Do i NEED to mic an amp?

  • Thread starter Thread starter .Tyson Studios.
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Amp sims are what the electric piano was to an acoustic piano when they first came out


There is no way they will represent the original. You now have a new way of getting the instrumentation of the original source.

So stop the whining and debating about it. There just happens to be a new kid on the block in the music world.

Farfisa, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer didn't have this trouble when they hit the market! And now look at the really cool synthesizers we have at out finger tips (ha ha). All descendants of the original piano. ;)








:cool:
 
CFox said:
Google it to your hearts content. Scientific studies show that wine tasting is bullshit.

The same applies to real amps versus amp sims in 2010. Anyone who claims to be able to identify the real amp out of two recorded tones is lying or bullshitting or both.

If you have a vested interest IE you bought a $5000 Mesa Boogie then of course you will not concede that $200 GR4 can duplicate that tone.
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So bring it. Post blind examples of known amps and sims. Let's see how I do with the identification.

As for the notion that you need to hear the amp responding to your playing when recording well I say that when I was in a pro studio I sat in the control room and heard my amp* through the studio monitors. This is standard practice.

So more bullshit by gear snobs.
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What I said was that the result of having one tone for years on end is that your technique evolves into that tone. You play up the good and play down the bad. The sound directly influences the movement of your hands. If you have a main amp, you have one main tone. But it has nothing to do with the fact that it is an amp. The same would be true for somebody who owned a sim and only used one amp/cab model out of the multitude available or somebody who mostly plays the same acoustic guitar.

*Hated the end result btw but was stuck with it. I would never record an amp again.
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That's an odd reaction. How 'bout "Hated the result and I would never record with that engineer again".
 
Greg_L said:
I totally agree. I use one guitar tone for pretty much everything - the tired but awesome Gibson/Marshall sound. I have access to 3 badass 100w tube rigs, or Guitar Rig. I use em all. I bet no one can tell the difference. I also totally agree with the idea of an album being cohesive. I'm a total nazi about my drums. They have to sound the same from song to song because I write songs in batches with the intent of making an album out of them. I don't change anything until I get around 12 songs in the bag. I hate albums where it's obvious that the songs were recorded at different times in different studios with maybe even different people.

Still, you can't be that way and then complain about a lack of flexibility with sims. You just admitted to not being flexible at all. Having a jillion options is the very definition of flexibility. I'm not talking about some handheld mini POD or a piece of shit Line 6. I'm talking high end softwares like Guitar Rig or Revalver. If some dude wants a bunch of different amp sounds from song to song, or if he's hunting down his own signature sound, he can do it and sound great with a good sim and not be stuck with one expensive amp and an expensive pile of crappy tone sucking pedals.
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This may be the single longest post I've ever seen you make. :lol:

I can totally respect the position you're coming from, though. I think at the end of the day if the sounds you're getting work for you and they're good enough that a casual listener won't be turned off, then it doesn't really matter how you're tracking. If it ain't broke...

I personally prefer micing up because I have an amp I love the sound of - if you prefer modelers for that same reason, then cool, we're both getting tones we like, so fuck it. :D
 
CFox said:
Google it to your hearts content. Scientific studies show that wine tasting is bullshit.
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Hardly. Two points worth mentioning -

1.) the study isn't a double blind comparison (which is the whole point of the study), but rather a study that demonstrates that when you give someone a preconception, that tends to have a big influence on their opinion. An analogy here would be playing someone a song saying, "I used a $5000 Mesa on this track," and then another saying, "this was a cheapo multi-fx processor." I think what most of us are arguing is that, given a recording of an amp/modeler with no information about what we're listening to, a good number of us claim that we can tell the difference between a modeler and a real amp. That may or may not be true, but the study in question you've mentioned sheds absolutely no light on that question.
2.) The detail you left out is while most people were swayed by the information they were given, approximately (if memory serves) 10% of the test subjects correctly identified both bottles as the same wine, and that the vast majority of that percentage were experienced, knowledgeable wine drinkers. Worth keeping in mind, when we're at a recording website and talking about a sample that's more akin to the general non-guitarist listening world. ;)
 
Enough with the meaningless claims! Will somebody please post some blind clips so we can actually try the identification ourselves?
 
This is the sound of your guitar through your amp - ♪♫♪♫♪♪♪♪♫♫♫♪
This is the sound of your guitar through a sim - ♪*#☼↕►*◄♀♪
Any questions?








:cool:
 
I don't like to make long posts because I never read long posts. But about once a year I'll be serious about something and win the whole thread, like this one. :)
 
Greg_L said:
I don't like to make long posts because I never read long posts. But about once a year I'll be serious about something and win the whole thread, like this one. :)
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:laughings:

Hey, I'll freely admit that the reason I mic up is because I have an amp I'm in love with the sound of, and because I enjoy/appreciate the challenge of doing it the hard way. Modelers and VST plugins are certainly way easier, but I enjoy my approach.
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
:laughings:

Hey, I'll freely admit that the reason I mic up is because I have an amp I'm in love with the sound of, and because I enjoy/appreciate the challenge of doing it the hard way. Modelers and VST plugins are certainly way easier, but I enjoy my approach.
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And I've never said that there was anything wrong with that. I encourage people to use amps and mics. It's just not the only, or best way. It's just a way.
 
in my experience the line 6 pod 2 was pretty good(decent guitarist and amp) and its something physical! couldn't spend 100's on a piece of software.

probably best off getting the skills and mic and or amp though
 
My spouse works from home and sometimes I just can't even DI an acoustic guitar. So I broke my POD XT out of storage and tried using it for the first time in several years. It's really NOT doing it for me. I don't want to buy a piece of software either. Is there a small piece of hardware I can buy to do amp sims that is not at all like the POD XT? I hear the POD HD is better than the XT, but I'd like to hear if there are other options now besides POD.
 
To all the folks who swear up and down that Pod stuff sucks and is obvious/fake etc. - I use them as well as many tube and ss amps. None of y'all have ever been able tell me where I'm using a modeler. I'm no great shakes at the guitar, but I'm interested in interesting sounds. If a modeler gets me there, I'm using a fuckin' modeler.

Here's three. Pick out the modeled sounds: http://www.littlepurplecircles.com/listen.html#Cloud
 
I don't think you can usually tell if it's a modeler or not when listening IF the player knows anything about getting sounds right.

Where I hear/feel a difference is playing thru it.
I have a POD 2.0. POS. I took it on a trip for a practice rig just a couple of weeks ago and it was horrible ...... sustain died away far too quickly ....... that sort of thing.
Not all modelers behave that badly .......... my Rocktron behaves much like an amp ............ actually my V-Amp does quite a bit better than a POD.

However, I have no doubt that I could tweak the POD for recording and no one would know it's a POD.

Playing thru it and listening to stuff recorded with it are 2 different things.
 
Greg_L said:
Challenge issued, crickets chirping.
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not me ....... I've sided with the modeler camp. I don't personally like to play thru modelers but sound-wise .... they can be fine as attested to by say, your recordings.
 
Lt. Bob said:
not me ....... I've sided with the modeler camp. I don't personally like to play thru modelers but sound-wise .... they can be fine as attested to by say, your recordings.
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I gotcha. I wasn't talking about you. ;)
 
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