Unpopular opinions on gear
- Thread starter Spaced Out Ace
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GunpointMetal
SS.org Regular
If every IR you try sounds "phasey and hollow" something is wrong with your setup or the way they are implemented.
GunpointMetal
SS.org Regular
It's true. When we play out the only people that even MIGHT give two fucks about what gear I'm playing through are the other guitarists in the room. I've never had some random come up after a show to tell us they enjoyed the music but it would have been better if the sound guy mic'd a cab. I've never had a guitarist say that either, but they might at least ask what gear I'm using. It's happened twice now where someone was seemingly interested in my tones until I told them it was a Line 6 board straight to FOH. Weird how the tone became less interesting when the gear was noted.speaking of generic tones, people at the shows be like:
TedEH
Cromulent
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole IRs and convolution thing a very old and well understood concept?
I'd be willing to bet that people get better results when they fire their own IRs because they're capturing an environment they're used to, and not post-processing it the same way afterwards.
Using someone else's IR means you're getting a capture of:
- Their mic
- Their room
- Their cab
- Anything they happen to put in the chain between the generated impulse and speaker
- Their post-processing.
None of that will 100% match your own environment and gear.
I'd be willing to bet that people get better results when they fire their own IRs because they're capturing an environment they're used to, and not post-processing it the same way afterwards.
Using someone else's IR means you're getting a capture of:
- Their mic
- Their room
- Their cab
- Anything they happen to put in the chain between the generated impulse and speaker
- Their post-processing.
None of that will 100% match your own environment and gear.
from the other point of view - when people go to the studio and are looking for a producer - it's because they like the sound of the bands recordings they put out. Using pre-sets for modellers, profiles, IRs you can get as close to the capturing of the essence of the sound you like as going to record and get your music produced by that studio/producer.
and true story is that guitarists are such snobs about their gear and they think that their unique (shitty) tone is great, but in the end producer/mixing engineer will do what sounds the best for the music, in some (many) cases it means re-amping through old trusty plexi, 800, slo, recto 5150 rigs...and guys won't notice.
That's totally possible. What I really need to do is my own IR's and see how they translate. If I ever find the golden IR I'll probably jump ship to modelling. I'd love to and really want an excuse to jump ship. Less gear,less weight and potential problems etc and freeing up money = a big win, but I won't sacrifice my amp tone for it. If it can't get what I need I'll stick with it. MOre than likely I'm gonna end up doing the disabled cab/power amp block thing and go into my 2502. Nothing seems to beat the 2502. It's really the best thing in the world, imo. With that I can alos do class a, a/b, and simulclass typ things (a and a/b) etc. Now if I could just get away from stereo delays I'd be all set. Stereo delay really is my crutch, but I love it so much. hehe.
drb
SS.org Regular
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- Jul 23, 2020
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IRs shouldn't sound noticeably different from the original capture, definitely not noticeably hollow or out of phase, that's not how the modelling process works. It's not 100% accurate but it certainly shouldn't discernible without software unless you have dog ears.
Otherwise I was hasty in replying and didn't realise you were likely talking about transient vs sine sweep, not the actual maths underneath the normally used sine sweep.
I think once I get a good IR caputure utiliy (probably an AxeFX) I'll try many experiments and see what's up. I really believe there's problems in the process and mixing them moreso than the tech itself. - For example; It doesn't make sense to me to do normal micing and capture and that's it. Normally it would, but speaking of sinesweeps I don't think they're being dealt with properly, possibly.
- It spits out say 20hz which most mics have big problems with. The thing is the mic basically isn't picking up almost at all because of it's nature (like with an sm57) - In this case I would actualy like to experiment with extreme eq on the board before capture to flatten out the response. This way the mic is also balanced based on it's reponse curve etc . By not doing this there is no unity gain because the sine sweep is at a no unity level throughout it's range. If offset to either the mic response or Fletcher Muson curves it might help a lot I'm thinking. Either that or total disater. lol
- A way to experiment without eq I'd like to try is setting the 20hz to unity gain through the power amp itself, with the mic set to where I'd want it at normal levels for my rig. This way the weakest point is unity and the rest will fall in place (in theory). I really think there's potentially beter ways to do it. I might be wrong, but worth a try.
- In reality I'd ideally like to just have an eq with hundreds of full range fully sweepable bands to sculpt whatever I want (one not in a daw). I know that with that you could probably model whatever sound you want. I suspect all the Axe is doing is messing with freq bands like an eq essentially to do what it does, not that it's actually programmed that way or anything, but having my big rack eq and other eq's like in daw and such has taught me a lot about how you can get almost anything you want if time is taken. Mesa's can sound like Marshalls Recto's like Marks etc. WIth a pre and post eq you can do wonders and even model cab's and such too that sound good. The modellers are great because you don't have to do that, they got like 90% of the work out of the way. If you think about it the AxeFx is solid state and the only way to change how it sounds drastically is with the use of filters, like with eveything. It's when people are looking for exactly something it gets into the details.
- I don't think a lot of IR's are phase aligned either when you try to mix them there is usually no chance of phase aligning them perfectly. There's ways to do this I don't hear people ever talk about. If you take two IR's that won't phase align or sound smeared then they can be combined and have the differences extracted for perfect phase in real time upon playback. I don't know of a way to recapture that result back into an IR file yet though. Don't know if it's possible or not yet. Don't think it is tbh.
Just a bunch of ideas. If someone wants to send me an AxeFX III I'd be happy to take it off their hands. haha.
GunpointMetal
SS.org Regular
One of the first times I went to a studio was with my high school band and I was stoked because dude had all kinds of boutique amps and cabs we could use, but our other guitarist insisted on using his DOD dirt boxes and his crate head into a Marshall MG cab because it was “his sound”. The recording engineer let him do it but basically changed every setting he had until it sounded decent in the mic.
If @c7spheres bought an axe3 two years ago like I suggested he’d have more guitars now 
. He may have also joined the FAS forum and learned about the dynaIR stuff they are working on 
. He may have also joined the FAS forum and learned about the dynaIR stuff they are working on
TedEH
Cromulent
I feel like the whole "this is MY sound" in the studio thing should be a discussion before going in -
As in, there's two potential goals of a recording: to reproduce something that exists (to capture "your tone") or to create something. If you're going to the studio to recreate "their sound", then it's fair to do whatever they suggest. If, however, you're convinced that you sound great already and just want to capture it, then that's a very different goal, and you should be ready to deal with the consequences of your gear choices. If you and the engineer don't see eye to eye on that subject, there's a good risk you're gonna have a bad time.
As in, there's two potential goals of a recording: to reproduce something that exists (to capture "your tone") or to create something. If you're going to the studio to recreate "their sound", then it's fair to do whatever they suggest. If, however, you're convinced that you sound great already and just want to capture it, then that's a very different goal, and you should be ready to deal with the consequences of your gear choices. If you and the engineer don't see eye to eye on that subject, there's a good risk you're gonna have a bad time.
If @c7spheres bought an axe3 two years ago like I suggested he’d have more guitars now
But then what would I compalin and GAS about? LoL.
I was so close then the prices went up so I got lost in other stuff/preamps. Now it's game on but with the new Mark VII it;s chaos in my brain. I figure If I keep saving eventually I'll get ahead of it and work something out. The only solution is to copy Petrucci, heh.
-The dynaIR stuff sounds interesting. I'll look for it. I think Boss did their AIRD thing and Two Notes has something too. I think I read a thing with Cliff saying he found a new way to capture IR's or something. Maybe he's already doing something similar? I remembering him specificalyl address phasing if I rememebr right. I don't really go on there often.
Any good engineer will have this discussion. This is the dichotomy. I like the capture what's already been created approach. I feel with all the tools available (for free even) people should either learn it or stop telling the enginner what's the right way to do things.
- There's also the engineers who will only use certain guitars and amps mics etc because it's how they know how to get good tones (like their crutch). Everything else becomes sub par due to inexperience or clients complaining. - That said,I would say most the time with normal rigs it will come out pretty crappy compared to what is done in house by the engineer. They just usaully know what combinations of gear and settings to use on their own stuff.
- It's also like sound guys where they have restricted time and want the best result they can give with what's allotted. They know what works for their system. If you pay them more they will give more time to you for messing with your stuff. If you pay for a 4 hour block and want a pro session done with your settings from scratch, you'll probably need to save for more studio time. Everyone knows it takes forever to really get something new or unfamiliar down. - A lot of people don't want to touch anything because it's already calibrated etc. So when people bring in their rig with the tone of their dreams on it and it comes out like crap the engineer can explain then what's going on or beforehand. Exactly why to discuss it beforehand. What they should do is say something to the effect of 'bring it on it and we'll check it out, but there's a good chance you won't like it unless it's really dialed in for recording'. Mostly I think engineer just don't want to mess with their perfectly setup little system, because it works for them. If it ain't broke don't fix it etc. - On the topic of live sound using a PA there really should never be a need to change anything if done properly. The problem sis people are dialing in their rigs for it. Turn it down and pump up the mids is usually the first thing out of the engineers mouth. If people just mixed their rigs to stage monitor volume it'd be like an AxeFx set and forget type thing. People stil want olden days stage volume but 'they' just don't allow that at most places any more. If someone must have jam levels stage volume for their tone and won't turn it down then put a gobo between it, out it on a isolator block, get an attenuator etc. It's all doable. A lot of bands have those giant road cases with a 4x12 in it and a mic. Now that's the ticket if you can afford the freight.
Kyle Jordan
Ace of Knaves
Nearly all Celestions are terrible.
Why? Some weird parallel fret or something?
narad
Progressive metal and politics
It just ruins the whole vibe. This is basically the best it can look:
Which is already worse than just a regular scale. But then you also get this Kiesel hybrid:
I do like that green body though.It just ruins the whole vibe. This is basically the best it can look:
Which is already worse than just a regular scale. But then you also get this Kiesel hybrid:
LiveOVErdrive
CNC hack
I'm way more excited about super cheap and okay gear than I am about expensive and great gear.
wheresthefbomb
SS.org Regular
preach. nothing makes my day like finding a shitty "vintage" cab or SS head for <$100. it's super fun to fix up old stuff, I have zero hesitation or regrets pushing gear like that as hard as I can, plus my tone is still as good or better than dudes with way more expensive setups.
BornToLooze
SS.org Regular
speaking of generic tones, people at the shows be like:
For the most part, everybody's always used the same tone as everyone else. Nowadays it's Fishmans and the same models as everybody else, back in my day it was EMGs and the same 6505/5150 settings as everyone else, and back in the 60s and 70s, it was PAFs and roll your hand to the right on a Marshall...like everyone else.
I know this is a very hot take on a guitar forum, but if your shit actually is good, does it matter if you used the same shit as everyone else to record it?
