electric guitar direct recording?

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MOFO Pro said:
Farview- Great job on the guitars there... best modelled sound that I've heard to date (that i knew was modelled) but I can't help but wonder if it would have sounded better miced through a cab...
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We tried it, it didn't sound better. I have a bunch of different cabinets and two tube poweramps (marshall and mesa) and a solid state power amp. Not to mention a few tube heads lying around. This was the sound we wanted and this is how we got it.

MOFO Pro said:
I own a Pod Pro and use it all the time... but you've got to admit that it's a digital algorythem designed to imitate the miked cabinet... It's almost impossible to recreate an analog signal path digitally... it comes close... but not quite there...
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It's just a voltage change, there is no magic. What it can't do is emulate your cabinet in your room with your mic in front of it. (because that isn't what they used to make the model)

MOFO Pro said:
For example... There'd be a very small market for outboard gear, if you could acurately digitally model the outboard gear in the box...
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That's been happening. There are far more 1176 plugins sold than actual 1176's. Same with EQ's. It's the same with most of the high priced hardware boxes.

This will never be the case with mic preamps because you need a physical mic preamp to get the sound from your mic to your computer.


Where most of these modelers fall short is that they don't model any specific amp. For example, the JCM800 model isn't made from one JCM800. It's made from a bunch of them and then averaged into one model. One of the reasons for this is that no two JCM800s really sound the same, some were low endy, others were not.... So, when you bring up the patch and expect to get the same tone as the JCM 800 in your life, it doesn't happen and your disappointed.

That is probably something that they should stop doing- telling you what amp is being modelled. If they just used descriptive terms or stupid names, you wouldn't be expecting something specific. You could judge the tone on its own merits, not on some preconcieved notion of what that amp is supposed to sound like.

BTW, sample 4 was also a Pod on all the guitars and bass.
 
When electric guitars came out people said they sounded horrible and would never take off.Two things happened,electric guitars got better and people got used to the sound of them.
I have both amps and modellers and they each serve their purpose.If a person can't crank up an amp something like a POD is perfect,telling them to use an amp serves no purpose.
 
You can get fat, tight, guitar sounds on everything I've heard you post Farview-they are always amazing!:D
 
A good sound can be had out of an amp modeller.

Just like a blind squirrel can trip over a nut.

Doesn't make 'em suck any less.

:D
 
Farview said:
There are far more 1176 plugins sold than actual 1176's. Same with EQ's. It's the same with most of the high priced hardware boxes.
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And that's the key... Plugs are popular for they're convenience, automation, and price point... I don't think people are buying plugs because they sound better... just comparible to the pieces they imitate... I won't hesitate to use plug-ins for effects... most of these hardware boxes are digital internally... But for dynamics, I still prefer hardware... there are so many subtle harmonic interactions in a hard driven audio path that's it's near impossible to code them all without un-workable latency.

But as processing power increases and the algorithms get more complex, the difference is harder and harder to discern...
 
MOFO Pro said:
And that's the key... Plugs are popular for they're convenience, automation, and price point... I don't think people are buying plugs because they sound better... just comparible to the pieces they imitate... I won't hesitate to use plug-ins for effects... most of these hardware boxes are digital internally... But for dynamics, I still prefer hardware... there are so many subtle harmonic interactions in a hard driven audio path that's it's near impossible to code them all without un-workable latency.

But as processing power increases and the algorithms get more complex, the difference is harder and harder to discern...
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Have you tried the UAD stuff? As with any modeled thing, you can put it up to any specific 1176 and it won't sound exactly the same. But, if you've had the pleasure of having two different 1176's in the same room at the same time, you would quickly find that they don't sound alike either. They act the same, but they don't sound alike. Just like the plugin will act the same as an 1176, but not sound like any particular one.

Again, it's about intent. "Better" is a subjective term, better than what? How could something possibly be better than what you intend for it to sound like?

That goes back to you questioning if that guitar sound on the DSG album would sound 'better' if it were run through a mic'd cabinet. The answer is no. I didn't use the Pod for convienience, I have a 4x12 cabinet semi-permenently mic'd in an isolation room, two tube power amps set up (1 marshall, 1 mesa), a Laney tube head, Marshall JCM 800, Mesa Triple Rec, Bogner Extacy, etc... Any of these would be just as convienient, all I would have to do is move the power and speaker connections a couple of feet in either direction. The sound we were looking for was in the Pod, and it didn't happen when we tried the Pod through either of the tube power amps into the mic'd cabinet, it didn't happen when we plugged the output of the Pod into a redbox speaker simulator (that's the one that most arena bands use live). It happened when I plugged the Pod with it's built in speaker simulator into my interface.

You only think hardware is 'better' because you attach a higher value to it, not because it actually does anything 'better'.
 
Farview said:
You only think hardware is 'better' because you attach a higher value to it, not because it actually does anything 'better'.
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We all of carry around delusions of what it takes to achieve sounds. Gotta have a 'burst and a Plexi, or a '57 Strat and a '59 Bassman or....This despite the fact that even specialists would have a hard time identifying any given combination unless they were looking directly at it. We don't value the sound as much as the associations with our "heroes". To me, it's about the music, not about the "male jewelry" you have strewn around your studio (or, more likely, bedroom).

My ex-wife has a BFA degree from Tufts, in Boston. To her, art is stretching the canvas, sizing it, laying on gesso, and then applying paint with the right kind of brush. If those steps aren't followed, the result isn't "art."

I'm as likely to use a laundry marker and copier paper as fine watercolor paper and "real" paint, and the result is art as much as hers is. And music, much more so than visual art, leaves no footprints: it is what it is, not what you think it took to make it.

Anyhow, I just got a Line 6 Floor Pod Plus and have been playing with it all morning. It's a whole new world, since I spent the last couple of years as a full-time bass player (bass, cord, amp: what else do you need?). I'm playing my '70 Les Paul Deluxe through the Pod and into (at the moment) a '63 Silvertone Twin Twelve amp -- now THERE'S where digital meets analog! -- and I'm loving the sounds I'm getting. When I get to the point of recording the material I'm working on, there's no question but that the Pod will be in the signal chain.
 
Farview said:
You only think hardware is 'better' because you attach a higher value to it, not because it actually does anything 'better'.
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I like your response... All I could come up with was "Bite me" :D Didn't mean to piss you off friend, but I certainly seem to have gotten your knickers all up in a bunch
Farview said:
"Better" is a subjective term, better than what? How could something possibly be better than what you intend for it to sound like? .
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MOFO Pro said:
I like your response... All I could come up with was "Bite me" :D Didn't mean to piss you off friend, but I certainly seem to have gotten your knickers all up in a bunch
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No, I'm not angry. I am having this same conversation on three forums at once, though.

It seems that a lot of people miss the point of what a good guitar sound is. As if good guitar tone is just one thing. A good guitar tone is the one that works in the context of the song, it has nothing to do with tubes, pedals, outboard gear, pickups, etc...

Quality is in the execution of the production. The electric guitar sound in Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band would sound like complete crap in just about any other song. (it's tube BTW) Did anyone complain?
Did it adversely effect sales?

Evenescence used line 6 gear for that platinum selling album. Was that some sort of mistake? Would it have sold more if they had used a tube amp?

A bunch of Zepplin guitar tracks were done by plugging the guitar straight into the board and cranking the preamp into distortion. No amp, no tubes. Were they not putting out professional product?

There are thousands of platinum selling records that have guitar sounds that I don't particularly like, but they obviously worked.

That's the point.
 
Farview said:
No, I'm not angry. I am having this same conversation on three forums at once, though.
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Ok not mad... just passionate... no problem with that.

We've expressed our opinions, both of which hold some merit... and the original posters question was answered ages ago (no preamp needed)... so I'm done, no harm... no foul
 
I think part of the problem is that people who are unwilling to accept modeling as a legitimate form of recording continue to respond to questions about recording with modelers.
 
i haven't used GR3, but i tried out GR2 and hated it

and people who trash the POD and claim it's total crap either have never used one, or just don't know how to use it...to be honest, i haven't used one myself, but i know of at least a couple of in-demand engineers who use it exclusively in the studio, and get great tones from it. on top of that, bands like meshuggah have been using them live for years now, running their guitars straight into the POD and onto the PA from there.

i've also noticed that digital guitar tones can be greatly enhanced by bypassing the built-in cabinet modeling, and using impulses based on actual cabinet/mic combos. i achieved 1 of the best heavy guitar tones i've ever had last night with the following signal chain:

guitar-->ibanez TS7-->ART MPA gold-->amplitube 1.3-->voxengo boogex w/ mesa 2x12 impulse

the tubescreamer is there more to tighten things up than add distortion...the MPA gold is gain staged so that it gives the signal a bit of tube saturation - then most of the "preamp" tone came from amplitube, with the mesa cab impulse after that. i compared the tones i got from this signal chain with an album i recorded a few years back that was a 5150 combo slaved out to a mesa 4x12, and the digital chain smoked the sound i got from the 5150/mesa.
 
I spent all morning with my Floor Pod +, and it's the stuff. I had previously recorded a guy who has recently replaced his boutique stage amp with one, and his tone was useful, to put it mildly. One thing I liked was that it was silent. Not low-noise, NO noise.

Of course, he had a great many more chops than myself, and probably anything would have sounded good....
 
its works but...

i love my pod but the more serious i get into recording i find myself olny needing it for effects and some lighter parts in songs. i LOVE a great tube distortion so i guess my oppinion would be to find a way around the pod but always keep it around for trying a different sound.
this is my recordings with a pod...myspace.com/thenightsalive
 
Did you use a factory preset for that particular track or did you create your own?

BTW, do you mind sharing the signal chain used for the guitars used on Smokescreen?
 
I start out on presets, but then I tweak it.

If I remember right, the Bludgeon guitar sound started with the Pod insane setting. That was done with the original pod back in 2002-2003. They used EMG-81's.
 
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