Hello! I'm very new to playing with amplifiers, so please be easy on me lol. I live with my family but I will be going to Uni next year and I'll be staying in accommodations, so I really need to be able to play through headphones (especially as I often play with high gain rhythm tones, and I really don't want to be That Guy). I recently got a Boss Katana, but I've found all the tones I've settled on sound completely different when played through headphones, compared to through the speaker - as in, they sound awful. I thought maybe it was down to it being direct from the amp to my headphones, so maybe a cab simulator with a headphone jack (Like the Two Tones Torpedo CAB M) would help me.
So my main question is - Am I at all right? Is a cab simulator what I need? As I said, I know very little past actually playing the guitar, so I could be very mistaken.
Leading on from that, if I'm wrong, do you have any suggestions to help improve the tone when playing through headphones?
If I'm right, do you have any gear suggestions? The Two Tones Torpedo CAB M looks amazing but it's a bit pricey, are there good value for money alternatives?
Thanks in advance!
Comments
Go to Uni.
Be that guy. Own it.
Welcome to the forum.
Trading feedback: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/72424/
A strymon Iridium iridium is the other option im interested in which is closer to what you're after w.r.t. just using something for cab IRs but a good ~75 more than you're looking to spend.
Don't know how cheaply those can be had but I'd imagine a lot cheaper than a Helix if it's only doing the cab.
A good point that was made though, even if the helix is quite expensive, it will remain useful in all scenarios (e.g. Will function as several high quality pedals when playing through a amp) whereas the cab sim will mostly be useful only when you're playing the amp through headphones.
Having said that, if that's exactly what you plan to do for a while then maybe the cheapest IR pedal will be a cheaper way to get you what you need.
Listening through headphones is great IMO, you can really hear the intricate details of the sound and won't let yourself be hodge bodge like you might if you only hear through loud amps where the subtleties are lost.
I would imagine that has speaker emulation on it.
What headphones are you using?
There used to be some slight bug on the Amplifire that made the cab sim not turn back on with the obvious button and it really did sound terrible without it.
Cheaper headphones sounded much better with those modellers.
I wonder if maybe it's to do with what I said about the headphones giving a much clearer idea of what it actually sounds like - maybe the tone you have set sounds good through a 12 inch guitar speaker because a lot of the nastiness in the tone just can't be reproduced by the limited range speaker but are being reproduced by the hifi headphones.
Maybe you're just really used to the "amp in the room" sound which is very different to a recorded guitar sound. If that's the case I'm not sure there exists a solution to fix that, as far as I'm aware amp/cab sims are based on recorded guitar sounds rather than raw amp sounds.