Valiumdupeuple wrote:Just for the sake of discussion (i.e I will keep on using AT4 too): if you're emulating an e.g Orange or Fender amp and it's advertized as souding like the "real thing", isn't it a bit unexpected that the "real thing" then sounds so much different as AT gets a new engine? Is it still sounding like the "real thing" then?
It's a reasonable question, though I think it's fair to say that -- since we are talking about digital emulation of physical equipment -- the goal of IKM (or any other maker of digital emulations) is to get as close as possible to "the real thing" as current technology reasonably or practically permits.
Probably most makers of digital emulations could, at any given moment, produce "even more like the real thing" emulations that would simply require too much processing power, etc. for most consumers' computers. So, there is probably always some trade-off between "what is possible" and "what is practical". Nevertheless, consumers' computers are always becoming more powerful, so what was previously "possible but impractical" is always also becoming "more practical" with time.
Then there are, in the end, limits to humans' capacities to distinguish "sufficiently advanced technology" from "magic"
though those limits will differ significantly according to differing individual's knowledge and experience. I mean: if you've never listened to Jimi Hendrix's actual Marshall amp, how would you judge the accuracy of a digital emulation?
After all, in the end, as guys like Andrew Scheps like to point out, the average listener doesn't care whether you played through Hendrix's actual amp or a digital emulation of it (good or bad); they only care whether they like the music. Of course, "creatives" may care -- either because they
do know what that real amp should sound like, or because there is a psychological effect on their creative qualities that is rooted in
believing that the emulation is (sufficiently) like "the real thing" .... But this gets very subjective. We might remember that AC/DC was using AT2-era models on their studio recordings (for
Black Ice, I believe), and while we can all probably agree that AT5 is in many ways an improvement on AT2, clearly AT2 was already "good enough" for professional commercial use (for what's that's worth).
I haven't played through Hendrix's amp
but I do still think the AT3/4-era JH Gold is a pretty good-sounding digital emulation for my purposes. If it sounds even better (more like the "real thing"? though how would I know?
) in AT5: then, cool.
It looks to me like a lot of any change in tone in AT5 will be due to the evidently extensive attention that has been lavished on the Cab Room (speaker modeling, more IRs, etc.), and I think a lot of engineers/producers might agree that cabs and speakers are where a
lot of the tone lives. I don't know as much about the "under-the-hood" reprogramming updates for the amp emulation, but probably the IKM guys could say something about what's been going on there. (Physical amps, especially vintage-style ones, are weird are inconsistent beasts, so I would at least imagine that the tweaks one could pursue in the quest for Ultimate Realism go on almost forever -- if probably with greatly diminishing returns, after a certain point.)
I'm also inclined to think that some of the major value in AT5 are the new routing options and rack gear. I'm already imagining new gear models/units that could be usefully added there!
