Ok, time to solve this problem

[deadpool_25]

Saw those graphs, very well done for sure,But yeah the FR is designed more as a guitar cab than a ""FRFR"" as can tell by the settings it is a darker voiced cab
which i would agree most will prefer a Guitar centric voiced cabinet
Does the Angel Mod flaten things up more ? or is only a noise cut ?

The V2 started out to just fix the hiss iirc. Then he identified some other issues with the stock preamp such as it doesn't have phantom power protection and its phase reversed I think. So the V2 addressed those as well. But he agreed the stock preamp actually sounded very good even with those issues so he built the V2 to be very like stock in its response curves. Bothe the stock FR-12 and one with his V2 can be dialed to be flatter than stock. At least that's how I remember it.

 

[pipelineaudio]

What does "more of a guitar cab mean" other than changing the frequency balance of what is coming in on purpose? I challenge anyone ever to show me an EQ change that will ALWAYS sound better, even on as narrow a range as distorted electric guitar.

Even that most evil of all frequencies, 315hz, cannot just be attenuated willy nilly, for instance if there's an impulse being presented that has already severely attenuated 315hz.

This is seriously at best just the Deepak OpraChoprah quote generating machine

 

[jay mitchell]

The V2 started out to just fix the hiss iirc. Then he identified some other issues with the stock preamp such as it doesn't have phantom power protection and its phase reversed I think.

If the remainder of the system is also "phase reversed," then "correcting" the preamp will cause the system to become "phase reversed." If you can't measure loudspeaker phase vs. frequency accurately (he can't), then there is no way to know whether the preamp needs to have positive or negative polarity (the correct term).

 

[Piing]

I've never heard a keyboard player complaining that playing his piano samples through his stage amp does not feel like his grand piano at the concert hall. He just adds a Hall Reverb
Maybe they are more technically clever than most guitarists. Many of us are full of esoteric BS about tone, or get option paralysis whith more than 3 knobs, or complain about a bright bright pickup and ask for a pickup replacement reccomendation without even touching the guitar's tone knob, blaming the type of wood, the fretboard material, nitro vs lacker, or the oil finish on the neck.

 

[FuzzyAce]

I've never heard a keyboard player complaining that playing his piano samples through his stage amp does not feel like his grand piano at the concert hall. He just adds a Hall Reverb
Maybe they are more technically clever than most guitarists. Many of us are full of esoteric BS about tone, or get option paralysis whith more than 3 knobs, or complain about a bright bright pickup and ask for a pickup replacement reccomendation without even touching the guitar's tone knob, blaming the type of wood, the fretboard material, nitro vs lacker, or the oil finish on the neck.

 

[EOengineer]

My “solution” ended up being kind of ridiculous but it’s working. I’m going with a hybrid approach:

I bring a beloved tube amp for the stage. Sometimes it’s a Rev G Dual Rectifier, or recently a Ceriatone 2204. Pick the amp that works for your stage/venue situation.

I use a Helix in 4cm with my physical stage amp for all FX on path 1. Path 2 has all those same FX duplicated and an appropriately placed Amp model matching whatever I’m gigging with - that runs separately to FOH and then the footswitching handles all the FX switching for both paths. It’s all synced.

It’s the happiest I’ve been. I get the tube amp vibe happening on stage and FOH gets a crystal clean feed that isn’t weird if it’s coming back at me through the wedges.

I’m still showing up with an amp, a guitar, and a pedal board (Helix). Honestly it’s killer.

 

[AFKAEjay(retired)]

I've never heard a keyboard player complaining that playing his piano samples through his stage amp does not feel like his grand piano at the concert hall. He just adds a Hall Reverb
Maybe they are more technically clever than most guitarists. Many of us are full of esoteric BS about tone, or get option paralysis whith more than 3 knobs, or complain about a bright bright pickup and ask for a pickup replacement reccomendation without even touching the guitar's tone knob, blaming the type of wood, the fretboard material, nitro vs lacker, or the oil finish on the neck.

If you don’t hear the difference between standing next to a grand piano and one reproduced by a speaker…idnk what to say…I’d be making an argument that yellow isn’t blue.
To then proceed by framing people who do experience the difference as relevant as lacking tech knowledge, navigating on esoteric BS…is either ignorant ….or insulting to many, amongst which the whole classical community, a large part of the jazz community who simply refuse to play digital pianos….and to some guitar players who do find the difference relevant

I know…monitoring IE or full range can do the job…makes more then sense where the instrumental role is mostly functional…been there done that, works…..but there are situations where it’s not only about “doing the job”….and I hope that kind of approach to music keeps it place in the world…

 

[dronerstone]

My “solution” ended up being kind of ridiculous but it’s working. I’m going with a hybrid approach:

I bring a beloved tube amp for the stage. Sometimes it’s a Rev G Dual Rectifier, or recently a Ceriatone 2204. Pick the amp that works for your stage/venue situation.

I use a Helix in 4cm with my physical stage amp for all FX on path 1. Path 2 has all those same FX duplicated and an appropriately placed Amp model matching whatever I’m gigging with - that runs separately to FOH and then the footswitching handles all the FX switching for both paths. It’s all synced.

It’s the happiest I’ve been. I get the tube amp vibe happening on stage and FOH gets a crystal clean feed that isn’t weird if it’s coming back at me through the wedges.

I’m still showing up with an amp, a guitar, and a pedal board (Helix). Honestly it’s killer.

Sounds pretty good, I run a similar approach.

One question though, why recreate the signal chain on two different paths? I get that synced switching is fun, but I'd rather place a split near the end, running straight to the amp, while running the "other half" into a cab + room ambience, then straight to FOH.

 

[EOengineer]

Sounds pretty good, I run a similar approach.

One question though, why recreate the signal chain on two different paths? I get that synced switching is fun, but I'd rather place a split near the end, running straight to the amp, while running the "other half" into a cab + room ambience, then straight to FOH.

I’ve got pre and post FX happening on path 1 with my physical amp in a loop, so the post FX are dirtied up with my amp signal.

One day I’m going to sit down and work out how to share at least the pre fx on both paths. I brute forced the Helix routing just to get a proof of concept going and still need to clean it up a bit.

 

[Orvillain]

I've never heard a keyboard player complaining that playing his piano samples through his stage amp does not feel like his grand piano at the concert hall. He just adds a Hall Reverb
Maybe they are more technically clever than most guitarists. Many of us are full of esoteric BS about tone, or get option paralysis whith more than 3 knobs, or complain about a bright bright pickup and ask for a pickup replacement reccomendation without even touching the guitar's tone knob, blaming the type of wood, the fretboard material, nitro vs lacker, or the oil finish on the neck.

Keyboard players are insanely picky about piano libraries tbh!

 

[EOengineer]

Piano players enjoy playing digital pianos as much as drummers enjoy playing rubber cymbals.

 

[AFKAEjay(retired)]

I’ve got pre and post FX happening on path 1 with my physical amp in a loop, so the post FX are dirtied up with my amp signal.

One day I’m going to sit down and work out how to share at least the pre fx on both paths. I brute forced the Helix routing just to get a proof of concept going and still need to clean it up a bit.

Probably simular results, but maybe a more manageable:
Use digital preamps & run your whole chain into the return of an amp…and sidechain a poweramp and cabsim at the end, and feed that into foh.
Obviously you loose the analog preamp, but I can’t tell the difference between my digital version and the real preamp…I assume helix does it fine also. In my mind key are the cab and the powersection for the experience.

 

[deadpool_25]

My “solution” ended up being kind of ridiculous but it’s working. I’m going with a hybrid approach:

I bring a beloved tube amp for the stage. Sometimes it’s a Rev G Dual Rectifier, or recently a Ceriatone 2204. Pick the amp that works for your stage/venue situation.

I use a Helix in 4cm with my physical stage amp for all FX on path 1. Path 2 has all those same FX duplicated and an appropriately placed Amp model matching whatever I’m gigging with - that runs separately to FOH and then the footswitching handles all the FX switching for both paths. It’s all synced.

It’s the happiest I’ve been. I get the tube amp vibe happening on stage and FOH gets a crystal clean feed that isn’t weird if it’s coming back at me through the wedges.

I’m still showing up with an amp, a guitar, and a pedal board (Helix). Honestly it’s killer.

Sounds like a great setup, if it's working well and making you happy, roll with it.

 

[laxu]

What does "more of a guitar cab mean" other than changing the frequency balance of what is coming in on purpose? I challenge anyone ever to show me an EQ change that will ALWAYS sound better, even on as narrow a range as distorted electric guitar.

Even that most evil of all frequencies, 315hz, cannot just be attenuated willy nilly, for instance if there's an impulse being presented that has already severely attenuated 315hz.

Meaning it won't be particularly flat in its response, and won't have the kind of low/high range response a proper fullrange speaker. Afaik the Fender FR-12 low frequency response drops off a cliff under 70 Hz, which should be perfect for guitar frequency ranges.

It's kind of like approaches to hifi speaker design: Do you want it to be "warts and all" accurate, or would you rather have something that makes music pleasing to listen to? There will be proponents of both schools of design.

The EQ is there to allow for quick changes to accommodate the sound to a particular room or mix. Modelers are surprisingly terrible at this where getting to a global EQ can be cumbersome depending on the device, and can then be a lot more complicated to figure out quickly compared to the "get rid of most of the bass on the guitar" one knob turn when you are given next to no time for a soundcheck.

 

[FuzzyAce]

Meaning it won't be particularly flat in its response, and won't have the kind of low/high range response a proper fullrange speaker. Afaik the Fender FR-12 low frequency response drops off a cliff under 70 Hz, which should be perfect for guitar frequency ranges.

It's kind of like approaches to hifi speaker design: Do you want it to be "warts and all" accurate, or would you rather have something that makes music pleasing to listen to? There will be proponents of both schools of design.

The EQ is there to allow for quick changes to accommodate the sound to a particular room or mix. Modelers are surprisingly terrible at this where getting to a global EQ can be cumbersome depending on the device, and can then be a lot more complicated to figure out quickly compared to the "get rid of most of the bass on the guitar" one knob turn when you are given next to no time for a soundcheck.

If I were ever to go this route I'd prefer as neutral as possible PA and speaker, then insert a simple graphic eq in between the modeler and PA.

 

[laxu]

If I were ever to go this route I'd prefer as neutral as possible PA and speaker, then insert a simple graphic eq in between the modeler and PA.

I see this more as a "what will require minimum extra effort to sound good" thing. Having that EQ built in on the output system can be valuable, and if the character of the system is already suited to work well in a band mix then that can be valuable too.

I sold my Boss EQ-200 graphic EQ pedal some time ago because I figured it was just extra complication - the simple low/high shelf + 600 Hz midrange filters on my BluGuitar Amp 1 ME would do more than enough to make the sound to my liking.

 

[FuzzyAce]

I see this more as a "what will require minimum extra effort to sound good" thing. Having that EQ built in on the output system can be valuable, and if the character of the system is already suited to work well in a band mix then that can be valuable too.

I sold my Boss EQ-200 graphic EQ pedal some time ago because I figured it was just extra complication - the simple low/high shelf + 600 Hz midrange filters on my BluGuitar Amp 1 ME would do more than enough to make the sound to my liking.

Seems like I'd prefer to tweak a physical eq than to adjust the presets or a global block of some kind. I guess it depends on the modeler ease of use and how many sounds you need for a gig though. There's no perfect solution for everybody.

 

[pipelineaudio]

All this seems to just be backing up my point. Either its just imagination, or it is something pretty colored and awful

Meaning it won't be particularly flat in its response, and won't have the kind of low/high range response a proper fullrange speaker. Afaik the Fender FR-12 low frequency response drops off a cliff under 70 Hz, which should be perfect for guitar frequency ranges.

Which would be not necessarily so cool if the IR was already set for a hi pass filter, and in a Venn diagram, the "FRFR" could do 100% of what the Fender system could do, while the Fender could only do a subset of what the "FRFR" could do, which again, would make the Fender less capable than a regular "FRFR", though maybe easier to use I guess

It's kind of like approaches to hifi speaker design: Do you want it to be "warts and all" accurate, or would you rather have something that makes music pleasing to listen to? There will be proponents of both schools of design.

What error in frequency response would ALWAYS be pleasing? Putting a 12kHz boost like some cork sniffer mic pres do? Not so great when recording quiet orchestra instruments! High passing stuff you "probably don't need anyway? Not cool at all when that results in stopband pole buildup with means a bump UP around the stop band!

The EQ is there to allow for quick changes to accommodate the sound to a particular room or mix. Modelers are surprisingly terrible at this where getting to a global EQ can be cumbersome depending on the device, and can then be a lot more complicated to figure out quickly compared to the "get rid of most of the bass on the guitar" one knob turn when you are given next to no time for a soundcheck.

This could certainly be handy, and its nice to be immediately accessible. Then again even the el cheapo Altos have a full graphic EQ you can just dial in on your phone. Maybe not as fast, but certainly far more powerful

 

[AlbertA]

Well duh, if true ""FRFR"" was most ideal, then people wouldn’t be complaining about the sound of their modelers through studio monitors not being amp in the room enough.

You are likely mis-attributing to an "FRFR" system what is likely caused by cabinet IRs that have been captured by close mic'ing.

 

[sashimi]

Well sure, and my experience was that the fender FR12 made a close mic’d IR sound more like an amplifier, regardless of what a couple guys in this thread say, who apparently have no personal experience with the FR12, but have a heavy bias against them for whatever reason.