Amps/gear you just can't get right

[carlaz]

I was going to say that I though the Brian May gear -- and presets -- were pretty convincing, even on my non-Red-Special guitar. There have been a bunch of other "official" presets for the Brian May stuff, for example from Thomas Brunkard as Peter_IK notes, though I'm not sure whether those are all now available from ToneNET.

That said, I do find that though the Brian May gear/presets sound a great deal like what's on the record, they often sound weird to me in isolation. I have at various times tried them out, and thought "Is that what it's really like on the record?" and then I check, and -- usually barring the substitution of my guitar and my fingers -- yeah, it does seem to me a lot like what's on the record, but what's on the record is just weirder than what I remember in my head.

My conclusion has actually been that sounding like Brian May is a great thing for Brian May and for Queen, though perhaps not quite what I'm trying to do myself. But I can't really fault the gear models or presets for that.

[john.kiser]

I feel I've attained a kind of "zen" with the embarrassment of riches that AT5 offers, and part of that has involved accepting an inevitable, varying degree of adjusting my expectations. Clearly when there are the various branded gear collections, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that the same settings on, say, an actual Mesa TC-100 and the AT counterpart will sound more alike than not. But at this point I don't expect to do much more than get in the ballpark as a starting point. From there I let my ears guide me to a tone, rather than let whatever expectations my experience with a given modeled piece of physical gear might suggest.

Ultimately, I think, most of us haven't had an opportunity to sit down and plug in to even a fraction of the collection of amps and cabs in AT, and even with the ones we're familiar with, how many of those have we heard with multiple mics, etc.?

Sorry, I guess my main point is that I've realized that I waste too much time being determined to force a modeled legendary amp to sound like some famous recording of it. I swear the variety of attempts on ToneNet to emulate Master of Puppets boggles my mind, and, I swear, to my ears the ones that get closest aren't going to use the Mark IIc+.

[carlaz]

I swear the variety of attempts on ToneNet to emulate Master of Puppets boggles my mind, and, I swear, to my ears the ones that get closest aren't going to use the Mark IIc+.

One would probably need a digital model of Flemming Rasmussen, as well as of Hetfield's hands.

[squeezenor]

The Slash JCM is weak, the Slash AFD 100 is good but a bit dark.

The Satch JVM - can’t do a thing with it.

Agreed on the Mesa Mark IV & V - just too many dang knobs and push/pull options. I am beginning to wrap my head around the IIC+ tho.

My bread-and-butter is the stock Amplitube generic “Marshalls”: Red Pig & 8000.

I gave the slashes another shot. The silver one is just so thin to me. And I'd rather use the jubilee than the gold one, since they are essentially the same thing.

Strangely, for cranked master, lower pre amp hard rock type sounds (acdc, cult, etc), I kinda liked the plain stock free 800 than the Brit 8000. Go figure.

I was going to say that I though the Brian May gear -- and presets -- were pretty convincing, even on my non-Red-Special guitar. There have been a bunch of other "official" presets for the Brian May stuff, for example from Thomas Brunkard as Peter_IK notes, though I'm not sure whether those are all now available from ToneNET.

That said, I do find that though the Brian May gear/presets sound a great deal like what's on the record, they often sound weird to me in isolation. I have at various times tried them out, and thought "Is that what it's really like on the record?" and then I check, and -- usually barring the substitution of my guitar and my fingers -- yeah, it does seem to me a lot like what's on the record, but what's on the record is just weirder than what I remember in my head.

My conclusion has actually been that sounding like Brian May is a great thing for Brian May and for Queen, though perhaps not quite what I'm trying to do myself. But I can't really fault the gear models or presets for that.

I think the Brian May stuff is too realistic, if that makes sense. It's supposed to sound thin and strangled and weird, because that's the only way you're going to layer 9000 Harmony parts. What you hear is exactly what he heard in the studio, and not what you hear on the records. Important distinction to make. Maybe if they included some more "live on stage rocking out" presets for more immediate, visceral thrills...

the mesa boogie dual rectifier, channel 3 modern.. there is so little gain. there must be something wrong in the emulation

one thing I've been doing since the beginning is cranking the input gain (the slider on the bottom left). I always felt the amps are kinda meh and needed a hot signal both to be happy and to achieve the correct amount of gain. The orange rockerverb was the most obvious example for me.

But several updates later, this doesn't seem as prevalent. I can use some amps with the input gain at zero and be happy, and that just wasn't the case before, even with clean amps. So try that. Or put an EQ pedal with the signal maxed in front and see if that corrects the gain situation with the mesas (or any weak, flat sounding amp).

They really should have addressed this on their own, though.

[thomas.brunkard]

My presets are availableon Tone.Net. Just search for thomasbrunkard

To your point - there is a big difference between a sound you might use for recording, one for practicing (especially one that considers the speaker you use) and one for live use.

The sounds I use for all of these are quite different. At home I may use headphones or IK's iLoud Micro Monitors so the tones are more bass heavy. Onstage, I have to work with a mono stage monitor but the front of house is in stereo so I have two different sounds here. Tones for recording are designed to fit in a mix so they may sound quite brittle out of context.

That goes for all tones and not just Brian May. The reason I love AmpliTube and the Axe I/O is that the power and quality is there to accomplish great tones for all these contexts easily and quickly.

I was going to say that I though the Brian May gear -- and presets -- were pretty convincing, even on my non-Red-Special guitar. There have been a bunch of other "official" presets for the Brian May stuff, for example from Thomas Brunkard as Peter_IK notes, though I'm not sure whether those are all now available from ToneNET.

That said, I do find that though the Brian May gear/presets sound a great deal like what's on the record, they often sound weird to me in isolation. I have at various times tried them out, and thought "Is that what it's really like on the record?" and then I check, and -- usually barring the substitution of my guitar and my fingers -- yeah, it does seem to me a lot like what's on the record, but what's on the record is just weirder than what I remember in my head.

My conclusion has actually been that sounding like Brian May is a great thing for Brian May and for Queen, though perhaps not quite what I'm trying to do myself. But I can't really fault the gear models or presets for that.

[thomas.brunkard]

My presets are availableon Tone.Net. Just search for thomasbrunkard

To your point - there is a big difference between a sound you might use for recording, one for practicing (especially one that considers the speaker you use) and one for live use.

The sounds I use for all of these are quite different. At home I may use headphones or IK's iLoud Micro Monitors so the tones are more bass heavy. Onstage, I have to work with a mono stage monitor but the front of house is in stereo so I have two different sounds here. Tones for recording are designed to fit in a mix so they may sound quite brittle out of context.

That goes for all tones and not just Brian May. The reason I love AmpliTube and the Axe I/O is that the power and quality is there to accomplish great tones for all these contexts easily and quickly.

I was going to say that I though the Brian May gear -- and presets -- were pretty convincing, even on my non-Red-Special guitar. There have been a bunch of other "official" presets for the Brian May stuff, for example from Thomas Brunkard as Peter_IK notes, though I'm not sure whether those are all now available from ToneNET.

That said, I do find that though the Brian May gear/presets sound a great deal like what's on the record, they often sound weird to me in isolation. I have at various times tried them out, and thought "Is that what it's really like on the record?" and then I check, and -- usually barring the substitution of my guitar and my fingers -- yeah, it does seem to me a lot like what's on the record, but what's on the record is just weirder than what I remember in my head.

My conclusion has actually been that sounding like Brian May is a great thing for Brian May and for Queen, though perhaps not quite what I'm trying to do myself. But I can't really fault the gear models or presets for that.

[thomas.brunkard]

Make sure the Red Special emulator is not used when you are using a Brian May Guitars Red Special. The gear got the blessing from the man himself and folks close to him and his work like Jamie Humphries and Danny Gomez as well as very obsessed (in a good way) users/fans like Thomas Brunkard have been getting great results that sound very much like Brian May's tone.

In my defence Peter, I'm actually out gigging with the tech at shows of similar scale to Danny and Jamie's so there's a professional imperative there too. Unfortunately, I have to wear a wig at mine and those two get to look cool...

Here's my tribute band just three weeks ago with Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley joining us for We Are The Champions. My live rig is Axe I/O and Amplitube 5 running off Mac Mini.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq56xpeGG08

[rspst14]

T I am beginning to wrap my head around the IIC+ tho.

Please do me (and others) a favor ... play leads and bends (especially bends) at or above the 12th fret. Do you not get insanely bad aliasing? Support confirmed this, but no fix yet

I'm wondering what you mean by "aliasing"? The IIC+ is one of my favorite amps, both the real ones and the Amplitube simulation. I haven't noticed any issue with it, but I wasn't looking for one either. I remember that early on, there was a performance issue with the Mesa 2 package that was fixed in a subsequent update. But that's all I'm aware of.

[bertsmith30]

I just can't get the right sound with the JC-120. The JC-120 model in Amplitube (both of them) distorts on the clean channel. I have a real one and the cleans are impossibly clean and undistorted. The chorus isn't right either. It "sounds" correct but I don't think the the built in chorus effect in the JC-120 is actually modulating in stereo like a real one does.