Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2019 2:39 pm Post subject: Impulse Responses & Innovation
Hey Scott,
Recently checked out the recent guitar wank. Couple questions:
You mentioned you'd not felt that anyone was innovative since Miles in jazz. I find that highly confusing and/or think you have had to have been using hyperbole. Tribal Tech, for one, was innovative - yes derivative of Weather Report, but also some uniqueness. Did you mean since 1992 when he died?
But then you'd mentioned Steve Coleman? Not sure I understand because I'd content Dave Holland, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Reid Anderson, Ben Monder, Alex Machacek, Chris Potter and many others were coming up with innovative things. Might they have traversed a smaller footprint than Miles, sure, but that seems like some crazy hyperbole.
Also, impulse responses: in the past you'd said you can get a good tone out of impulse responses but recently said in the studio your tone sucked using them. Even crazy mofos like Eric Johnson are using the OX, in addition to Bonamassa. Not to mention Suhr and Thorn are obviously into them with the amp they're not releasing with it built in...and you'd mentioned that Alan Hertz has better ears than you with how he puts reverbs on guitar layers...
I get your argument about how people like Beck, Landau, etc. do not use certain types of modern tech...but I would contend a more likely response to that is that it's relatively rough to teach old dogs new tricks.
So I guess here's the question - if you are not experiencing confirmation bias and/or user error, what exactly do you think is deficient about this technology that so many great players (with, I would contend good tone) are unable to detect that you are.
The PT15 I.R. is the world’s first truly hybrid amplifier, marrying classic tube circuitry with a reactive load and digital impulse response technology.
I was talking about straight ahead jazz, not fusion, and although the guys you mentioned are excellent players, they haven’t come close to being as innovative as Miles. Small footprint is a huge understatement.
I don’t know why Alan Hertz is being mentioned here, but he does have better ears than mine, as do many engineers. They hear subtleties in the recording process that many musicians, including myself, aren’t trained to hear, especially concerning compression on drums, differences in types & brands of reverbs, etc. I don’t know why it’s surprising to hear me say that I’m not as qualified to mix and master an album as a real engineer. If I was, I’d save about 5000 bucks on each record and engineer it myself.
About IR’s, when I first heard them, I was impressed and thought they sounded better than the amp modelers I’d heard, but I only did a few A/B tests with them for friends - I never tried to replace my cab with them in a real session. Now that I have, I’m not impressed. I’ve had first hand experience of comparing them on my new record to the sound of my real cab, and for me there’s just no contest. Landau, Beck, and MANY other guitarists feel that real cabs sound better than the tech built to replace them, but if some guitarists like the tech better, good for them. I couldn’t care less, there isn’t a right or wrong, and that’s why your final question is moot.
Every player needs to decide for himself, and only for himself, what sounds good and what doesn't. What anyone else thinks shouldn't matter.
There are parts of my new album that were recorded with a cheap Korg Pandora. I kept them from my original composition sequences because I couldn’t copy the intricacies of the phrases with a real amp - I prefer the way the original phrases sound. I’m not about being “old school” - I don’t give a fuck about that mentality, or I wouldn’t be using the EchoBoy plug-in instead of my Echoplex. Musicians need to stop treating gear like it's fashion, and use whatever fits the music at that moment, whether it’s a ’71 Plexi Marshall or a Scholz Rockman.
All that being said, I haven’t heard a fatter, richer, or more pleasing tone than micing up a great speaker cabinet. Just my two cents.
I have an opinion on impulse responses. It’s personal so it is definitely not right or wrong:
For me, part of the art of recording is capturing your live sound. Not creating a sound. That is an amazing challenge.
I recorded an album with a Kemper and I like the tones but my goal on my next one will be to capture my live sound with a mic.
I now use a Suhr reactive load and my amp with IRs. I feel much better about my sound now because it is closer to my personal challenge.
My next thing will be to find a way to mic my cab.
All of this is personal because listeners don’t care how the player got the tone.
It is just that I view capturing your live sound as part of the art.
When I hear Scott or Scofield or Landau or Mike Stern(the list goes on), I hear the sound coming out of their cab and it is the same sound as the album.
That is an an achievement in my opinion.
Dizzy, I don't think capturing your live sound is very difficult - the only people standing in your way are the police, because it's loud! It's basically plugging in your cabinet and sticking a mic in front of it - what you did on your album with IR's is far more challenging in my opinion.
As Mike Landau says, every small detail is important because they all add up to great tone. In my opinion, the cabinet is one of the most important factors.
I'm not going to mention names because I'm about to say negative things about a lot of amp companies, who get their speaker cabinets from the same company in Victorville, CA. I owned a bunch of those cabs and thought they sounded fine. When Mike Landau told me about Kerry Wright cabinets, I was skeptical. They're really expensive, and I wasn't sure they were worth the money. After I bought my first one, all my other cabs went up for sale the next day. The difference is unbelievable. I'm hardly the only guy saying this, as Kerry's client list is the who's who of good tone.
It's hard to talk about Kerry without sounding like a commercial, but he gets his wood from one of the only countries in the world where wood is still light, and the lighter the cab, the more it resonates and the better the tone. He does a build that's a clone of a vintage Marshall cab, with dove-tailed joints, etc, but with the speakers of your choice. More about that below.
I believe one of the reasons I'm not hearing IR's I like is because no one is capturing cabs that I'd like in the first place.
As I said on the podcast, there's no way for me to know if the reason I don't like a particular IR is because the tech isn't there yet, or because I don't like the tone of the cabinet itself. Maybe if someone does some IR's of a Kerry Wright 4x12 closed back cab, I'd be closer to knowing what's going on with the technology.
One last point - the speakers! A lot of IR companies say they're capturing old vintage Marshall cabs. That's the biggest crap shoot ever - I've owned a lot of those old vintage speakers, from '68 to '71. Some of them still sound OK but a lot of them sound like shit. When Jimi played through those speakers they were brand new, not trashed for 50 years. Just my opinion, but some of the worst sounding IR's I've heard yet are from "vintage" collections. To my ears they sound like the worn-out rental cabinets which I sometimes have to use on the road.
OK, I'm done, and remember that all this is personal opinion about my own personal tone. You've proven with your album that great tone can be achieved with tech, and you're the first and only guitar player I can say that about so far.
I definitely think you are right about the IR quality after the last 2 days.
I plugged my fender head into my Suhr loadbox and went through many IRs of 4x12 cabs with greenbacks for hours.
Some sounded horrible and some sounded good—I don’t have a real 4x12 to compare them too.
But just compared to each other—there were literally some that sounded so bad that I was surprised they weren’t ashamed to include them. Then others were nice.
I am really curious to hear an IR of a great cab and speaker —too bad they don’t have an IR of a cab that we know for a fact is great. Then we could make a real judgment.
Yes, and it's not just the cab, but the room they're doing the capture in, the speaker wire, the mic (there are terrible sounding 57's and great sounding 57's), the mic pre... lots of stuff that can go horribly wrong. My favorite one is when people use good speaker cable, going to a cab that's wired with thin wire from a TV, like Marshall does these days. Or using a Marshall cab with a pressboard back - OMG. It would be funny to learn that all this time the IR capture technology is perfect, but they're just capturing shitty cabinets and bad recording situations.
One thing you said is very important - that you don't have a real cab to compare it to. Most people using IR's don't either, so they're surprised when IR's get a bad rap from people who can make the comparison. But the bottom line is, if it sounds good to you and helps you create good music, who cares if a real cab sounds better? I use my 90's Les Paul all the time on records - I'm sure a '68 would sound better but I can't afford one and I don't let it bother me. We use the gear which best fits our situation and make music.
The only thing I don’t like is when people who know the difference say certain IRs sound great for endorsement deals and music gear demos. I appreciate that you are honest about gear. I’m sure you could get lots of free shit.
If Kemper asked me to endorse them I would say no because I like the Suhr reactive load better now even though I could get free gear from Kemper(not that they asked me).
I have no idea why Suhr isn't interested in doing that - maybe it's because we don't use their cabinets. The new Celestion IR's are all Suhr cabs, so neither my rig or Mike's fit that profile.
Actually I have no idea why IR companies in general seem to have no knowledge or interest in Kerry Wright, the undisputed best speaker cabinet maker in the world. But, again, I've heard IR's that sound so terrible that I can't figure out why anyone would like them, so I have to think that the people making them are somewhat clueless about tone, and probably have never heard of Kerry.
However, I'm absolutely sure that Celestion knows Kerry - I don't know why they've never contacted him about capturing his cabs, or maybe they asked him and he said no. He's kind of an old school guy and probably doesn't think much of the IR technology.
One time Adam Stark and I used the Two Notes software to capture my Kerry Wright cab. We followed the exact instructions, made many captures at various volume levels, tried different power amps to power the cab, etc. We spent a whole day trying to make it work, but what we got (at best) was a very anemic version of the real sound of the cab. Maybe their capture software isn't that good, or we're just amateurs and weren't doing it right.
James Santiago, the designer of the Ox Box, said that he wasn't trying to replace the sound of anyone's cabinet, but make useful sounds to create variety. I've heard IR's that I would use for background parts, comping, etc, but for important stuff like solos or main melodies, I prefer the sound of my real cab. That certainly doesn't mean I think IR's are useless, and I really hope they keep improving.
One thing that might be interesting would be to record something (like your solo template) into a DI box. Then provide James and others an example(s) of your "ideal" tone.
From there they could take the direct and re-amp it and see how close they could get. Seems that might also be the solution to the dilemma you have of having to re-learn solos....
Actually I have no idea why IR companies in general seem to have no knowledge of [or interest in] Kerry Wright, the undisputed best speaker cabinet maker in the world.
I just googled KW but i can't find a trace of him, does he have website?
The cabs i did find are expensive and shipping one to Europe including taxes and custums will make it even more expensive, but i just got my tax return so now's a good moment to convince my girlfriend.
The best way to get a Kerry cab is through one of his dealers like LA Sound Design. (818) 845-8663
About re-amping, I've tried it and have never liked what it does to the tone, or I definitely would've been doing it, since it would allow me to keep what I play in the studio and re-amp it later at a higher volume. The problem is when the guitar gets split to the DI Box, it gets buffered. Anyone who plays with high gain will tell you that buffers suck - it's like playing through a tweeter. I can't even count the times I've heard "yeah but this buffer doesn't sound like that" - bullshit, they all do.
What would be interesting is to loan James my cab and see if he can make it into something useful for one of his presets.
The problem is when the guitar gets split to the DI Box, it gets buffered. Anyone who plays with high gain will tell you that buffers suck - it's like playing through a tweeter. I can't even count the times I've heard "yeah but this buffer doesn't sound like that" - bullshit, they all do.
Thx for the tip, i'll contact them.
If you go directly into the DI you'll need an active one. You can omit that buffer by using the RC booster and feed it into a passive DI. If you can find one you like you have that problem solved.
But still, from there the signal needs to come out of your DAW into the reamp box, question is whether you like what happens to your tone during that process. I use Logic and i hate what happens with the tone once it entered Logic. I have a fancy UAD Apollo and it's set at 88.2. If i use my iso cab i can monitor what's coming in at the Apollo and that sounds real good, like fresh. But once the signal goes into Logic and when i switch to monitor that, the signal is corrupted, like a little dull.
I've experienced the same problem, but mostly I get a fizzier tone when sending beck to the new amp because of the buffer. Also, the tone I'm hearing while I play totally influences the way I play. I've tried to re-amp a few of my solos, and have always had problems with certain notes sounding either thin or woofy - they don't sound that way with the original amp because I picked to fit the tone I was hearing. In general I don't like re-amping - I'd rather just go for a good tone in the first place and commit to it.
As I mentioned before, I'm using some tracks on the new album which were recorded with an old Korg Pandora. I was curious so I tried putting those tracks through a clean tube amp and it made them sound terrible, and I tried to re-play them with an amp, and couldn't get even close to the tone or phrasing. There are too many nuances in the phrases which just can't be copied. The performances are what they are because of the tone I was hearing. I haven't tried the newest version of Axe FX, but I did try the version before this and my $200 Pandora kicked it's ass, at least for trying to replicate my personal tone.
Anyway, my point is that a good performance through a gizmo beats a bad performance through a vintage amp any day of the week.
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