Re: RME Firewire 800 and Guitar Amp Sim - Preamps

[steve <dawerks@tampabay.rr.com>]

i read a pete townsend interview as a kid and they where asking him  
about gtrs
and he said he didn't care about the guitars, its all about the amp,  
the guitars
are secondary and he picks them to suit the amp not the other way around
i'm not saying this is an end all comment and may well have been off  
the cuff BS
but it resonated with what i thought at the time about my love for  
hot rodded
princetons and deluxes

i play alot of bass, a whole lot of acoustic and nylon guitars and  
other instruments
and DI all the time but when it comes to playing electric guitar it  
just seems like the
sound and FEEL isn't there until i run it through something....ampish
and i play clean most of the time, its not that i need distortion etc

i don't skimp money on guitars or pickups and use good cables
i like to pick an electric acoustically and agree it should have a good
tone like that as an indicator of a quality instrument but for me it  
only
starts there, mag pickups just seem lame without the partner they  
started out
with, obviously they don't work plugged DI without SOMETHING in between
them and the board, to me it sounds best if that something replicates  
what a
simple clean warm tube amp does or something designed with those  
impedances
and circuitry in mind, something made FOR guitar

and i readily accept that what sounds and feels like ass to me
is the holy grail to someone else and that we are both right

the duncan pedal preamp that was mentioned recently is great
i have a rack version of it loaded with a 12au7 that is my fav and
gives tons of headroom but still adds that tube warmth and feel

the following is opinion only NOT meant as recommendation or argument
TO ME a DI'd electric is like a crappy acoustic with little body  
resonance
it doesn't become an electric guitar till it runs through circuitry  
meant for those
mag pickups, its like a speaker without the box, yeah its vibrating  
but without the
enclosure to shape it, the sound ain't makin it





On Aug 28, 2007, at 12:00 PM, Krispen Hartung wrote:

>> Plugging an electric guitar (with passive electronics) directly  
>> into the
>> mixing board produces undesirable results because the mixer ins  
>> have a low
>> impedance in the 1E2Ohm range. Passive electronics don't like that.
>
> But that is sort of missing my point, because I believe that the  
> circuitry of the mixerboard
> only addresses part of the problem. My argument, only from my own  
> personal
> perspective and requriements, is that the undesireableness has to  
> do with the fact
> that what many people have come to recognize as a "nice" electric  
> guitar sound, is produced
> from an amp, or at least a decent amp simulator.  There is nothing  
> you are going
> to do with the EQ or impedence of a board to change this for me.  
> It's the original sound
> source at question, not the circuitry that comes afterward. It's  
> the "Crap in, crap out"
> phenomenon. Nothing is going to change my perspective on the sound  
> of the solid
> body electric guitar plugged directly into a board. I've heard what  
> it sounds like in
> multiple instances and boards, and inserts, $100,000 recording  
> consuls, etc...and there
> is no way I am doing any gig with that setup, end of story. My ears  
> know the difference,
> especially if my gig has a strong jazz feel.
>
>> Apart from that issue (which you can easily circumvent by using a  
>> DI box),
>> it may have to do with your choice of sound.
>
> Exactly. I am a tone freak.  I've played guitar for 28 years,  
> through many diverse genres,
> and I know what I like. The sound of the solid body electric,  
> direct into any quality
> of insert just appalls me.
>
> Sometimes, I'm forced to play
>> unprocessed (like at the y2k6loopfest main festival gig of which  
>> you'll find
>> the recordings on the festival website) because my ampsim crashes,  
>> but I
>> wouldn't call it crap apart from my own playing.
>
> "crap" was my choice of subjective expressions, meaning "I don't  
> likeeee". :)
>
> Kris