New CC Day

[alantig]

Picked up one of these yesterday...

I was intrigued when the announcement was made. I'd tried an attenuator in the past, with not much success. I found out my local dealer had one last week, and I stopped in, but I didn't have time to try it out. I had reason to be back in the area yesterday, so I made time to stop and try it out. Spent about half an hour with it connected to an Orange Jim Root and a pair of headphones. I tried to talk myself out of it, but I kept coming back to different things I'd like to try it with.


So I caved.


Hooked it up to my 2-channel C last night, but didn't actually play it until today.


Granted, I'm still in the honeymoon phase, but it does what it does very well. I can't claim to be an expert on how well it replicates the speaker cabs it apparently models (closed back, open back and vintage), but there are definiite differences which are more or less pronounced depening on how clean a signal you send to it. You can adjust the level of the direct signal that goes out to the recording device on the XLR cable (the 1/4" output apparently doesn't adjust). I used it today to record a clean chicken-picking-type part that I'd previously recorded with an AdrenaLinn III Fender model. I was able to really open the power tubes on the C, and when I compared the two parts, the part recorded through the CabClone was richer and fuller, but very similar to the AdrenaLinn part. I also opened up the dirty side of the C, just for fun. It sounded very good. To my surprise, the signal meters were not actually higher this way, even though it seemed much louder.


There's also a headphone out (as mentioned above). The one drawback on that is that there is no volume control. This is not a problem where you'd think, at the loud end of the scale - it must have some sort of limiter on it - but it is a bit of an issue at the quieter levels, especially in a music store when someone is cranking a stack behind you. I didn't really do anything w/the headphones at home other than make sure I was getting a signal.


Another possible drawback - there are no other adjustments really to be made, other than the cab selection. There's no mic movement or selection, or speaker selection. No adjustments for room type. Whether this is an issue or not is up to the individual. My initial thought was that I needed more flexibility, but a bit of reflection allowed me to admit I'd probably dial in one or two settings and not go any further than that.


So far I'm impressed. I don't believe it will always replace a cab and a mic for me, but it's nice to have the option to really open things up without blasting myself through the wall.

 

[László]

It looks like a good box to have.

Thing is, to have all the options you mention, and still have quality, increases cost considerably.

 

[alantig]

Absolutely. I looked (briefly) at the Palmer units (if they're good enough for Alex, they're probably more than enough for me). It came down to how much would I really use the flexibility that the newer Palmer has. Frankly, the software modelers I have do some of the things that I mentioned the CC doesn't - and I've never used them.

If I had been going totally and permanently sans cabs, this probably wouldn't be the unit. But I'm not - this is for the times I want to really open the amps up, and for when I don't want to bother with micing a cab. Or if I want to record without dealing w/noise around the house (mine and everyone else's). If I were going sans cabs, I think I'd go for something that does heavy-duty modeling of cabs. But that's overkill for my current needs.

What I would like to hear is an opinion from someone who has a better feel for cab differences than I do - like you, Les.

 

[László]

What I would like to hear is an opinion from someone who has a better feel for cab differences than I do - like you, Les.

I plan to try one soon.

 

[jfb]

Congrats dude. Looks cool. CARCASS!!!

 

[Goldtop]

Nice report Alan. Thanks. I've been wanting to hear about these since they were introduced.

Lloyd

 

[alantig]

My wife has to have her appendix out tom'w, so I'm not going to get a chance to do much in the music area the next few days, but I'm hoping to record a comparison this weekend - the CC will send a signal to a cab as well, so I'm going to record the CC and a mic at the same time. Should be interesting.

 

[alantig]

https://soundcloud.com/alantig/cabclose-demo

Here’s an audio file to give you an idea of how the CabClone compares to a mic’d cab. Everything is through the Archon in 100w mode. The cab is a PRS Big Mouth Stealth. I tried to match the mic placement so the sound was as similar as possible, at least to start with. I’m not sure I was overly successful on that account. It’s an SM57 straight into my MBox Pro interface. The CabClone feed is through the XLR output direct to the MBox. I set the levels between the two as even as possible and then never adjusted them through the recording. The only adjustment I made to the recording was to boost the volume on the clean clips to bring them more in line w/the dirtier clips. Both the CabClone and mic signal were adjusted by equal amounts.


So, no guessing here - first up is my DGT, neck pickup, clean. Followed by the bridge pickup with a little bit of chorus. Then we move to the dirty channel on the Archon and the Tremonti - neck pickup first with the volume dialed down a bit, followed by neck pickup louder, then bridge pickup opened up. After that, it’s a short trip into 7-string land with the neck pickup, first a bit of single note and double-stop action, then a nice heavy riff I wasn’t all that sure I knew. Last, it’s back to the clean channel and the DGT, this time playing over a clean looped background (don’t remember what I recorded that with. The DGT is neck pickup through a Radial Hot British pedal.


Also, no guessing on CabClone vs. mic’d cab - the very first bit is the CabClone and it alternates the rest of the way, with the segments starting at the following times:


CabClone - :00, :36, 1:15, 1:40, 1:59, 2:27, 2:43, 3:00, 3:16, 3:35, 3:46, 4;07


Mic’d cab - :11, 1:02, 1:27, 1:48, 2:12, 2:35, 2:51, 3:08, 3:26, 3:40, 3:57, 4:14


One other note - I started the CabClone on the closed back setting, switched to the open back setting at :48 (you can hear the switch if you listen closely), and used the vintage cabinet setting for all dirty parts.


Given that the PRS cab is not what they used when generating the settings, it’s no surprise that it doesn’t match any of the settings (I don’t have any of the cabs they mentioned, so I wasn’t going to get an exact match). It will be interesting sometime to record a part for a full mix like this, but given that this is all just a single guitar part, the differences are pretty pronounced. It’s not hard to envision the CabClone cutting through the mix a bit more easily. There are times in these clips I like each of the options better. My ultimate takeaway is that it may not be a full-time replacement for a cab - you do lose some of the tactile feel of all that air moving - it is a very useful tool. I’m still in the early stages with this, but so far, I’m very happy with it and the options it gives me for recording.