Hey Chuck,

Here's how you handle the live sound deal. First off, get your amp set the way you want it...mic up and see how it sounds. Once you find the right spot, take note of how the mic is. Use a marker the color of your grill screen on your cab and mark where you put the mic. When you play live, bring your own mic and use a flashlight to find your sweet spot. I do this any time I use a new soundman that I don't know.

For the most part, most of my cover band gigs...we use the house sound where the soundmen there are awesome. When we have to hire our own sound for the places that don't have sound provided, we try to stay with the same company using a soundman we know and love. But every once in a while, you can't get them...so you have to get someone else. So I mic my rig for them.

In my original band, I take my own soundman everywhere I go and we have rehearsals in a light/sound room where we go over the entire show from the sound, to the lights, gear failure practice...the whole 9 yrds. So in this situation, everything is already mapped out and I don't have to do a thing. I usually bring two 421's with me for my live stuff as they are less abrasive than a 57. I run in stereo and though the house sound is mono, I like to sum my signals so they don't get half a signal so I always run two mic's.

But try what I'm saying. You do the work so you know how you want your rig to sound. Then keep experimenting with it to see how close you can get each time. Sooner or later, you'll be able to dial in the mic placement with a flashlight and you'll just know where to put it. The soundman or yourself if you go up to the soundboard, should be able to dial in a tone in about 30 seconds or less.

Yeah I knew you just set those sounds up and let them fly the way they were. You and I already had the high pass discussion when you were first getting into this stuff..lol...so I knew that you knew. But I just wanted to share the advice anyway just in case.

The reason being...it's best to get the best sound you can when doing these tests. Not at the eq stage, but at the mic stage. For example, would you use any of those sounds and just eq to fix them? Me personally, though they could easily be made into useful sounds, I need a better sound from either the amp, the mic or the placement. So I'd definitely work on the whole thing to really see how well these pre-amps react.

I think it was cool you did it uncolored and naked....but it would be cool to hear how these would sound with better amp settings and mic placements, know what I mean? Again, it's not that the sounds were bad, but the better we can make something sound, the more of an impact it can have when you listen back and compare.

It would be nothing for that pistolpete guy to come on here and say "well, your tone sounded terrible so really dude, it doesn't matter what pre you use!"

Though that's way too harsh and not something anyone should say, there is some truth to that in the sense of "not so good sound in, not so good sound out" ya know? Especially if you too feel you wouldn't use these sounds as they were....it's best to get the most credible captures you can get while doing tests of this nature. The good thing is...in what you did here, we can hear the differences in the pre's. The bad thing is...the pre's we may not have liked as much MAY have sounded better with a better tone and capture...see my point? :)

-Danny

I'm actually glad someone would take the time to review a couple of consumer-grade pre's. I believe there's not a whole lot of distinction between low-end and high-end except where the R&D comes in and the "validation" and, of course, vintage gear. But like my MOTU A/D, merely changing out the OP AMPs and getting a better clock suddenly improves the quality of the converter, you may find a few minor tweaks to the lower-end gear that makes them really shine. I know the ART pre's can be modded to an incredible improvement, and cheap! 

As with mics and pre's, and Lynn Fuston (3D Audio) would agree (no rhyme intended), sometimes, you might find a really low-end piece of gear is fabulous with specific audio sources. In fact, don't be surprised if one day, a certain musical instrument of voice is best suited with a Behringer 8000, and suddenly everybody wants one! 

i use a palmer pdi-09 to capture my guitar tones these days.

i'm finding i prefer it over micing.
and then play with room choices on mixdown....



though nothing beats the sound of a well recorded cabinet in a good sounding room........

the PDI-09 lets me work fast, consistently, and it sounds good too.

dry, but good.

oh yea!!

LOL

point about that is, whether running the line out of the palmer into a high end mic preamp (mine is a A Designs Audio MP-1), or a ART TOOB, or NOTHING (straight into my maudio audiophile 192 card via the analog breakout cables)...

it pretty much sounds the same.

i can make it more saturated if i hit the VU meter hard....

or, i can make clinically sterile going super direct, with nothing inbetween...

and all that adds up, to more colors.

especially when multitracking.

Bats, 
  Thanks for the input bro, I have considered doing a DI recording as my limited amout of time playing around with Th2 seemed like it was usable.  In fact, during the above test I tried to run a DI with one line to my interface (to be recorded) the other to my amp (which was mic'd also to be recorded) and I found as soon as I plugged it into my interface that I was then getting 60 cycle hum from the monitors.  I played around with the ground lift on my amp to no avail, and scratched the idea for the time being.

di's out of amplifiers, all suck.

LOL


well, they mostly suck....
there are a few manufacturers that take it seriously, and designed something along the lines of the palmer filter, to get the line level sounding right.


but most guitar amps that have line out, or direct out, unless they are modelers, just don't have a good sound.


you have to have specialized tools to do that job, and that's what the palmer is.

there are only a couple of manufacturers i know, that are actually doing this right as of now, Palmer, and Radial.


you need as good of a preamp as you can get for everything that's NOT guitar....

but if you were focusing on JUST guitar, all i can say is, i'm quite happy with the performance on this particular piece (PDI-09)

chuckc-
oh yea, hughes and kettner have their red box, and maybe behringer has a version.. but i've heard all of those, used the red box, just did not like it.

Bats, I mean that I went from guitar to DI then: DI XLR --> Interface While also DI 1/4" out--> my Pedal(s)--> Amp --> Mic'd Cab -->Interface and in the process I was getting 60 cycle hum So I removed the DI. For tracking bass, I can't say enough good things about this little guy... For $200 the Sans Amp tech 21 bass driver is freaking great. Best bass tones I have been able to get and if ya blend it with a mic it's even better! http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/BassDriver/

Hi Chuck-

For what it's worth, I like the riff! 

As far as the pres go, I agree with Danny's first post the most. I have some high-end pres that I really like, but on certain instruments, it's hard-to-impossible to hear the difference between them and average pres. Although on other instruments and vocals, they can be completely the silver-bullet for getting a sound to stand out in the mix.

Danny's overall description of how 3% keeps adding up makes a bunch of sense, and I have noticed that effect in my mixes. Certain instruments respond really well to certain pres, but I honestly can't say that I've noticed this effect micing guitar cabs.

Thanks for sharing your research! I found it to be helpful and useful.

TB