Your Opinion On Amp Sims
- Thread starter 240v
- Start date
Remember I didn't say I wasn't irrational.(And I guess I'm not afraid to use a triple negative from time to time (TripleN?))
I don't have a hangup on multitracking (I love it and I do it all the time). As long as the tracks came out of an amp.
I guess I have two purposes. One is, like you say, create a sound that's pleasing to my ears. But also to produce the sound in a way that's pleasing to my inner self. Again, I'm not always rational.
Shame on you for using real amps!
I suck.
BroKen_H
Re-member
My only real guitar amp is a Roland Cube 30 and it has some decent sounds, but it's pretty limited on the number that are. What's funny to me, is trying to get a good ring back (feedback) tone is easier with my Combinator patches or the Line6 amp sim in Reason. Easier to get em started and easier to handle them when they're going. Sometimes I put together a Combinator with specific distortions/overdrives/effects to make a specific tone. There are lots of options in Reason.
Seriously. If I had the money to spend and the place to record, I'd have a Blackstar or Orange 50w (maybe both) and some nice cabs. Mesa and DV Mark are expensive, but I like their sounds as well. Liked the sound of Carvin's old tube heads, too. Just never caught the Marshall/Vox/HiWatt bug.
Strangely, I never use a sim for my bass (but I've been recording bass since the early 80s and I'm kind of old school there). Use a DI and B100 into an 1820 cab with a mike 8-9 inches out and about 1" into the top of the 18.
Side question, anybody have anything good or bad to say about the Randall LB103?
Seriously. If I had the money to spend and the place to record, I'd have a Blackstar or Orange 50w (maybe both) and some nice cabs. Mesa and DV Mark are expensive, but I like their sounds as well. Liked the sound of Carvin's old tube heads, too. Just never caught the Marshall/Vox/HiWatt bug.
Strangely, I never use a sim for my bass (but I've been recording bass since the early 80s and I'm kind of old school there). Use a DI and B100 into an 1820 cab with a mike 8-9 inches out and about 1" into the top of the 18.
Side question, anybody have anything good or bad to say about the Randall LB103?
I've never tried it, but I seem to remember reading that holding your guitar up to the monitor would generate feedback, but I might be imaging that. It was a while ago that I heard that, probably back when CRT's were still all over the place. Like I said, I might be imaging it...
Lol. That's insane.
BroKen_H
Re-member
Me, too. 
If you run a proper amp sim with enough distortion/overdrive to generate feedback in a real amp, then run your monitors up until they generate the feedback you're looking for, you can actually control the amount and type of feedback you get. Since we're in the recording realm, I can actually do this note by note to get exactly the feedback sound I want. Because I'm generating the tone with a sim the dynamic is there no matter how loud I make the monitors. I can get the same sound at 1W out the monitors with no feedback or at 70W getting uncontrollable feedback. It's still very planar in that you turn the guitar perpendicular and it reduces feedback greatly or face toward/turn away from the monitor to make it ring out.
It's very clinical and mathematic. That's why I indicated I'd rather play through an amp. It becomes more art than science.
If you run a proper amp sim with enough distortion/overdrive to generate feedback in a real amp, then run your monitors up until they generate the feedback you're looking for, you can actually control the amount and type of feedback you get. Since we're in the recording realm, I can actually do this note by note to get exactly the feedback sound I want. Because I'm generating the tone with a sim the dynamic is there no matter how loud I make the monitors. I can get the same sound at 1W out the monitors with no feedback or at 70W getting uncontrollable feedback. It's still very planar in that you turn the guitar perpendicular and it reduces feedback greatly or face toward/turn away from the monitor to make it ring out.
It's very clinical and mathematic. That's why I indicated I'd rather play through an amp. It becomes more art than science.
J
jokerone
Guest
BroKen_H
Re-member
A quickie...just to demonstrate.
View attachment Sim Feedback.mp3
Anyone else ever demonstrate a quickie?
View attachment Sim Feedback.mp3
Anyone else ever demonstrate a quickie?
Ok, thanks for that. I wouldn't say that's good feedback, but it does sound like feedback.
Here's a quickie for ya. This has almost got it all. I did this last year for some guy asking for it. Les Paul, cranked Marshall stack, big chord, epic pickslide, blossoming into beautiful sustaining natural feedback.
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
about halfway thru I was expecting someone to giggle and say "Wipeout!' but the slide just kept on going. That's one serious pickslide ......... worth sampling in fact.Yeah not to toot my own horn, but that might be the greatest pickslide ever recorded.
ashcat_lt
Well-known member
My entire last album is basically smothered in guitar feedback through an amp sim, as are most of my live shows. It really is all about SPL. I have done it with my studio monitors (and god I hope nobody thought we were talking about computer monitors!), but they are often in an awkward position, and especially with smaller near fields (and extra especially when you've got the rest of the mix coming through also) it can be tough to get enough of the guitar coming through without fear of damage. Then again, my entire band used to rehearse through my Alesis M1s and we had no problem getting guitar (or bass) feedback.
For Great Big Mine/Drink This I used two different ways to get the feedback.
1) The two "main guitars" were done by splitting the signal - one side into a cleanish sim (V-Amp Brit Class A and something else) which got recorded, and one through a high gain (probably Mesa) sim which was routed through a spare set of Altec-Lansing 2.1 computer speakers which were just fucking cranked. The distorted bass's feedback was done the same way, but I recorded a more distorted tone, and actually may not have had to split it.
2) I had one of those little surface transducer jobbies that you can stick to a plastic cup and play your iPhone through. Stuck it on the headstock of the guitar, stuck the guitar in the stand, ran the guitar through an all-pass filter and a loud amp model and routed that output to the "Boombox". Automating the all-pass filter has much the same effect as waving the guitar around in front of the amp. I applied a random LFO to that, hit record, and walked away for a half hour. Came back, switched guitars...until I'd recorded every electric in the house feeding back randomly. This runs under the entire song, along with some organ drawbar fuckery. You don't actually have to listen to it to get feedback, but it's anything but silent! Some of the high strings would take off and be ringing through the whole house. At one point we were afraid it might wake the baby. It does actually work for fretted notes, too. You can play with the thing and it works a lot like a loud amp in the room. If, that is, you can stand to have a cable hanging off the wrong end of your guitar. I kinda can't, and haven't found a suitable solution.
Here's one that you'll love, I'm sure: All of the feedback in Nothing came from splitting my signal to my Diseased Dire Rat and then to my AC4. So then you ask why I didn't just stick a mic in front of the AC? Well, it didn't actually make the sound I wanted when it gave me the feedback I wanted. And that is part of the fun part. You can record the DI and track and run it through whatever you want afterwards. You can get real string feedback out of crystal clean amps without having to evacuate the neighborhood. It does usually want some amount of compression because some of the good stuff happens when one or two strings are just barely ringing out, but the possibilities really are endless.
There's also always the idea of the magnetic coil sustainer system like the Fernandez thing. I could almost get behind that, except that they all pretty much require that you only ever play through the bridge pickup. That helps me on one out of maybe twelve tracks.
Honestly, though, for actual feedback while you're playing, there really is nothing better than shear SPL. The ideal for amp sim work would be a PA speaker capable of getting at least as loud as the amp you're modeling. Yes, I'm well aware that this defeats several of the purposes of using an amp sim at all...
For Great Big Mine/Drink This I used two different ways to get the feedback.
1) The two "main guitars" were done by splitting the signal - one side into a cleanish sim (V-Amp Brit Class A and something else) which got recorded, and one through a high gain (probably Mesa) sim which was routed through a spare set of Altec-Lansing 2.1 computer speakers which were just fucking cranked. The distorted bass's feedback was done the same way, but I recorded a more distorted tone, and actually may not have had to split it.
2) I had one of those little surface transducer jobbies that you can stick to a plastic cup and play your iPhone through. Stuck it on the headstock of the guitar, stuck the guitar in the stand, ran the guitar through an all-pass filter and a loud amp model and routed that output to the "Boombox". Automating the all-pass filter has much the same effect as waving the guitar around in front of the amp. I applied a random LFO to that, hit record, and walked away for a half hour. Came back, switched guitars...until I'd recorded every electric in the house feeding back randomly. This runs under the entire song, along with some organ drawbar fuckery. You don't actually have to listen to it to get feedback, but it's anything but silent! Some of the high strings would take off and be ringing through the whole house. At one point we were afraid it might wake the baby. It does actually work for fretted notes, too. You can play with the thing and it works a lot like a loud amp in the room. If, that is, you can stand to have a cable hanging off the wrong end of your guitar. I kinda can't, and haven't found a suitable solution.
Here's one that you'll love, I'm sure: All of the feedback in Nothing came from splitting my signal to my Diseased Dire Rat and then to my AC4. So then you ask why I didn't just stick a mic in front of the AC? Well, it didn't actually make the sound I wanted when it gave me the feedback I wanted. And that is part of the fun part. You can record the DI and track and run it through whatever you want afterwards. You can get real string feedback out of crystal clean amps without having to evacuate the neighborhood. It does usually want some amount of compression because some of the good stuff happens when one or two strings are just barely ringing out, but the possibilities really are endless.
There's also always the idea of the magnetic coil sustainer system like the Fernandez thing. I could almost get behind that, except that they all pretty much require that you only ever play through the bridge pickup. That helps me on one out of maybe twelve tracks.
Honestly, though, for actual feedback while you're playing, there really is nothing better than shear SPL. The ideal for amp sim work would be a PA speaker capable of getting at least as loud as the amp you're modeling. Yes, I'm well aware that this defeats several of the purposes of using an amp sim at all...
Armistice
Son of Yoda
Feeling like some thread resurrection?
I don't think anyone would disagree with you on that - but not everyone can at sufficient volume for recording purposes - a point that's been made here countless times before!
