More On Using The Waves PRS Amp Models

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Too Many Notes
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Last night I felt like recording a little guitar, and wanted to give the Waves PRS Amp Models more than the initial cursory look I gave them when I bought them. I don’t use amp models often, but there are times it’s useful to. I have a few tips to get a little more out of them - trial and error stuff I figured I’d share.

Based on my initial tryout months ago (not recording with them, just trying to pull out some tones) I decided that like most amp models, they do better with some analog stuff in front of them. So I used my pedalboard through an Avalon U5 direct box. This analog front end did help with the realism a little. I didn’t use dirt, but I have some analog EQ and buffer pedals that shape tone in a good way I bought from Pettyjohn. Still, I felt something was missing, the thickness and roundness a tube amp has, among other factors.

Because I mix ‘in the box’ I’ve become a bit of a plugin addict, and I got a few tube processing emulations that I’ll slap onto tracks from time to time. One that improved things noticeably was the new Elysia Phil’s Cascade. This is a plug that models a one-off tube and transformer hardware box that Elysia’s designer made with old transformers and tubes. Elysia is a very high end hardware company with very high end prices to match! But the plug isn’t expensive.

This plugin made the models start to sound “tube amp” instead of “that’s a model, naaah.” I used a very light treatment, just enough to add some girth and a little upper mid complexity.

Still wasn’t real enough, so I imported a Celestion speaker impulse response into the models themselves (this is an excellent feature on these models). Improvement.

Finally, I ended this part of the signal path putting the whole schmeer into Universal Audio’s excellent Ocean Way Studio room model, making it sound more like an amp in a natural environment.

After two hours of fiddling I got a sound that still wasn’t as good as what I’d get with a real amp and an SM57 in two minutes (!) but it was certainly acceptable.

If trying this little bag o’ tricks saves you several hours of frustration, I’ll consider my work a success! ;)

“Les, why go through all that if you can just turn on a tube amp, put up a 57, and get a better tone onto disk?”

“Yes.”
 
I'm glad someone had success with those things. I tried looking into those Waves PRS Amp Models, but it seems that I am painfully out of touch with all that trendy new stuff. That whole concept was so far over my head that it took me a week to figure out that I was supposed to use those things on a computer. Reading the Waves web site, not to be confused with the Planet Waves web site, it never explained to me what those plug-in things were or what exactly they plug in to. It's as if you are supposed to already know what they are for and what they do. I wanted to jump off a building trying to figure it all out.

Eventually I figured out that the plugin goes on a computer and you plug in the plugin into a digital audio workstation (virtual mixing board) but I never figured out how the hell I'm supposed to plug my guitar into a damn computer. Even if I did plug my guitar into the computer, I'm pretty sure the plugin wouldn't be compatible with my DAW (which I still barely know how to use) because of a bunch of technical jargin on their web site which I have no idea what it means. So at this point I've given up on plugins because I have over $10,000.00 worth of REAL amps and if I ever want to record, I'll just use a real amp with a microphone in front of it.
 
I'm glad someone had success with those things. I tried looking into those Waves PRS Amp Models, but it seems that I am painfully out of touch with all that trendy new stuff. That whole concept was so far over my head that it took me a week to figure out that I was supposed to use those things on a computer. Reading the Waves web site, not to be confused with the Planet Waves web site, it never explained to me what those plug-in things were or what exactly they plug in to. It's as if you are supposed to already know what they are for and what they do. I wanted to jump off a building trying to figure it all out.

Eventually I figured out that the plugin goes on a computer and you plug in the plugin into a digital audio workstation (virtual mixing board) but I never figured out how the hell I'm supposed to plug my guitar into a damn computer. Even if I did plug my guitar into the computer, I'm pretty sure the plugin wouldn't be compatible with my DAW (which I still barely know how to use) because of a bunch of technical jargin on their web site which I have no idea what it means. So at this point I've given up on plugins because I have over $10,000.00 worth of REAL amps and if I ever want to record, I'll just use a real amp with a microphone in front of it.

Well, yes.

Use a real amp. That’s always the best choice!

These plugins work with all DAWs, nonetheless. You plug the guitar into the computer via either a DI box into a line or mic Input, or use the instrument input on the audio interface if it has one. The audio interface is the box that coverts analog to digital and digital to analog so you can record and play back music tracks.

Either you have one of those, or your DAW will be fairly useless!

Once you insert the plugin on the track you’re recording on, it will make the guitar sound a little bit like you’re recording with an amp, just not as good.

In fact, you’ll want to tear your hair out over why you still can’t hear the plugin until you remember to enable “software monitoring,” or the equivalent in your DAW’s jargon.

Then you’ll be frustrated as hell that this $60 plugin doesn’t sound like your $10k worth of amps. Hence, my experiment and subsequent post. :)

I don’t advocate using plugins instead of amps, unless:

1. It’s late, and you feel like recording, or have to because you’re in the business and have a deadline.

2. You don’t have, or perhaps don’t care for, your load box or UA OX (or similar hardware gadget). Or maybe you don’t have the right real amp for what you want to do.

3. Your room isn’t soundproof and a Certain Someone would be pissed if you cranked your amps.

Under the above circumstances, a plugin is an OK thing.
 
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Les, (or anyone who has/uses both) I'd be interested to hear how you feel the plugins compare to the current crop of amp modelers. The last couple times I had to track something I just used a modeler. We can talk all day about how they don't have quite the feel or touch of a great tube amp, but the tone is getting really close and while feel and touch are nice in the room, the tone is what matters on the track. I've heard some very very good sounding recordings that were tracked with modelers. Even dry and un-mastered they sounded great. Once the glue was added (verb and comp) and they were mixed in with the other parts... well, you know what I'm going to say... nobody could ever tell it wasn't a real amp.

I know you don't want to buy one but I'm wondering if you've used a great modeler lately.
 
Axe FX III and Helix...I have no need for amps other than the ones I kept that mostly collect dust, along with the dust collecting conventional pedal board...
 
Once the glue was added (verb and comp) and they were mixed in with the other parts... well, you know what I'm going to say... nobody could ever tell it wasn't a real amp.

I’ve identified tracks as not being made with a real amp, but made with a Kemper or Axe-FX, listening on an iPad’s tiny speakers. It’s even more obvious on decent monitors. Usually I can tell within a few seconds whether a track is real or a modeler. Even a whiz-bang, current generation modeler.

I have 30 years in the studio where I make my living. I’m just that guy. But then, I can’t listen to music on lossy formats like MP3 for any length of time. I can’t enjoy it, except in a noisy environment like a car. Being this way about audio is a frickin’ curse, not a blessing.

People should use what they like. I don’t try to talk folks into tubes or out of modelers. I simply express an opinion. Endlessly. ;)

I know you don't want to buy one but I'm wondering if you've used a great modeler lately.

There really aren’t any great modelers, if the definition of a great modeler is that it sounds identical to a tube amp. If you mean a Kemper, Axe FX, or Helix, yes.

Even the highest-end modelers don’t make my ears happy. I just would rather listen to something else.

The worst thing about being me is that budgets are so low these days that most of the time I’m forced to create tracks with sampled drums, sample library strings, and so on. None of it puts me in a happy place. Throw a homogenized, modeled, processed amp sound on top of that, and I literally want to go crawl in a hole when I listen back. It ain’t right, I tell ya.
 
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Axe FX III and Helix...I have no need for amps other than the ones I kept that mostly collect dust, along with the dust collecting conventional pedal board...
I'll say this publicly, and further say, I'll never regret saying it. I don't care how good modelers get, I'll never sell my Archon, and it will never collect dust.

I have NO fear of this comment coming back to haunt me 10 years from now. ;)
 
Modelers sound fine in recordings but I just don't get much joy out of playing live in the room. By that I mean on my own to a backing track in my study. It probably doesn't matter in a gig situation where there's a lot of ambiance and noise so you don't get to enjoy the subtleties of how the amp sounds and feels like you do in relative isolation.

I like Helix Native and Mercurial Spark and Reaxis. Those are pretty sweet. Reaxis even loads old 90's Mesa Boogie Triaxis presets from disk.
 
My feeling is that the more real stuff you can put on a recording, the better the whole thing will sound. This includes drums, bass, horns, strings, and guitar amps.

For me - this is a personal, artistic choice, not a prescription for anyone else - I could live with a modeler in a live setting far more easily than in a recording setting, where I control the audio, as opposed to a sound person controlling the audio.

Once I get audio under the microscope of a recording designed for repeated listenings, I have a difficult time making the mix work. And by ‘work’ I mean more than marginally listenable.

But to be perfectly honest, dealing with sampled drums is also a problem when mixing. Another thing is that a great lead vocal is the rising tide that floats all boats, because the ear concentrates on that.

Finding a great vocalist? Another kettle of fish (you see what I’m doin’ here with the boats/fish analogies).

There’s no right/wrong in this stuff, it’s just what works for you, or not.
 
Yeah, I get what you mean. Enjoying the feel of a live amp might actually enable you to to perform better in the studio than a modeler if the software felt sterile and unresponsive leaving you to just go through the motions without being able to invest the same amount of feeling and get enjoyment out of your playing.
 
Yeah, I get what you mean. Enjoying the feel of a live amp might actually enable you to to perform better in the studio than a modeler if the software felt sterile and unresponsive leaving you to just go through the motions without being able to invest the same amount of feeling and get enjoyment out of your playing.

Absolutely.

The sound is also a bit more three dimensional in tube amps, but that can also be the case with other tube recording gear, which we needn’t get into, except to say that no model is perfect, and the things that make sound are substantially more important to any recording than the stuff that mixes sound.

Solid state devices and software are wonderful things, don’t get me wrong; but classic tube gear just sounds so three dimensional and rich!

Incidentally, I helped a friend set up an Audio Research preamp and amp rig from the 70s (that he just re-tubed) for his hi-fi listening. I’m just gonna say it: The realism and dynamic range were better than what I get in my studio while mixing. The low end was so much more solid, yet lifelike, the mids weren’t harsh, and on one particular record the acoustic guitar sounded like it was literally in the room. I mean, not close to in the room, literally in the room!

I was more than a little jealous!!
 
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tube hi-fi? getting heavy in here.

Here’s the thing. In my studio I have a very fine (and highly regarded) Universal Audio Apollo converter system, that goes into a 1994 Class A Focusrite Red 4 that I bought with $3500 1994 dollars, that goes into recent (also highly regarded) Opal powered studio monitors with 475 watts of power each, that cost me about $4000, and that I like better than my Genelecs (in fact, after getting these, I gave the Genelecs to my son).

This stuff is not junk, and my room is also treated with the excellent Real Traps bass traps. The acoustics are quite good. I get tremendous detail from my monitoring rig.

Today I helped one of my best friends set up his Audio Research system from the 70s that he bought used, retubed, and put into his untreated room, playing through some nice, but not spectacular, small monitors.

I was literally blown away by how great the system sounded. It was so solid, and so real-sounding that I was excited about it. There is a vibrancy and dimensionality that I can’t get in my own studio.

I’m now thinking about getting some additional tube gear for my own studio. This stuff matters, it’s real, and while not everyone’s into audio as deeply as I happen to be, I think it’s quite clearly apparent to anyone who listens carefully.

I feel the same way about tube amps. And while I love solid state microphones, I also love tube mics, my tube tape echo, and the tube LA-2A I had for years. Everything matters. Everything.
 
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well... i believe it, but color me unsurpised you prefer the sound of that acoustic guitar through a tube amplifier.

Here’s the thing. In my studio I have a very fine (and highly regarded) Universal Audio Apollo converter system, that goes into a 1994 Focusrite Red 4 that I bought with $3500 1994 dollars, that goes into recent (also highly regarded) Opal powered studio monitors with 475 watts of power each, that cost me about $4000, and that I like better than my Genelecs (in fact, after getting these, I gave the Genelecs to my son).

This stuff is not junk, and my room is also treated with the excellent Real Traps bass traps. The acoustics are quite good.

Today I helped one of my best friends set up his Audio Research system from the 70s that he bought used, retubed, and put into his untreated room, playing through some nice, but not spectacular, small monitors.

I was literally blown away by how great the system sounded. It was so solid, and so real-sounding that I was excited about it. There is a vibrancy and dimensionality that I can’t get in my own studio.
 
well... i believe it, but color me unsurpised you prefer the sound of that acoustic guitar through a tube amplifier.

It wasn’t just that. The kick drum felt like it was in the room, as did the acoustic and electric basses, and the vocals were gorgeous. Horns sounded like horns. A cello recording was To Die For.

I was blown away. For real. I expected it to sound good, and warm. But it was so far beyond that.
 
i would certainly spin some billie holliday on an all tube system (the genelecs can come too).

my stereo amp is a bryston; might as well be a straight wire.
 
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