The Digital Doubt

[DrewJD82]

This is something I’ve been seeing pop up more often lately-

“I prefer IR’s to a moveable virtual mic because I don’t question my choices when I find an IR I like”

“Too many options leaves me feeling like I have to utilize them and cause me to doubt my choice when I didn’t”

“I prefer captures/real amps to models because it makes me question my choices less”

I had a hunch that would have been a hot take until I saw people flat out saying it, in regard to capture/profile users wanting a choice to be made for them due to being unsure if they were doing it “right” or not. Obviously that’s not ALL capture users, but there’s certainly a percentage of them.

This is such an odd thing to me as there’s a myriad of ways to make ANYTHING sound like ass, while also being a bit sad to me that people get that concerned if they’re doing it “right” that they don’t even trust their own ears. Especially once you drill down on some of the statements, like the moveable mic vs IR……they’re both IR’s at the end of the day, if you liked on position with a moveable mic, chances are the IR selected is similar, so what makes that a “better” choice?

Anyone else seeing stuff like this or can relate to it?

Always trips me out a bit how modeling opened the world up for tones and instead of diving into it and just doing your thing, there are some that want the opposite and the choice to be removed for them. I’m very curious how much of that plays into complaints about Fractal units being too deep, or modeling complaints in general, where people are projecting their concerns/inability to make a decision on the modeler itself.

 

[the swede]

Tough questions Drew. There’s no easy answers and no answers is the same for everyone.

Personally for me, i just function better with less options. I can’t find my creative place practically and emotionally when there’s a modeler/software in front of me.

If I could decide, my walrus ACS1 would have one amp and no IRs. My pedals are simple, no presets, no menus, just a few knobs and I seldom tweak them. I need to embrace and commit to the sound my gear gives me. It’s a simple decision to choose between two pedals in front of me. If it does something I like and get creative with, it’s done. It’s harder for me to “decide” this with a box with thousands of options. And I discovered that I just can’t look past, or choose to use the box in a simple way because knowing there’s thousands of options inside takes over me. And yes, it’s also very much doubting oneself, not trusting one’s own ears. How is it supposed to sound? Does it matter?

This is when emotions come into play. I’m the type that actually needs an emotional connection to the pedal or gear to really feel creative freedom. And it’s easy to do that with simple three knob mono pedals. If it hits the spot there’s no doubt, there’s no comparing or tweaking. Just playing.

Thats how I am, used modeler for 6 years and thought it was great. I never complained about Helix, always praised it, even though knowing how difficult it was for me to use it.

Again… everyone has their take on these things. Next person might be the total opposite of me.

I don’t doubt digital. After all, I choose the amp sim pedal over a real amp for practical reasons and being able to record easy if I want to.

 

[Shredder777]

I had a hunch that would have been a hot take until I saw people flat out saying it, in regard to capture/profile users wanting a choice to be made for them due to being unsure if they were doing it “right” or not. Obviously that’s not ALL capture users, but there’s certainly a percentage of them.

Its very possible that many younger guitarists have never dabbled in music production, have never spent countless hours trying to make old gear sound good, and don't know how to use an EQ.

They want immediate gratification. They want someone to tell them they are doing it right.

They want legos, not woodworking.

Myself, I think I dove into music and recording tech too early, and without enough budget. Living in apartments in the 90s, no where to open up an amp, having little money for mics or mic pres. Recording rigs, sequencers, even midi libraries were very expensive. So there were a lot of years of failure even to produce some shitty four track demos.

You would think I would eat up a new Fractal or QC, but I recently bought a 5150 and just want to work on my chops.

 

[mercifulfuzziness]

Less is more.

Give me a York fender deluxe reverb IR and I just feel better dialing in the amp.

I know nothing about mics and cabs and I’m not interested in it.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

There’s times when I might not trust my own ears, but I certainly trust them a hell of a lot more than anyone elses when it comes to dialling in a tone. I cannot for the life of me understand why I’d want to use anyone elses preset, and tbh, using IR’s is a bit like that unless you have the means to dial them in. It’s just pot lock and I don’t find that inspiring. It’s like wearing someone else’s underpants without even knowing who they are or how many pints of guinness they’ve drunk first.

I don’t think it’s just with guitar tones, I think so many of us fall into traps of doing what we think we’re supposed to rather than being brave with a decision of “I think this sounds cool, fuck everyone else”.

 

[ᛗᛜᛜᚺDᛜᎶ Ꮤᛨᚳᚴ]

I often doubt my doubts, so I then start all over ;~)) On Saturday, I finally got around to starting my new kitchen sink preset from scratch. Took my fav amp (ODS 100 clean), two of my favorite dyna cabs (4x12 Citrus and 4x12 1960TV - each panned 100% L or R) and tweaked it till I was happy with the basic tone. Then added only 1 effect to each scene (except wah where I also added a drive). Just put the final touches on it last night and I am ready to roll with it. My old kitchen sink had become a bit stale in my ears/head (digital doubt) and I had been planning on doing this since my album release in July of '24. I think my doubt was justified as the new preset compared side to side with old one sounds (at least at this point) way tighter and cleaner. Of course, part of that may be due to the latest updates and improvements across the board that my old kitchen sink had not been optimized for. Anyway, option paralysis is real, and that is why in '23 I decided to abandon creating studio Frankenstein's and went with producing my music with a minimalist approach so that the options would not have me spending months producing and tweaking a single song!

 

[Stone]

Good Point Drewmeister, i think folks need to buy what works for them and then thats the end, whatever that may be
I know what works for me and what I require is Fractal, I craft my own tones using isolated guitar tracks a looper and all the deep editing features available only in the Fractal ecoverse, so yes i trust my ears and what I can get out of my Fractal
So I tend to not listen to to what others think on whats better or why it's better, because its all relative to ones need

 

[Orvillain]

I wanna sorta ride the coat tails of this thread, coz right now I'm thinking about selling my Axe FX III.

Here's the thing:

- At home, I'm concerned with speed. Which is especially important when I have the rest of the band(s) around for a songwriting session. Genuinely, the last 4 or 5 songs we've written across these two bands has been plugged into my RME interface, and the guitars each get a pair of tracks with NDSP's Soldano plugin on them, one for cleans, and one for dirt. Bassist gets the Darkglass plugin, and maybe Helix Native for a chorus or delay effect.

- In the rehearsal studio (and by extension in a live scenario too) I'm concerned with ease of use. Because it is just too time intensive a scenario, and you need to be able to get up and running quickly, and make no mistakes doing it. So.....

I've taken my Axe FX3, Mark V, and the FC-12 controller. I've added the EM midi switcher unit so I can switch channels on the amp from the Axe3. I've prepared a single preset called 'Summerisle 4CM' .... and of course I've got all the necessary cables for 4-cable-method to use that with the amp.

We play one song. Cool. We play the next. Oh, the delay mix and feedback need lowering. Okay. Do that. The next song... oh, I need to switch the channels on the reverb block... okay... do that.

And because my brain is just not capable of planning this all out and approaching it in a logical and methodical way, I end up sorta spinning my wheels and wasting time. It isn't the Axe FX's fault... it is entirely a me thing. But when I have a DD3, DD8, RV5, and MXR Reverb... right there on the floor in front of me... alongside the actual Mark V footswitch unit... there's just no fucking about, nothing goes wrong, and I get speed, I get reliability, and I get ease of use.


So circling back around the studio.... I explained it this way to @MirrorProfiles earlier on... but the 20% of the time that I do use the Axe3, I use 15% of its capabilities.

And I've paid £2700ish for that???? It doesn't make any kind of sense.

If I was completely ALL IN balls deep on the Axe3, then it would make sense. But I'm not, and I never will be.



sooooooo... options... I like them, get very enthusastic about having them, but the more I have, the less I achieve it seems to me.

In terms of achieving the tone I want across the whole rig... if I can do it in 4 steps, instead of 20 ... why choose the 20??



So at the moment, I'm looking at my gear and I'm thinking... I've got a lot of money wrapped up in this stuff, and I basically use the same style of rig that I was using back in 2007 when I properly got started with being in bands.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

So at the moment, I'm looking at my gear and I'm thinking... I've got a lot of money wrapped up in this stuff, and I basically use the same style of rig that I was using back in 2007 when I properly got started with being in bands.

Ever since I stepped back from totally a digital setup and bought the JVM I've been slowly building up the same basic rig I toured between 1999 and 2008. It wasn't a conscious decision but it's definitely the happiest I've been with a setup in a long time. The same drive pedals, wah, delay and I'm even heading back to a les paul. The only thing that'll really be new is fuzz, I'm quite excited tbh. The kind of rig I don't have to think too much with, can adjust in seconds and just sounds killer.

 

[cragginshred]

What cures the digital doubt is selling all your amps and only using modelers. I actually like my Fm3 tone in my in ears live than my amp tone, but as you all know plugging in to a couple of 4 x 12 cabs with a 50 or 100w head is glorious!!!
I live on 2 acres so thankfully I can do that each night!

Having said that I am currently between IR's and dyna cabs

 

[OrganicZed]

I have seen those sentiments explicitly expressed in threads at ToP. Apparently, some people would rather use a sound created by a “professional” than create a sound for themselves. My knee jerk response to that idea is to mock it and think less of those who operate that way. If you need someone else’s stamp of approval to like the tone then you are a NPC.

Thinking about it more, I can see the appeal of just plugging in and using a tone from a handful of well curated presets. If you get a sound that makes you happy that way then I can understand how that approach can remove barriers to actually making music. It is a valid choice even if it is not the way I would do things.

 

[holoholo]

Great take Drew. I never understand the “there’s too many options for me” crowd. It always sounds like a personal problem instead of an equipment problem. It’s easy to ignore options if I want to but I’m glad to have them there when I need them.

 

[sleewell]

If I keep turning knobs and finding more sub menus maybe it'll sound as good as a tube amp haha

 

[James Freeman]

The age old 5,5,5 syndrome, it's real and weird af.
Are they even guitar players?

 

[metropolis_4]

I can understand it when it comes to things like cabs/speakers/mics, and maybe there’s a difference between players with studio experience.

A lot of people come from a background of lugging an amp to a gig, plugging in, and turning it up. Maybe there’s sound guy there will stick a mic in front of it. That involves zero thinking about the cab or the speaker or microphones.

I can see people coming from that background not wanting to mess with all of that additional stuff in digital. I think that’s what a lot of those players liked about the TMP: just give me an amp to plug into and turn on

 

[Shredder777]

Great take Drew. I never understand the “there’s too many options for me” crowd. It always sounds like a personal problem instead of an equipment problem. It’s easy to ignore options if I want to but I’m glad to have them there when I need them.

There might not be too many options, but there is never enough time. That is why too many options can be counterproductive.

 

[DLC86]

This is just the first step into an already traced road. Just look at keyboard players and you'll see guitarists' future:

I don't know if I've just been unlucky or if you had the same experience, but of all those I've played with, despite most of them being quite good players, just one of them makes his own presets and is able to discern between a sawtooth and a square wave, all the others just scroll thru factory presets and don't even try to edit them. A good portion of these don't even know what a Farfisa is or the difference between "sample" and "effect".

Imho this is what will happen to guitar players in a couple decades, the few nerdy ones will still make their own presets on modelers and maybe even have some analogue gear, all the others will just play with factory or 3rd party presets and won't even know the difference between a fuzz and a phaser.

PS: and with upcoming AI tools this involution might get even quicker and worse.

 

[la szum]

 

[ian_dissonance]

Metal guitar groups are the best for this.
“Man, all these albums sound the same.”
*buys every “producer” STL/Kemper/QC profile pack because dialing in a 5150 through a Mesa OS with a boost in front is a lot of work.

 

[Rock Chalk]

This is something I’ve been seeing pop up more often lately-

“I prefer IR’s to a moveable virtual mic because I don’t question my choices when I find an IR I like”

“Too many options leaves me feeling like I have to utilize them and cause me to doubt my choice when I didn’t”

“I prefer captures/real amps to models because it makes me question my choices less”

I had a hunch that would have been a hot take until I saw people flat out saying it, in regard to capture/profile users wanting a choice to be made for them due to being unsure if they were doing it “right” or not. Obviously that’s not ALL capture users, but there’s certainly a percentage of them.

This is such an odd thing to me as there’s a myriad of ways to make ANYTHING sound like ass, while also being a bit sad to me that people get that concerned if they’re doing it “right” that they don’t even trust their own ears. Especially once you drill down on some of the statements, like the moveable mic vs IR……they’re both IR’s at the end of the day, if you liked on position with a moveable mic, chances are the IR selected is similar, so what makes that a “better” choice?

Anyone else seeing stuff like this or can relate to it?

Always trips me out a bit how modeling opened the world up for tones and instead of diving into it and just doing your thing, there are some that want the opposite and the choice to be removed for them. I’m very curious how much of that plays into complaints about Fractal units being too deep, or modeling complaints in general, where people are projecting their concerns/inability to make a decision on the modeler itself.

Kinda like this? https://thegearforum.com/threads/anyone-else-getting-sick-of-gas.7384/post-302598