True, but I know whose tones I prefer out of the two! (and I like Jens Bogren's tones more than either of them, and I defy anyone to get anywhere near as organic and "3D" a sound as "The Great Cold Distance," "Ghost Reveries," "Watershed," etc. with an ampsim - sure the average schlumpf can't tell the difference, but I try to get the absolute best tone I can, not one that's "good enough for the average listener," though if I recorded anyone other than myself and had the associated time constraints I might feel differently)
Modern day recording; do we need to mic up guitar amps anymore?
- Thread starter drew_drummer
- Start date
True, but I know whose tones I prefer out of the two! (and I like Jens Bogren's tones more than either of them, and I defy anyone to get anywhere near as organic and "3D" a sound as "The Great Cold Distance," "Ghost Reveries," "Watershed," etc. with an ampsim - sure the average schlumpf can't tell the difference, but I try to get the absolute best tone I can, not one that's "good enough for the average listener," though if I recorded anyone other than myself and had the associated time constraints I might feel differently)
poidaobi
Held in Hollows
Yeah no modern day recording ever sounding good with a miced cab!
Plastic Fizz Tone FTW!
[/smartarse]
Plastic Fizz Tone FTW!
[/smartarse]
Ermz
¯\(°_o)/¯
I think this whole Axe-FX and impulse thing is pretty dangerous TBH. People will compromise simply because they can, and when we look back in 10 or 20 years' time, the metal recordings these days will sound dated, if they don't already. You will invariably hear Superior 2, Slate, Axe-FX or impulses on the records simply because people were willing to compromise. The great thing about this industry is that if you strip it back to the basics and just capture a good performance, by a good performer, in a good environment, using good gear, your music doesn't ever have to be dated. As soon as you get into the 80s mentality of going overboard simply for the sake of it, you put a sonic stamp on your work that dates it to a particular period.
I feel that his will be the era of too loud, too dry, too sampled, too digital. Those traits are readily apparent in a lot of recordings today. As more and more studios adopt home/project studio format and large, vibrant, diffuse rooms with large-format multi-track analogue consoles become a thing of the past, we are going to see an increasing reliance on digital emulation, approximation and general imitations of 'the real thing'. Until digital technology gets to a point where the differences are so minute that nobody can tell, this is going to be a very dangerous period for audio. At least that's the way I see it.
This 'Slate generation', as I call it, is especially dangerous because it has the potential to breed a whole new wave of engineers who have absolutely no idea how to treat percussive instruments or capture them correctly. The Slate packs are so amazingly well constructed that most of us can't hope to even approximate the quality of those sounds on a session-by-session basis. How many of us have access to well-calibrated and maintained 2" machines, world-class outboard, and amazingly huge rooms to sample ambience in? As more lower-tier engineers duke it out by out-sampling, outcompressing and out-punching each other, there will be a foregone conclusion that you will HAVE to use 3rd party samples to be competitive. Everything will be about specializing and the margins for engineering will get smaller and smaller. This guy will edit your drums, this guy will tailor your drum samples, this guy will reamp your guitars, but at the end of the day what are you going to do yourself? I see this creating a generation of engineers with everything bottle-fed to them, and if you devalue the art and trade of engineering so much, how will the monetary rewards reflect that devaluation? It's a very dangerous time, IMO.
I feel that his will be the era of too loud, too dry, too sampled, too digital. Those traits are readily apparent in a lot of recordings today. As more and more studios adopt home/project studio format and large, vibrant, diffuse rooms with large-format multi-track analogue consoles become a thing of the past, we are going to see an increasing reliance on digital emulation, approximation and general imitations of 'the real thing'. Until digital technology gets to a point where the differences are so minute that nobody can tell, this is going to be a very dangerous period for audio. At least that's the way I see it.
This 'Slate generation', as I call it, is especially dangerous because it has the potential to breed a whole new wave of engineers who have absolutely no idea how to treat percussive instruments or capture them correctly. The Slate packs are so amazingly well constructed that most of us can't hope to even approximate the quality of those sounds on a session-by-session basis. How many of us have access to well-calibrated and maintained 2" machines, world-class outboard, and amazingly huge rooms to sample ambience in? As more lower-tier engineers duke it out by out-sampling, outcompressing and out-punching each other, there will be a foregone conclusion that you will HAVE to use 3rd party samples to be competitive. Everything will be about specializing and the margins for engineering will get smaller and smaller. This guy will edit your drums, this guy will tailor your drum samples, this guy will reamp your guitars, but at the end of the day what are you going to do yourself? I see this creating a generation of engineers with everything bottle-fed to them, and if you devalue the art and trade of engineering so much, how will the monetary rewards reflect that devaluation? It's a very dangerous time, IMO.
agreed Ermin... but those that learn to do things on their own with real gear will rise above it.
i think now the usage of amp modeling and cabs will rise, but then there will be a saturation point and we will need new ideas. So, the real gear will come back, but the price will be higher since there will be less options for real gear, unless their price drops to compete with virtual modeling. But I personally start all home recording just because I figured that I can reach a sound quality that I want w/o all the gear.
Good point moonlapse...but people who only had a 4track would say the same about all of us and our fancy computer DAW and plugins 
If you have the tools to make an album sound perfect, by any means do whatever it takes (reamping/samples/autotune/etc) but the bottom line is that if the mix sounds good, it sounds good. And it takes someone with great ears to make a mix sound good.
Mic'ed guitars aren't going anywhere though.
If you have the tools to make an album sound perfect, by any means do whatever it takes (reamping/samples/autotune/etc) but the bottom line is that if the mix sounds good, it sounds good. And it takes someone with great ears to make a mix sound good.
Mic'ed guitars aren't going anywhere though.
Torniojaws
They call me Juha
It depends on whether you're talking about pro studios or home studios, though. For the latter, the trend (at least in Finland) is highly leaned towards the VST/digital-side of recording. Based on the general outlook in a Finnish musicians' forum with 80k members (1,5 % of the entire population, for a US-only forum that would mean 4,6 million users).
I find this all a bit depressing, I have found that the whole industry is suffering from the home recording boom, For instance bands obtaining bookings based on my-space popularity based on material they have spent years cobbling together on home studios.
They turn up without an amp between them and want to plug all their pods direct into the pa and monitors, and then during the sound check we discover the drummer cant actually play drums like what's on there recordings, that and the vocalist cant perform loud enough or consistently enough to be heard
in a live band situation and the whole lot sounds really shit because they only took 395 takes each to play from one end of a track to the other accurately on there home recordings.
Its not that hard to get a better guitar sound than a pod but maybe not easy without annoying your mum.:Smokin:
They turn up without an amp between them and want to plug all their pods direct into the pa and monitors, and then during the sound check we discover the drummer cant actually play drums like what's on there recordings, that and the vocalist cant perform loud enough or consistently enough to be heard
in a live band situation and the whole lot sounds really shit because they only took 395 takes each to play from one end of a track to the other accurately on there home recordings.
Its not that hard to get a better guitar sound than a pod but maybe not easy without annoying your mum.:Smokin:
Sacha
Throbbing Member
I've found if you work at it you can get damn near anything to sound decent. Fuck i've heard recordings with a Behringer V-amp that kicked total ass!
Between real amps and modellers it doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing. Personally i still love cranking up my amps even though it's comparitively ancient technology, it still just plain kicks fucking ass. I also find modellers a very useful musical tool to have in the arsenal.
It's like tape vs. digital or film vs. digital. People still like analog technology even though digital may be able to approximate it. I like utilizing both myself.
Between real amps and modellers it doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing. Personally i still love cranking up my amps even though it's comparitively ancient technology, it still just plain kicks fucking ass. I also find modellers a very useful musical tool to have in the arsenal.
It's like tape vs. digital or film vs. digital. People still like analog technology even though digital may be able to approximate it. I like utilizing both myself.
Jaymz
Stymphalian Productions
MT01
Member
Negative: The digital age means any band can cobble together a half decent production and make themselves look like something on the www. Result is a market saturated with mediocre (at best) music.
Positive: To a certain extent, gone are the days of it's who you know, who's arse will you kiss, how much money will Mummy and Daddy support you with, whether you were in the right place at the right time and hopefully some good new talent will make it through that wouldn't have were it not for the digital revolution.
Overall: True talent and blood, sweat and tears will prevail!
John_C
formerly Skeksis268
my god i hate those people with their stupid myspace pages and home recordings that have been edited to death
oh wait
that's me
damn
Chryst Krispies
Vanilla Gorilla
Nothing will ever replace jamming with the band, on your own originals, blasting tube amps, drinking beer, and shredding your ass off all night until the cops come.
Torniojaws
They call me Juha
Chryst Krispies
Vanilla Gorilla
Yeah but how about the time off the porn movie set?
Whoaa yeahhhh kick start my hearttttt
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