Impulses...I DO NOT BUY IT SIR

[Fox Mulder]

I would have agreed with Metaltastic a few years ago, I use to believe there was no substitute for real tubes and a miced up cab. Speaker sims just always sounded horrible in comparison! but since then, the technology has progressed by leaps and bounds, and I have to be honest, that I've heard lots of recordings done with modeling technology that I actually prefer to a lot of real tube rigs. Marco Sfogli used modelers on a few of his songs on his latest solo album and it was difficult to tell which ones he did with a real amp and which ones were with modeling. Killswitch's new album I just can't stand the guitar tone, and I'm sure they're using real rigs. I actually "prefer" the digital sound in some instances because compared to real rigs, digitally modeled tones seem cleaner, more polished and more perfect. Of course, this might not be the sound many are going for, they might want some hum in there are some ringy bell tone in the upper ranges. It's all subjective. But if time has taught me anything, it is to not count out technology. Amp and cab modeling technology will continue to improve. And for me, that's great! I would love not to have to buy all new tubes for my rig every year. UGH!

Yes, but only if we could have something that would get rid of the static feel.

 

[006]

@beyond dead: Whoah, where have you been?!

 

[Matt-Steele]

Yes, but only if we could have something that would get rid of the static feel.

Look how far it has already come! It will happen, I'm sure.

 

[Mikaël-ange]

Yeah but what I don't get is, if you already have a real amp head, I'd assume you'd have a cab too, why wouldn't you just mic the thing?

Sure but if for moment you haven't "the right cab" for that sound you want.
For exemple, last week a friend recorded some DI track and I reamped this track for him. But I only have Marshall 1960a cab (greenback) and I need v30 for that 5150 sound I want/he love. Impulse (Ryan and Metaltastics all the time) help in this case.

 

[drew_drummer]

Not to mention...

A lot of "favorite/best" metal albums out there have pretty mediocre tone. Master of Puppets, any Pantera, most Emperor ( and almost all black metal for that matter ). Guitar tone isn't nearly as important as we make it out to be.

But damn it, its so hard to admit and accept that!

My take on it...

A good loud tube amp....

That's it. That's enough for good tone. Now whether it is a tone that you like.. that's a different question

 

[Metaltastic]

its been a while. Im glad that the AS forum is still home to marcus`s pointless ramblings

sup d00ds?

Great to see you too buddy

 

[Mikko Vainiala]

Yeah, I wasn't utterly condemning them, or saying they're totally useless, just sharing something of a realization I had about the sound (and Mikko, dude, it's cool you like impulses, but you don't need to keep preaching the faith, I get it ). And there have definitely been some recordings of a tube preamp into impulses that fooled me! (the stuff I listened to was all with ampsims)

The point is that we can’t talk much anything what makes sense before the test. We can’t condem impulsed tone at slightest (or praise the good stuff which have fooled us) without making the test and everybody should do it with his own familiar setup before spreading or standing behind opinions. I'm afraid there is no proper “realizations” you have made this far based on true comparison. (The comparison test is fair enough even the amp reacts a bit differently to a pure resistive load than speaker inductance.)

 

[beyond dead]

@beyond dead: Whoah, where have you been?!

taking care of all the garbage in my life lol. moved out of the ghetto into a new house. now I hope I can contribute more stuff to the forum missed you guys!

 

[GarethSE]

good to see you back dude, long time no see

 

[The-Zeronaut]

Right now...nothing can beat a real amp with a mic´ed cabinet...
yes, we have catharsis impulses. nick crow´s 8505 ,pod farm , soloC , etc...that sound REALLY good in my opinion
but there is that little "something" that feels static and digital :S
this doesnt men that you cant get really great tones with amp sims (just listen to joey or brianhood mixes with pod farm)


i think that in 10 years(or maybe less) we will have the technology to make really good and realistic amp sims
that can really compete with the real thing

just imagine the computers that we will have in 10 years...
in 2019 the intel i7 and the Mac pro 8 core will be a piece of crap
probably there will be an Axefx III , revalver 6,pod farm IV , a fuckton of free awesome plugins , etc

 

[TheDude]

i think that in 10 years(or maybe less) we will have the technology to make really good and realistic amp sims
that can really compete with the real thing

just imagine the computers that we will have in 10 years...
in 2019 the intel i7 and the Mac pro 8 core will be a piece of crap
probably there will be an Axefx III , revalver 6,pod farm IV , a fuckton of free awesome plugins , etc

Yes.

Also, big difference with a preamp->impulse and a preamp-poweramp->impulse. Most of the static feel comes from the fact that it's only a preamp. I've just bought a Koch Loadbox II that I'll get by the end of next week.

I'll do a shootout after that. I'd love t hear the difference myself.

 

[David Lee Hasselhoff]

I second the OP's opinion. Impulses are quite literally the sonic equivalent to cardboard-cutouts. I think I've really heard enough comparisons. Besides, most of the "wrong" feeling playing through an ampsim comes from the cabsim/impulse. Dynamics get lost, articulation gets lost, transparence gets lost and I feel that impulses muddy up the mix too.
I'm a bit surprised that Nebula doesn't get too many mentions in this thread Problem solved IMO.

 

[Erkan]

I'm a bit surprised that Nebula doesn't get too many mentions in this thread Problem solved IMO.

I remember that huge fucking Nebula storm that was going on on this forum many months ago, and I was hoping it would become the new thing and I was prepared to buy it. The storm turned out to be a little rat fart somewhere in the Nevada desert though, and Nebula was just gone.

I wonder what happened to Nebula and all that talk... impulses have been around way too long now, it's about time they get upgraded or replaced by something else!