Would I like the "real thing" if I don't like the emulation?

The Lounge General Discussion
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I can only list my experiences with Ampeg bass amps. My friend has an Ampeg bass amp, and I always remember liking its tone. When Universal Audio introduced their Ampeg Unison plugin, I demoed it and thought it gave me a similar tone, so I bought it and have been very happy with it since.

So, IME, if you like something an emulation does, chances are it exhibits a similar sound than the real deal. If an emu leaves you cold, it’s possible you wouldnt like the HW either, although I must stress the fact that not all software emulations are created equal… so there will always be outliers…

FWIW, you preferring a DI’d bass sound isnt all that uncommon… I deal with commercially recorded studio multitracks at my day job. You’d be surprised just how many of those tapes only have a DI’d bass track! (This doesnt mean they didnt reamp those sounds during mixing, of course…)

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Yeah just the physicality would not be enough, but here we are assuming the emulations sounds exactly the same (and that’s part of my issue as well).

I agree with that. Once you get attach with the sound of a plugin it is way cooler to have an actual interface to play with it. Just the turning off knobs or whatever can take you to another level.

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That’s probably my main concern here. It is really hard to tell when the emulation is really good when you haven’t had experience with the real thing (which is my main problem here), and unfortunately on internet there will always be people both saying “is perfect” and “nothing like the original”.

Makes sense, and a lot of the bands I like hust record direct. I think I’d be happy to have a good DI tone while playing to engage with it, and then mixing is another part where i’m more working for the song instead of my enjoyment, if that makes sense.

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You know, I’ve had a bunch of tube amps and I guess also solid state amps, all for guitar mind you, and I’m of the belief that emulations sound good on their own but I don’t think it’s going to properly represent every amp that bears that name.

I’ve played through different single versions of the same amps multiple times and, for example, I had a mkIII mesa boogie for a while which sounded different to at least 2 other mesa mkIII that I tried, even with the same type of tubes. The difference was more subtle on one than the other.

I’ve heard a wide range in the marshall tone from various similarly called models like the jcm900, and fender amps are all over the place. What I have noticed is that the amplifier families do share that common sound, so like the “brown tone” or whatever you call some fenders, they do all have a character which is alike but the individual amps are differently responsive.

Tubes also break up and distort differently than an algorithm, there’s something which I think is called high order harmonics which represents the way tubes will produce a more musical overdrive sound based on the way the harmonics actually form in the signal path.

Now I know that this is talking about distortion which may not be applicable to your situation, but it’s generally how I think of analog ciruitry - that digital doesn’t necessarily behave the way analog does, not because they haven’t taken it into consideration, but because not every analog signal behaves the same way every time, even of the same model and type.

Here’s something which sort off backs up what I’m talking about in regard to high order harmonics / distortion / clipping, and basically relates to analog vs digital, and emulation is obviously digital:

"The key difference between hard and soft clipping is the type of harmonic distortion or overtones they produce. Soft clipping yields mostly even harmonics, while hard clipping tends to produce odd harmonic overtones.

It’s also worth noting that clipping in the digital domain creates an entirely different, and generally undesirable sound. Unlike analog systems, digital systems will not let a signal exceed the threshold. Instead, the signal above the threshold is digitally removed from the waveform, which typically results in harsh-sounding, extremely loud harmonic artifacts."

So, in my opinion (which is not an expert opinion but an opinion none the less), there is the potential that interacting with an amp you’ve previously modeled might be different as you dial it in and get farther from the model of the model, or to say the specific model which they focused on emulating.

I wouldn’t stake a high cost transaction on assumptions though, I would probably look for somewhere that might let you play around on what you want to try, if it’s at all possible, even if you have to drive a couple hours to do it. I know this isn’t really helpful in the sense of giving you a direction to take with your original query, but i do feel like there’s some potential for variation in the tone and output, as you interact and change the eq and gain and levels etc. which the emulation may not be 100% representative of.

Tubes even start to sound different the hotter they get. Some people would throw a towel over the back of a tube amp to really heat it up when they were going to record a guitar solo, and I don’t know that emulation can accurately tackle that behavior.

I’m really not sure that you’ll love the real thing if you didn’t like the emulation though. I think it’s maybe a bit like one of those old generic cologne/perfume pyramid schemes where they were like “it smells just like CK one” and ck one is pretty gross to begin with, but it was very popular and very expensive, and I think that some of those emulations are pretty close to the real fragrance that sells for you know, 3 or 4 times as much as the knock off stuff, but whether it smells exactly like it who knows, it’s really up to the person wearing it.

I’m not sure that you would like the real fragrance that much more than the emulation, but if you liked the emulation, I think you’d definitely be more apt to like the real thing. If you liked the real thing, however, you may not like the emulation, and I think that this relates to amps but just a different sensation, your ears instead of your nose.

That’s all I’ve got to say, good luck!

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At least with amps, there’s a much greater demand than synths.

Do you know what amp you want to try out?

You could always bring your bass and try whatever out at a local shop or (worst case) a kind craigslist person’s place.

You’re currently happy with your DI, soundwise for recording you could always upgrade it, though doesn’t have the same “basking in the sound” possibility.

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Thank you for your response! Yeah in theory digital distorts very different from analog, but that’s only when you are distorting digital signals in a “bad” way, like when you distort the Main output of a DAW. You can definitely make it distort in an analog way, but as you mention there’s sooo many variables that the journey becomes endless.

I like the comparison with perfumes haha I’m kinda arriving to the following conclusion (assuming a good emulation):

If you like the emulation => you’ll like the real thing.
If you don’t like the emulation => With low probability you might like the real thing.

If you like the real thing => You might not like the emulation.
If you don’t like the real thing => You won’t like the emulation.

At the end, it kinda makes sense to try emulations until you find the one that suites you the best, and then “upgrade” by buying the real thing.

I’ll probably going to try some Tube Preamp/DIs (HX Noble emulation) and if I like it step up with a Noble clone or some other tube preamp.

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I used the amps as an easier example but I was actually looking for Tube DI’s/Preamps.

Unfortunately most of the ones I’m interested in (Noble, Sushibox, Jad Freed Capo) are only sold direct and in order to try one I would have to look for someone that has it, no stores.

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Yeah, you nailed it. You also have to assume that the distortion tones of an emulation are not specifically produced directly by clipping audio signals, so much as emulating the breakup sounds which that amp model makes, by way of digital synthesis. The tubes themselves heating up, or in more modern amps being incited to heat up and/or distort by way of circuitry causes the sonic character to shift around a bit, and the emulation is then assembled from observation of the “model” under different conditions and then reproducing something via software that attempts to predict how the real thing will sound under different conditions.

I mean it’s all fascinating and a bit of a head scratcher but much like the recent thread about vegan cheese, even if it’s really good it might just be a good thing on it’s own rather than being closely tied to what it’s meant to represent.

Back in the day I had this really awesome preamp pedal made by matchless which is a super high end boutique company that makes tube combo amps. That preamp pedal made some really bad solid state amps sound pretty good so while it’s not everything, I do think tube preamps can add significantly to what you hear.

They called this one the “Hotbox” and they weren’t kidding, it would get so hot after an hour of playing that I nearly burned myself picking it up without letting it cool down first on several occasions.

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I’ve also heard vocals through tube preamps that had more body and what I perceived to be an audible character, so I believe it’s worth experimenting a bit and you’ll probably arrive closer to what you like than where you are now. Anyways, good luck!

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IMO the most developers try to get as close as possible to recreate the sound of the real device. If this is not what we like, I see little chance of having a better oppinion after getting the device - in general.

But there might be some exceptions. Example: If a software approach simply can’t achieve what has been claimed by the developers but users of the real device show and demonstrate its real functionality and quality.

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I don’t have anything to offer on the plugin emulation side as I don’t use it. That said, there are pedal variants that can do the same without buying an amp. Sans Amp Bass driver comes to mind but there are a lot of options out there. Possibly easier to try and return if not your thing!

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Bass amps are quite easy to replace with non-amps. I switched to a Sansamp BDDI as soon as I first tried one in the late 90s or early 2000s and pretty much never looked back. I have a tiny Fender Rumble 100 that I’ll use for jams or ‘gigs’ where there is no PA (for practice), but otherwise the BDDI or a similar offering from Darkglass does the job.

You have to consider that you’re hearing whatever amp replacement (pedal, plugin, etc) through the speakers you have available and that’s setting a floor or ceiling on what you’re able to hear - if you don’t like it much changing the amp won’t change the room or your monitors or your headphones.

If you’ve not seen it yet, check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8GiF-GVLgg

It’s about six strings but the point it makes is pretty good. You’ve probably not heard the “real thing” all that often, you’ve heard the real thing with a room effect and close miking and then various mixing magic.

I wouldn’t stress over a “real” thing that much anyway. Yes, the Ampeg SVT was used on a lot of records. So what? Is that the only hard rock/metal bass tone that can ever be used for those genres? Of course not. Though, if I was still sort of after that (and I didn’t have a microtubes 900v2) I’d look at Sansamp’s newer product, the VT bass DI.

Check out some of Lill’s other videos - I don’t think I’d ever drop big dollars on an amp based on that. I’d use a DI with some cab emulation and move on.

Edit: and another thing, don’t forget you can use parallel processing pretty easily in the box, for a lot less money than something like a crossover pedal and two rigs.

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Yeah, Zod as well. The Reddi might be in stores and is pretty loved?

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Currently using a Catalinbread Formula 5f6 as preamp (Bassman preamp + tonestack). I would love to find a version of that preamp with a good DI, but most “Tweed” or later fender preamps cover other versions.
I might go the pedal route to try SVTs, but for some reason I’ve never liked any emulations.

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I kinda want to conclude from the video that it only matters to find a “room” sound that makes you want to play and have fun, cause after that in context that sound doesn’t matters.

It also makes me conclude that it’s way more important to get better at mixing rather than searching for a good tone.

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I listened some comparison with it included and I didn’t like it, a little too mid-focused for me.

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Oh sure, the REDDI tube/transistor config is (supposedly accurately) designed around the Ampeg preamplifier circuitry.

One billionty percent.

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It’s hard to justify buying a big ol’ bass amp unless you’re practicing regularly with a LOUD band. In which case, lucky you!

I think the pragmatic and flexible solution here is to use an analog bass preamp with an appropriate monitoring setup, either studio monitors & sub or a FRFR monitor speaker. Preamp + FRFR speaker is a bass amp, just in two separate components.

A preamp that lets you shape the EQ and adds some kind of saturation/distortion stage is enough; and all real-world variation between amps is going to come down to those two things anyway, with the rest being down to speakers and room sound. Factoring in that you presumably have tone knobs on your bass, the available EQ settings on any dedicated preamp should be adequate. So it comes down to what added flavour of saturation/distortion you want access to. So you can try one, and if you don’t love it the price isn’t too high to swap it out for another.

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