Today I got an email from Lava Cable that had a link to this interview with Roger Mayer, Hendrix' pedal creator, inventor of Octavia, pedal maker to Page, many stars, done a few years ago.
http://lava-cable.myshopify.com/blo...tm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Reading+Material
He mentions two things I've been saying for a long time, and these statements resonate with me:
1. Chasing the tone on recordings is not the same thing as having the player's tone in the first place, and is pretty much a waste of time considering the sound sculpting done in the studio, during tracking, mixing, mastering, pressing, etc; and,
2. He uses a different analogy, but the gist of what says is the same basic thing I've been arguing for years - namely, that the creation of sound with tube amps can't truly be modeled because the nonlinearities inherent in producing sound from an analog, tube amplifier are too chaotic and unpredictable for a model to truly achieve the behavior of the amp:.
"Imagine you are beside a lake with an unpredictable wind blowing across the water and are holding a stone that you intend to throw into the lake. How could you possibly predict exactly what the pattern from the splash of the stone would be before you threw it into the lake also taking into account the effect of the unpredictable wind. You couldn't possible [sic] compute it ever. There are too many unknown variables involved."
Another thing he mentions got my attention, he makes a distinction between gear used for live work and max volume sessions, and low volume bedroom gear:
"I specialise in producing equipment that has the capabilities to produce the sounds that can be recorded to make hit records and some devices are designed expressly for live stadium type gigs at maximum volume with the back line amplifier then being miked up and distributed with a massive house PA. I do not make pedals that are primarily designed to be used at low volume in a bedroom as many people will tell you when they move to a real gig that the sound they thought was great at home just does not cut it in front of an audience and used in anger. The situations are completely different and require the correct solution."
The reason this got my attention is that I've often put a pedal in place that sounded good while I was practicing, but when I cranked the amp for a session for an ad, the tone was not at all like what I expected, and I was disappointed. And the reverse is also true; some pedals have sounded great cranked, but at practicing volumes, not so much. Very few do both well.
I think this is one reason that I prefer pedals from certain makers, and perhaps not others. It's something to think about anyway.
http://lava-cable.myshopify.com/blo...tm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Reading+Material
He mentions two things I've been saying for a long time, and these statements resonate with me:
1. Chasing the tone on recordings is not the same thing as having the player's tone in the first place, and is pretty much a waste of time considering the sound sculpting done in the studio, during tracking, mixing, mastering, pressing, etc; and,
2. He uses a different analogy, but the gist of what says is the same basic thing I've been arguing for years - namely, that the creation of sound with tube amps can't truly be modeled because the nonlinearities inherent in producing sound from an analog, tube amplifier are too chaotic and unpredictable for a model to truly achieve the behavior of the amp:.
"Imagine you are beside a lake with an unpredictable wind blowing across the water and are holding a stone that you intend to throw into the lake. How could you possibly predict exactly what the pattern from the splash of the stone would be before you threw it into the lake also taking into account the effect of the unpredictable wind. You couldn't possible [sic] compute it ever. There are too many unknown variables involved."
Another thing he mentions got my attention, he makes a distinction between gear used for live work and max volume sessions, and low volume bedroom gear:
"I specialise in producing equipment that has the capabilities to produce the sounds that can be recorded to make hit records and some devices are designed expressly for live stadium type gigs at maximum volume with the back line amplifier then being miked up and distributed with a massive house PA. I do not make pedals that are primarily designed to be used at low volume in a bedroom as many people will tell you when they move to a real gig that the sound they thought was great at home just does not cut it in front of an audience and used in anger. The situations are completely different and require the correct solution."
The reason this got my attention is that I've often put a pedal in place that sounded good while I was practicing, but when I cranked the amp for a session for an ad, the tone was not at all like what I expected, and I was disappointed. And the reverse is also true; some pedals have sounded great cranked, but at practicing volumes, not so much. Very few do both well.
I think this is one reason that I prefer pedals from certain makers, and perhaps not others. It's something to think about anyway.