dxp: thanks! :)

Rain: Thanks! Yeah, the room you get into will definitely help you so you can get things loud enough to have an impact. We can put mics all over a cab....if you don't get enough volume push, you don't really get the effects of the mic'd rig. That said, you don't need massive amounts of volume unless you are going for an Angus Young type of tone or an early Van Halen. They don't use much of a gain stage and rely more on output tube saturation...and to get that, you guessed it...extreme loudness.

On the ear training thing, you still might not be out the woods and may need to spend more time with identification. The reason being, what you THINK is good now may not be when you have your room, monitors and ARC set up. ARC is going to give your monitors (at the least) a flat curve. This changes things a lot. Definitely consider a sub as well. You'll never second guess anything once you get that dialed in.

Bass....to end your bass issues, go buy a bass pod. Seriously man, I can't believe how great they are. I have the real good pro rack version at my new studio and use the little charcoal, kidney bean type here and honest when I tell you, with just a little tweaking it sounds tremendous. The only issue I've had with it is, it hisses at about 5k no matter how you have it set. The unit just does this due to how it's built. You can turn down every knob on it and still hear this hiss. It's not bad or anything....and realistically speaking, you don't need 5k in a bass tone. So I dial it out completely using my console or I can always do it using an eq once the track is printed. Other than that, I've gotten several compliments on my bass sounds....so I stick with it.

The other way I do it is with a DI out of a bass amp and then mic the bass amp. But to be honest, I'm still not sold on mic'ing bass amps. I just don't like the sound at all. But when you mix it in with a DI signal, this is where you can really get some cool results. You use one sound for "the body" the other sound for "the percussiveness and character". That's really the key to all this stuff....mixing things together all in one shot. You'll be fine with all this stuff once you can flex your muscles in a room that allows you to experiment with little to no limitations. You'll see. Besides, you'll always have me to help you out if you ever need anything. We'll get you straightened out. :)

-Danny  

I'll give another little plug for Head Case. Danny was kind enough to let me test it when it was still in development, and its unreal. So happy they've finally released a commercial version - don't even delay, just go and buy it!

Back to the OP - rain, I bought Slate's VCC when it first came out because, like you, the stuff I demoed it on sounded incredible. Bt after buying it I quickly discovered that its not what you want all the time. I was very surprised that I liked this plug, because I'm very skeptical of stuff like this, but as I said, I demoed it, and it sounded great so I bought it. 

I think you just have to listen carefully with every new project and determine whether or not its what you want. Sometimes, it works on certain instruments even if it doesn't work on everything.

The danger with this type of plugin is that you just stick it on everything without thinking, almost as if you feel a need to get value for money! I've found if you listen carefully, VCC can be a great tool, but I think your default position should be to NOT use it - for me, I need to be convinced that something is actually improving my sound before I let it anywhere near my audio! It seems so many people record their tracks and then just go into auto pilot and start to throw plugins on everything just because 'that's what you do!'

Gain staging is VERY important when using this plug.

You mentioned the RC Tube emu - I absolutely hate it! I find it just masks and muddies up everything I try it on! 

So I wouldn't give up on it rain, but if I were you, I'd adopt a 'I've got to hear an audible improvement in sound before I use this thing' mentality. Start every project assuming you're not going to use it. 

One more thing - would I buy it again? No! It's overpriced, and although I like it on some things, I could certainly live without it. But I have another tool in the box, so I'm happy :-)

Yeah, I'm sure I'll probably be depressed for a couple of weeks once I move into a room w/ some treatment. But that's the story of my musical life - an emotional roller-coaster. ;) 

I'm pretty much sold on the Bass POD already. The thing is that the needs evolve all the time. At first we were supposed to have the bass tracked by a friend in Montreal, but the more we work on this thing, the more we want to do at home.

At this point, in all humility, I don't think my rough mixes sound that bad, but I definitely can hear recurring issues and I know there's ton of room for improvement. 

James/Danny, Curious about a comparison. Have either of you used Amplitube or Softube amp room? I use Amplitube 2 a lot. Wondering how this might compare.

I actually use Line 6's Pod Farm 2 a lot for bass and have been pretty happy with the tones that I get from that.  I am assuming they are close to the Bass POD.  I get really good tones out of mic'ing my bass amp as well, but it is not nearly as convenient.

I guess I am in the minority on the Console Emulation in PC.  I like the sounds that I am getting when I mix with just of touch of Emu on each track.  The difference is very sublte, but I like what I am getting.  To each his own, I suppose.

I hear what you are saying Danny on mic'ing a real amp compared to the sims.  I like the fulness of the tone that I get from a real tube amp, by mic'ing the amp.  It always has that full, rich tone that I am going for.  Especially for slower, melodic guitar solos.  I have gotten some pretty convincing tones out of sims as well, but it takes a lot of tweaking.  Most of the time, I use a combination of both, layered and blended into a song.  It is much easier for me, while in the writing and arranging stages, to work with the sims...especially late at night.  Once I have figured out where I am going with things, I often go back and layer in the real, mic'ed amp tones.

dxp


James/Danny, Curious about a comparison. Have either of you used Amplitube or Softube amp room? I use Amplitube 2 a lot. Wondering how this might compare.

You mean compared to Head Case? If so, same principal...just different tones and options really. For heavier tones, my faves would be in this order without personal bias:
 
1. Head Case or Shred (more options than all of them put together as you can literally build and design your own heads and tone stacks)
2. Kuasa Amplifikation
3. Amplitube Metal/Amplitube 2/Guitar Rig 5 (tie)
4. TH2
5. Revalver MK
 
They're all good in their own ways, I just have my own personal preference and sounds in my head. I can get them in seconds with Head Case or Kuasa where the others take more time for me to be semi-happy with. None of them beat my guitar tube pre-amp though. :)
 
I have a few old Digitech 2101's that I've had modded. Absolutely killer with gapless program changes and sound spill-over into the next patch change. Most powerful and versatile guitar pre-amp I've ever used hands down. The thing has options that have options for its options and has both 12AX7 tube tones and transistor tones all in one. The biggest problem with it is learning how to use it at first. Steep learning curve to the max. But once you do, your biggest problem is deciding on what you like. I like decisions like that. :)
 
-Danny

Danny, that's a lot of options with options.. thank you for the feedback. Hearing your demo of Head Case I was very impressed with the guitar sounds. Your playing was ok too... ha What I am missing in my guitar tone is that really good overdrive, sustain and bite without having all the distortion. make sense? Your sound in that demo had exactly all those but still sounded very 'clean'. For $60 this might just be a worthwhile purchase. Dave

MakeShift


I actually use Line 6's Pod Farm 2 a lot for bass and have been pretty happy with the tones that I get from that.  I am assuming they are close to the Bass POD.  I get really good tones out of mic'ing my bass amp as well, but it is not nearly as convenient.

I also use POD Farm for bass. In fact, it's pretty much all I use it for these days. Amplitube and the old Ampeg SVX aren't bad either, but I just prefer the way POD Farm sits in the mix. Plus, I like to throw that UK Classic preamp in the signal chain, to add just a tiny little bit of drive and fine tune the low end a bit.

Rain,

That's exactly why I use it.  It just seems to naturally sit better in the mix with my Rickenbacker.