Current State of the Art for recording guitar quietly!

ragan has done a bunch of tests on this. I’m using the Suhr with some choice third party IR’s. Another option is the Fryette Powerstation. It is a tube based reamper with a direct out. The interesting thing about the reamping section is that you can get full power tube saturation from your amp, and use the Fryette to get volume under control and mix your amp. You’ll miss out on speaker breakup though.

Well this question is for me!! I've had both the Grossmann and the Suhr! and I sold both of them...

I really really really wanted to love them.

They actually sounded somewhat similar. Boxy mids and fuzzy kind of DIed sounding High end.

Tracking guitars for me used to be so simple. I play a Strat directly into a Princeton Brownface or a 5E3, miced with an AEA R44 a foot out in front, it sounds perfect. But I had to move to a smaller place and that wasn't possible anymore so I bought the Grossmann hoping it would give me that amp sound.
The feel was good, there's that weight under the pick and compression that I never felt using plugin amps, it was nice to play through but it just always sounded a little off, I got decent results with eq and IR reverb to put it in a space but it was always a bit of a struggle to have it sit in a mix, it lacked depth and really just didn't sound like my amp. Every time I was happy with a tone, I'd compare it to the same thing tracked with the Princeton through its own speaker and cab, and I would be crushed. I'd spend hours trying to find a tone that I deemed acceptable, and then I 'd plug into the Princeton miced with a 57 and get a better tone in 5 seconds.

So I sold after a year and replaced it with the Suhr. Again, 2d sound, weird fuzzy high end. I ended up using the Suhr as a loadbox and then put York Audio IRs in a Iridium so I could use the Room sound of the Iridium. It sounded ok but not great. It didn't have the same weight under the fingers when playing compared to the Grossmann.
I also sold it pretty fast once I realized that My Princeton still sounded way better when just miced regularly.

I've heard demos of both the Grossmann and the Suhr online that sounded ok, for like super clean clinical tones or metal distorded sounds but the thing is my amps live at the edge of break up and it just didn't translate well at all. The breakup always ended up sounded thin and fizzy instead of compressed and creamy.

Nowadays, my amps are in the closet just sitting on the floor, all the clothes act as a dampener and when closing the sliding doors, I'm actually able to get pretty decent isolation, pretty silly system but it sounds better than either other solution to my ears, though I'm not able to have my amps super loud, but for cleans it sounds great. Parallel to that I'm using the UA dream when I want more pushed sounds, does it sound as good as my amps? nope! Does it feel as nice playing as my amps? definitely not but it sits in a mix way better than the Grossmann or the Suhr.
I've got my Dream plugged in to a UTC DI into a CA70 ( which I know you own) and honestly, I have tracks where listening back I wasn't able to tell if I'd recorded with my amp or the Dream. I have a Fabfilter eq preset that mimics my Princeton's eq profile and when applied to the Dream tracks, it sounds very close in a mix.
The Coil helps massively to make it sound more realistic, better depth and weight. Plugged directly into the interface preamps, it's a bit bland.

My experience with the Dream makes me want to try their OX stomp, see if that works better.

If you want to PM me your email I could maybe send you some files so you can hear how each solution sounds.

Brilliant - thanks for that feedback - though you realise you just popped on my two best solutions 

You didn't just "shoot my fox" you blew up the entire woods 

PM sent!

Thanks

Try the Grossman, as you said you're only risking shipping.

My experience is that guitar sounds (acoustic and electric both) are so personal and taste driven that you basically just have to try everything yourself. We can all mostly agree on what makes a good vocal sound or a B3 sound, not so on guitar.

For example I saw some shootout of a J45 vs the new lower end one with satin finish. Everyone raved about the real J45 but in the shootout it sounded like thin crap to me (and also worse than any J45 I've ever heard, must have been a weird recording).

But the very thing I HATED was what some people were looking for. Evidently? I guess?

Anyway, try the Grossman. You might love it.

This isn't what you're looking for but I bought one to try and then immediately bought two more. I have one in my Blues Jr, one in my Deluxe, and one in my Silvertone Twin Twelve. With the Fenders it is indistinguishable in the mix. Then with Silvertone it sounds really great and really close but not quite like a 50 year old cabinet made of cardboard and papier mache that's falling apart.

Plus there's no weird phasey IR stuff cuz it's just an analog DI big heavy transformer and some frequency tuning. I don't know why, but it works and it's only $99.

Maybe that plus the Grossman box could be just the ticket? I'm telling you this thing nails it, it really does.


friedmanamplification.com/shop/essentials/mic-no-mo/

I have been extremely happy with Weber attenuators. Since they also make speakers, their attenuators to my ear, don’t crap or fart out like some others. I like them a lot and they make various ones for varying amp sizes. I have one even for my Vibro Champ. IMO, they are worth a look.

ETA:  I also have a Princeton and a Marshall Studio 20 whatevermacallit, that I have attenuators for.  

I'm going to have to find a solution within my house to continue to record my amps with my mics and pres.

My son loves Harry Potter - maybe he can sleep under the stairs

Or you could put your amps in Hermione’s bag. 😃

I can also recommend anything Benson makes. The Vinny is used by some folks I know and they've got a new thing called the Bellringer which is variable from 1 watt to 30 watts or so. The Vinny is louder than you would expect for a 1 watter but still probably fine for 'home' levels.

www.bensonamps.com/amps/vinny

I’ve tried lots of stuff. If I’m not mic’ing amps, my favorite is to use my amps with the Suhr RL, through Ownhammer IRs. Sometimes I prefer it sonically to mic’d amps. In fact I did a blind test here on RGO where most people picked the Suhr over the actual amps mic’d. But, I love mic’ing amps, so what I’m doing for this record is using the Suhr or the Iridium to get takes, then re-amping in batches of tracks when I can be loud. I built some cabs with the same speakers as my main amps and I can mic them up in another room (or if I’m at the cabin, in another building) and tweak the amp and pedal settings at mix position. It’s really fun.

Yeah, I have a Benson Monarch. LOUD. Very loud. I had the Monarch+ with Power Scaling. Still very LOUD. And very EXPENSIVE. I sold it cause I just couldn't stomach the amount of money I had tied up in a 15 watt 1x12 tube amp with simple controls. Killer amp though. I still have my Monarch head that I bought used before the pandemic skyrocketed demand...and price. A much better solution for lowering volume is the Fryette Power Station.

Thanks for that feedback, I appreciate you sharing your experiences.