do amp simulators sound fake?

[ivansc]

johnny boy, if everyone who claimed to have golden ears actually HAD them as far as detecting esoterica like the make of 9 volt battery in an FX pedal, some of this would actually have some real world use.

(snigger)

But in the meantime, I do like the Acme Bargig stuff as well as anything else, although you guys,s stuff tends to be more towards the thud and blunder music end of the spectrum thn is comfortable for me.

[JohnnyMcFly]

Originally Posted by ivansc

johnny boy, if everyone who claimed to have golden ears actually HAD them as far as detecting esoterica like the make of 9 volt battery in an FX pedal, some of this would actually have some real world use.

(snigger)

But in the meantime, I do like the Acme Bargig stuff as well as anything else, although you guys,s stuff tends to be more towards the thud and blunder music end of the spectrum thn is comfortable for me.

Yes too true about the golden ears..
HAHA Thud and blunder. My guess is you mean metal?
I know why is that? We have been trying to shift that image forever..?

[zeekat]

Originally Posted by JohnnyMcFly

Yes too true about the golden ears..
HAHA Thud and blunder. My guess is you mean metal?
I know why is that? We have been trying to shift that image forever..?

I really like Tamla Head, if it makes your day brighter. Awesome, warm sounding thing.

[JohnnyMcFly]

Originally Posted by zeekat

I really like Tamla Head, if it makes your day brighter. Awesome, warm sounding thing.

Really, Cool!
I thought only Tedwood used Tamla..

[theRev]

Originally Posted by JohnnyMcFly

No it wasn't torpedo that I was talking about. I forgot about that one. I have tried it and its really good. I could be wrong, but torpedo usues poweramp simulation. That's not the same as speaker simulation. In the end its still not emulating speaker distortion.

What I was talking about was this..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volterra_series

There is a convolution based cab sim that uses this...Its good and works just fine, but I failed to hear any real difference between it and other sims. I did not hear the "air" moving as some call it, and I did not hear any speaker distortion. The oveall sound as I say was good, and I would use it if it were not for the amount of CPU used, but in terms of producing that ever elusive speaker distortion from an impulse, I did not hear that..

AS far as I know there are a couple of cab libraries for Nebula, a program that uses the Volterra kernel system... Is that what you are talking about? If it is, I'm with you... I'm a big fan of Nebula libraries (can't mix without ssl desk simulations anymore) but as far as cab simulation is concerned, yea, I failed to ear "the better stuff" too.

[Sound asleep]

imo they are very close. i mean, as far as in your recording. not for live srot of stuff, because you are then passing your signal through some other sort of amp, which changes things.

now, some might be able to hear the difference. people that know amps extremely well. but on the other hand, people that know amps extremely well, tried very hard to get the amp sims as close to perfect as possible. so they are very good.

[JohnnyMcFly]

@Rev, Yeah I do love nebula too, there is some fantastic stuff in that code...
@Sound Asleep
You know for me its more of a feel thing. With a real tube amp I feel what I'm playing more than I do with sims. Now that feel does not translate to the recorded material in the same way it does to the player, except to say that feel can guide the way you play, and what you play.

There is one sure fire way to see what I mean, go play a mettalica song with your band, then have your Marshall blow up 20 minutes before you go on stage. Then find out the only amp you can borrow in time is a VOX AC30.. I bet you adjust your playing to that feel/sound..

Thats a true story BTW.. It happened to me at the Gasworks in Toronto. On the bright side of things though, the beatles tunes worked out great!

[zabukowski]

Some of my stuff:

http://soundcloud.com/zabukowski

Every guitar you hear is an amp sim ...

Ok, maybe rhythm guitar in the last song is a real Marshall, i don't really remember

Zabukowski

[Jae.Thomas]

so the answer to the question is:

no.

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by JohnnyMcFly

@Rev, Yeah I do love nebula too, there is some fantastic stuff in that code...
@Sound Asleep
You know for me its more of a feel thing. With a real tube amp I feel what I'm playing more than I do with sims. Now that feel does not translate to the recorded material in the same way it does to the player, except to say that feel can guide the way you play, and what you play.

There is one sure fire way to see what I mean, go play a mettalica song with your band, then have your Marshall blow up 20 minutes before you go on stage. Then find out the only amp you can borrow in time is a VOX AC30.. I bet you adjust your playing to that feel/sound..

Thats a true story BTW.. It happened to me at the Gasworks in Toronto. On the bright side of things though, the beatles tunes worked out great!

ya, i don't play electric, but like i said, for live stuff it definitely would make a difference, and even for feel now you mention it, for recording, i mean you won't get the big sound filling the room feel, the feel of power, which will affect your playing to some degree, but sound wise, i'd say they're pretty damn close.

[JohnnyMcFly]

Originally Posted by zabukowski

Some of my stuff:

http://soundcloud.com/zabukowski

Every guitar you hear is an amp sim ...

Ok, maybe rhythm guitar in the last song is a real Marshall, i don't really remember

Zabukowski

Great stuff man..

[JohnnyMcFly]

Originally Posted by Sound asleep

ya, i don't play electric, but like i said, for live stuff it definitely would make a difference, and even for feel now you mention it, for recording, i mean you won't get the big sound filling the room feel, the feel of power, which will affect your playing to some degree, but sound wise, i'd say they're pretty damn close.

Yes I think tone is pretty close to nailed, in most amp sims, except for that one niggly bit that I mentioned earlier. Most people don't notice it though, like ivansc pointed out. The old saying still rings true, if it sounds good it is good, and if it works for you, then nothing else matters.

[pipelineaudio]

Weird turn this is taking. Most of the soundmen I know are pleased as punch with amp sims and cab sim line outs. Getting rid of one microphone makes them extremely happy...overjoyed even!

I know what the guy is saying about the cut, but its not like we havent seen the same thing with high gain tube amps and preamps. I call it "bedroom sound". sounds killer in your bedroom, but gets the highs eaten by the cymbals and the lows eaten by everything else on stage

In the context of a modern metal album, I sure wouldnt bet the farm on whats real vs amp sim

All that said, I don't give a shit about emulating old amps as much as I want to understand WHY they do certain things that are hard to do with sims. I want to understand that to get to my primary goal: Getting killer guitar sounds.

[Bristol Posse]

I've had an off and on relationship with amp sims. Right now it's off because I just haven't found one that can give me the ability to get anything other than what seems to me like a close mic sound.
No matter what I've tried I always ended up feeling like the guitars were inside the width of the drum overheads and I couldn't get a real 3D sound from them

Best result I got recently with a sim was using guitar rig which I then played back through a monitor and recorded from a few feet away with a good condenser. That was no quieter than using an real amp/cab and actually quite lot more hassle

I was a big sim guy when I had my AC30 because it was almost impossible to get that sucker up to the sweet spot in a small recording space without the volume just swamping the whole room and killing the tone with reflections. quite aside from pissing off my family and neighbors.

Since I sold the AC30 and bought a few low watt amps I'm off the sims and am trying all kinds of mic positions and techniques. I'm finding that micing guitars that need to be in the background from further away (rather than close mic'd but quiet and reverby) and leads closer but still not as close as the vocals, and little twiddly bits somewhere in between the two, just throwing up the faders I get a mix that has a sense of space and depth without doing anything to it at all. And the mix doesn't sound like it's all within a sphere of smaller diameter than the distance of drum overheads from the cymbals. I also like the cleans and edge of breakup sounds from a tube amp better than any sim I've heard myself to date.

Sims don't give a lot of flexibility to experiment either IMO. For example, recently I've been messing with M/S recording cabs from 10-15+ feet away to use as an ambiance source that really gives a sense of being in the room with the player, I don't know if I could do that with a sim.

All that said I took a look at the Acme Bar Gig and it looks interesting and the price is definitely enticing. Might be good for getting ideas down without having to pull out the amps and waiting for the tubes to warm up

Just one opinion and of course YMMV

[pipelineaudio]

I see a lot of trouble getting the "3D" into the head of the performer or listened on ANY recorded sound, not just sims or whatnot.

Thru the decades we've seen this problem based on, in historical order:

Magnetic tape, american tubes, transistors, electrolytic capacitors, IC's, digital magnetic tape, VLSIC processing, modelling, hard disk recording, amp sim plugins, the presence of the computer in the control room

Every time you go up a few generations, it seems like the magically evil devil is no longer so bad and is often times good. So much so that we actually have people INSISTING now that magnetic analog tape gave them "that sound" that at the time they were saying they weren't able to get because of magnetic analog tape

I suspect the real culprit was the same back then as it is right now:

Listening with your knees instead of your ears

In a real room with a real amp, there is a LOT of the sound that you might not even hear, but you sure as hell feel it. Even in quite an isolated room, chances are the leakage is still hitting you.

If you record with that sound, you already have it in your head that its OK, so when you hear it later you are fine. However, if you don't hear it ahead of time, you might never be sure

[Bristol Posse]

@ pipeline

I don't disagree with you, I'm sure I have an unhealthy amount of expectation bias

However I do feel that a sound mic'd from 10 feet away doesn't sound the same as one mic'd from a couple of inches and then the volume is turned down and some high end roll off and reverb added later.
Sure you can get some sense of distance but to me it doesn't just sound the same as something that was actually recorded from a distance

I don't have a problem with the sounds of sims as most of the good ones are basically a recording of a real amp captured as an impulse. I personally just prefer to get a sense of space and distance in a mix by recording things in a space and from a distance rather than trying to fake it with close mic'd sources and a FX and I haven't found a sim yet that can do that. Lets face it it would be a monumental task trying to get impusles at say 1 inch increments from 1-150 inches away on axis, off axis in front of the cab, off to one side, off to the other side. Mono, XY, Mid side, Omni and so on. maybe that's not for everyone but I like to try all kinds of stuff to get the sound I want

I don't listen to live music 6" away from the vocalist, 6"away from the drums' 6" away from the lead guitar, 6" away from the rhythm guitar, 6" away from each of the backing vocalists etc. I'm trying to get away from that in recordings too which is what I mean by a more 3D sound. It's not just a collection of sounds that are all 6" away but spread from left to right and has nothing to do with the recording medium such as tape vs HDD

Not saying it's the right way or the only way, just what makes me happy

[pipelineaudio]

Originally Posted by Bristol Posse

However I do feel that a sound mic'd from 10 feet away doesn't sound the same as one mic'd from a couple of inches and then the volume is turned down and some high end roll off and reverb added later.
Sure you can get some sense of distance but to me it doesn't just sound the same as something that was actually recorded from a distance

That's for damn sure! And it really is the impetus of most of these builders to give you the sound of the speaker in a dead room

To make it worse, if you are after that room sound, the ones who do offer it, often offer it as a very ideal theoretical representation of a room, which might be accurate, but is certainly alien to hear for most people.

All that said, I've had really good luck using a convolution reverb after the speaker sim. I'll usually impulse my own rooms in order to keep the artists from going psychologically off kilter. You'd be surprised just how familiar you can get it to act when you got an even half decent capture of your own room

[JohnnyMcFly]

Originally Posted by pipelineaudio

That's for damn sure! And it really is the impetus of most of these builders to give you the sound of the speaker in a dead room

To make it worse, if you are after that room sound, the ones who do offer it, often offer it as a very ideal theoretical representation of a room, which might be accurate, but is certainly alien to hear for most people.

All that said, I've had really good luck using a convolution reverb after the speaker sim. I'll usually impulse my own rooms in order to keep the artists from going psychologically off kilter. You'd be surprised just how familiar you can get it to act when you got an even half decent capture of your own room

In head case's MIMIC I tried for at least a month to get that ambience that you are both talking about. I did not succeed, but learned quite a bit. Its like there is too many competing frequencies or something, I'm not really sure what the problem was. I know I got closer with Filter cabs ambience, but neither one is what I would call a good ambient mic. To me a good ambient sound will just sit there and add space, and the only thing you should have to do is adjust levels, no eq should be required. Well nevertheless, its something that I want to work more on in the future..

[pipelineaudio]

A real room is really fucked up. Even a well built one. If you go back to some history of the black hatted Outlaw recordings you'll dig up a lot of info on trying to recreate AVR's water tower on 7th street. None of the theoretical models worked, but they were all excellent devices in their own right. Getting every dent, rust chip, bird dropping or whatever else right just wasn't doable. Plus there's the far more important psychological factor which will prevent acceptance even if you DO get it exactly right

[Cosmic]

Thats an interesting idea about creating depth by using varying mic distances...something I'm gonna have to experiment with

[karbomusic]

If I am honest with myself, I must admit there really isn't any good reason to even ask the question about "fake". I'm sorry, define fake. If one has a band that plays well together and wants to capture that, mic their damn amps for godsake.

If you just need a guitar track, find what works and be done with it. The biggest exception I see is when someone wants to sound like someone else... "I want it to sound like that, that other guy who isn't me and isn't in my band." I'm not knocking it, just saying.

Now I record with just me and a drummmer so I'm not the same as someone like Pipe who may need to create "it" for a customer. I don't have a public studio. I just write songs and record them. I am primarily and foremost a guitar player but in my old age I have learned that I don't want to chase a genre. I have a melody, chorus, verse or something and I use whatever it takes to make the track happen even if that means no guitar.

Just the other day, I plugged my Les Paul directly into my Universal Audio 4-710d. It was exactly what was needed at the time, no amp or amp sim would have given me what I had then and there. A few months back I recorded a scratch electric lead so I wouldn't forget it. I was in a hurry so I literally plugged my acoustic guitar's piezio output directly into my RME soundcard and compressesed the shit out of it in Reaper (to the point of this volume swelling distortion). Its now the main lead tone in that song, it fit, it is what was needed, its what I used, it belongs. Fake?

I get the fact that people use sims because they cannot use an amp and all that. I'm just trying to even things out a bit by saying the time spent on the I bet I can find the flaws in this seemingly perfect simulation could likely be better spent elsewhere.

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by pipelineaudio

That's for damn sure! And it really is the impetus of most of these builders to give you the sound of the speaker in a dead room

To make it worse, if you are after that room sound, the ones who do offer it, often offer it as a very ideal theoretical representation of a room, which might be accurate, but is certainly alien to hear for most people.

All that said, I've had really good luck using a convolution reverb after the speaker sim. I'll usually impulse my own rooms in order to keep the artists from going psychologically off kilter. You'd be surprised just how familiar you can get it to act when you got an even half decent capture of your own room

i would just about to recommend doing that to see how that works out.

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

I get the fact that people use sims because they cannot use an amp and all that. I'm just trying to even things out a bit by saying the time spent on the I bet I can find the flaws in this seemingly perfect simulation could likely be better spent elsewhere.

right, but an amp sim is not really useful for stage. now, you might not have an amp, and use a sim isntead, until one day you get an amp, and you might choose an amp based on your sim, in which case, how perfect it is matters to a degree, or you might have an amp, and want to get a sim, in order to replace your specific amp for situations where you can't use your amp and want a sim instead. so there it might be useful.

but for me, if i had all the money in teh world, no matter how good the sims might be, i'd rather the real thing, just for the feel factor alone.

but amp sims, i think tonally, are very close, and they are very flexible, allowing you many configurations, many sounds, and many effects, taking up basically no space, and with very good sound.

you can mess around with trying to get a sound like this guy or that guy, and they're ok for fun for that too.

but as mentionned earlier, i don't find that good artistic practice. even if you're doing a cover.

i find it cooler to find your own sound, that matches your own style, and you have way more options to try different things with an amp sim to find something you're looking for.

but even if the sim is perfect, it's still not the same as the real thing.

i mean, i find many piano VSTs are very good ones with resonance and everything especially. but it's still not the same thing as room filling sound, where you can like feel the vibrations around.

a sim is a sim. tonally, they will be very good. guys with great ears, worked hard on them to get them that way. but they aren't the real thing. it might be cool though, to have an amp sim that comes with a cabinet, and has cabinet mode and non cabinet mode, where in non cabinet mode it is like current sims, and in cabinet mode, it generates the sound it needs to generate so that once it comes out your amp it sounds as it should coming out the real amp. or as close as possible. that might be very cool.

because as soon as you play your amp sim through a cabinet, you've added a new cabinet in your chain.

so, to me the live experience cannot really be simulated to any sort of degree, the feel can't be there.

but as for the sound on the recording, then that's a whole different thing.

you can't fool me into thinking i'm playing a real piano, but you can easily fool me as to whether or not a real piano or a VST is playing on a recording.

[karbomusic]

right, but an amp sim is not really useful for stage. now, you might not have an amp, and use a sim isntead, until one day you get an amp

I have lots of amps and have used them on stage for the last 25 years. I wasn't talking about the stage nor was the question in the original 1st post:

do amp simulators sound fake?

i am wondering how much better is the sound of real amps in recordings

[pipelineaudio]

Please dont make this about money or rooms, its ridiculous. I'll use sims the same way I'd use my Precision 8 or MOTU mic pres rather than my Manley's OR Neves: convenience, for one

If I'm in west phoenix, I'll use the mic pre I got rather than driving to central phoenix to use my uber mic pre's and in the end it won't matter anyway

If I thought that the end product would be better using a real amp, I would mic it up. I've written a few articles over the years about how to do just that. I've got the amps, I've got the rooms, I've got the mics and I've got the skills to do it. What I don't have (usually) is any reason to do so

I'd need a lot of incentive to throw away using an infinitely and instantly recallable, NON destructive tone choice, which I can use and recall and modify, anytime, anyplace, just to get a mic in front of something.

It does happen. I'll meet and amp/player combo that I don't know how I could get with a sim, I'll definitely mic it up (as well as taking a DI)

When I'm all done, if its something I especially likedm you bet your ass I'll sit around with that DI track and A/B it thru a sim against the real track and work like hell to get it

[karbomusic]

Please dont make this about money or rooms, its ridiculous.

I'm assuming it's not but just in case that is in response to my post I wasn't saying that. I'm simply saying do what it takes to get the sound you need; personally I could care less how someone goes about that and whether its a sim, a marshal stack in a perfect room or a rubber band on popsicle sticks. I did assume however, that any one serving customers might happen upon a player that has an amp and wants a sound like his favorite player and the engineer may to cater to that and make it work where someone like me who is now simply a home studio guy has no requirement to satisfy anyone but myself. Either way, how the sound is achieved is basically irrelevant to me.

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

I have lots of amps and have used them on stage for the last 25 years. I wasn't talking about the stage nor was the question in the original 1st post:

haver you used an amp sim on stage?


you said it was pointless to discuss whether or not amp sims sound real or not. i was only pointing out two useful purposes for this information i could think of. it was not in reference to first post. it was in reference to your post.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by Sound asleep

you said it was pointless to discuss whether or not amp sims sound real or not. i was only pointing out two useful purposes for this information i could think of. it was not in reference to first post. it was in reference to your post.

Its called staying within context man. I can't spend 8000 words setting up the scene for you that was already set up in post #1. That's why I pointed out the question was about recording and I responded about recording. You didn't pay much attention and just blindly answered a sentence of mine while ignoring the context I answered in. Go back and read my post, everything I spoke of was in reference to recording and tracking.

[XITE-1/4LIVE]

Just curious as I have Dynatube by Softube, and MoJo by an Italian DSP developer, and they sound great, especially for 200A, Gibson 101E and a D6 Hohner emulation I like using.
But do any of these simulators have actual feedback as if you were standing in front of the amp...?
I bought Softubes Feedback plug in and it was a total rip off. Gave me a 5th that was with a long attack and basically a dull Sine Wave. I could have done that on my Modular DSP synths.
I have a great Sync'd patch on a hard edged Guitar/Distorted/Synth sound that sounds really nice, but the pitch is too predictable.
I remember my little crappy Sears Silvertone amp and ancient SG Deluxe got awesome Feedback like the band from the 60's called Blue Cheer.
Vincebus Eruptum was the albums name and these guys were way ahead of their time...

But I would pay any amount for a good amp emulation that could give some kind of control and feedback, does on exist...?

[karbomusic]

But I would pay any amount for a good amp emulation that could give some kind of control and feedback, does on exist...?

[IMHO]
They are "OK" and better than they used to be. To me there is a physical aspect of a guitar cab which is very midrangy by nature that doesn't quite replicate when the same thing is reproduced in a full range speaker. This isn't a sim issue to me but rather more of a physical issue between a woofer/horn interacting with actual strings vs a 12 inch mid sounding gtr speaker interacting with those same strings.

I tend to get a richer feedback with a guitar interacting with a guitar speaker (as in multiple overtones and frequencies feeding back with each other). Some of this also has to do with the ability to turn an amp up much louder than my speakers but I still see a difference with that physical interaction thing.
[/IMHO]

So to continue my previous rant, that ability is irrelevant to me until I need feedback or better said a particular feedback that I may not get out of a sim. I just use what gets me what I need at the time and there are many here who can get the feedback they need out of a sim as well.

[pipelineaudio]

Originally Posted by XITE-1/4LIVE

But do any of these simulators have actual feedback as if you were standing in front of the amp...?

Only headcase seems to for me, and I feel this is related to another problem I've had with all amp sims until headcase:

Check out this thread, and especially the picture of the resulting waveform

http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...8&postcount=67

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by pipelineaudio

Please dont make this about money or rooms, its ridiculous. I'll use sims the same way I'd use my Precision 8 or MOTU mic pres rather than my Manley's OR Neves: convenience, for one

If I'm in west phoenix, I'll use the mic pre I got rather than driving to central phoenix to use my uber mic pre's and in the end it won't matter anyway

If I thought that the end product would be better using a real amp, I would mic it up. I've written a few articles over the years about how to do just that. I've got the amps, I've got the rooms, I've got the mics and I've got the skills to do it. What I don't have (usually) is any reason to do so

I'd need a lot of incentive to throw away using an infinitely and instantly recallable, NON destructive tone choice, which I can use and recall and modify, anytime, anyplace, just to get a mic in front of something.

It does happen. I'll meet and amp/player combo that I don't know how I could get with a sim, I'll definitely mic it up (as well as taking a DI)

When I'm all done, if its something I especially likedm you bet your ass I'll sit around with that DI track and A/B it thru a sim against the real track and work like hell to get it

really? if money is not an issue for me, then i'll pay somebody to bring the equipment i want where i want it and set it up for me, and that's pretty convenient. and i'll have access to try and test a whole plethora of equipment, and have them in my multi million dollar studio, in the basement of my house, and many mics at my disposal that i know intimately.

there is no way i would use an amp sim, unless i needed something portable. i mean, if i have the option to use the real thing, i'm going to use it. and sound quality of the recording doesn't even matter to me. you could not tell the difference of the sound in an A/B comarison on a recording, and i'd still go the extra effort for the real thing. because it feels real. and when i play music feel is so incredibly important. on stage as well. i mean if i'm playing on stage alot, i want my shit to sound and feel awesome. if i'm recording something, then i want it to have the same feel as i get on stage.

i mean, is there a difference to the sound if i'm in a glass soundproof room, inside a big grey empty room? and a glass soundproof room on a stage with a crowd going nuts for me? no.

but i'll take playing in front the crowd please. and my music will be different, because i will feel different.

i feel you are approaching it as a producer, but my approach is more as teh artist.

if you recorded me, and i was the type to have heavy distortion and crap like that, i wouldn't settle for less than the real thing.

i mean, for me, it would more be a piano thing. if money is not an issue for me, then you're getting me a c7 yamaha grand piano, not some sim. i don't care how good the sim is. but i'll still own a copy of a good sim as well, for the times that require it.

i'd never record an album that way though if money was not an issue. there's no way.

in fact, for amp sim vs real thing, i would even prefer a lesser sound of real thing over a better sound of sim.

for sure. easily. i mean, to a certain point, but feel is real important to me.

you know? as the artist, i care about the feel, i care about how i perceive the musical experience, getting it to sound right on the recording is the guy recording me's problem. if he has to setup some more shit, i don't care. if i have to setup some more shit, i don't care. but if i'm recording myself in a studio, then money and a room, is a problem.

money is always a factor. i mean, i am not necessarily the most picky when it comes to sound equipment. i mean, i think others are more picky than me, but if it's the instruments themselves, i'm picky as fuck. those are my tools. i control sound to make music, how i can do that, matters, how i perceive it matters. capturing it on a recording is totally secondary to me.

what would you rather? a good song on a bad recording? or a bad song on a good recording?

me too.

if i'm the source of the music, then making my perception of the music i'm making is the important part. that will make the song better. the recording of the song, is secondary. the sound and feel of the instrument affects my performance. it affects the song. the important part to me.

you know? who cares how much of a difference it makes on the recording? what matters is the music maker, the musicians and their relationships with their craft.

that's all i'm saying. now, for me, i'm limited by cash. so i can't spend as much money as possible on improving my experience as much as possible, but even at that, i do where i can. that's my goal, spend the cash i have the most to get there. the feel and experience to me as much as my money can buy. and my guitar is a good example of that.

so really is all my other gear the way i planned it out.

my room does suck thoguh, and my recordings do suck for it. but i don't care that much about that, because some hum in the background i'm not listening to doesn't affect my musicianship.

having a real amp vs an amp sim however, would.

[Bristol Posse]

Originally Posted by Cosmic

Thats an interesting idea about creating depth by using varying mic distances...something I'm gonna have to experiment with

yeah it's quite interesting
It's not just that sound amplitude drops off with distance or that high frequencies need a lot more energy to travel though air and so drop off very quickly with distance. There's also the whole interaction with the room. the further you pull a mic away from the cab the more you are dealing with reflections in the room and if you are not centered then the reflections are not uniform either so you could have multiple reflections and reflections of reflections arriving at all kinds of different times mixed in with the direct sound and these are all cues that our brain uses to judge where something is and how far away

I'm actually messing with prerecording panning using M/S stereo to place a guitar left or right of the sound stage. Again it's more than what panning does which is to change the relationship of the amplitude in the left and right channels. there's the whole difference in reflections and room interactions as well as sound amplitude that give us the aural clues as to where an object is in the space around us

It's sort of like a seeing a movie in 3D versus actors on real stage. The 3D movie is a neat trick to fool your brain into seeing depth on a two dimensional screen, but ultimately it's not quite the same as seeing real people in a real space. Some of the cues are missing and it's just a little off. I find close micing and using FX tricks to fake distance is just not quite the same as actually recording at a distance

You probably can get very close using good impulses(or good impulses of bad space as Pipe pointed out) eq tricks and filters, but to my poor little brain, trying to deal with that level of complexity is like one of those crazy inventions to crack an egg that involve 300 stages of rolling balls, mice running in wheels, action figures on parachutes, bunsen burners and old boots on sprung levers. I applaud the inventiveness but at some point it's just easier to pick up the egg and crack it on the side of the bowl.....
And at some point its easier to to throw up a mic and plug in an amp LOL

[pipelineaudio]

Originally Posted by Sound asleep

there is no way i would use an amp sim, unless i needed something portable. i mean, if i have the option to use the real thing, i'm going to use it. and sound quality of the recording doesn't even matter to me. you could not tell the difference of the sound in an A/B comarison on a recording, and i'd still go the extra effort for the real thing. because it feels real. and when i play music feel is so incredibly important. on stage as well. i mean if i'm playing on stage alot, i want my shit to sound and feel awesome. if i'm recording something, then i want it to have the same feel as i get on stage.

This is why I keep mentioning the psychological aspect, even if its 100% dead on, if it upsets the player, it won't be worth it

Which is of course a totally different topic than the OP was about which was"do amp sims SOUND fake"?

[karbomusic]

It's not just that sound amplitude drops off with distance or that high frequencies need a lot more energy to travel though air and so drop off very quickly with distance. There's also the whole interaction with the room.

I used to do this exact prodcedure with hardware drum machines "back in the day" to remove some of the sterility and make them sound more live/real.

[JazzCamel]

I use X-Amp in a pinch sometimes. It has sims for all four classes of tubes and solid state, and has many good overdriving features, allowing you to overdrive it in many different ways. (disclaimer I have to scoop eq @ 1k from this plug all the time)

Getting the right sound for the song or mix is easy. I have Fender amps in the studio and they get used all the time. I drop a DI box in before the amp sometimes and run to sim to have both on hand.

I find I can model an amp pretty well with some other plugs too. However, if the electric guitar is a very defining part of a band's sound, I suggest live amps. But most peeps aren't going to know the difference, only gearheads like us.

[mriesenb]

Originally Posted by JohnnyMcFly

Absolutely not impossible...
Go download the head case 1.53 beta here, crank the skull job head up and it Will feedback. Its a little easier to get with a real amp, but if you want it to feedback it will..

I agree. the HeadCase Amp I'm programming now does feedback too easily even.

[mriesenb]

Originally Posted by samsome123

do amp simulators sound fake?

i am wondering how much better is the sound of real amps in recordings

whats ur opinion on this? thanks

check out my abg demo on the website www.acmebargig.com

it's in the interview section. comes very close to the version I used on my album which was done with a Marshall tsl 100 cranked.

and this was recorded like 3 years ago with an ampsim with much older code than the more recent ones.

[JohnnyMcFly]

Originally Posted by pipelineaudio

Only headcase seems to for me, and I feel this is related to another problem I've had with all amp sims until headcase:

Check out this thread, and especially the picture of the resulting waveform

http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...8&postcount=67

Yep, that also has to do with the release of the low end or more accurately the sustain of it..But I ain't elaborating.. haha

[Cosmic]

Originally Posted by Bristol Posse

I applaud the inventiveness but at some point it's just easier to pick up the egg and crack it on the side of the bowl.....
And at some point its easier to to throw up a mic and plug in an amp LOL

This is it.

And using two mics to actually record in the pan..thats the way alright..I should've thought of that.Trying to do it artificially is hit and miss.Makes a heap of sense to just record it as I intend it to be mixed

Thayts good stuff Bristol, thanks for taking the time to elucidate.

I might even experiment with micing up a sim coming outta the monitor.