Current State of the Art for recording guitar quietly!

I don’t have as discerning of listening skills as you guys, but I like to keep up advancements in silent guitar recording.
 
I’ve have a Fractal FM3 and enjoy the variety of amps in the unit.

I’ve been casually making captures of my own amps using Neural Amp Modeler, which is like ToneX.

I’ve had a Suhr Reactive Load since 2018, and try to find IR libraries to pair with my amps. I also started to make IRs of my own cabs since I could control the mic position myself.

For a 5E3 circuit, I’ve had luck using a Suhr Reactive Load and the latest iteration of the Redwirez 5E3 cabinet impulses. That library has both close mic’d and distant mic’d impulses that sound like older recordings to me. Most commercial IR libraries don’t seem to have IRs of distant mic’d LDCs or ribbons.

For my Tweed Champ clone, I couldn’t find much commercially available or to my liking, so I made my own impulses an 8” speaker.

My Plexi clone gets along with many IR libraries since big Greenback cabs are commonly offered. Ultimately, I still like to use my own Greenback IRs because I documented my mic positions and know what I like. If you guys use 48kHz and have the time, you can check them out here: Box link

I could probably cut a whole album with battery powered amps... 

Went down the micro amp rabbit whole... the Blackstar Fly 3 sounds pretty cool in demos. Always hard to tell what it sounds like in real life, no way are these demos "raw".

I've been using a DRRI into either a Weber Mass 100 or a Torpedo X. If I use the Weber, I just listen to the amp live in the studio as my monitoring and then add Celestion IRs as an insert on the channel. With the Torpedo, I use the same Celestion IR's and use the XLR out for recording.

Honestly, I think the amp without a load box and mic'd up sounds better, but I have to control the volume. For some reason, I feel the Weber sounds better. I feel like there is some fuzzyness to the Torpedo X that I don't like, but I use it anyway often.

BTW, if you go DI into a computer and avoid an amp altogether, I can recommend the Fuse '59. It's the best sounding Fender amp sim I've used. When I had problems with the Torpedo (and had to send it to France for repair), I used the '59 on a couple sessions. I was pretty happy with it. Only issue is latency when recording. In my case, it was for a personal project so I just monitored the input of the Lynx Aurora (n) and then play it back with the 59 as an insert.

I didn’t really read this thread so apologies if this is off the mark, or was already said, but these days I’d much rather record through a kemper/axe fx/etc then through a iso cab. The modelers have gotten so damn good. I’m constantly impressed with how far things have come. The feel is different when you’re playing but I struggle to hear any meaningful difference in tone or quality. And often times the sound is better than in real life due to the fact that so many people are recording in mediocre to poor sounding rooms, dealing with acoustic issues, monitoring issues etc.

When I can afford to splurge I’m getting the new Kemper Profiler Player so that I can take it to studios when I’m having a band play live in a room. I’ll be able to take the recorded amp sim out and the guitar DI out at the same time (so I can remap later if needed). I think it’ll result in better monitor mixes for the band and it solves bleed issues.

The problem is what do 'ya do with a player who comes in with a rig they love? The whole 'plug into my toaster' thing doesn't work. 

Like I've got a '61 bandmaster, some really carefully chosen pedals and a cab with old UK greenbacks... the toasters not the same. Don't even try to convince me...

That's where all the load box stuff like the UA ox and iso cabs come into play. Its about the only option. 

As a player, and with the producer hat on for visiting guitarists I'm not sure I've found anything much better then the strymon boxes. Mostly because they respond exactly like an amp... meaning that any dumb guitar player who's already comfortable with a backline amp can pop in, plug in and get something going that they like. 

Contrast to just about every menu driven box... old lame 6... new lame 6... Kempers Axe etc and it always seems to turn into a bottomless pit. 

(why we messin with this junk when there's a perfectly good mesa boogie over in the corner?) 

Its the knobs. Guitar players love knobs. Menus & buttons only confuse 'em. Unless they're a total propeller head like us already, and then chances are they're gonna bring their favorite toaster & presets to the session so why are we even bothering? 

Here 'ya go... plug into my rockman..? Yeah that's always an option. Worked in the 80s. Ugh. 

I really love the Two Notes Torpedo Captor X. I use it with my Dr. Z MAZ 18, Princeton Reverb, Princeton and Tremolux, and the flexibility of having different IRs and room sound (or not) really works. I have a living room turned into a music room, so I can't play loud. With the Princeton on 2 though, I can capture that clean Princeton sound with a e906 and sounds great in the mix. YMMV. The iso cab route is great, but given you're looking to capture different ground, multiple speaker IRs come in handy.


Speaking of speakers, if your Princeton needs a new 10", I can't recommend enough the Kendrick Black Frame. Amazing, sounds sweet and breaks up nicely at higher volumes.

This video is the only time I've actually liked the sound of a Blackstar amp. That little Orange sounded really good too. Imagine any of them with a real mic!?!

I have a SS Heathkit signal tracer turned into a guitar amp and that weird little thing has been hella useful over the years. It's great for things that really need to poke through something busy.  I use it for solos quite a bit.

On the modeled deals, a very good player I work with a lot has 2 AxeFX units, one for 6 string and one for Steel.  He's gone through and made a bunch of presets for the things he does, and they always work.  On a recent project I'd take his little Yamaha powered monitor with a mic and a DI from the unit.  But, HE understands the unit and HE spent the time getting sounds he like.  I do agree that a studio having one and asking guitar players to show up to use it would probably be more hassle than it would be worth. 

For me I need to move air. For my own private space I like using small 1-5w tube amps. But even small amps are not all that quiet. Little tube amps driven are fun - sound great.

For my larger amps if I want to control volume (for my own personal space) I like my Fryette PS-2. I enjoy pushing my bigger amps to get all their power section love with the option to set the volume as I see fit.

Been considering an Ox just to have the option. Butch Walker seems to get a lot of use out of his. IRs are hit or miss because there are an overwhelming amount of them. If you buy a pack, half of them will come with 900 files. 15 different mics at 50 different positions to the half inch with another 400 combo files. I think you're best off picking out a pile that you know you generally like and scroll through those. IRs are about convenience.. might at well keep it fast. If you have the capability and micing setups that you almost always use, make your own IRs and start there. I can guarantee you it'll be a more pleasant experience if you kinda know what to expect. That said, the high mids and up on most speaker sims isn't "right". It can be fine, but you don't get that natural airy thing that a speaker and some air give you. It always just seems to cross the line into harshness. Still not unlike where a guitar may end up after fitting it into a mix, but that's not really what you want to hear when you're ripping the real deal.

I've been playing my Helix almost exclusively since my band started touring with them a couple years back. I've spent hours and hours figuring out what I like about it and still have to fight a bit to get where I want. I think they can sound great, but it's inevitably playing through an IR and thus the high end is always a little off. Turning a volume pedal or knob down still sounds like an amp sim, if that makes sense. Seems to lose all definition on gainier patches. In general, it's great for live/touring usage. I think you could get by in a studio with a handful of decent go-to patches, but building fresh ones on the spot without a power user is a huge hell no. I think that's why the Kemper is as useful as it is. You just load up a tone A, B, or C and it's just like an 800 through an Orange cab mic'd with a Royer. Bam. There's no understanding how the sag knob affects the compression on one model vs another or learning the ins and outs of 100 digital amp models. There's a learning curve to all of this shit. Can't always just plug in and rock.

It’s true, when I’ve booked a commercial studio I’m doing it because I’m going to be playing all real instruments usually at a minimum of 120dB +
(well not acoustic guitar or flute lol)