Real Marshall sound against others - test

[Derek S]

^^^ As long as you're happy (and your band mates are too) I say roll with it - that's ultimately what matters and it sounds like you've reached that point, so I say good for you. It's about the music at the end of the day anyway. Nothing wrong with futzing and discussing gear forever (and if that's ones goal, that's fine) but at some point most of us just want to rock and is really the main reason we took up guitar...plenty of ways to get great tones in different settings and have fun. Enjoy.

 

[Antti Heikkinen]

Yep...I do still keep a halfstack at home just to crank it up now and then. Not only it's a thrilling thing to play in front of a loud real amp, it also kind of keeps me grounded and from tweaking sounds in modelers to be 'too good' or polished. It's good to get a reminder of that now and then.

 

[Keysdweller]

I can, real amps always sound far worse in the context. Although you don't often see them any more, but some beginning bands may use 'em.

Here's a video from our saturday's gig...my firm take is that if we used real amps, there would be a snowflake's chance in hell to get even close to the ballpark of the sound quality and balance and everything. We don't even have a mixer guy, everything is set up at the rehearsal room almost and then we just go and play with some minor adjustments.

What type of amps are projecting the sound? FOH, PA, FRFR? I think I see a Marshall amp. Which modeler?

 

[Antti Heikkinen]

What type of amps are projecting the sound? FOH, PA, FRFR? I think I see a Marshall amp. Which modeler?

My rig goes straight to PA, but I have a 60w power amp on stage with a real 12" 60w Greenback speaker as a personal monitor so I can get it to feedback, and add a little fullness to the sound on stage and directly in front line. The lead guitar also goes to PA but he has a small 2500w frfr that's basically a PA speaker for his stage sound.

The Marshall JMP is the bass amp, with a 2x15", but that also goes straight to PA from his BOSS bass modeler, and the PA is comprised of two 12" plus tweeter tops and a single 15" subwoofer, something like 2K in watts. All the monitoring is in-ear.

 

[Keysdweller]

My rig goes straight to PA, but I have a 60w power amp on stage with a real 12" 60w Greenback speaker as a personal monitor so I can get it to feedback, and add a little fullness to the sound on stage and directly in front line. The lead guitar also goes to PA but he has a small 2500w frfr that's basically a PA speaker for his stage sound.

The Marshall JMP is the bass amp, with a 2x15", but that also goes straight to PA from his BOSS bass modeler, and the PA is comprised of two 12" plus tweeter tops and a single 15" subwoofer, something like 2K in watts. All the monitoring is in-ear.

Sounds nice. Which modeler do the guitars use?

 

[Antti Heikkinen]

Sounds nice. Which modeler do the guitars use?

I'm using Neural Plini on a laptop, thru a Motu soundcard, and the lead guy uses Neural Quad Cortex and I think Petrucci and Mesa IV plugs.

I'm switching over to Neural Tom Morello for most of mine however, it has more clarity and more Marshally crunch, although by and large it's fairly similar as my Plini setting. Just less saturated, more raunchy and clear.

 

[Derrick111]

...the point is indeed, sounds are listened to on headphones, in mixes, recordings, or via PA systems mostly, and in that context I think modelers have already won the game.

That is the opposite of my experience and opinion. Listening in headphones, in mixes, and to recordings is critical listening in comparison to live in a loud club through a PA blaring in a room that is almost certainly not acoustically designed for music. I don't think a simulation of the real thing is less noticeably a simulation when heard in a critical listening environment as opposed to in a din of loud sound pressure and sympathetic vibrations live through a PA.

This is a slippery slope thread... you could wedge any argument in here to suit any number of desired stances very easily. The fact is, most people make comparisons with high gain guitar sounds, but the higher in gain, the harder it can be to tell differences (real or simulated). In this thread however, the idea was fun, but you are trying to compare real with sim/modeling that are not "like for like" type sounds. So you aren't actually proving anything or drawing real conclusions on whether people can tell the difference or which is more usable.

That is indeed the thing. While I love to crank a real Marshall, to get it to sound right on records and on stage, it needs a whole lot of things, a couple of good mics, skillful EQ:ing and possibly fighting leaks or a bad sounding room....pretty much all classic Marshall sounds are really pretty far from what you can get yourself; the expensive consoles, possibly tube ones, old Neves etc, tube compressors, tape saturation...

All that is pretty much done for us in good models of amps. I could try for days on end to match the sound quality I get from, for instance a Neural modeler captured on a recording. It's just not possible (or at least at all easy) pretty much for the common folk, even seasoned and skilled in mixing.

Though not intended as a jab, I really did not like the real/miced amp sample here. It was not something I would find useful in tracking a session or in doing a mix let alone soloed on it's own like this (but neither were half of your sims). All that means is that you may not have the hang of engineering or the ear for what to seek in a guitar tracking session. But that has no baring on how good or bad using a real amp is. More to the point, having to use tools like a modeler of sim to counter a lack of ability to get a nice guitar sound from a real amp is certainly a valid rout, but also a crutch. I have seen 12 year olds shove a 57 up to a real amp and get great sounds on a cassette 4 track. So no, you don't need a half a million dollars in Neve and other expensive tube equipment or an audio degree to achieve it. Despite the claims, using a real amp and using sims/modeling are both equally usable and good for people.

 

[Antti Heikkinen]

That is the opposite of my experience and opinion. Listening in headphones, in mixes, and to recordings is critical listening in comparison to live in a loud club through a PA blaring in a room that is almost certainly not acoustically designed for music. I don't think a simulation of the real thing is less noticeably a simulation when heard in a critical listening environment as opposed to in a din of loud sound pressure and sympathetic vibrations live through a PA.

This is a slippery slope thread... you could wedge any argument in here to suit any number of desired stances very easily. The fact is, most people make comparisons with high gain guitar sounds, but the higher in gain, the harder it can be to tell differences (real or simulated). In this thread however, the idea was fun, but you are trying to compare real with sim/modeling that are not "like for like" type sounds. So you aren't actually proving anything or drawing real conclusions on whether people can tell the difference or which is more usable.


Though not intended as a jab, I really did not like the real/miced amp sample here. It was not something I would find useful in tracking a session or in doing a mix let alone soloed on it's own like this (but neither were half of your sims). All that means is that you may not have the hang of engineering or the ear for what to seek in a guitar tracking session. But that has no baring on how good or bad using a real amp is. More to the point, having to use tools like a modeler of sim to counter a lack of ability to get a nice guitar sound from a real amp is certainly a valid rout, but also a crutch. I have seen 12 year olds shove a 57 up to a real amp and get great sounds on a cassette 4 track. So no, you don't need a half a million dollars in Neve and other expensive tube equipment or an audio degree to achieve it. Despite the claims, using a real amp and using sims/modeling are both equally usable and good for people.

Sure, you can certainly get great sounds from real amps no doubt. It's just far more difficult, time consuming and hard to replicate consistently. Modelers provide just as good sounds but always consistently, very easily controlled every time and deliver it to the audience better. To the player a real amp may or may not feel or seem better, depending on situation, but very rarely to the listeners.

 

[Derrick111]

Sure, you can certainly get great sounds from real amps no doubt. It's just far more difficult, time consuming and hard to replicate consistently. Modelers provide just as good sounds but always consistently, very easily controlled every time and deliver it to the audience better. To the player a real amp may or may not feel or seem better, depending on situation, but very rarely to the listeners.

Maybe for you, but that's not everybody.