The Sims Are Coming! The Sims Are Coming!

[crbowman]

Probably in 50 years or sooner tube amps will be relics of the past.

Exactly what my dad told me in 1971, except he said 5 years.

[NickC]

Some folks still hunt with bow-and-arrow and flintlock rifles. Some churches insist on expensive (to build and maintain) pipe organs, even though there are more practical digital boards available for a fraction of the price. Some hifi aficionados listen only to tube-driven components.

I think the tube guitar amp will be around for a lot longer.

The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

[alvarezh]

50 or 100 years after the last tube amps disappear, what are they going to simulate?

They need the real deal for their existence on the first place, they have no tone of their own. Would the future generations of Sims be copying their earlier generations?

All the best.

[vibratoking]

I have been told I am the only person to ever have played a Line6 Flextone II...

Here's an excerpt from a Jeff Beck interview:

What gear did you use on the new record?

I used a Line 6 POD on the demos. Some of that saw its way through to the final thing, because the sound of it was good and I thought, “I ain’t going to do that solo again!” But it was a mixture of a Marshall JCM2000 DSL head with one 4x12 cab and a Line 6 2x12 combo.

A modeling amp?

Yeah. I was surprised. People went, “Line 6? What’s that?” And I said, “Hey, you didn’t complain about the sounds.” I don’t remember the model, but it’s a fine amp. It enabled me to experiment with a lot of different textures without changing amps or plugging other things in. I also used the onboard effects.

[VacuumVoodoo]

Approach simulators as a new instruments or sound shaping devices and explore what you can do with the tones they deliver. Don't judge them by how well or poorly they mimic a "insert whatever amp name here" and you will find simulators quite useful. Just like JB did.

[overtone]

Approach simulators as a new instruments or sound shaping devices and explore what you can do with the tones they deliver. Don't judge them by how well or poorly they mimic a "insert whatever amp name here" and you will find simulators quite useful. Just like JB did.

a very good point.

Since about three years now, I have used them to get an idea down into a laptop when away from an amp. I have a few patches that are pretty close to the real set-up, but the sims lack something. Hence the no balls statement. Is it just because I don't feel my flared trousers flapping enough?

I was very skeptical about touch response and was surprised to actually find some on hand. Drill down to the hidden controls and you can fiddle with "sag" and "bias" too (on guitar rig), so I guess the future will be modeling directly from our very own schematics, tweaking virtual component changes as we go.

Best, tony

[katopan]

50 or 100 years after the last tube amps disappear, what are they going to simulate?

I was thinking similar, that they'll have to keep small stocks of valve amps working to have the point of reference as to why their model sounds so much like the 'real' one. Hopefully the future will be better than that!

I'm in my late 30's and so grew up in the 80's when valve guitar amps were out of favour. Every other kid I knew had a SS amp and we didn't even know valves were still available. By then my uncle had changed over from being a TV/radio repairman to writing accounting software for the local councils. (If only I'd know then to ask about it all, he probably would've given me his whole stock of replacement valves, which either got thrown out or possibly passed on to someone else for free.) Some of us made music, or many at least listened to music made by sequencer software on Commodore 64s or Amiga computers. Building a MIDI interface or an A/D sampler circuit was a big deal. Fast forward to 4 years ago and I finished my first valve amp (18 Watt) and finally thought "that's the guitar sound I've been after". I know it's all a bit of a revival thing happening at the moment, but I don't think they'll ever die.

[Reeltarded]

A wise man (on this forum) once said...

"Margarine has been around for 200 years... and it still ain't butter!"
...in the end, some things just can´t be replaced.

lol lol lol lol lol

[stelligan]

The Eleven rack had some input resistance stuff going on that was touted to help the feel and response of the models. "True-z" I think it was called. I purchased one with high hopes - I returned it promptly. It did not butter my biscuit....

I showed up at the studio with a bunch of gear for a session. I was informed (by the guy paying the bill) I'd be plugged into the Eleven rack box. I tried politely to get the producer to let me use one of the amps, and pedal board, but he wasn't having it. It was awful. I played the session, the producer was satisfied, I got paid. But, to this day, I don't like the guitar tone on that track. The Digi people can say whatever they like in their marketing blurbs, but the "feel" of that box ain't happening at all.

abso-f'ng-lutely......
The tube amp is gigging this weekend. No more margarine for the biscuit

[Structo]

A wise man (on this forum) once said...

"Margarine has been around for 200 years... and it still ain't butter!"
...in the end, some things just can´t be replaced.

That's why I use "I can't believe it's not butter!"

[SoundPerf]

I find that in direct-in/recording situations they can be useful and even be an additive tool. But something just gets lost in live playing situations. Unfortunately the pros seem to really like this aspect of the technology.....less weight, reliability and programablilty, recording live, etc. There always seems to be a two dimensionality and lack of clarity of the guitars when I've seen shows that are using direct-in/modelling technology. Especially when saturated/distortion tones are being used.

I've seen Dweezil Zappa put it to convincing and good use a couple times live, but I still rather see a guy with a good properly mic'd tube amp and some effects on the floor. For my money, that has always been the most consistent and full sounding setup when I see live music.

[stelligan]

My "no amp" board and a noodle....
I hacked my GR-55 to send the guitar magnetic pickups out the far right jack out to the pedals, then return to the jack to it's left. *At a point before all the GR-55 processing. This allows me to mess with the gain structure outside the unit. Also allows me to plug a regular guitar in and use it as a modeler/effects device. On this patch, the CTL button also adds gain to the "amp". This is just using the guitar into the amp sim and verbs without using a "modeled" guitar. Pressing pedals and turning the volume knob up and down along with messing with the pickup blend knob. Recorded straight into computer with no EQ or processing. Just for demo and discussion....

[img525]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1wOg ... 520011.JPG[/img]

[The Telenator]

This has been a great thread with many excellent points made on all fronts. Unfortunately, I've been absent from it until right now, as I've had a busy week and didn't look into setting notification of responses or bookmarking until just now.

Of all the input, I know that NickC's is the one that made me most uncomfortable. I don't do regular studio anymore, and I did have some goofy dates over the years, but never was I told what I could or couldn't plug into. To me, that's simply a respect thing that staff should instinctively accord to an artist. Wow, what can you say to what he experienced?!

Do any of you remember the couple of scary years, maybe mid-'70s, when all the good vacuum tube factories were shutting down? Some of us were getting quite nervous about that. After Groove Tubes started up, we all breathed a big sigh of relief. We knew at least one company cared about us tube amp users. Then, many more companies followed and soon, even though the vast majority of new tubes were not as good as the old Mullards and RCAs, at least we knew we would survive.

Now I'm wondering if we'll see a repeat of that within a few years.

Another thing that is a controlling issue here is the younger players who will grow up perhaps never playing a good tube amp. You can't miss what you've never known. In that sense, nothing we say about it will be more than maybe a curiosity to players 50 years from now. It's hard to predict, of course, but very soon younger players will be driving the whole market and none of us tube amp users.

To me, thinking about this is as freaky as that new TV series slated for this fall. It's called "Revolution." You may have seen the preview, but it's all about a world where the power grid has gone down and hasn't been fixed and will never come online again. No electricity ever again. When I saw it the first and only serious concern I had was about not being able to use my tube amp! I mean, heck with the microwave, you know? Sure, we could all carry on with acoustic guitars, but our lives would be so changed musically.

I've tried many of the alternatives to tube amps. Like posts above, the Elevenrack didn't cut the mustard. The Fractal was closest of the hardware products, but at a whopping $2600, that's a good one or two tube amps. Even so, the software plugin I mentioned at start came closer to both the feel and soul of a good tube amp. I'll continue using it, but I know I could never feel happy and complete if I didn't keep a couple tube amps in my arsenal. I don't even have anything too fancy right now; I've only got one of the Pro Twins before they discontinued that model and my very old brown Vibroverb. As good as the amp sims I'm using are, I really need those Fender amps barking at me on a regular basis.

[NickC]

...........

Of all the input, I know that NickC's is the one that made me most uncomfortable. I don't do regular studio anymore, and I did have some goofy dates over the years, but never was I told what I could or couldn't plug into. To me, that's simply a respect thing that staff should instinctively accord to an artist. Wow, what can you say to what he experienced?!

...........

That was the first (and hopefully the last) time that happens to me.

Here is the rest of the story ......... the studio that was booked only had two iso booths. The budget for that session only allowed for three tunes to be tracked live in studio, two passes for each tune.

The band consisted of drums, bass, two female vocalists, acoustic guitar, and I played the electric. The studio drum kit was used, already miked up ..... but the drummer didn't like the set-up or the sound ....... and much time was ...... "spent" ....... trying to get him happy. The bassist was also put in the drum booth thru a DI to the ProTools rig.

The other iso booth was set up for the two female vocalists on separate mics. That's not how I would have done it .... and it didn't work. The bleed was going to make it impossible to mix properly, since the girls had very different voices. The engineer/studio owner ended up running cabling to the studio bathroom and putting one of the singers in there .... but the light and exhaust fan were on the same switch .... so the light couldn't be on because of fan noise ... and the singer didn't want to be in the dark ..... so he runs to the house for candles (you can't make this stuff up).

The acoustic guitar player was situated in the control room with a large diaphragm condenser mic on his guitar, and another for his backing vocal (which had to be perfect because of the bleed .... no fixing it in the mix). There was no where I could go to track my part using the amp/pedals. That's why I had to plug into the Eleven rack box in the control room ...... careful not to make any extraneous voice that would be picked up by the mic on the acoustic or his vocal mic.

I offered to re-record my guitar parts in my own studio using the amps at no additional fee, but the money-guy was satisfied with the initial electric guitar tracks and that's what they used.

That session came together much better than the time I was touring in Canada. We went to a native-owned radio station way out in the woods to be interviewed and play live-in-studio. The "studio" was the radio broadcasting hut where all the high-power radio broadcasting equipment was housed. Absolutely impossible to use a strat with single-coils in that environment. Everyone else was singing and playing acoustic instruments. I didn't bring an acoustic because of the hassle and deposit fees the Canadian authorities require when bringing musical gear into Canada from the states.

That time, the radio engineer had tried to come up with a solution on his own. He'd run a 100 foot extension cord up the driveway away from the radio-transmission tower/hut. He walks in, grabs my amp and says "Get your guitar and follow me". I walk out and down the steps behind him. I figured out what he was up to around the 50 foot mark on the extension cord ........ stopped him and asked "How am I going to be able to play without hearing what the rest of the band is doing?"

True story.

[Reeltarded]

I would put everyone except the vocalist and your guitar in the main room, bass player stays in the control. Bleed is stupid to fight when you can use it instead, you just need the experience, and a room that follows one simple rule.

www.elevatedbasement.com

It's worth the drive! lmao

The L6 kidney thing and a tube power section is a badass though. Great for a dobro, bass or whatever as well.