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screw this,I'm going back to my Marshall,Les Paul,Crybaby combo! ACDC anyone? Jeff Kim Flint wrote: > At 03:49 PM 3/12/98 -0500, Sean T Barrett wrote: > >>And forget about putting anything other than guitar sounds > >>through it, the amp colors it too much. > > > >Umm... so why do people put up with this for guitar? > >I don't understand the amp obsession. Why not learn > >to love the sound of something other than the strange > >coloring traditional guitar amps provide? Is there > >really something inherently "good" about them, some > >deficiency in the tone of the guitar the amp makes > >up for, or such? Or are guitarists just used to how > >guitars sound on other people's records? > > I guess you're not a guitar player, right? An electric guitar by itself >is > only half the instrument. The other half is the amplifier. You play that >as > much as you do the guitar, and a good amp is carefully designed with >that in > mind. That is why guitar players will generally spend more time obsessing > about their amplifiers than their guitars, and why everything other than >a > guitar will sound crappy through it. That is also why a guitar through a > flat PA system will sound very bad, and to the player, it will feel > lifeless. The amplifier itself is not reacting to the playing, and it >feels > flat and unispiring. This reactive aspect of tube guitar amps is a big >part > of the reason people like them. > > >The music industry's obsession with recreating and > >refining "flawed-but-familiar" technology (an obsession > >shared throughout much of the worlds technology > >research) feels to me like an inevitable consequence > >of commerce: > > That's a player obsession, not an industry obsession. Players demand it, >so > manufacturers provide it. Some manufacturers try to innovate and make > "classic" sounds cheaply by designing simulations. For example, the sound > made by old TB-303's is very popular in some music. As a result, real > TB-303's are impossible to find and extremely expensive, which cuts most > people out of the scene. So several companies have come up with various > inexpensive recreations of that sound to meet the huge demand. Many > companies have been very successful with that. > > The guitar amp industry is totally insane. If you were to perfectly >recreate > a tube amp in a digital processor (which I think is technically >impossible, > actually, but anyway...), and place it down next to the original for >guitar > players to compare, the guitar players will always want to buy the one >with > real tubes in it. They might actually buy the simulation, but only >because > they couldn't afford the real thing. > > No manufacturer in their right mind would want to manufacture tube amps >and > analog synthesizers. Those are expensive and difficult things to do, much > more so than modern stuff. Recreating those sounds with simulations is >also > very difficult, and subject to numerous reactionary responses from very, > very finicky customers. But that's what people want..... > > >old thing--e.g. animated watercolors--but the odd thing is > >the amount of attention that goes into precisely replicating > >-unintentional artifacts- of the medium. Virtual brush strokes > >produce various sorts of splotches and drips, and the programs go > >to great lengths to reproduce these, so it will look "just like" > >the real thing. > > Usually those imperfections are what made it unique and desireable in the > first place. Watercolor paintings look very different than other types of > images. They also require special approaches and techniques. If you truly > want to recreate that digitally, you need to replicate all of the > characteristics that make it that way. Also, those imperfections cause >the > artist to create in a way they might not otherwise. So if you want a > watercolor artist to be able to use digital equipment and have it feel >the > same in all respects, you need to recreate all of the imperfections. > Otherwise, the artist's creative process will be disrupted and they won't > feel comfortable with the medium. If you are not a watercolor artist, you > almost certainly won't get it. Same with all the sounds people want. > > >I understand the commerce motivation to sound/look "just like" > >the real thing, but I find the end result to be such a waste > >of energy--imagine if all that effort were to be put into > >creating new sounds/looks! [*] > > I can tell you from experience that trying to do new things is what often > turns into a huge waste of energy, or money mostly. It takes a long, long > time for people to adopt it and start to use it. The inventor typically >goes > bankrupt during that period, and only on the off chance that some retro > movement comes along later and requires his invention does he have a >chance > to get anything out of it. In most cases, nothing ever happens at all. >There > are many, many people creating interesting new things all of the time, >but > they will mostly fail to ever be noticed since the vast majority of >people > are not interested in new things. > > The smart business plan is to do something that people want now, and are > willing to pay for roughly around the time your bills are due.... > > >I guess the VG-8 attempts to balance this line--allowing > >precise emulation of all sorts of guitars and amps while > >also allowing new, never-before-heard things to be done > >to it... > > I always thought the VG-8 was terrible for emulating anything, but great >for > making new sounds. That's probably why nobody bought them and roland >stopped > making them. > > >but in general the process bugs the heck out of me. > > well, if you actively support and buy new things, so that the people >taking > all of the risk to do them can survive at it, maybe it will change. > > kim > _______________________________________________________ > Kim Flint 408-752-9284 > Mpact Systems Engineering kflint@chromatic.com > Chromatic Research http://www.chromatic.com