FRFR - is there any point?

Cabicular

Having tried my fair share of modellers through FRFR set ups and having to heavily tweak them to get them to sound like a normal guitar amp NRNR if there is such an acronym. I'm sure I'm missing the point
I keep hearing that once I've tried (insert modeller here) through an FRFR system I'll never go back but what are we trying to achieve here?

It seems to involve spending an awful lot of money time and EQ trying to replicate a fairly cheap and easy set up

I don't get it I'm afraid

guitarfishbay

Guitar + cab = sound of amp in room

Cab sim + FRFR = sound of mic'd amp as heard by the mics used to capture the cab sim

They are not and will never be the same

Cabicular

So apart from recording why would you want the latter?

monquixote

If you want to go the low stage volume in ear monitor route. 

p90fool

Cabicular said:

It seems to involve spending an awful lot of money time and EQ trying to replicate a fairly cheap and easy set up

And that's the crux of it for me. We're using NASA-style super computers to emulate something you can just go and buy for a few hundred quid in any town.

Of course modellers are capable of doing pretty well anything and everything a real amp can't do, but does anyone really use them creatively for brand new, never-heard-before sounds?
Er, no.

Drew_TNBD

p90fool said:

Cabicular said:

It seems to involve spending an awful lot of money time and EQ trying to replicate a fairly cheap and easy set up

And that's the crux of it for me. We're using NASA-style super computers to emulate something you can just go and buy for a few hundred quid in any town.

Of course modellers are capable of doing pretty well anything and everything a real amp can't do, but does anyone really use them creatively for brand new, never-heard-before sounds?
Er, no.

Even if you look at some of the crazy ambient sounds that people come up with.... two delay pedals and a reverb will get you there half the time.

Really disillusioned with modellers and multi-fx right now!

Alnico

I've googled it and i still can't find what this means.

I've sat and thought about it and still don't get it.

Can someone please tell me what FRFR means ?

Fake Rubbish, Fake Reverb? That's the best i came up with.

For what it's worth, i'm not a fan of fake amps and multi FX either.

Van_Hayden

There's a fundamental flaw to FRFR which means it will never work as well as you might think it would.

FRFR is almost impossible to achieve.

A full range speaker, especial one designed for live use will never be flat, and the worse part of the response is always around the crossover frequency which is generally right in the upper mids of your guitar tone, guitarists really notice it. That's why I never bothered with FRFR when I had an AxeFX.

You might think employing a couple of studio monitors would improve things. And it will. But then you run into the problem of room acoustics which further alter the sound. It's ok in a controlled space (sounds great in a studio for example) but a pain when you turn up on stage. For that disable the cab sims and get some guitar speakers on the end of your signal chain.

Drew_TNBD

Alnico said:

I've googled it and i still can't find what this means.

I've sat and thought about it and still don't get it.

Can someone please tell me what FRFR means ?

Fake Rubbish, Fake Reverb? That's the best i came up with.

For what it's worth, i'm not a fan of fake amps and multi FX either.

Full Range Flat Response, Andy

John_A

The point is to make it sound like any cab you want not just the cab you have on stage with you. if you really want to sound like you switching from a 4x12 to a 1x10 then FRFR will get you closest or if you want to faithfully replicate a recovery at full tilt at a wedding reception it's the way to go. What most of us do is have one cab on stage and live with the compromises because that's what we are used to.

If you play your whole set through a Marshall head and 4x12 cab and love the sound then modelling and FRFR would get you close in terms of sound, but no in terms of feel on stage (on the pub floor).

If you were playing stadiums the difference would be less so because you would be hearing most of your guitar through monitors anyway.

It also allows you to play quieter and still sound good out front.

I'm with you though, still like a valve amp up there with me

paulmapp8306

Ther is a huge point to FRFR, but its not for the bedroom/small gig guitarist.

When you go to a live show, a proper show, a touring artist - when you go to a festival etc - what you are hearing isnt the raw amp.  Its mic'd and pumped through a high power PA system (and quite often line arrays).  What you get from a nodeller using FRFR is THAT sound, just as much as a recorded sound.

If you playing in that area (and lets not forget in the US where these things take of FRFR wise, many small bands play in large halls with decent in house PAs - so are in the same boat), its easier to just feed the desk with a cable than fart around micing up for the perfect out front sound.  In fact int he smaller venues there is no time taken often.  Add to that valves behave differently in different environments and the variation of sound from that alone makes the consistency of a modeler perfect.

A LOT of acts playing such places also never hear a real amp.  Many have In Ear Monitors, many have floor monitors, many amps are located off stage etc - so they are used to hearing FRFR anyway.

Lets not forget AFX's/kempers etc are pro level pieces of kit originally designed for such applications.

The flip side - in Europe especially, bands DONT play such venuse that often.  Its mostly small venues where you dont even bother to mic up the guitars, but rely on the amp for all sound.  Even when we DO mic up - normally the amp is behind us as well so the guitarist is still hearing that as well.   There are cases (especially for function bands) where your on stage sound wants to be as low as possible - and FRFR can work there, but mostly here, were just not used to it.

I understand the concept.  I understand why its so great in certain scenarios, and FRFR has its place.  For the vast majority in the UK, and Europe as well to some extent though - myself included - FRFR just isnt what we are used to nor what we need - or even want.  Ive tried to like it.  I still prefer a power amp and cab in my music room despite having some nice monitors in there as well.  The only time I go direct is if Im recording - and the only time I use FRFR if NOT recording is late night when the kids are asleep - when Ill use my AKG headphones.

Moe_Zambeek

Modelling and FRFR took off in the states mainly due to the church crowd as far as I can tell. You don't see many normal grass roots bands with them (cos they are expensive compared to an old HRD and a couple of pedals). 'Church crowd' being code for well-off middle aged middle class American men with lots of disposable income.

Some large touring acts incorporate it for the transport (and therefore cost) benefits more than anything else. Metallica, for example, being one of the tightest bands in the planet

Drew_TNBD

Moe_Zambeek said:

Metallica, for example, being one of the tightest bands in the planet

Only costs wise!!

Sporky

p90fool said:

Of course modellers are capable of doing pretty well anything and everything a real amp can't do, but does anyone really use them creatively for brand new, never-heard-before sounds? 

Er, no.

Er, yes.

Well, I don't know about "never-heard-before", there are a lot of other people doing it too, can't rule out someone else having the same idea. But I've certainly not been spending my time with the Helix (nor with the VG-88 before it) making patches with just a Plexi or a DR and maybe a phase90 for when I'm feeling frisky.

ICBM

The theoretical advantage is that you can model a lot of different sounds accurately - including the speakers used for the original sounds - without them being coloured by running through a real speaker as well.

In practice, it basically means you end up using a huge amount of technology to get back to a very similar place you could have got just by using a real speaker. While guitar speakers do sound different from each other - I would be the first to go on about the 'drastic' differences - it's all relative, and in the grand scheme of things in a hi-fi sense, all guitar speakers and cabs sound broadly the same… so in practice, you can model a lot of different amps and apply a bit of speaker adjustment and feed them through the same real speaker, and it won't sound *that* wrong. Or noticeably wrong at all.

The other use is that if you want really non-rock-guitar sounds, you can get those because you're not limited by sounding like you're going through a valve amp and a speaker. It works well for acoustic simulations and guitar-synth type sounds, but if you try to use distortion it all ends up sounding like Mike Oldfield… which is a sound I love when Mike uses it, but it's generally too 'difficult' and uncompromising for most other purposes.

I really like the idea of doing this but I've never been completely happy with the results - ages ago my portable rig for open mics etc was a Mesa Formula preamp and a graphic EQ, which I DI'd - I didn't use the speaker emulated output on the Mesa because it sounded crap, so I just EQ'd the normal output until it sounded OK… and guess what, it was basically a speaker EQ curve. Our ears are just used to the natural sound of a distorted guitar through a guitar speaker.

Drew_TNBD

Sporky said:

p90fool said:

Of course modellers are capable of doing pretty well anything and everything a real amp can't do, but does anyone really use them creatively for brand new, never-heard-before sounds? 

Er, no.

Er, yes.

Well, I don't know about "never-heard-before", there are a lot of other people doing it too, can't rule out someone else having the same idea. But I've certainly not been spending my time with the Helix (nor with the VG-88 before it) making patches with just a Plexi or a DR and maybe a phase90 for when I'm feeling frisky.

Yeah, you've mentioned. Your cello business.

Might want to look up Helen Money and Jo Quail.

Drew_TNBD

ICBM said:

The theoretical advantage is that you can model a lot of different sounds accurately - including the speakers used for the original sounds - without them being coloured by running through a real speaker as well.

In practice, it basically means you end up using a huge amount of technology to get back to a very similar place you could have got just by using a real speaker. While guitar speakers do sound different from each other - I would be the first to go on about the 'drastic' differences - it's all relative, and in the grand scheme of things in a hi-fi sense, all guitar speakers and cabs sound broadly the same… so in practice, you can model a lot of different amps and apply a bit of speaker adjustment and feed them through the same real speaker, and it won't sound *that* wrong. Or noticeably wrong at all.

The other use is that if you want really non-rock-guitar sounds, you can get those because you're not limited by sounding like you're going through a valve amp and a speaker. It works well for acoustic simulations and guitar-synth type sounds, but if you try to use distortion it all ends up sounding like Mike Oldfield… which is a sound I love when Mike uses it, but it's generally too 'difficult' and uncompromising for most other purposes.

The one thing that is commonly said about FRFR solutions is that they're not as directional or beamy as guitar cabs. Any opinions on this J??

Moltisanti

for me on stage i don't want to hear the end result mic'd FRFR sound - i want to hear a guitar sound, through guitar cab and a power amp, i've tried both ways and it's a no brainer for me.

Proper valve amp + FX8 is the winner for me.

Sporky

Drew_fx said:

Yeah, you've mentioned. Your cello business.

Might want to look up Helen Money and Jo Quail.

I'm still bloody awful at cello. My teacher won't let me use the bow yet! I've only used the Helix with guitar so far.

I will give those two a go, thank you. I quite like Zoe Keating, Julia Kent and 7fingers for "modern" cello.

Drew_TNBD

Sporky said:

Drew_fx said:

Yeah, you've mentioned. Your cello business.

Might want to look up Helen Money and Jo Quail.

I'm still bloody awful at cello. My teacher won't let me use the bow yet! I've only used the Helix with guitar so far.

I will give those two a go, thank you. I quite like Zoe Keating, Julia Kent and 7fingers for "modern" cello.

Helen (not her actual name) and Jo both do looped atmospheric electric cello stuff. Very good stuff. I'll checkout those others!

Sporky

I've just put Helen Money on. Ah, Spotify. If only you gave the artists more money I could properly love thee.

Zoe is very looped but not much other effects, Julia's stuff gets more effected (and to me a bit harder-going) with successive albums. 7fingers is Anne Muller and Nils Frahm and much more electronic than the others.