Current State of the Art for recording guitar quietly!

Yeah - I’d much rather own all the amps…but that’s not in the cards unless I get a beard and tat sleeve and become the go-to mixer guy lol. It’s definitely fun to play with if for no other reason than it’s just so convenient.

There’s a big variety of amp choices in the Fractal Audio Units. And parameters like bright cap values can be finely adjusted.

It has a large library of IRs, shot by Fractal and other 3rd parties. The IR library plays a big role in avoiding having everything sound the same. Fractal started to redo their IR libraries and present them as Dynacabs, where you can virtually move a mic around to traverse their new IRs.

John,
your playing is fine, so that's literally a non issue, I don't know what you're talking about.

Now that said, I do feel and I quote Ragan
"I’ve liked the ones you’ve posted before, but I have felt like there was a commonality to the sound."

I believe that quote also pertains to the new clips you just posted.

I'm not sure you need to purchase all the amps, but still they sound similar, and there is a certain flatness to the sound.
Now truth be told, does it matter in the scene of things, I doubt it.
Lately nothing seems to matter much, except only to us.

I've got my cab and mics in a separate room to my studio space - so for the time being (the next 18 months) I'm good for recording with a cab and mics.

In 18 months time I'll have to revisit this issue as my son will need all his room back as his university masters degree will have finished and he'll
be living back at home full time.

Maybe by then they'll be a digital solution I'll find tolerable.


 

Thread re-starter.

I lost my isolation recording room for loud guitar cabs.

I've moved my studio into a bigger room though so that's one bonus.

So I'm back to choices.

1. Record the guitar in the same room but wear headphones.

2. Buy a Suhr RL IR for my Tome King Imperial MK2 and Princeton amps.

3. Buy something like an Axe FX III and just give up recording real amps!

Oh, and I have a large pedal board with heaps of lovely analog pedals on it  - so it would be nice to keep using that.

I'm guessing the obvious choice is the Suhr RL IR?

I'm a bit lost and can't decide the best path.

This has been something that has plagued me for years. I toured for years with real amps (loud) but when I started doing mostly studio work, I became a super early adopter of digital modeling amps. I even had the first version Pod. No matter what I used, I couldn't get what I was looking for. They all sounded thin and fizzy. A dozen or so years ago, I picked up a Deluxe Reverb. Turned it on and instantly I got a great sound. I chased tone with amp sims forever and tweaked till my eyes hurt. A few seconds on a real amp gave me what I needed.
Fast forward... Damn, this amp is loud! What to do? I first bought a Weber Mass 100. That controlled the volume but it does not do any speaker sim, so I still had to mic. So then I got a Tordedo Captor X. That "should" have been the perfect fit but it's not. I bought a lot od Celestion IRs. Still, if I throw a 57 on the cabinet, I get a much better sound. There is something a little odd with the Captor X. It has a strange fuzzy distortion, even when the amp is clean. It's almost like dither noise as the note decays. I sent back my first one to Two Notes due to the wierd distortion thing. The second is better, but the Weber doesn't have that issue at all (but does not do IRs. So, When I need somewhat clean, I have been using the Weber and adding IR's in the DAW. That's been the best sound so far. I wish there was a better option, so I'm following this discussion.

BTW, the Fuse F59 is the best amp sim I've ever used. I'm not sure why Ray doesn't do more of that. In a pinch, I had to record direct guitar. The F59 sounded great on the track. It rivaled micing the amp for that particular song. But, I hate dealing with latency, so I prefer not to use any amp sims.

whew... long winded today

Apologies if you've already said, but have you tried the Suhr RL?  If you have to work quiet/silent, I think it's good.  

I, like you I think, went through a lot of options for quiet/silent tracking, for drums and guitar, and am now back to just using real drums and real amps.  For guitar, I get takes with (typically) the Iridium.  And honestly, they're good sounding enough to just keep.  But I know I can squeeze out some more life with mic'd amps.  And I also just connect more with what I'm doing that way.  Then when I have a bunch of takes, I take a day or couple hours here and there and re-amp.  

For drums, I used V Drums/SD3 for a few years but am back to mic'ing real drums.  It's just better, for me.  I can't track in the middle of the night, but I find time to get what I need done.  Instead of playing things a million times to develop the part, then just doing a few takes, I do a bunch of takes quickly, then comp/edit and kind of compose the part from the options I tracked quickly, since I can edit/comp without being loud.