Jim Lill: "In-the-room tone doesn't matter" and he's absolutely right

I didn’t watch the full video, only about half, so maybe I missed something. But from what I saw… he’s not wrong. Just maybe pushing it a bit too hard and overselling the point.

I mean, the guitar tones that are stuck in my head that I chase came from experiences where I was sitting in a room playing an amp, and it was the sound of that amp in the room with me.

So that doesn’t fit with his premise that we’re all chasing a recorded tone we heard on a recording.

And obviously the sound of an amp in the room matters when you’re listening to an amp in a room
 
GuitarBilly said:
The guy is a straight up grifter. Making clickbait videos about how this and that doesn't matter etc then monetizing them and buying Tom Anderson guitars and boutique amps.

The little country video there he has about 15K worth of gear around him.. and still manages to sound like a goddamn KFC commercial.

Wake me up when he's gigging the table guitar or whatever contraption he is making "for science".
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This is a lot of hate for a guy making videos folks get to watch for free! You probably have some conspiracy about his lick a day Instagram feed to. Dude plays legit gigs, with legit pros, shares a lot of content with the world for free. If you don't like it, don't watch it. But calling this guy a grifter either misunderstands what a grifter is, or misunderstands how hard he has to work to get all this content out there.

www.premierguitar.com

Jim Lill

<p> Jim Lill is a professional country musician and writer in Nashville. He tours as a guitarist and pedal-steel player with Josh Thompson and runs a popular YouTube channel featuring guitar videos. He also curates the @GuitarLickADay Instagram account and hosts the Back from the Gig Podcast...
www.premierguitar.com www.premierguitar.com
 
lol "hate"

images
 
Boudoir Guitar said:
This is a lot of hate for a guy making videos folks get to watch for free! You probably have some conspiracy about his lick a day Instagram feed to. Dude plays legit gigs, with legit pros, shares a lot of content with the world for free. If you don't like it, don't watch it. But calling this guy a grifter either misunderstands what a grifter is, or misunderstands how hard he has to work to get all this content out there.

www.premierguitar.com

Jim Lill

<p> Jim Lill is a professional country musician and writer in Nashville. He tours as a guitarist and pedal-steel player with Josh Thompson and runs a popular YouTube channel featuring guitar videos. He also curates the @GuitarLickADay Instagram account and hosts the Back from the Gig Podcast...
www.premierguitar.com www.premierguitar.com
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Are you his defense attorney or something? I don't like the guy and think it's absolutely dishonest for someone who only plays boutique, handwired gear for his own gigs to make videos fooling people to believe a damn table with strings sounds the same. Go gig with the table then and see what happens.

Free or not, it's disinformation at its best if not straight up dishonest. Flat earth videos are free to watch too btw. They're still hot garbage though.
 
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If you look at his views, comparatively speaking, no one gives a fraction of a crap about videos of things actually playing related as his “controversial” “scientific mythbusting” videos


At very best as to what Billy’s saying, he’s certainly pretty disingenuous
 
The sound in the room doesn't matter....except when it does.
I'm betting it has mattered to everyone single one of those guitar 'heroes' that he implies we only appreciate their playing because of the mic'd and mixed result of their recordings.
So if it was good enough to matter for them who am I to stop liking the way my amp sounds in the room.

but other than that he's got a point.
 
So it’s late and now I’m just drunk and speaking to an empty room… but…


Does a singers voice not matter unless it’s miced?

How bout a miced saxophone?


What pixie dust is happening on those Timbers with a microphone?

Can someone remind what the OG purpose of a microphone is? Correct me if I’m wrong but… isn’t the whole point to capture sound from…. A room? :eek::eek::eek:

The more you think about it, the more magical thinking is required for a certain for a certain perspective…..and it ain’t the one that Jim is trying to “myth bust”
 
The point is already made, but this dude really made a 20min video on how guitar feedback is all in my head?

Anticipation Popcorn GIF


Also I'd point out that playing a room is an acquired skill.
Ask professional classical musicians how room acoustics influence e.g. how fast certain compositions can be played before they go under in a gargley mess of reverb in a specific room. How they prefer certain performance spaces over others, because of their (gasp!) acoustics.
Remember how staircases or big reverberant rooms made you clap or go "whoop!" as a kid?
All music happens in an environment.
Playing rooms and making stuff sound good there to a given audience in a given location is just part of the professional game.


In a mostly unrelated matter: That Dierks Bently record that Jim Lil often cites as his holy grail of "J.T. Corenflos Guitar Tones" does my head in with the corny and sometimes outright bad and cringeworthy lyric writing.
I really wanted to like it, I never made it through the whole thing.
 
GuitarBilly said:
The guy is a straight up grifter. Making clickbait videos about how this and that doesn't matter etc then monetizing them and buying Tom Anderson guitars and boutique amps.

The little country video there he has about 15K worth of gear around him.. and still manages to sound like a goddamn KFC commercial.

Wake me up when he's gigging the table guitar or whatever contraption he is making "for science".
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I don't think you understand what a grifter is.

GuitarBilly said:
Are you his defense attorney or something? I don't like the guy and think it's absolutely dishonest for someone who only plays boutique, handwired gear for his own gigs to make videos fooling people to believe a damn table with strings sounds the same. Go gig with the table then and see what happens.

Free or not, it's disinformation at its best if not straight up dishonest. Flat earth videos are free to watch too btw. They're still hot garbage though.
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Wow, you're an angry elf. Must be from the South Pole.
 
spawnofthesith said:
So it’s late and now I’m just drunk and speaking to an empty room… but…


Does a singers voice not matter unless it’s miced?

How bout a miced saxophone?


What pixie dust is happening on those Timbers with a microphone?

Can someone remind what the OG purpose of a microphone is? Correct me if I’m wrong but… isn’t the whole point to capture sound from…. A room? :eek::eek::eek:

The more you think about it, the more magical thinking is required for a certain for a certain perspective…..and it ain’t the one that Jim is trying to “myth bust”
Click to expand...

For music production it’s more about catching the instrument than the room I think?? I look at it like this.. I have my big open living room here, if I put an amp, singer or sax player in the middle it could sound amazing as I’m on my treadmill maybe 10ft back on an angle in the corner, kind of like where I would be relative to a stage, if i go up to the cab and put my ear right on the speaker or have the singer sing into my ear from 3 inches away where the mic would be the room is pretty much a non factor now and you’re hearing the instrument or singer which a lot of times sounds totally different than “the room”. I know the first time I mic’d a cab I said wtf is this shit?? The ripping tone in the room sounded like utter shit and I had to make adjustments. After years of practice you learn to capture the room sound on a recording, that’s the art of it.
 
"How am I ever going to pay off this Tom Anderson guitar and Dr. Z amp that I've been playing since before my first YouTube vid? I know, I will get a couple thousand dollars worth of camera gear, go build a dozen plus guitar cabs, spend a weekend making a weird sorta pedal steel thing in my dad's garage, etc., put up objective recordings so other people can form their own opinions, and give my own insight in terms of what this means to me, a guy that plays clean, to lightly crunchy country guitar with no feedback, and use clickbaity video titles and wait for that sweet, sweet guaranteed YouTube money to roll in. I bet I'll have the thousands of dollars invested into the videos AND enough to pay off my guitar and amp in no time! Best.Grift.Ever."

His Dr. Z Kemper profiles (that he freely shared) were easily the best Dr. Z profiles I had....way better than the official Dr. Z ones.
 
RaceU4her said:
For music production it’s more about catching the instrument than the room I think?? I look at it like this.. I have my big open living room here, if I put an amp, singer or sax player in the middle it could sound amazing as I’m on my treadmill maybe 10ft back on an angle in the corner, kind of like where I would be relative to a stage, if i go up to the cab and put my ear right on the speaker or have the singer sing into my ear from 3 inches away where the mic would be the room is pretty much a non factor now and you’re hearing the instrument or singer which a lot of times sounds totally different than “the room”. I know the first time I mic’d a cab I said wtf is this s**t?? The ripping tone in the room sounded like utter s**t and I had to make adjustments. After years of practice you learn to capture the room sound on a recording, that’s the art of it.
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Ehhhh...

Move your cab around the room, and put a mic on the speaker... it'll sound slightly different in various places in the room, particularly when it is coupled to the floor. The room is still important to the recording, even though you don't perceive it as a room sound through the microphone.

When I setup for a drum tracking session the first thing I do if I'm in a room I am not familiar with, is I walk around it whilst moving a floor tom around, hitting it and listening for the low-end response. When I hit a point where I have some oompf coming from the room, that's where the drumkit needs to be - and I set the kit up around that position.
 
Orvillain said:
Ehhhh...

Move your cab around the room, and put a mic on the speaker... it'll sound slightly different in various places in the room, particularly when it is coupled to the floor. The room is still important to the recording, even though you don't perceive it as a room sound through the microphone.

When I setup for a drum tracking session the first thing I do if I'm in a room I am not familiar with, is I walk around it whilst moving a floor tom around, hitting it and listening for the low-end response. When I hit a point where I have some oompf coming from the room, that's where the drumkit needs to be - and I set the kit up around that position.
Click to expand...

Slightly different maybe, if my tone in the mix though is too woofy and dark I don’t think moving my cab from my padded dead closet to my hardwood floored open living room is gonna do a whole lot. Shit wait a minute, that could be a great test video for people to argue about :idea

Drums are a whole other science
 
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