Well mott, does this answer your original question, or should we expound a little on the topic?

LOL. He hasn't said anything since he first posted his question. I hope he's been reading at least.

Although the OP has long since abandoned this thread, I think the fact that it has still reached 6 pages means it's an important topic and there is still a lot of people, especially me, who are willing to learn from the experience of others. That being said, we have done a great job keeping this constructive, and I beg everyone to keep flame wars out of this until we have exhausted the topic. This is subjective stuff, there are no right or wrong anwers, only unique perspectives.

The original topic is how to get a "Professional" sound out of recording an electric guitar. There are basically two camps here, digital modelling and the mic'ing a tube amp.

It seems that there are quite a few guitarists, including me, who get fooled by great sounding guitars on recordings by learning that a POD or software originally created the tone. To me, that is convincing in itself. I also wonder what is the impact on the listener if a POD was used instead of a classic tube amp. I still stand by my statement that most listeners, including most guitarists, probably don't care how the tone was generated and evaluate the music on a whole different set of criteria, topped by talent and musical content.

I for one feel less and less embarassed that I don't use a $4000 boutique amp to get my tone, and use a lowly V-AMP Pro. It so happens that I get a variety of great tones out of it that are satisfying to me.

What camp am i in. I use both in my recording, and you dare say i play for both teams. People will start to get the wrong idea..

CJ

ORIGINAL: Jose7822

Stratton,

I am very interested in this subject, as you have noticed. Even though I understand exactly what you're saying, this mainly applies to today's technology to a certain degree. The reason I say this is because clearly we have improved the sound in both tube and SS gear through the years. But back in the analog tape days, according to Charles Dye, the electrical engineers of the day came about SS technology, IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY (just to clear that up ), as a solution to the inherent distortion that was being added from tube mic all the way to the console into tape. I can't tell you that this is exactly the way it went down since I was definitely not around during that transition so I just go by what I've read. This is why I wanted you to give me some sources of reading material about the beginnings of SS technology in music. Why did we go there? Not why SS is better than tubes. This is just like debating the meaning of life....it goes nowhere (this might be even worse ). I hope you understand what I'm saying. Thanks.

Yeah Jose, I can tell you're interested and I appreciate the spirit of your posts.

Try listening for yourself. Listen to the Beach Boy's "Pet Sounds". 1966, tube console. Hear any distortion? I own a 40 year old Neumann U67 tube mic. It doesn't distort. Google Goldstar Recording, or Bill Putnam for starters on the background of tube recording consoles. They made recordings that were nothing short of fabulous on tube gear.

I did a quick search and didn't find anything relating to the reason why studios went to SS. My opinion is the industry changed to SS gear mostly because of cost and ease of maintenance. Mr. Dye has his opinion. Sorry I can't be of more help to you!

ORIGINAL: CJaysMusic

What camp am i in. I use both in my recording, and you dare say i play for both teams. People will start to get the wrong idea..

CJ

I go both ways myself.

ORIGINAL: stratton

ORIGINAL: CJaysMusic

What camp am i in. I use both in my recording, and you dare say i play for both teams. People will start to get the wrong idea..

CJ

I go both ways myself.

That is the right way. You get the best of both worlds. We are still talking about guitars, ??? Right!!!?!??

I did a quick search and didn't find anything relating to the reason why studios went to SS.

I know, so did I, but could find anything related either. That's why I was hoping you could hook me up with some. I appreciate your comments though since they have sparkled a quest to find out exactly what Mr. Dye meant when he said those words. Thank you.

I can fool 99% of listeners with simple dirct box and soft tools provided with Sonar6 PE
Cake amp sim/Revalver demo, VC64 Sonitus mutiband, tape sim etc.
And i even dont have to use reverb, chorus or delays to camouflage simulation.
55% of sound lies in fingers.

Taken from http://mixonline.com/recording/interviews/audio_studio_nickelback/ Describing how the CD The Long Road was recorded.

“... we use a program called Amp Farm from Line 6. We just take a split off of their guitar amps so we can have everything modeled as though they're playing live, but we just sneak an extra cable in there that comes up to the computer. We have the amp-simulator program and record a direct, clean guitar tone — the same with the bass — with no leakage, DI'd into the mixing board and then into the computer, which then processes it. You create the amp sound in the computer and it records it. You can simulate any amp you want [with Amp Farm]. It sounds good.”

Here's a piece from Throw Yourself Away off that CD that has amazing guitar tone

http://www.kencampbell.it/nickelback.mp3

Is that professional tone? I guess its a dumb question, since it was a popular CD. But anyway, I think no one ever realized it was AmpFarm.

I still don't believe I have to have a tube amp mic'ed up to get decent recordings, or maybe I'm just not that picky about guitar tone. But I am very picky about musical content.

That's great research DigiDis, I hope Mottul the original poster sees it.

I'm afraid he's long since sold his house, and moved into a garage with a bunch of new mics and amps; and is finally producing proffessional recordings.