Analogue vs digital...Mic'd amp vs modelled amp

LastMantra

Danny1969 said:

Littlejonny said:

That's very clever! Didn't think of that at all...

I didn't think it was so much to do with valve amps, as to do with a mic on a speaker. Something about that focus, and the way the frequencies behave that seems to find its place in a mix easier. It's like it's more opaque, somehow less transparent.

No you are right ... It is to do with a mic on a speaker. A trick I got from reading an article from Bruce Swedien mentioned recording synths direct but then sending them out from the tape into the live room and then pick them up with mics so the sound had some real ambience, then mix that it with the synth DI track to make it real and sit in the mix better. We had an HK PA in our live room we could use for this purpose. Vocals recorded in the booth were sent out into the live room and back in the DAW. 

Basically nothing close mic'ed sounds quite right to the human ear. We never hear any sounds like that unless an insect crawls in our ear. Everything has room sound on it normally. So anything DI'ed like a modeller HAS to have reverb applied otherwise it just sounds dry as a nun and that's one of the reasons it doesn't sit in the mix right. It's not recorded in the room with a mic like the drums were.
I did engineer a load of game audio where it had to be bone dry. It was a Tome Raider style game and the actress they hired had to recorded running, jumping, panting, being strangled, stabbed and dying etc in this special ultra dry booth we built so they could then use the same samples in various bits of the game and add the appropriate amount of reverb to suit here location .. like running through castle, being stabbed in a forest etc. 

@robinbowes ;
Yeah reamping from guitar has been going for a long time now and I am aware of it and have done it. But these days I commit to track the sound I want. I print the pedals in terms of modulation delay and reverb. Same with bass, if I want a dirty bass I record it like that so it can't be undone. It's because I went years of printing the audio of keys and the midi and printing just the dry guitar incase it needed reamping and you just end with too many options. The sessions were getting to the 96 limit we had on PT and it just seemed pointless when the best records I have heard were done on 32 or less. 

So if it's basically about room reverb then can't that be added to the modeler? 

Plus a bit of hiss and hum from the amp 

Roland

LastMantra said:

So if it's basically about room reverb then can't that be added to the modeler? 

Plus a bit of hiss and hum from the amp 

It’s more than room reverb, but let’s get that out of the way. There are distance-mic’d IRs which incorporate room reverb. I’m not keen on them because they are at odds with the reverb recorded with, or applied to, other instruments.

What interests me are the subtleties of valve amps and speakers which even the best modellers don’t currently reproduce. They’re only noticeable in the studio, and at small gigs. Once the sounds goes through mics, mixing desks, off-board processing, etc they tend to get lost. Well to my ears they do.

koneguitarist

This^

We all love a particular guitar or amp etc, that someone else thinks it’s average or ok. But in the room with it and how it responds is where the magic to the player is. 

Unfortunately no one else in audience gets that including other musicians watching. 

Littlejonny

Sporky said:

I have never mic'd an amp. Every recording I've done has had an analogue or digital cab sim on it.

Some of my recordings didn't even have real guitar - just samples from Kontakt's library through Helix Native, or, before that, one or other similar plugin. No-one ever said they'd noticed. 

No one will notice...other people don't hear that kind of thing.

It does also depend on what you play - certain intervals produce more clashing overtones with digital stuff. There's a Rhett Schull (not keen on him myself) video where he compares a Helix to a real Marshall and discovers this. 

My original premise was that - I hadn't ever mic'd an amp in my own 'recording career' but have recently discovered that it does indeed sound better to my ears. Or at least - has a tangibly different quality in the mix that reminds me more of classic records I grew up listening to!

Littlejonny

LIVE is a totally different ball game. A good modeller into a nice speaker or a massive PA works great.

The sound bounces around the room, and the mix will be more chaotic than a studio recording. I actually think it's somewhat preferable if there are fewer mics involved onstage as well.