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Yeah you can just track straight in using an amp sim pedal/rack unit, or just plug right in and use a plugin in the DAW instead. Personally I still prefer amps because I don't love playing with headphones, but for recording I'm using a preamp pedal and an impulse response in the box.

Playing through a plugin can sound great though, I've not even spent money on them just free ones, and there's very usable tones in there, so I'd happily do it if it wasn't easier to plug into my amp.

I'm familiar with the amp sim game- I used to have an Iridium and I use a UA Dream 65 with great results for clean sounds- but my computer is almost 12 years old so I am completely out of the loop with digital, computer based amp sims. Its just Dream 65 into a Zoom recorder for now.

IRs seems like a crazy rabbit hole to go down- Im sort of glad I don't have the ability to mess around with them

Ah right sorry misunderstood. Well there's good stuff in the computer realm for sure but I've not delved that deep into it, I have tried a couple of the Neural plugins and I liked those. but I hated needing to use a separate "product validator" programme so I didn't last past the free trial. Sounded great and worked great, so I don't mean i hated using it I just get irritated at anything I think is bloatware



Also interested in hearing what else is good.

In the IR/cab sim world I use Two Note Wall of Sound and I like it. I'm a pretty basic user, I bought a few classic cabs, I made a few presets I like and use them for most things, but it really sounds good to me and I'm happy with it. I've got decent results just with free amp sims into that, though I prefer my pedals and preamp. I hate the experience of tweaking settings in the box though so I'm always trying to make this as simple as possible in the digital end. If you don't mind tweaking plugins there's a whole amazing world out there I believe.

Dunno, I see a helluva lot of disscussion online about cab sims and 1/2W amps and all that. There's never been more solutions for bedroom players than now.

And it's not like you have to choose between either a digital headphone amp or cranked 200W full stack. I used to have a 15w Laney CUB 12R combo at home that I could dial in to sounds somewhat Marshallish at volume levels that didn't rattle the windows and didn't make the amp sound boxy or choked or whatever.

Sure, it'll always be a compromise, you'll never replicate the feel of a loud tube amp with an amp sim or tiny combo, there's no point in chasing that imo. All the raving reviews and overproduced yt demos are nice, but the Iridium I tried wasn't more than a convenient way to quietly get new song ideas into my DAW, but it's just not the most fun or inspiring way to jam/write with when you're a fuzz/od user

le lambin wrote:

D.o.S. wrote: For practicing at home though, I think monitors & and interface (or even headphones and an interface) are infinitely preferable to small amps, especially if you do any music making involving a computer.

This whole plugging into the computer and playing through Amplitube or some other plugin is still so new and strange to me- what’s your experience with this? What do you use? When I was on Instagram i remember Fortin being the amp sim for metal dudes to play through, but I heard Cory wong had some amps through them modeled? I’m guessing those have to be fenders or something…clearly I don’t know much about this. I’m guessing you can just track directly from the amp sim into your daw? That’s convenient.

I am pretty lucky in the sense that because I just play bass I can use my normal board plus a preamp like a Sansamp or a Rusty Box and get an entirely usable tone with applying a cab sim like the aforementioned Two Notes Wall of Sound in the DAW (I use Ableton because that's what i use for computer music, but you can do Reaper or whatever). It's not necessarily going to sound the same as what it sounds like through a proper cab 'in the room' but I can get close enough for what I want and I tend to find a lot of joy in my shitty ITB toan for riffing/arranging anyway.

For rehearsing I like to just use a nylon string or a semi-hollow. If I want it loud at home, I'll use an amp sim and headphones.

But this thread reminds me that I've been meaning to check out the Princeton Tonemaster. Any experiences with those? The attenuator seems super useful for playing it at home. On the other hand, I've been thinking that if I'm at home anyway, then Amplitube 5's Princeton is very convincing, and I'm not sure mic-ing a Tonemaster would sound better than just using Amplitube.

VREEEEVROOOOOW wrote:
But this thread reminds me that I've been meaning to check out the Princeton Tonemaster. Any experiences with those? The attenuator seems super useful for playing it at home.

I haven’t tried the Princeton but I thought the Deluxe Reverb one sounded great- if I were buying a new one, I would choose that over the tube version. Never having to change tubes again sounds better and better all the time.

For me, it's the temptation of letting it rip at low volume, and also that it's that much lighter, making it easier to haul around for shows. I've watched some comparison videos on YouTube, and it does sound really nice, albeit it slightly different. (Throwing a bunch of pedals at it might not be a great idea, but, then again, I would run a Princeton pretty clean.)

https://www.two-notes.com/en/torpedo-se ... -captor-x/

or

https://www.uaudio.com/hardware/ox.html

This is the solution that your looking for - you can still have your tube head dimed out but you need something to soak up all of that ear shattering 100w of juice. Most studios and about 90% of the gear nerds on Youtube will either use one of these. Because UA is in pretty much every bed room / studio / space - the OX box is the over whelming favorite, and for simple guy like me would be the one I would pick if I had a monster tube head. ( someday )

Boss also makes a load box that is really feature packed.

https://www.boss.info/us/products/waza_ ... _expander/

So if you want your tube head at low people volume - there is a way.

I think there are some heads with Two Notes modules built in that allow silent usage, some Revvs and I think the Laney one is maybe called the LA Studio? (I should know because the demos grabbed me.)

For amp-to-reactive load-to-mixer/interface stuff, the Fryette PowerLoad IR also seems pretty awesome as a solution. It does the IR thing but it also has a tweakable analog “speaker emulator” option that can be used instead of or at the same time and is able to do some non-traditional sounds if desired.

Maybe I'm just a moron, but I don't understand how I would actually *use* those gizmos. Like, how do you connect it to your amp?

The Ox, Tube Amp Expander, Power Load, and I think some/most/maybe-not-all of the Two Notes products are designed so that you would plug the amp’s speaker out into the device’s input. They are generally designed to mimic the weird impedance behavior of a speaker to get the amp working into a similar load so it performs similarly. So you’re capturing the whole amp behavior except the speaker (and the mic). So with a speaker IR, it’s almost like you’re in the studio control room hearing the loud amp on the other side of the glass.

The Tube Amp Expander also has built in post-load effects and a solid state power amp, with the purist-tweaking downside that the whole signal goes through digital in and out conversion before the power amp, even if you’re bypassing the effects.

Short answer is just that it feels good man

It's a shame more people can't play more loud amps, it feels like it should be a right of some sort.

Gone Fission wrote:The Ox, Tube Amp Expander, Power Load, and I think some/most/maybe-not-all of the Two Notes products are designed so that you would plug the amp’s speaker out into the device’s input. They are generally designed to mimic the weird impedance behavior of a speaker to get the amp working into a similar load so it performs similarly. So you’re capturing the whole amp behavior except the speaker (and the mic). So with a speaker IR, it’s almost like you’re in the studio control room hearing the loud amp on the other side of the glass.

The Tube Amp Expander also has built in post-load effects and a solid state power amp, with the purist-tweaking downside that the whole signal goes through digital in and out conversion before the power amp, even if you’re bypassing the effects.

Thanks for the explanation. The question then becomes: is this any "better" than just using a decent amp sim or tonemaster?

I guess the part about it that's better is if it's the amp you already have and love for gigging, but now you're able to turn it up at home.

Definitely not the way I'd go if I didn't have the amp already and was starting from a blank page!