Using guitar amp sims live onstage... requesting your feedback

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Level 1

13 points

Using guitar amp sims live onstage... requesting your feedback

I know this is mainly a recording forum, but I expect a few of you out there are using amp sims live. So I've about a dozen gigs now and it's been OK for the most part. I also use Logic to run backing tracks, and I've been using different amp sim plug-ins on live guitar tracks to test them out and see what works best. For the most part I'm using Guitar Amp Pro, but I'm also trying Amplitube 2 and Guitar Rig 3. In general, I've had comments from FOH audio techs saying that my tones are pretty good, but there's always seems to be a bit of harshness and thinness in the tone that is not apparent in my headphones at home, and if anything I tend to reduce the treble and presence in all my patches, below that of the factory presets anyway.

I mainly play through the monitor systems at gigs, and am looking at different in-ear options, but last weekend I played a venue with limited on-stage monitor capabilities, so I made provisions on my own. I split off the stereo signal coming out of my Firebox interface and went into a little Mackie 1202 mixer, then into a Crest stereo power amp, then into my Vox 4x12 stereo guitar cabinet. You can't run a processed guitar signal back into a regular guitar amp head as this combination sounds like ka-ka, understandably, because the amp sims have already processed what the amp would then process a 2nd time. Anyway, I ran the EQ's on the mixer totally flat, so in effect I was sending the uncolored original sound to the cabinet.

Surprisingly, in this new configuration my tone was actually very good and "amp-like" sounding. My theory is that the 4x12 cabinet, not having a horn or high frequency driver, naturally removed any high end harshness with it's limited frequency response (it's probably about 8Khz bandwidth I'm guessing). I might have expected my tone to be muffled, so either I'm running too much high end in my patches or what, but it's no wonder that a monitor or FOH loudspeaker system with separate high frequency drivers would sound the way they do. My next thoughts are to maybe test running a low pass filter on the output strips in Logic to roll-off frequencies above 8kHz or so, to limit what gets fed out to the monitors and FOH.

Another theory about the thin sound is due to the fact that in an amp sim environment on-stage, there really isn't any air moving speakers like in a true mic'd up guitar cabinet on-stage. In terms of amp sim preferences, I find that Guitar Amp Pro is not as detailed or warm as the others, but it can be tweaked for acceptable higher gain tones and some really nice clean tones. I think in general, Amplitube 2 has the fullest fattest tone in some of their amp models, and while Guitar Rig 3 has some really nice models which sound fine in headphones or studio monitors, they seem to sound the thinnest live of the three sims I've tested.

I know guitar tone is a very personal thing and what sounds good to one person may sound like crud to another, but what generalities and experiences have some of you had? I think we're just on the tip of a revolution in live guitar, what with the new Stomp IO and Rig Kontrol products coming out, just to name a few... Also, how are some of you finding the latency issues that are still hindering this technology to some degree? Many thanks in advance!

20" iMac 2.4Ghz, 3GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.5.3), Logic Pro 8, Presonus Firebox, Boss GT-3

Posted on Jun 9, 2008 4:19 PM

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Answer 1

Bryan Day

Level 3

749 points

Aug 27, 2008 2:15 AM in response to m2m2m

Hi,

My experiences with this kind of setup is that it sounds best to me with all the guitar cab simulation turned off (leaving just the pedal and amp emulations) then routing it out to a decent guitar amp, set to a clean sound, via a passive low-to-hi impedance box like the one mentioned earlier. It all depends on why you want to use the computer in the first place I suppose... It's either for the advantages of not having to cart an amp and pedals around with you, or having the instant recall of all those presets.

I haven't made the jump quite yet, but I've experimented quite a bit. More recently I've not needed such a wide variety of sounds in any particular set so I've stayed with my Fender Bassman and a few pedals. If I need more than that in the future I'll still be going into the Bassman.

Cheers,
Bryan.

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Answer 2

Jul 6, 2008 10:48 PM in response to m2m2m

Hey, welcome to the forum!

I've been using Amplitube 2 live onstage for a while, too. I've played with GA Pro and GR 3 as well, and I agree with you... I have the easiest time getting tones I like with Amplitube. And I've had the same experience with treble/presence, as well--I have to use radical tone control settings in Amplitube (with some amp models, I have the treble down around 10% and the midrange around 90%), and I tend to lower the treble and presence even more after live gigging. I monitor myself through Sensaphonics IEM, and I've been fairly happy with the tone.

For my next few tours, I'm going to try using a real amp onstage, though. I find the hardest thing about the amp sims is getting them to sound fat without being too compressed or muffled. After much gigging and tweaking, I think I've gotten my sounds to the point where sound engineers are happy with what I'm sending them, but I still haven't been able to mimic the fatness of a real amp/speaker without using more Amplitube compression than I'd like--at the moment, my tone is good, but it's not as dynamic as from a real amp, and if I lower the plug-in compression, the tone starts to get thin.

I'll let you know what I think after moving back to a real amp for a while.

Regarding latency, with a MOTU Traveler I get about 4ms at 32 sample buffer setting, but I have to turn off Amplitube's high-resolution and oversampling options to get that, so I tend to run the MOTU at 64 samples of buffer, which is around 6ms of latency. That's enough latency that I could never live with it if then I ran out through a guitar cabinet or a stage monitor, but since I'm using in-ears, the sound gets to me immediately, and the latency I hear is kinda like the delay you hear standing in front of an amp onstage. I'd prefer less latency (personally, I like the sound of analog headphones and a close-mic on the speaker... that way, I feel most connected with the strings), but 6ms is workable for me.

Also, sometimes I run a parallel signal path in Amplitube and run out to a stage amp (using no cab sim and minimal amp modeling in Amplitube) as well as DI to the house, and I find that helps fill out the sound and make the guitar feel a bit more alive onstage.

Hey, if you want to hear some samples of my Logic/Amplitube rig, search archive.org for "Waybacks." Pretty much anything between 12/07 and 6/08 is all Amplitube DI. The next few months, I'll bring an amp along, too, and I'm curious to see how different it feels for me, and whether or not anyone in the audience cares either way...

James

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Answer 3

Jul 7, 2008 7:16 AM in response to m2m2m

Hello m2m2m,

I would look into:

http://www.radialeng.com/di-xamp.htm

I would then input into a low watt tube amp, that should give you a warm tone. Then try to adjust your amp EQ, and hopefully minimal adjustments would be needed after from guitar amp pro, etc.

The only other issue would be latency, which jnashguitar has covered very well. I would consider upgrading your interface though.

Hope that helps!

-delton

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Answer 4

el jeffe

Level 1

30 points

Jul 7, 2008 8:33 AM in response to m2m2m

Keep it simple. I'd go with a powered PA speaker. The amp sims are designed to emulate speaker cabinets so running the mac output into another "guitar" speaker cabinet is redundant. Using a powered PA speaker as your monitor gives you a better reference as to what the FOH is hearing.

Use a good interface - the Apogee Duet is top recommendation. Accepts guitar signal input very well. I used to use a Firebox, and found after switching to the Duet my guitar and bass tones were drastically improved. If you are sending the Duet's unbalanced output to a mixing console off stage you will need to use a DI box. Does not have to be fancy just a plain passive (no power) style.

I believe the Firebox outputs are balanced so no Di required. You might want to try lowing the output level on your Firebox because many mixers XLR inputs do not handle the high +4 line levels. Take it down 20db. It is possible you are over-driving the mix console's mic preamps.

A very simple solution to reducing the "thin-ness" ; turn down the treble knob on your guitar???

I would venture to say the harshness and thin sound you describe may very well be the fault of the sound system and "engineer" 90% of sound guys are marginal at best IMHO.

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Answer 5

Jul 7, 2008 9:14 AM in response to el jeffe

That is good advice too. In all of my years as a professional audio engineer I have never liked a direct sound yet, it just doesn't sound as good to me. Based off my experiences, if you have a tube amp with a lot of clean headroom it can work fairly well, similar to using a lot of pedals etc... OK maybe it wouldn't sound good with every amp sim, but certain pedals don't sound good with certain amps and so on. I think another issue would be inputing the guitar rig itself, proper instrument level etc...

I have mic'd a couple rigs this way and I must say it was the best computer interfaced guitar tone that I had heard.

Just my opinion though, for what it is worth.

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Answer 6

m2m2m Author

Level 1

13 points

Aug 26, 2008 9:16 PM in response to m2m2m

hey thanks for the responses guys! I usually get notified via email when a reply is posted but that didn't happen for this post (?). Anyway, great advice, but in the meantime I've actually managed to make a dramatic improvement in my onstage tone and it was very simple, and logical too. The first rather embarrassing point is that I tried setting up my tones with different sets of headphones and whoa what a difference. One would expect that different headphones will all sound different (as it is with loudspeakers) but the Yamaha headphones I was previously using removed pretty much every bit of high-end harshness that I was hearing on stage through the monitors, so what I thought was a good sound in reality was NOT. With my new BeyerDynamic earbuds (which I will be using as in-ears onstage soon) I heard pretty much exactly the same harshness that the Yamaha's were masking.

The fix to this was actually pretty simple: in the cabinet simulators of the plug-ins, I simply moved the mic to "off-center" instead of "on centre" where I had the majority of my patches saved as. Other than maybe a little less presence and treble, the tone was instantly 100% better. The funny thing is, from all the live shows I've done I always position the mic off-centre because it sounds better, doh!

I've played 4 shows since and 3 of them were festival style with great quality monitor rigs and my guitar absolutely rocked when on high gain tones, instead of giving my bandmates and the first few rows in the audience a very close shave 🙂 The tone was very punchy, fat and "amp-like" and I was even getting some controllable feedback from the wedges. The guys in the band and even some FOH engineers commented that I had great tone so I felt alot better about the whole thing. The other show was a club with cheap monitors and while the sound was nowhere as good, it still was not harsh like before.

I admit that my overall tone is maybe still not quite as dynamic as it could be and there's a minimal (but almost unnoticeable) amount of latency, but overall it sounds like a guitar should, and I've heard many players with good quality amp rigs that sound much worse. I'm going to continue with my "ampless" crusade (no hard feelings jnashguitar haha!) and as technology improves I'm confident I'll continue to zero in on that elusive holy grail of guitar tone that every guitarist can attest to. That's the thing with guitarists, we think we have achieved the perfect tone, but after a few months we start looking again, but that's what makes it fun, buying new toys, trying new things. Good tone is everywhere!

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