power by boosting the one thing that ISN'T loud, the vocals (and the bass if the bassist doesn't bring an amp). They get too caught up in having control over it all that they forget what their job is. Sound REINFORCEMENT.
 
Here.....try to see how for you get before you realize he's just rambling endlessly....for 8 million pages.

Slipperman's Recording Distorted Guitars From Hell

I mean, I'm not saying he doesn't understand recording, and yeah, he's done a lot of recording, but most of that is just written for his and our amusement.
Yeah, sometimes if you do a lot of commercial tracking you have to deal with shit bands and shit players and shit tones.....but generally, you find the tone, then move the mic around to where it's capturing it, and then you hit RECORD.

You don't need to write 8 million pages about it. :rolleyes:

I think Jay Tee 4303 just got in too deep....and now his posts are starting to look like mindless Slipperman ramblings too. :D
 
Yup, the actual useful knowledge slipperman shares in his rambling mess of retardedness could be written in one paragraph.
 
Greg_L said:
Yup, the actual useful knowledge slipperman shares in his rambling mess of retardedness could be written in one paragraph.
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I mean, he has good points, but you get 3-4 pages of ego for two sentences of valid point/wisdom. :D

One thing....if you do read through it, even though he goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on.....about the difficulties of capturing THE guitar sound for a session.....
....in all of that, he is also indirectly/directly saying that guitar amps and cabs are special and each combination has its magic...you just have to find it for that session.
I don't see anywhere that he says we should stop using guitar cabs and just grab the LINE out and run that to your pod/sim/computer. If anything, he laughs at the digital guitar sound:

I assume that we will be recording our guitars to a 2" 24 track analog deck today because, by and large, 'digital guitars' suck giant moose peenie with a huge throbbing purple vein on it (for reasons I will cover in depth soon) and anybody who doesn't know/admit that needs more help than I could ever provide for them.
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So I still have no idea what Jay Tee 4303 was talking about, and I think he got the wrong message from the Slipperman stuff.
 
MrWrenchey said:
They all try to have all the control over the musicians too. They tell the guitarists to turn down their cabs to 0.5 so that they can push it through their cheap PA power amps, and tell the drummer to play quietly, so they can get his instruments in the PA... Just let the guys play their instruments. I mean shoot, in a small club, that cab will FILL the room, and drums are always loud as it is. Use all of your cheap power amp's power by boosting the one thing that ISN'T loud, the vocals (and the bass if the bassist doesn't bring an amp). They get too caught up in having control over it all that they forget what their job is. Sound REINFORCEMENT.
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Um, no. Guitar amps, especially 4x12s, have a narrow output pattern. I put amps in the PA so everybody gets a balanced mix, and I ask guitarist to pick a volume that's not louder than anyone but him wants to hear, and also isn't louder in the vocal mic than the vocal. It doesn't reflect well on the player or the band or the venue or me if the people in the line of fire get the icepick in the forehead while off to the sides the guitar gets lost in mix.

True story: I was mixing in a small "storefront" club with the small stage. This guy has a 100W Marshall full stack on 11 and he gets pissed that I have his guitar in the monitors and his vocal too low to hear. I did not have his guitar amp mic in the monitors, his vocal mic was getting more of his guitar than his vocal. He had the wrong gear/technique/attitude for the venue. There was nothing anyone but him could do to fix it, and all he did was bitch.

Drums are the same. If the stage and venue are small there is only so much that can be done by the sound person, however skilled or willing. A piercing piccolo snare hit with full force (or whatever loud thing) will bleed into the vocal mics and drive paying customers out. The sound person's job is to prevent that and let the venue do its job of selling drinks. If people wince with every snare hit it's too loud. Get the right drums for the venue and play at a volume that doesn't screw the rest of the band.
 
Right? If anyone should shun amps/cabs because they're so fucking difficult to deal with it should be that slipperman guy. But no.
 
And...again for you undecideds...note the difference between great guitar sound...and commercially successful band music.

When your room is smaller, or the stage is bigger than the 20 foot throw of your 412 mudhose, and you want to LOOK like a rockstar, build you as big as wall as it takes to compensate for whatever else ain't as big as it could be.

If you want to sound good, use the same rules you use for any other audio chain, physics don't lie.

If you get confused, remember...the people arguing against the laws of physics usually do so for a REASON.

Maybe they feel guilt over screwing their band, maybe they only care about the selfishbut counterproductive little cocoon inside the throw of thier last century gear, maybe they never had the sack to throw off the chains of their gods, and maybe their FOH and studio techs LIKE jumping useless hoops, but life ain't bout them.

Its about you, and the laws of nature, and EVERY advantage you can acquire.
 
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