Using Revolver to warm things up.

W

windowman

New member
I could use some input on this:

I just got Cakewalk GT Pro which comes with the light version of Revolver. I haven't had time to mess around with it much since I don't play a whole lot of electric guitar these days but I got a chance to horse around for a few minutes this morning.

I went straight to the board with a little Zoom 503 set to record direct as well as I could, (having said that, it doesn't sound all that great going direct no matter what you do) and just recorded for a few measures over a drum loop. I mixed it down and then came back and hit the guitar track with Revolver to see if it would help. I think it sounds much better myself.

See what you think (just 20 second samples.) Opinions would be greatly appreciated! :)

http://geocities.com/billseper/revolver.html
 
I use revolver to shoot self when I make a big recording mistake and can't fix it in the mix. I use ReValver never, because I don't think it sounds good.
 
Tom Hicks said:
I have the demo but I wasn't too impressed with the quality of the distortions.Check out the J-Station tones.
Tom
Click to expand...

I didn't use any distortion on revalver. The distortion came from the Zoom unit.

Tried the J-station a couple of weeks ago. Didn't care for it; still had that direct to the board sound. I haven't tried a Pod but I've heard some relatively nice things done on one by Keaggy. I've heard a lot of guys are using other distortion units and are just using the Pod for it's cabinet simulator circuitry.

Think I'll stick to my ole speaker box though; there's nothing like the real thing. But in a pinch, using any run-o-the-mill distortion unit and then letting Revalver get the amp/speaker simulation down seems like a fairly good combo. I'd like to run an old Rockman distortion generator through it sometime.
 
I usually take a spin through Revolver, too, to warm things up before a recording session.
 
Say Dragon; I always meant to tell you this kiddo: Pretending to be dozens of different people in order to gain interest in your website isn't really all that Kosher you know.
 
Using RevAlver to warm things up.

First of all, don't put effects units in front of ReValver (tubes=valves, get it?).

I have the commercial version here somplace and I haven't experimented with it much, but it's clear it is a post-recording effect for treating a dry track. What I tried with it sounded OK, but I only messed around with it for a few minutes, though I think using a better reverb plug-in might be worthwhile.

While I am a great fan of the J-Station/J-Edit for recording (I say it's the best of the modelers for that), the concept of recording a direct-to-board, clean, dry track and then having the option to treat it innumerable times during mix and overdub has great appeal.

When I get rolling better with Cubase, I'll try ReValver more. So far, I'm not greatly impressed, but it takes a while to figure out the cool stuff with any device or plug-in. I hated the J-Station for months.
 
First of all, don't put effects units in front of ReValver (tubes=valves, get it?).

I think the whole free world gets it.

it's clear it is a post-recording effect for treating a dry track.

Actually, that's not exactly correct. It has various modules that can be popped in and out of the chain (which of course involves taking out the preamp section if you want.) You can put anything before it you please. The only stipulation is that if you use the preamp section then any stereo sounds you put into it will be dropped down to mono. You can get around this however by dividing the stereo tracks into two separate mono tracks before applying Revalver separately to each, while keeping them panned hard left and right respectively. Revalver's distortion isn't particularly better than any of the other direct to the board junk that's out there. But like a lot of people I've found that through some experimentation I can mix and match other kinds of both distortion and even more than one amp simulator to come up with something better yet.

While I am a great fan of the J-Station/J-Edit for recording (I say it's the best of the modelers for that), the concept of recording a direct-to-board, clean, dry track and then having the option to treat it innumerable times during mix and overdub has great appeal.

I've owned the Hughes and Ketner (sp?) Red Box, 4 different Zoom units, 2 different Scholz R&D units, and the original Sans Amp. I've recently tried out the J-Station and the Pod.

The earlier Zoom units would have been the best if they had better upper harmonics. You couldn't begin to get those side-of-the pick harmonics out of them. ALL of them only sounded reasonably good after heavy processing with stuff like chorusing to thicken them up except for the Sans Amp but it had a kind of scratchy tone that bothered me. The Rockman Distortion Generator was the best of the bunch AFTER post-processing but still wasn't quite there. The POD and the J-Station I have to say are among the worst I've heard, and they sounded nearly identical to both each other and to the later Zoom units, which makes me wonder if they're using the same chip to generate their effects.

By far, the best sound I've gotten going direct was by using the Zoom 503 (so far) and using it for both amp sim and distortion and then treating the recorded tracks yet again with Revalver and it's own preamp/amp sim (but NO distortion.) You are correct in my opinion about the quality of the reverb plug-in that Revalver has but isn't that true with all plug-ins? I've yet to hear a plug-in of any kind that could match any of my outboard gear which is why Revalver right now is the only plug-in I use at all aside for some EQ once in a blue moon.

As far as recording direct goes…there's still nothing like a closed, homemade speaker box to keep sound down and the neighbors happy while sounding just like a miked amp, because it is.
 
>First of all, don't put effects units in front of ReValver (tubes=valves, get it?).

I think the whole free world gets it.

I think you're an optimist.:D

Revalver's distortion isn't particularly better than any of the other direct to the board junk that's out there. But like a lot of people I've found that through some experimentation I can mix and match other kinds of both distortion and even more than one amp simulator to come up with something better yet.

That's probably a harsh-but-fair assessment. In any case, I love the way people are instantly using all these modeling devices and plugins in the "wrong" way to get new and interesting sounds. I'm probably too lazy and straight-laced to do this much goofing around, but I admire the energy of those who are doing more experimentation.

The POD and the J-Station I have to say are among the worst I've heard, and they sounded nearly identical to both each other and to the later Zoom units, which makes me wonder if they're using the same chip to generate their effects.

I can't say, but you don't mention if you were using the J-Station in J-Edit deep-edit more or not. J-Station's default presets sound appalling to me, but in deep-edit I can tweak a lot of nice sounds out for my purposes - which do not usually involve a lot of _obvious_ distortion. This may be the reason I like J-Station more than most people - I go for for a cleaner sound. Having some of the amps that Johnson modeled, I would say that the models are not really bad approximations of the ones I have had or currently own.

You are correct in my opinion about the quality of the reverb plug-in that Revalver has but isn't that true with all plug-ins? I've yet to hear a plug-in of any kind that could match any of my outboard gear which is why Revalver right now is the only plug-in I use at all aside for some EQ once in a blue moon.

Well, there's no technical reason why a plugin is necessarily worse than a digital outboard unit in that they are both merely running an algorithm on a digital signal.

There are good reverb plugins, though nobody that I know of agrees on which ones work best for which applications.

As far as recording direct goes…there's still nothing like a closed, homemade speaker box to keep sound down and the neighbors happy while sounding just like a miked amp, because it is.

My take has always been that digital modeling is _primarily_ an immense time-saver. Frankly, I just don't have the time, strength, attention span or energy to fool around with amps and microphone placement and acoustics. If I'm in J-Edit, I can do a day's worth of amp fiddling in a couple of minutes, find something that works and save it - then never have to think about it again. I don't regard any of this screwing around as fun, and whatever it takes to get a production effect with the minimum sweat is just gold to me. I'm picky about production and I would never, ever get the sounds I wanted if had to do it in three dimensions.

ReValver's conceptual appeal to me is as a way to get more of the whole production operation and sound under the mouse ball while keeping my butt in the well-padded console chair.
 
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