MESA CAB CLONE video redone. AWKWARD IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT,!

ThorpyFX

I'm a big fan of mesa products, I generally think that they get the quality and tones just right. However the first cab clone video raised an eyebrow, Andertons removed it as most here will know because mesa thought there may have been an error in recording. ANYWAY the video has been redone, it's car crash tv and ultimately the cab clone still sounds shite albeit littered with defence of its shit tone....

Deijavoo

I hate that dude. I applied for that job and he got it. I hate his seemingly high level of decency.

digitalscream

Sorry, but I can't see any way to get from the tone they had in the first vid to the one in the second just by "gain matching". I'm completely convinced they either tweaked the hell out of the amp or did a whole load of post-EQ and compression (or both) to get it to sound like that.

The whole "Ah, but you were using two mics, and that's not a fair comparison" thing smells fishy to me, too.

ThePrettyDamned

This sounds like bullshit. 

Simulated outputs are useful, I use the Blackstar HT Metal one, but it doesn't sound anywhere near as good as it does 'in the room' through a proper speaker.  It's like a more nasal, compressed, focused sound. In a mix, it's fine.  Out of a mix, it's fine - it's not perfect, if I wanted a much better tone I'd run it through a Torpedo rack thingy with the normal output and use that to emulate the power amp and cab. 

And that's fine, I am dead happy to record with it. It's better than nothing, and I often don't have the time or inclination to chuck a mic in front of the amp. Not to mention the fact that, with a mic, you really need a bit of volume, if not for tone, then just for a decent signal/noise ratio. 

I do not believe the 'bose home speaker' test thing, either.  When I use the emulated output on the blackstar, I follow it with a tube preamp eq model, which lets me shape the tone (albeit in a basic way compared to more advanced software) to get a more believable result. 

ICBM

Still sounds shit. Boxy, muffled and takes away all the depth and life from the sound. If that's the best they can do even when they're trying to make excuses for it…

I'm not convinced there was anything wrong with the first demo, and the "explanation" is laughable.

digitalscream

The ridiculous part is that if you're using this for recording, you wouldn't use the emulated out anyway - you'd use the unemulated line out (assuming it has one) and put a speaker sim or impulse(s) on the end to tweak it and get it exactly right.

In that regard, it's no different to the Jettenuator...except that the Jettenuator can act as an attenuator, load box or straight DI. And it's half the price.

ThePrettyDamned

digitalscream;456837" said:

The ridiculous part is that if you're using this for recording, you wouldn't use the emulated out anyway - you'd use the unemulated line out (assuming it has one) and put a speaker sim or impulse(s) on the end to tweak it and get it exactly right.

In that regard, it's no different to the Jettenuator...except that the Jettenuator can act as an attenuator, load box or straight DI. And it's half the price.

Exactly - if you've got the money for a cab clone, you could get a jettenuator and some really good software DI stuff.

I couldn't believe how great stuff sounded when I used a free trial of torpedo wall of sound. I could use line 6 amp models, with torpedo, and get astonishingly great sounds.

Bucket

I've got a CabClone built into my Mesa amp and every time I've DI'd it for recording it's sounded great. Several producers have been very impressed with it. Can't work out why people think it's so bad. Do I just have cloth ears or summat?

ICBM

Bucket said:

I've got a CabClone built into my Mesa amp and every time I've DI'd it for recording it's sounded great. Several producers have been very impressed with it. Can't work out why people think it's so bad. Do I just have cloth ears or summat?

That assumes the circuit is identical.

Have you listened to the demo? The Cab Clone sounds dire. (In case it matters, "Chappers" is much less irritating than usual in most of it, it is watchable.)

RaymondLin

The clone in that video sounds bad, one caveat though is that Andertobs videos are not the best at demoing gear, so this is consistent...

ThePrettyDamned

RaymondLin;456937" said:

The clone in that video sounds bad, one caveat though is that Andertobs videos are not the best at demoing gear, so this is consistent...

A good deal of the "best" gear demos has been processed - that's to say, it's not just a straight up mic signal into the DAW. It's had eq, compression, reverb etc added which renders some of the better gear demos less useful.

The pgs ones are not, as far as I remember from their explanation video, but they demo exactly to the gear's strengths - they don't play through with them, they just find a couple of useful settings and cover something that's most appropriate. They're still pretty useful, though, and consistent with gear used, too.

I think the andertons ones are useful in the sense that they're a relatively honest representation, assuming you understand how chappers plays (usually quite hard). If you can stomach to watch them, that is...

FelineGuitars

ThePrettyDamned said:

digitalscream;456837" said:

The ridiculous part is that if you're using this for recording, you wouldn't use the emulated out anyway - you'd use the unemulated line out (assuming it has one) and put a speaker sim or impulse(s) on the end to tweak it and get it exactly right.

In that regard, it's no different to the Jettenuator...except that the Jettenuator can act as an attenuator, load box or straight DI. And it's half the price.

Exactly - if you've got the money for a cab clone, you could get a jettenuator and some really good software DI stuff.

I couldn't believe how great stuff sounded when I used a free trial of torpedo wall of sound. I could use line 6 amp models, with torpedo, and get astonishingly great sounds.

I'm looking forward to getting to use my two notes Torpedo live unit.

Bucket

ICBM said:

Bucket said:

I've got a CabClone built into my Mesa amp and every time I've DI'd it for recording it's sounded great. Several producers have been very impressed with it. Can't work out why people think it's so bad. Do I just have cloth ears or summat?

That assumes the circuit is identical.

Have you listened to the demo? The Cab Clone sounds dire. (In case it matters, "Chappers" is much less irritating than usual in most of it, it is watchable.)

Haven't watched the demo, but I will.

EDIT: Hmm, that does sound kind of shite. Not as bad as I was expecting, and I dare say it's not a terrible sound on its own but it certainly has very little in common with the sound of the mic.

EricTheWeary

Watching the start, that's quite embarrassing! It may well be in some contexts the cab clone sounds better but stand alone it's clearly worse sounding than the mic'd options.

RaymondLin

It's actually NOT that they made it sound bad that is wrong with the video, although it doesn't help, it is what's coming out of their mouths and they way they are saying it.  You get the overall feeling that they don't really want to say it and Mesa is putting a lot of pressure onto them just to get it over and done with.

digitalscream

RaymondLin said:

It's actually NOT that they made it sound bad that is wrong with the video, although it doesn't help, it is what's coming out of their mouths and they way they are saying it.  You get the overall feeling that they don't really want to say it and Mesa is putting a lot of pressure onto them just to get it over and done with.

Very true. What I liked about the original video was that they didn't sugarcoat it - it sounded crap, and they said so...and they gained credibility from that. They've now lost that credibility and then some, because anybody with any knowledge in this area knows that it's basically impossible to go from one to the other by adjusting levels.

Unless, of course, you're adjusting levels of specific frequencies

ThorpyFX

To be fair to the captain and chappers, they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. That video has been damned with faint praise by them both. Mesa should have just accepted that it doesn't sound good, which it doesnt... Whichever caveat you apply.

RaymondLin

You can tell how the video is going to go when they start making excuses before any demos were done, and to bring out that tiny battery powered speaker and say you can't tell and playing music through it and that iPhones are how people listening to music these days as a reason for it to sound it does?

You don't lower your bar to the lowest common denominator, they are supposed to be Mesa Boogie, not some Chinese fake Dr Dre Beats.  The goal is not to make it sound the same through a £10 battery speaker but to sound the same through a £10,000 TAG- McLaren bi-amped powered through B+W Nautilus speakers.  They probably can;t do it for their budget but that should be their goal and aim, if you can do that they it will sound the same all the way down.

Sassafras

I could only stand 7:30 minutes of that crap. It's got to be the most irritating demo I've ever seen. Are all Anderton's videos that annoying? And he wants to check more than his tuning.

I can't stand demos where they just blather on. Short attention span on my part? Maybe, but I don't think so.

richardhomer

"It sounds okay" seems to be the most positive comment.

I'm generally a fan of Mesa products - this does not seem worthy of the name.

And Chappers drives me nuts....

ThePrettyDamned

richardhomer said:

"It sounds okay" seems to be the most positive comment.

I'm generally a fan of Mesa products - this does not seem worthy of the name.

And Chappers drives me nuts....

I kinda feel sorry for them in this video...

Mesa sent someone to make sure they read the script and did as they were told. I mean, really?!