What are your favorite ways of widening guitars?

[Kotch]

I just use a good ADT plugin, which lets you set the delay and simulates wow and flutter. It takes the work out of doubling, when I'm working quickly and don't want to manually double guitar parts.

[Anderton]

There are a zillion ways to do it, but my current favorite is creating parallel paths using amp sims with different amps/cabinets, or combining "real" and sim channels.

 

I've been working even more with sims lately and discovered something that I think it really important...how transients affect the overall tone. This all came about because I was working with the Scuffham amps and thought they sounded dreadful. Now, this is the guy who designed the Marshall JMP-1, so he knows a thing or two...anyway, we had a pretty long WTF email exchange, and it turned out to be an issue involving meter response time, transients generated by humbuckers, the way I play, and several other factors creating some subtle, but nasty, harmonics. This is something I've identified in other amp sims as well. When I've finished testing I'll write up the results; the bottom line is that lowering the pickups to 7 mm below the strings improved the tone dramatically with just about every amp sim I've tested. The sound is FAR more realistic.

 

I think this relates to the same kind of phenomenon as tape "absorbing" transients; I think physical guitar amps have a way of "absorbing" transients which isn't only part of their sound, but also, is a factor that amp sims haven't taken into account...yet...

 

Stay tuned. Anyway, yes, sims are great for widening the sound. Peavey ReValver and NI Guitar Rig have Split components that make it easy to create whacked out stereo paths, with Guitar Rig offering the advantage of letting you create splits within splits.

 

Another trick I do is multiband processing, where I spread the bands in stereo. It's huge, but retains the "one guitar, one amp" sound if that's what you want.

 

I guess I should do some audio examples...

[Jeff da Weasel]

I guess I should do some audio examples...

 

I'd say you should, good sir!

[UstadKhanAli]

I've noticed transients affecting tone as well. Now, I'm not sure if we're discussing the same thing, but can't something as simple as a compressor or one of those transient shapers help out an amp sim (or for that matter, a "spikey" recording of an amp?).

[Lee Flier]

 

I've noticed transients affecting tone as well. Now, I'm not sure if we're discussing the same thing, but can't something as simple as a compressor or one of those transient shapers help out an amp sim (or for that matter, a "spikey" recording of an amp?).

 

 

It can if it's hardware - that is, if you catch the transients before they hit the converter.

 

I'm almost to the point where most EVERYthing I record straight to digital goes through a compressor first - very gently and transparently just to catch the spikes, the way a piece of tape would. Using a ribbon mic can help achieve the same thing. Big transients are hell on converters, as well as everything further down the chain.

[roomjello]

Welll... la dee dah. I'm assuming we've all got that, Mr. Cool!

 

What are you Annie Hall over there?

I always assume there are lots of newbies reading this stuff, there wasn't a detailed description of that basic method so i put it up, what?

[Zooey]

 

I think this relates to the same kind of phenomenon as tape "absorbing" transients; I think physical guitar amps have a way of "absorbing" transients which isn't only part of their sound, but also, is a factor that amp sims haven't taken into account...yet...

 

 

That's interesting. It makes sense that an amp can't move the mass of a speaker cone instantaneously and a speaker can't be a perfectly efficient transducer. I would think that speaker emulations that use convolution would capture all of those variables, though (whereas speaker emulation based on filters may not).

[Lee Knight]

What are you Annie Hall over there? I always assume there are lots of newbies reading this stuff, there wasn't a detailed description of that basic method so i put it up, what?

 

I might have misread. I thought you were being condescending to the previous posts. Apologies. Oops.

 

Annie Hall? I'm not sure what that means but I think I like it.

[Lee Knight]

 

I think physical guitar amps have a way of "absorbing" transients which isn't only part of their sound, but also, is a factor that amp sims haven't taken into account...yet...

 

 

I typically put a Boss Compressor pedal (CS2) before sims for this very reason.

[WRGKMC]

 

I think this relates to the same kind of phenomenon as tape "absorbing" transients; I think physical guitar amps have a way of "absorbing" transients which isn't only part of their sound, but also, is a factor that amp sims haven't taken into account...yet...

 

 

Speakers compress air and take time to do it. They naturally compress and reduce transients because of physical movement limitations. If that can be taken into account I think it would help allot. Speakers can be thinner with a higher SPL have faster and sharper transients, thicker speakers often have a lower SPL and slower transient responce. They naturally reduce dynamics through mass in motion.

 

Most modeling programs I've messed with simply color the sound to make it sound like speaker or cab. Theres a whole lot more to it. They dont quite get the actual feel of the speaker pushing air when you pick a string. Maybe some kind of comp/limiter combined with a phase shift in the last cabinet stage of a modeler plugin. It might help to emulate actual tube/transformer/speaker sag in varying degrees better. So far I just havent heard or felt it yet to where I can say this has the feel of playing through an amp. Plus theres "allot" of reflective tone actual miced amps produce thats not there. You wind up having to synthasize that in some manor using various plugins that is difficult to make it sound real.

[Anderton]

The main thing about lowering the pickup is that is reduces the ratio of transient level to average level, so it's much easier to handle the signal. I noticed that the way I play produces a fair amount of vertical motion to the string because I pull on it somewhat. This is generating really huge transients, particularly with humbuckers, that dwarf the average level caused by string vibration. As the transients are mostly noise, they generate really nasty harmonics.

 

So, thanks to the inverse square law , moving the pickups causes a dramatic decrease in the transient levels that makes it much easier for any subsequent processing to handle them. I have tried using limiters before sims, but then the transients affected the limiter detection. With the reduced transients, limiters work more in their "comfort zone."

[Anderton]

 

Speakers compress air and take time to do it. They naturally compress and reduce transients because of physical movement limitations. If that can be taken into account I think it would help allot. Speakers can be thinner with a higher SPL have faster and sharper transients, thicker speakers often have a lower SPL and slower transient responce. They naturally reduce dynamics through mass in motion. Most modeling programs I've messed with simply color the sound to make it sound like speaker or cab. Theres a whole lot more to it. They dont quite get the actual feel of the speaker pushing air when you pick a string. Maybe some kind of comp/limiter combined with a phase shift in the last cabinet stage of a modeler plugin. It might help to emulate actual tube/transformer/speaker sag in varying degrees better. So far I just havent heard or felt it yet to where I can say this has the feel of playing through an amp. Plus theres "allot" of reflective tone actual miced amps produce thats not there. You wind up having to synthasize that in some manor using various plugins that is difficult to make it sound real.

 

 

Excellent points. Have you tried Peavey's ReValver? To me, that captures the "speaker pushing air" element better than other sims I've tried. Whenever I A-B it, there seems to be that sort of "oomph" that I associate with speakers.

[roomjello]

I might have misread. I thought you were being condescending to the previous posts. Apologies. Oops. Annie Hall? I'm not sure what that means but I think I like it.

 

Oh i thought you thought my post was too simple for the pros around here. But there is no shame in the basics imo.

Annie hall is a character in a Woody Allen movie by that name who says things like 'la te da' and "I'm from Philadelphia" Good movie.

[Lee Knight]

Oh i thought you thought my post was too simple for the pros around here. But there is no shame in the basics imo. Annie hall is a character in a Woody Allen movie by that name who says things like 'la te da' and "I'm from Philadelphia" Good movie.

 

I forgot she said that. Well la dee dah.

[Anderton]

I thought "Annie Hall" was a reverb preset. Ya learn something new every day!

[roomjello]

 

I thought "Annie Hall" was a reverb preset. Ya learn something new every day!

 

 

Good one!

[Jeff da Weasel]

 

I thought "Annie Hall" was a reverb preset. Ya learn something new every day!

 

 

I prefer the Annie Plate, but to each his own. La-di-dah!

[UstadKhanAli]

 

It can if it's hardware - that is, if you catch the transients before they hit the converter.

 

 

Ah, so part of what Craig is discussing involves the converter then? Well, I can definitely see that.

 

I think he might be also talking about the tone changing if one addresses the transients too, right?

 

 

I'm almost to the point where most EVERYthing I record straight to digital goes through a compressor first - very gently and transparently just to catch the spikes, the way a piece of tape would. Using a ribbon mic can help achieve the same thing. Big transients are hell on converters, as well as everything further down the chain.

 

 

I run a lot of stuff through compressors also, especially things like acoustic guitars and vocals and percussion.

 

Or I keep the level down quite a bit if I am not using a compressor.

[UstadKhanAli]

There's a lot of areas for the transients to be lowered when recording from an amp, eh? The tubes if it is a tube amp, then the speaker, then the microphone (especially if it's a dynamic or ribbon), and then possibly a hardware compressor.

[Lee Flier]

 

Ah, so part of what Craig is discussing involves the converter then? Well, I can definitely see that. I think he might be also talking about the tone changing if one addresses the transients too, right?

 

 

Well, yeah, the tone does change if you have a spiky signal coming out of a guitar into an amp vs. an amp sim, and the converter is only the first point at which the tone can change, in the case of the amp sim. In a physical amp, same thing of course - the preamp colors the tone (and also shaves off a lot of transients) right away, especially if it's a tube amp. The power section does this yet again, and then the speaker. If you're miking the amp, the mic itself may also lop off some transients, as well as the air between the speaker and the mic (if there is any) and possibly the console preamp or external preamp.

 

Suffice to say that by the time a signal from an amp hits the converter, a lot of the transients that come directly out of the guitar have been obliterated. And in turn, if you then add any further processing, those processors aren't subjected to radical transients, so that's going to result in a different tone as well. This is the area I think Craig was referring to.

 

 

I run a lot of stuff through compressors also, especially things like acoustic guitars and vocals and percussion. Or I keep the level down quite a bit if I am not using a compressor.

 

 

In my experience, it's about more than just keeping the level down - it's also the sharpness of the spikes. Any kind of really transient material benefits from some sort of actual, physical compression (whether it's using a ribbon mic or recording to tape or using a hardware compressor or running through a tube amp or whatever) before it hits a converter, even if you record at a level low enough to catch the peaks.

[Lee Flier]

There's a lot of areas for the transients to be lowered when recording from an amp, eh? The tubes if it is a tube amp, then the speaker, then the microphone (especially if it's a dynamic or ribbon), and then possibly a hardware compressor.

 

Haha yeah... see my post above.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Got it. If that's what he was referring to, then I can definitely see that there'd be a large difference. I've thought about this before, particularly when choosing a microphone.

 

I guess I'm a little surprised that amp modelers wouldn't have thought of this more.

 

BTW, my amp modeler, the Vox ToneLab SE, might take this into account since it sounds like the transients are fairly "tamed". This may be due in part to it having a tube. I've gone DI a couple of times with this, and it's surprisingly good.

[Lee Flier]

 

I guess I'm a little surprised that amp modelers wouldn't have thought of this more.

 

 

They say they do, up to a point - they claim to model tube "sag" and "air movement from speakers" and all that. But there are still a few points in the chain they haven't addressed, I think. And I'm not sure they could adequately address some of it so long as they're trying to address it all in the digital realm, because digital processors themselves behave differently under duress from transients.

 

 

BTW, my amp modeler, the Vox ToneLab SE, might take this into account since it sounds like the transients are fairly "tamed". This may be due in part to it having a tube.

 

 

Yes, I think that's a big part of it.

[Anderton]

I'm talking mostly about the input, the whole speaker/sag/convolution etc. issue is a whole other thing. To elaborate on my first post in this thread, I've been putting short, full-code bursts (5, 10, 20, 40 ms) into amp sims and checking the meters. In some cases, the input meters don't register bursts that short, but a lot of high-level signals happen during those first 5-40 ms, and they can "splatter" the input and produce really nasty digital artifacts. So, you can actually have transients slamming the input, but the amp sim won't let you know, so you think everything is okay but then you wonder why it sounds terrible. Often turning down the guitar volume isn't enough, because the transients are still high enough to splatter, but the average signal is so low that you don't get good distortion sounds any more.

 

I'm going to measure the transient peak levels compared to the average level that the signal settles down to after 40 or so ms, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're like three or four times higher with the pickup close to the strings, and maybe twice as much with the pickup further away. I'm very much in the preliminary stages of checking this out.

[Lee Flier]

 

I'm talking mostly about the input, the whole speaker/sag/convolution etc. issue is a whole other thing. To elaborate on my first post in this thread, I've been putting short, full-code bursts (5, 10, 20, 40 ms) into amp sims and checking the meters. In some cases, the input meters don't register bursts that short, but a lot of high-level signals happen during those first 5-40 ms, and they can "splatter" the input and produce really nasty digital artifacts. So, you can actually have transients slamming the input, but the amp sim won't let you know, so you think everything is okay but then you wonder why it sounds terrible. Often turning down the guitar volume isn't enough, because the transients are still high enough to splatter, but the average signal is so low that you don't get good distortion sounds any more.

 

 

Yeah, exactly - and the same thing can happen with any digital metering... which is why it seems to sound so much better when you get rid of those transients before they ever hit the converter.