Help me out a bit here...

Bidley

So I've done a fair bit of recording, but I've only ever done it by either micing up an amp, or using digital modeling.

So I'm starting to really like my Ibanez Tube King, and I'd like to try and record some stuff using it, but I'm not sure how to go about it.

It doesn't have a built-in cab sim, you see, so what's the accepted way around this? Is using a cab sim from Amplitube an option? Or are there specific programs for this?

Help a n00b out!

guitarfishbay

Yes you could plug it in to your interface and put it through Amplitube. If you do this make sure to avoid clipping your interface and it should sound pretty good.

Bidley

Thanks @guitarfishbay!

Out of interest, how would you do it?

guitarfishbay

It is a distortion pedal right?  I've never used one of those but I have recorded a distortion pedal direct before.

If it is supposed to work like a distortion pedal it might work best into an amp sim first, before the cab sim.  If it is supposed to be more like a pre-amp you could ignore the amp sim part and go straight to the cab sim.  You might as well try both ways and pick whatever you prefer.

When I recorded my HT Dual, which did have a cab sim but I didn't want to use it this particular time, I used ReCabinet to load an Impluse response (speaker sim). I didn't load an amp sim too but this was because just adding the cab sim got me a tone I liked straight away.

The main technical point is to make sure you don't clip the interface (this will sound bad), beyond that just pick what sounds good.

Bidley

Thanks for that dude.

I think it's more of a pre-amp job, so I'll try what you suggest.

digitalscream

Cab impulses should do the trick - some of them include a power amp in there, too.

Even if it's just a preamp into an impulse, you can get a lot of mileage out of it. I ran my AMT C2 preamp pedal straight into the Redwirez free impulses, and it sounded great. Better than the original cabs in my Eleven Rack, in fact (but not as good as those models with the expansion pack's speaker breakup feature).

Bidley

Cheers @digitalscream

So talk me through cab impulses? Never used them before, don't really know the deal with them.

digitalscream

OK, so the first thing you need is an impulse loader VST. I use keFIR:

http://www.kvraudio.com/product/kefir_by_piotr_habib_pyrzanowski

Create a track in your DAW and add that to the input effects. Now you need to download some impulse responses. I use the free Redwirez responses:

http://www.redwirez.com/free1960g12m25s.jsp

You get responses made using a load of different mics at varying angles and distances from the cone (as well as a bunch of ambient mic responses) using a Marshall 4x12" loaded with Greenbacks. Then it's just down to you to pick the ones you like - my favourites are the AKG C414 about 3" from the cap edge. Things to note:

- Make sure you choose the right sample rate (44.1kHz/48kHz/96kHz/etc) compared with what your interface is spitting out.

- Ambient impulses use a *lot* more processing power, presumably due to the length of the impulse.

- Disable direct monitoring on your interface, and monitor through the DAW (as you would with Amplitube).

Does that help?

Bidley

@digitalscream you sexy, sexy man. Great stuff, I'll get experimenting on this asap. Thanks dude

wave100

Torpedo Wall of Sound is a usefull speaker sim VST, the basic version is free but you can buy more cab models "in app". Fairly heavy on CPU power though.