What do you think I should do? (Guitar recording pre-amps)

[wetpenny]

Either way, if you can't record a loud cab in a good room, you're stuck with impulses. And whether you use a tube preamp or an amp sim before the impulse, I doubt it would make much difference since the limitation nowadays is more in the cab/speaker modeling than amp modeling. Man, I really wish Kemper came out with a cheaper "Kemper Player Amp" that just plays ready-made profiles.

yeh id like to see that!

didnt mean to derail

 

[JakeAC5253]

Just run a cable from the "Preamp Out" on the back of the 5150 directly into your interface, and run an impulse over it...

This. Buy another TS cable and plug it into the FX Return of the amp and the sound level from the cab drops to ~1%.

 

[neptunian]

but there is a particular... "moving" harmonic sturcture to tube distortion that I haven't heard replicated in modellers beyond those two.

That's a good way of putting it, and I now recognize what you mean. So I have to agree with you there.

Once I tested a Peavey Rockmaster preamp through impulses vs. various amp sims through the same impulses. Even though all cases were panned full L/R, the Rockmaster gave a seemingly wider stereo field. I think it was due to movement of the harmonic structure, as you say, which may have lead to less frequent waveform matching between the two sides.

But in the end I didn't go with the Rockmaster because it was voiced in a way that didn't fit my needs, and EQ couldn't fix it. Instead I used two amp sims from different companies, as the mismatch in their algorithms reproduced the wide stereo field effect.

 

[hsnyder]

Once I tested a Peavey Rockmaster preamp through impulses vs. various amp sims through the same impulses. Even though all cases were panned full L/R, the Rockmaster gave a seemingly wider stereo field. I think it was due to movement of the harmonic structure, as you say, which may have lead to less frequent waveform matching between the two sides.

But in the end I didn't go with the Rockmaster because it was voiced in a way that didn't fit my needs, and EQ couldn't fix it. Instead I used two amp sims from different companies, as the mismatch in their algorithms reproduced the wide stereo field effect.

I don't doubt it - I think amp sims can sound very good and get very useable tones, as can solid state effects, etc. We're in preference land and frankly the tube sound is more apparent in certain styles of playing than in others. And even then - its not fair to say that character is strictly better than simulations which lack it, its just something that I think sounds really good and haven't found another good way to get.

 

[Fandus]

Sell it and get an axe fx, can jam on it with headphones.

 

[eʍʍy]

Alright. Went out the loop. Threw a dummy jack into the return like some of you suggested and that got the volume way down.
Finally threw a pillow in front of the cab to drain the sound out even more.

Went direct and threw some impulses on top.

After some tweaking, it actually ended up sounding pretty good. Really wasn't all that different from how the amp sounded normally - just much more quiet.
At this point I think I'm going to be doing some experimenting with different impulses to find something that sounds best.

But all in all, I think I might just be satisfied with this. Unlike the 5150 amp sims, it doesn't have that whiny digital sound nor the muddy bottom end.
Definitely a noticeable improvement.
Plus the amp is still entirely usable for playing live or mic'ing up should I feel like blasting the entire house away.

So I think I've come to a solution.
Thanks a lot everyone for your help. Really appreciate it.

 

[JakeAC5253]

Alright. Went out the loop. Threw a dummy jack into the return like some of you suggested and that got the volume way down.
Finally threw a pillow in front of the cab to drain the sound out even more.

Went direct and threw some impulses on top.

After some tweaking, it actually ended up sounding pretty good. Really wasn't all that different from how the amp sounded normally - just much more quiet.
At this point I think I'm going to be doing some experimenting with different impulses to find something that sounds best.

But all in all, I think I might just be satisfied with this. Unlike the 5150 amp sims, it doesn't have that whiny digital sound nor the muddy bottom end.
Definitely a noticeable improvement.
Plus the amp is still entirely usable for playing live or mic'ing up should I feel like blasting the entire house away.

So I think I've come to a solution.
Thanks a lot everyone for your help. Really appreciate it.

Glad it ended up working out for you! If you haven't tried it, I like Catharsis s-preshigh IR a lot, and it's free. I have a bunch of IRs out as well, which I will link my most recent content. All of my IRs are made with a 5150.

My free Metalcore IRs (don't let the name fool you, they're pretty versatile):
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/backline/837144-jakeac5253-metalcore-irs.html#post10442035

My Premium IR packs and IR pack shootout:
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...ng-two-new-premium-ir-packs.html#post10457209