How do I make the direct to PA sound of a modeler not terrible?

[ian_dissonance]

Funny you mention that, my POD 2.0 was absolutely horrid through a PA, and slightly less so through an amp/cab. Maybe my ears just don’t like that digital tone? I like BIG FAT tones and the modelers give me thin and whimpy.

I still think it’s silly (and frustrating) that people can get so emotional about one camp or the other. I’m just assuming we are all on the tone hunt here and I don’t care how you get there either way but it’s clear that people will defend their way as the right way and make it seems like you are mentally deficient if you can’t make that way work.

A well dialed digital device will sound nearly indistinguishable (and wholly indistinguishable to most) to a mic’d up amp IF you’re not also listening to the sound of the cab at the same time. I don’t think it’s a mental deficiency, but possibly an awareness and ability one. When you say you’re mic’d up amp sounds great through the PA are you JUST hearing the PA? The goal here is really to get you to a place where the gear works. Because when used “correctly” it absolutely does work.

 

[Chocol8]

If you capture an amp, don't change the setting or move the microphone or anything, then record playing through it. The recording of playing through that amp and mic setup played through a PA should sound nearly identical to the Tonex One playing the capture through the PA. Use a looper so the playing is identical and you can listen without playing.

If you can easily tell the difference without working at it, something is configured wrong. In most cases you won't be able to tell reliably if you have someone do a blind test for you. With high gain, there might be clues you can pick up on, but definitely not any night and day thing.

 

[paisleywookiee]

If you capture an amp, don't change the setting or move the microphone or anything, then record playing through it. The recording of playing through that amp and mic setup played through a PA should sound nearly identical to the Tonex One playing the capture through the PA. Use a looper so the playing is identical and you can listen without playing.

If you can easily tell the difference without working at it, something is configured wrong. In most cases you won't be able to tell reliably if you have someone do a blind test for you. With high gain, there might be clues you can pick up on, but definitely not any night and day thing.

Right, there's definitely something wrong. Either that, or I've been hallucinating all the times I've seen DI'd amps/modelers/capture devices/preamps/etc and they sounded great.

 

[bucephalus]

Any DSP-based device that is used to simulate amp/dirt sounds is a modeler. They all perform mathematical operations on the digitized signal which are then converted to analog and amplified. That is the definition of modeling. The means whereby the algorithms are generated and refined are irrelevant. All such devices are modelers.

I stand, overwhelmingly, corrected.

 

[Count_Drugula]

What amps did you capture? What types of tones, how much gain, what speakers did you capture for these direct tones?

Redplate Magica, Splawn Quick Rod & Pro Mod through my Splawn 2x12 w/ Fat Jimmy C1265GB speakers. I don't have a means for recording direct amp tones.

I really don’t understand how you think people are getting emotional here. All you’ve done so far is reinforce you don’t actually know how to deal with this stuff, if you think digital is “thin and wimpy”. I mean, sorry anyone tried to help.

I can see it bubbling here and people's responses start to get insulting, like I'm playing through some junk that I don't understand lol. I see it on every thread like this though.

A well dialed digital device will sound nearly indistinguishable (and wholly indistinguishable to most) to a mic’d up amp IF you’re not also listening to the sound of the cab at the same time. I don’t think it’s a mental deficiency, but possibly an awareness and ability one. When you say you’re mic’d up amp sounds great through the PA are you JUST hearing the PA? The goal here is really to get you to a place where the gear works. Because when used “correctly” it absolutely does work.

I'm able to isolate just the PA or recoded sounds and yes, it sounds great when miced up as I've stated several times. What I guess I'm asking here is what exactly am I doing incorrectly if the sound should be indistinguishable?

If you capture an amp, don't change the setting or move the microphone or anything, then record playing through it. The recording of playing through that amp and mic setup played through a PA should sound nearly identical to the Tonex One playing the capture through the PA. Use a looper so the playing is identical and you can listen without playing.

If you can easily tell the difference without working at it, something is configured wrong. In most cases you won't be able to tell reliably if you have someone do a blind test for you. With high gain, there might be clues you can pick up on, but definitely not any night and day thing.

I haven't moved the mics since I captured the amps last. So record playing through the capture in the PA? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding your suggestion.

 

[bucephalus]

Oh you want to get pedantic for no reason?
Wait for it….

THERE IT IS!

Well I guess I've learned something today, and in italics no less. Every day's a school day.

 

[bucephalus]

I do agree that you should be able to play an ass kazoo through a PA, and have it sound the same as an ass kazoo through monitors. You won't, however, get ass kazoo in the room sound.

Depends how many watts your ass is. @jay mitchell am I doing this wrong?

 

[holoholo]

Run pink noise through your PA and use a flat mic and RTA to see.

 

[ian_dissonance]

Redplate Magica, Splawn Quick Rod & Pro Mod through my Splawn 2x12 w/ Fat Jimmy C1265GB speakers. I don't have a means for recording direct amp tones.


I can see it bubbling here and people's responses start to get insulting, like I'm playing through some junk that I don't understand lol. I see it on every thread like this though.


I'm able to isolate just the PA or recoded sounds and yes, it sounds great when miced up as I've stated several times. What I guess I'm asking here is what exactly am I doing incorrectly if the sound should be indistinguishable?


I haven't moved the mics since I captured the amps last. So record playing through the capture in the PA? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding your suggestion.

How are you isolating your mic’d cab from the PA to compare to the capture?

 

[Chocol8]

I haven't moved the mics since I captured the amps last. So record playing through the capture in the PA? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding your suggestion.

Do you have a looper? If so lay down a 30 second loop or whatever to serve as a test.

1) Run the loop into the amp, record the microphone that is pointing at the speaker.

2a) Then play the same loop into the Tonex One with the capture loaded into your interface and record that. The recordings from 1 and 2a should sound nearly identical through your monitors, if not adjust levels or what ever needs adjusting until they do.

2b) play the loop into the Tonex into the PA

3) play the recordings from 1) and 2a) through the PA instead of your monitors.

Compare the recordings from 1) and 2a) played through the PA to the Tonex direct in 2b) and all three should sound nearly identical. If not, adjust levels or whatever needs adjusting until they do. If it takes more than level adjusting something is seriously wrong.

 

[HotRats]

What are using to send an IR to FOH? I've thought about doing that instead of micing my amp.

I use a two notes cab m+ and I don't even load an external ir and use it's cab sim.

I think the cab m+ has been discontinued and now the new version is called opus

About your problem...

I think that when you capture your amps, you should record in protools few seconds of you playing through the complete rig, then play those few seconds back through your PA from protools and see if they sound good or like shit.

If sounds like shit then there's something wrong some where or could be that you don't like how your miced amp sounds through your PA.

Then proceed with the capture.
If you did the capture correctly your capture should sound basically like the recording.

 

[HotRats]

It's times like these when I remember being a young lad in 2002 or '03, showing up to a jam spot for some dude's band, with just a POD 2.0 in my backpack, and that shit just ripped. I mean, no not as good as today, but still. The others were like "WTF? That fucking bean thing is all of your tone?"

I have no idea how people continually struggle with this shit so much.

Totally agree.
I've played a huge amount of gigs with my pod2 + floorboard in the 2000s.

RIght out straight to the PA, left out to a Marshall valvestate FX return with an art rack (multiverb alpha) in the middle used to eq it for the combo. The combo was for personal monitoring only.

Never had an issue.

 

[GuitarBilly74]

It's probably been asked hundreds of times but this is specific to ToneX One, which I just got a few weeks ago with the intention of running direct for some practices or gigs. For reference, I'm a complete noob when it comes to modeling tech.

I downloaded some good patches and spent the weekend capturing my 2 favorite amps, they all sound pretty great in my DAW through my monitors. Plugged in direct to the PA is absolute shite though. Id be embarrassed to sound like that. It's just shrill, boxy, and so fake sounding.

Is it possible to do this without adding a cab or a bunch of other expensive gear? If I'm lugging a cab, power amp, frfr, etc then I'm bringing my real amp. Maybe I'm missing something but I feel like that's what these things are designed to do, no?

This is a common issue. Patches that sound good through your DAW and Studio monitors don't usually sound good through a live PA.

Take your Tonex and laptop to your practice space, plug the Tonex into the live PA and also connect it to your laptop so you can pull up the editor, then audition some captures from their tone database. That way you can hear them through your actual live sound system.

Download some tones that sound good through the PA you are going to use, and build your patches around it.

 

[GuitarBilly74]

It's times like these when I remember being a young lad in 2002 or '03, showing up to a jam spot for some dude's band, with just a POD 2.0 in my backpack, and that shit just ripped. I mean, no not as good as today, but still. The others were like "WTF? That fucking bean thing is all of your tone?"

I have no idea how people continually struggle with this shit so much.

To be fair, the interface of the POD 2 made it super easy to get good tones. You had a knob to select the amp, one to select the effects and from there it was pretty much like dialing an amp with the other knobs.
Today's modelers sound a lot better but seem to require a lot more tweaking. I'd like to see a company make something like the POD but with modern sounds. Just twist the knobs out front, press and hold "store", done. There is something to be said about having a simple interface with knobs in front of you when you are trying to adjust something and all you have is a 5 minute line check before the show. It's one of the reasons I went with the Friedman IR-D for my DI rig.

 

[jay mitchell]

You know full well exactly what we are talking about

We are "talking" about devices that incorporate digital models of analog signal-processing devices, aka "amps," "dirt boxes," etc. IOW, we're talking about modelers. There are differences in how the models are derived, but there are no differences in the functions they serve.

 

[paisleywookiee]

You know full well exactly what we are talking about so stop acting all holier than thou about this absolutely stupid topic.

You’re both being needlessly pedantic about something we’re all already aware of, and which has nothing to do with the thread really.

 

[Count_Drugula]

Some progress in the right direction was made this weekend. I was over a fellow guitarist's studio and he's big user of ToneX. I played my pedal straight into his PA (2x JBL EON 715) and it actually sounded pretty decent. Now, in terms of PA systems, mine is slightly higher end so I figured there's no way mine can sound so much worse. We rolled off a good amount of highs and lows to make it work. He remarked that he never liked the pedal run into a PA either but we got some surprising results.

The first thing I did when I got home, was to plug the One straight into the input of the PA and wouldn't you know, it sounds quite good. Then I hooked it back up to my pedalboard, but w/o the "post" effects after it, which are my Zoom CDR70, Diamond MLJr delay, and Catalinbread Talisman reverb, still sounded good.

It wasn't until I hooked up the post effects that the volume dropped significantly and the muffled sound became apparent. So one of those pedals is ruining the tone, I suspect it's the Talisman reverb because it has crap for headroom and is very picky about setups. I tried it on another board with just a DD-8 and Digitech Polara after and it was better.

Having no effects loop is going to be a challenge with this pedal because I'm applying verb, chous, & delay etc, after the cab, which doesn't quite sound right. Yes it has a built in delay and verb onboard, but I'm partial to mine and they are easier to control live. There's no way to turn off the delay or switch from a slapback to longer delays, for instance. If someone knows of a better way I'm all ears. At least I figured out the horrid direct tone for the most part...

 

[Chocol8]

The way to switch the delay would be to have multiple presets on the pedal and use something like the pirate midi Sascha has been working with to make it switch.

As far as effects before or after the IR, that shouldn't matter in theory, but theory doesn't always survive implementation.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Some progress in the right direction was made this weekend. I was over a fellow guitarist's studio and he's big user of ToneX. I played my pedal straight into his PA (2x JBL EON 715) and it actually sounded pretty decent. Now, in terms of PA systems, mine is slightly higher end so I figured there's no way mine can sound so much worse. We rolled off a good amount of highs and lows to make it work. He remarked that he never liked the pedal run into a PA either but we got some surprising results.

The first thing I did when I got home, was to plug the One straight into the input of the PA and wouldn't you know, it sounds quite good. Then I hooked it back up to my pedalboard, but w/o the "post" effects after it, which are my Zoom CDR70, Diamond MLJr delay, and Catalinbread Talisman reverb, still sounded good.

It wasn't until I hooked up the post effects that the volume dropped significantly and the muffled sound became apparent. So one of those pedals is ruining the tone, I suspect it's the Talisman reverb because it has crap for headroom and is very picky about setups. I tried it on another board with just a DD-8 and Digitech Polara after and it was better.

Having no effects loop is going to be a challenge with this pedal because I'm applying verb, chous, & delay etc, after the cab, which doesn't quite sound right. Yes it has a built in delay and verb onboard, but I'm partial to mine and they are easier to control live. There's no way to turn off the delay or switch from a slapback to longer delays, for instance. If someone knows of a better way I'm all ears. At least I figured out the horrid direct tone for the most part...

And you're not using a DI?

 

[Count_Drugula]

And you're not using a DI?

No.

And tonight at band practice I played it through the band's XR18 w/ IEMs and it was the absolute worst tone I've ever heard gotten in my entire life. WTH. I think my old DOD FX7 processor from the 90's sounded better! I had to abort and plug into the Bandmaster they had there.