Since I live in an apartment, I play through studio monitors because I can’t be loud, but I wanted to solve that issue of feeling connected to a quiet sound. I built what I coined a “cab chair” by connecting vibration transducers to my practice chair, and sent all the bass frequencies to it. So I could keep the volume low, but still feel the rumble of the bass. It actually worked decently well.
The easiest way to make your own is to buy a Buttkicker Gamer 2 - traditionally it’s used for gaming to feel explosions, gunshots, collisions, etc. But it connects to your sound system, so if you use plugins, digital modeler, or connect your amp to your monitors, it will act as if it’s a subwoofer, and it’s easy to attach to most office chairs. It doesn’t work as good since my build had a transducer in the back of the chair too, but it’s good enough. To be a real product it would need a lot more tweaking but I think it helps. I’ve seen some other similar systems that bass players will use where it’s a platform with transducers that they stand on, so they can feel the bass. That seems like a great use case.
Now whenever he plays at home he has to be in that chair or else it won't sound or feel right. This could eventually turn into an adult guitarist "blankie" situation where he takes it everywhere. His bandmates will eventually have an intervention; "Listen man, this has to stop." Joking aside, awesome innovation!
Dan, I mean this as the biggest compliment I can muster, I really admire your playing. The journey you’ve been on over the years on TPS is absolutely amazing. Your note/chord choices always surprise me in the best ways, and I truly look forward to your playing parts. All the work you’ve put in with your jazz exploration and lessons from the masters absolutely shows every time you play. You have easily become one of my favorite guitar players. 😊
I can’t help think this myself, and for me it’s through the lens that so many players seem to plateau, and Dan seems to truly be pushing himself and progressing in ways I’d bet most of us wish we did. I personally feel kinda honored to be a part of the journey, along with the obvious benefit of hearing good playing. Props.
@@fly51256 I think he may have meant that a small, expensive amp and an average bigger amp would cost nearly the same. Therefore, a relatively expensive small amp and an affordable bigger amp would be a better comparison, dollar for dollar. TBH, I'm pretty sure a comparison between a big expensive amp and a small expensive amp would yield very few surprises.
I'd like to see a follow up video where the two of you listen to the recorded tones and give your thoughts on those. It's great to see your reactions to the tones you're hearing as you play them and how it inspires you to play, but if you're really concerned about the end product, that would probably be secondary to the tones you actually end up with. I also think the comparison would have been better if you had used the same speaker cab with each amp. It would have at least eliminated one variable on top of the $300 amp vs $6000 amp thing. 😆
A speaker designed to handle 100W doesn't open up when fed 5W. A speaker designed to handle 5W releases the magic smoke when fed 100W. You need a lower power speaker with a lower power amp if you want it to sound at all like the cone is flexing or the spider is hitting maximum excursion.
Aah, my favourite few minutes of the week, the intro to the latest episode...... A little bit of Mick n Dan's sould. Many thanks gentlemen, great stuff!
@@michael_caz_nyc the click is a solid bit of metal passing over another bit of solid metal - which is why those switches last a long time. Silent switches are possible but there's often a compromise on reliability/durability over 1000s of 'clicks'. Also - silent computer keyboards are possible but they found that people actually need the click to know when a key has been pressed. use a touchscreen with no vibration or lights and it's a bit disconcerting, especially typing at speed
Thanks for the impressive. demonstration. In my opinion you left out something very important. The position of the guitar to the amp. When you move the amp closer to the guitar, the speaker facing the top or pickup you get very different results and the interaction dramatically changes. Therefore I would really appreciate a part 2 involving elements like position, closeness, angle and further assisting/enhancing pedal to achieve similar results. Thanks for ur amazing work!
When Eric Valentine recorded Slash he put the miked up speaker cabinets in one big iso booth, and had Slash in another iso booth with a 4x12 Marshall extension cabinet to hear himself, and 2 foldback wedges for blasting the playback at him because he hates headphones 😂.
What great timing for this video - I've been looking for a new amp for recording purposes. You guys have expanded my gear knowledge and uses tremendously!
I hope you have a great holiday! I am looking forward to see you live again. Dan, I hope you keep my idea about revisiting your pedalboards from your first year of TPS and comparing them to the boards you use today. I think a lot of people will enjoy that. Cheers!
Hey Brian, Mick here. First VCQ back will be 22 Aug. Thanks again for the suggestion. With some hilarity my most recent board is starting look a lot like the one Dan did for me all the way back then. Ha! Dan's has changed a bit.... Cheers!
I'm looking forward to it. Fascinating show today! From my point of hearing I have to say that the Bugera sounds like a much more expensive amp. The two rock though is chalk and cheese better than everything. I'm obviously not finished watching but I'd love to hear how they sound recorded dimed wide open making the power tubes howl. Enjoy your remaining holiday
Great Show!! After starting with guitar last year I learned so much from you D&M, thanks a lot. The biggest jump in my playing happened when I started watching you guys and just turned up the amps (JTM45 & Super Reverb TPS Wet/Dry) and started blasting away with my Strat & Germanium Fuzz. It is like Dan said, you hear every little detail and the slightest position difference in the fingers or the pick has drastic influence on the outcom. Moreover every mistake you make gets amplified immensely so that you can notice it instanly and adjust and stop making the mistake. Whereas on a silent setting you just strum you´re chords and you dont notice that the one string isnt muted correcly, but you cant hear it so you dont make adjustments. Play loud !!! you´re playing will benifit massively from it
I think nowadays the best tool for homerecording is something like IR+Loadbox/attenuator, with whatever is the amp of your choosing. You can push the amp, most give you a uneffected line out option for reamping, some even with the option of using your favourite delays/reverb in the loop after the IR, which always sounds a bit more HiFi to me.
It's up for debate how much the resonance between guitar and speaker actually contributes in a recording environment and in a full mix.. For the average listener? Not at all. For us guitar players in a room, very much so. As you guys said in the end, that's why there are AC15s and stuff like Tiny Terrors in every studio, the answer lies somewhere in between. But for homerecording? Amp + IR will do just fine.
@@MikeSingSing harmonic resonance makes a huge difference in the way Mick and Dan use it, and no one can argue that. If you have feedback vs don’t have feedback it makes a huge difference.
No need to run through monitors, you can have the speaker connected to the attenuated output of the load box to get some feedback but get a great recorded tone via IR+reverb via XLR. Really usefull for example when you want to have power amp distortion but keep a moderate volume through your speakers. Or go through a tube preamp to a cabsim based on IR with power amp emulation. By the way, did you try the Synergy preamps?
@@NathanNagel Yes, but feedback is different to the usual resonance stuff. It's either an essential part of your song or not. Just like every other effect.
This shows how important it is to use the right tone for the right element in your recording. Mixing a 2Rok and other amp (for example) adds width, depth and frequency range in your recording. That's right for some things and not others. Horses for courses!
I enjoyed Mick's American accent at 26:10. Also, throughout the episode, I was thinking "Right, so medium-loud amp then?" And then you said it. Once again great video, gentlemen. I do a lot of home recording, so it's good to get some perspective on these things.
I’ve been getting pretty good sounds through a Marshall DSL1, with an external Arthursounds preamp into the back at the 0.1 watt setting. The power stage overdrive is what seems to help a lot for extra harmonics and feel. Plus all the extra pedal-type tricks for low volume you guys have taught us over the years. The sadness of lack of volume aside, I’d be interested to see more experiments with the ultra low watt tube amps… as recording a good ‘large tube amp’ sound at low volumes like 80db or less would seem to be something of a holy grail for those of us who have to record at home. Many thanks for all you guys do at TPS, keep up the amazing work 🙏🎸
Amp, Loadbox for line out into Line 6 Powercab plus. Great at home low volume set up and you get the feel of the amp being pushed. Great show by the way
Excellent show , I recently purchased a Laney Cub12 15w knowing it has a 1 watt option purely for home use, tried it once and have been on 15w ever since, sounds much better even at a relatively similar volume.
Either way: both of you just sound amazing! It's such a "horses for courses" (Mick says). I can't wait for the live show to find out where everyone's at with this.
Love your work as usual :-) You both often say that you're curious to hear how the audio would turn out - it'd be interesting to see your reactions listening back to the audio for some of the shows
Cheers Dave! That was the original point of the Monday live show, but nobody could concentrate long enough to go through all that. Hahahah! FWIW, the audio is pretty much what I expected (having recorded so much guitar at this point!) The Bugera sounds totally credible and you could use it no worries. But. Neither of us were enjoying playing it much and that comes over in the performance. Just a little bit louder would do….:0)
Very cool demonstration! It must have been especially disappointing to play the 5W amp immediately following the 100W! Brilliant playing and discussion as always. Love the expressiveness when you're surfing the sound waves and sustain with the resonant harmonic feedback on the loud amp! Thanks!
Very interesting as usual gents...thank you. As someone who yearns for a 'real' amp, it gives me some food for thought (if I ever wanted to record at home). I live in a small flat so the more pleasing volumes just aren't an option. The closest I get is a good pair of headphones plugged into my Spark40. One day I'll be able to experience the joy of a loud amp at volume...thinking maybe the end of September! ;)
Even though you were able to set both mic pre's up correctly for each amps sweet spot, the bigger amp had such a bigger sound filled with more harmonic artifacts & truthfully just a much bigger fuller sound that you would expect from a much louder amplifier. You guys proved that out within the 1st 8 minutes & 20 seconds.
Hey guys great show as always! I’ve taken small amps with hardly any volume and cracked up mic preamp plenty of times to get a colossal recorded tone before. I always feel more inspired when I can feel the tone in my bones, and that always results in more volume! I do a lot of digital processor stuff at home but out with my buddies I’ve got a newer AC30CH and a 2x12 cab. With the right volume most of the night I could probably get by just working my volume control to clean up the sound. It’s not a huge high gain tone especially with a Stratocaster so it’s always nice to have a Tubescreamer or something to give the old preamp a kick 🦵 At home with my Line6 PodGo I find headphones uninspiring. Literally like you guys said in the comments I have to turn the monitor level up loud enough to get any real inspiration going on. On silent stages like church settings I use in ear monitors, but leave one ear open to the room. Although stage volume is low with a processor the mains usually put out enough volume in the room to inspire me, and I can usually get a personalized monitor mix so I can hear what I want. In the end I would much rather go every where with my Vox AC30 but it’s a rather large amp physically and musically! Sometimes the processor is right for the situation. Or maybe a smaller amp like a Blues Jr.
20 mins in and enjoying the small amp. Mind you like 90% of people I'm listening through smart phone speakers.. think this one is going to be put through a proper sound system. 🤔 see if I feel the same 🤷♂️ top content as always. Man I love Fridays.
Great work as always, gents. For what it is, I thought the little Bugera sounded surprisingly good considering the absolute monster it was up against. My takeaway is that you get great sounds out of a loud, big amp, but you can still have a pretty good time if all you have to work with (for whatever reason) is something more diminutive in stature.
Dan and Mick, great show once again. I really enjoyed the comparison. Mick, I think you bring up a great point - some of the greatest albums were created in Monitors. I understand what Dan is saying for live sound, and the discussion around room resonance as well as impact to the actual guitar itself. Being an "in studio" player, what I find interesting is that I don't experience a vast difference in either using a MFX (Headrush, Helix, Neural DSP, et. al.), a live amp in a live room, or going directly through my interface as a DI into my DAW. I will say, there is quite a delay in the later - something about the DI signal path that's slow to response into my DAW for various reasons (computer doing all the heavy lifting, time synchronization between interface and computer, any clock drift being compensated for etc). In fact, through my monitor during recording live guitar, I feel the resonance in my guitar as I'm playing. I'd be really interested in seeing your take with monitors in the room, cabs isolated, and playing these same two amps. It would be really great do see and hear your experiences and if it still makes a difference. As much as you both were talking about feel and experience, as I was listening through a set of fairly flat response headphones, what I noticed the most was frequency range difference in the two setups - which would absolutely sway me to use one or the other. Much more range in the 2Rock v the T5 (which is expected). Each time I hear both of you discuss the vast differences in any of the various contexts of "this v that" I sometimes feel confused as I'm not experiencing the same dissonance between various signal paths. I will say that I do hear the difference, but feel wise the "close enough" statement seem to continue to be true for me. Just a thought as I know there are many arguments in the chat on many things. Seeing what it would be like in a true "recording" type setup would be interesting to experience through your (Mick and Dan's) ears and feeling of the notes. I'm also reminded that the best recording were not only made through monitors, but with 15 & 30w amps.....
my tone journey went from 100 watt heads to finding the lowest wattage tube amp I could find while still fulfilling my tone needs... then I found the OX Box and now I can use larger tube amps in any environment. I can run them without the OX wide open or through the OX attenuated at any level I want or direct to monitors... I love the 40-50 watt range amps as a result.
.. I just love this show. Thank you Dan and Mick. Viva TPS. PS, got my first ever that pedal pup this week, he responded to TPS by walking all over the iPad. I call that rock and roll.
I never miss an episode of TPS and really look forward to this one. I ONLY record at home (and collaborate with others out of state). I was, at first, surprised that you used two entirely different amps. I then understood the point you were making on both setups. I was thinking the same thing that Mick said at the end... that there were amps "in the middle category" (paraphrasing) that could essentially perform close to both tasks. I guess I was just not ready to throw out my Fender Princeton (which I purchased because of TPS). Another fantastic show. Keep up the good work... believe it or not... it's needed. Thanks.
Great video as always guys guys! I used to think the difference would be negligible once everything was mixed and tweaked in the studio … that was until I played a solo stood in the same room as a Sovtek Mig 50 (with a Russian big Muff in front of it) flat out. The solo sounds like a different guitarist, a whole different vibe and feel. There was more space, fewer notes as I was, frankly, terrified of the thing that close at that volume. Even with headphones to hear the backing track, the way the amp physically made me feel was a totally new experience and made me play in a vastly different manner.
Great show. Yep, Mick you nailed it. Inspiration to play freely, musically, is a 90%er! Really does not matter at all what toanz you are able to coax out of a rig, if you cant feel inspired to ‘play’, all is lost. We don’t capture toanz we capture performances.
Glad you feel that way. The only I get, the less I care about ‘sound’ and the more I care about feel and performance. Now if I could only divorce the latter from volume! :0)
Useful episode for me as I use IEM’s so encounter a similar discussion, what you hear in a room is drastically different to what you hear when all you hear is the mic and speaker. Speaker choice (and mic choice) becomes different and perhaps cab size/choice has less impact on the overall tonality that you hear. I think a really interesting experiment would be for those who have never recorded or listened to their amp mic’d up to go through that experience and still see if they enjoy the tone they get when they can hear more speaker and less room, hope you’re both enjoying some well earned time off!!
I own a Bugera 5W, Fender Princeton 68 RI and a Fender HRD III. The Bugera is actually quite nice for recording because you can take it to the point of breakup without blowing the studio mic out. I also use it for band practice in our small rehearsal space. I mostly leave it there and dont worry about it. I think I bought that little beast for $150 back in 2012. Of course for a live setting, it is the HRD or the Princeton, depending upon the venue. But I really like having the 3 different options.
There's no substitute for feeling the literal vibrations from the speaker, (picking up good vibrations....!) even if there needs to be a compromise on tone/fidelity for that. It's why you still can't beat a good 4x12 blasting away behind you
A very cool video. The Bugera recorded surprisingly well with the LP and Gretsch. It was very apparent that the traditional Fender single coil tones revealed its shortcomings. I was astounded how bad the strat and fuzz sounded through the Bugera. Very inconsistent performance from the Bugera when throwing a variety of styles at it. Aside from the big iron sound of a 100 watt amp, the Two Rock's dynamic range is the defining feature of that amp. I own one too. It forces you to improve your right hand dynamics. This was also very apparent in the video. Also Dan's playing has drastically improved over the last few years. You can tell he's been working on improving. Love hearing you play Dan!
I can't get over how different these two amps seem to sound, not as a result of volume, but by design. Also, even if you had an amp with a 100 watt setting and a 5 watt setting, the sound difference would still manifest as the amp behavior is different. Very hard to have clear objective comparison. Yet I do appreciate this experiment.
95% of my recording experience is isolated from my amp in another room. This is preferred as recorded audio and room audio can be vastly different as mics impart character. I usually only end up in the room due to things like capturing feedback or oscillations. The goal in recording is an objective finished product not a subjective room experience. Once your amp is passed through a mic and preamps it’s like listening with someone else’s ears. Live and recorded are very different. I love dual mono, stereo, etc for live but always record in mono and split in post if needed. It’s a completely different mind state and approach. Interesting discussion nonetheless.
You’re taking as a producer. So from your perspective the goal is a finished product. The musician’s goal - or at least should be- to impart some feeling and connection that transcends the notes. Your job as producer is to enable that on the musician’s level. Cheers!
@@ThatPedalShow A lot of us are both-- musician and producer. And engineer, and mixer, ha. I had the same reaction as Justin, "I am never in the room with my amp when recording." I hear my amps mostly thru the studio monitors. Recording fairly loudly and without headphones on gets the feel of playing in the amp room, at least a little, which helps with the performance aspect. We do what we can...
@@ThatPedalShow I think musicians should think like a producer when recording. Transcending the objective feeling of a record when recording it. The logic is because it's a one-time experience to repeat on your music player.
@@levivolaju883 Musicians should think like themselves, they are there to play. The producer's job is just to make it work and get the best performances out of the players. But thinking like a producer will make their lives easier when it comes to picking what to play (maybe pick a triad instead of a barre chord as it will cut through the mix better), how to dial in your sounds to fit in a mix (which might not always be the most pleasant sound in it's own or even on a stage), and how to perhaps pick guitars for certain parts because they fit better. The interesting thing though is that the sounds guitarists are chasing are sounds they hear on records. It will never sound anything like that in the room. Most mics capture the amp close to the speaker. The sound picked up is just never what your ears hear at the playing position. I remember the first time I played through an actual amp at some volume, it was a revelation as I too was used to basically play over monitors, using cab sims, etc. Mostly because im a producer and the sounds I know and chase are sounds i know from records. I never had an issue with headphones and not having it loud, I just tried to recreate the sounds I referenced on records and therefor hearing it with cab sims etc. made total sense as that is what ends up on the record anyways. But I understand the visceral impact amps have on playing and having some air moving is just great and inspiring.
We had a beers n guitar pre party in an apartment and the neighbours hated when we cranked the clean channel into overdrive on a 1w amp set to 0,1w. My ac4 12 inch wasn't even breathing. These references are fun
I have several low wattage amps from 2W to 18W and love them. They cover a variety of tones and textures. But when I want to feel connected give me 100Watts and a 2X12, better yet give me 100W and 2X12 in stereo and submerse me in a room of moving air. The sound from the higher headroom amps seems to have an added dimension to it that is inspiring. I understand that isn't practical or even possible for some people but, that doesn't change how wonderful it feels when it happens. Great work and, while not the point of this episode, I thought both amps sounded great. I hope your having a great holiday. P.S. My Cogmeister is under construction 🙂
I was always of the impression that the point of these low wattage amps is so you can crank the master and get the power section cooking, without blowing out the double glazing. It's not really about actually being quieter, it's about getting more saturation at the same level. I have a 100W Marshall head, and a 5w Blackstar combo. Whereas the Marshall never goes above about 3 on the master, even in a full band situation (and I usually only play it through a load box for recording anyway), I can actually open up the Blackstar. At band practice I can have the volume fully gunned, and it *sings*.
The Bugera sounds surprisingly awesome. They are both excellent sounding amplifiers and useful for their purposes. The cabinet that the Bugera is plugged into is probably enhancing the sound of it.
I’m finding this video (& others) helpful as a reference library for plonking about in my apartment studio, where I dream that you guys will plug that echorec into the business end of the Hiwatt, drill a hole in the wall to route Micks lead and stand outside just wailing on that thing til the building comes off its moorings & vibes its way into the Welsh countryside.
Would love to see you get Laura Mary Carter of Blood Red Shoes on the show. Greatest tone I've ever heard, she's running 100w Marshall with 4x12 cab alongside a 57 fender champ. With a few nice pedals chucked in for a huge sound. Women are really under represented on TPS! So we have a British woman that been playing all the festival's across Europe for the last two decades Opened up for the likes of Biffy Clyro, Jane's addiction. And in 2019 music radar named her as best alternative guitarist in the world.
I've been playing through my starter amp, the Orange micro terror, for 8 years now and I've been satisfied spending my money on pedals. Can't wait for the day I get a 'proper' amp, but recently I've just picked up a Vox AC30 Plugin and that is amazing as well... all coming from my Desktop I cant really believe it!
This was a really helpful video inasmuch as I've recently gone from loud to entirely headphone recording, and my band's music is entirely improvisational. When recording in my lounge back in New Zealand (Persian rugs over wood floors, not a large room), my bandmate and I are both running into stereo tube amps. My rig is a Princeton on the right channel, a double-mic'd Vibrolux on the left. The output is split and then runs through a Eurorack processor into a pair of Mesa 800w solid state bass amps each into a G&K 4x10 cabinet. We don't have to crank up the volume all that much, as when we're playing the room is entirely alive, the air sizzles and feedback is always possible, especially if I want to lean back into the Vibrolux behind me. I'm now in Japan, with the culture of Japan, neighbours all around and my mother-in-law living downstairs. So when I really want to turn it up I might venture to really push my little Bose bluetooth speaker loud enough to hear my guitar, but generally I'm recording through headphones. As both of you noted, the feeling between loud and quiet is entirely, entirely different. It's difficult to connect with what I'm playing, even when the headphones are up fairly loud. As Dan, I likewise hear myself in my headphones as a recording. And because improv pretty much requires that connection I'm having a heck of a time. It's almost like I don't know how to play guitar at all. So if there's any fault in this video it's that you guys didn't solve the problem (or world hunger).
...i see i've come to the right place. imho: i like these type of videos better since i struggle with this myself. foreshadowing; am i going to be impressed with the 5 watt amps? hahaha! rock-on! guys cheers
As Mick mentioned the issue with practice at home with the 5 watt, or whatever lower watt amp and then rehearsing with band or gig with the higher wattages, the cab used seems to make a big difference in getting closer to the feel/connection to the sound you get from more watts, I switched from running my 5 watt into a 1x12 to running it into a 2x12 cab to get more "air" moving and get more of the feel back. Not perfect, but it's better, but getting the feel from "clean" sounds is really hard as 5 watts just can't do loud and clean. And then recording is a whole different thing. Years ago when I started I thought I was just going "play" the guitar, oh well.... so much to learn everyday. Great show as always gents.
In my home studio of doom I have a homemade fender champ type circuit (with EL34) and a couple of pine cabs I made with a 12 inch alnico blue and and 10 inch alnico gold. This really does the trick for recording to my tastes. That and an AC15 gets the job done without breaking windows. Back in the day I had a crazy amp with two 9 X 8 inch cabs of death. I think it was a trainer. it was a million years ago in a galaxy far away.
Good show. There are plenty of variables at higher levels that can come into play. You’re driving the condenser microphone a lot more, which will introduce some harmonic distortion. The preamp is driven harder. Another consideration is bleed. The louder you can play the less bleed you have to put up with. I think most recordings these days even if “in the room” with a band in a studio is done at moderate levels.
Super interesting. I will say, though, at least in my experience, a big part that makes recording small amps interesting is recording small speakers. So perhaps that will be something to try out in the future! Thanks as always guys
Whenever I have recorded loud guitar amps in the studio, I'm never in the same room as the amps! I'd be in the control room, listening to the track through the monitors and my amp would be loud and cooking in the live room. Obviously in the control room you can turn everything up or down, but at that point it's not super relevant how loud the actual amp is to your performance.
Another thing I do is I have my amplifier as I call it room temperature and instead of headphones with one ear exposed to the actual sound that makes a big difference to me a big big difference and also what helps is the resonance that I'm actually getting from the instrument the natural residence which will send the vibrations up in down and especially into my gut so this is something I've been going on with for about for years and years and years and years and it's a good thing that you guys are bringing us up to people because a lot of us overlook it a lot of people overlook it myself no because I understand it!!!
bottom line, you can be so loud that you can't hear your other tracks. softube has an acoustic feed back plug in, ( in the studio; you can concentrate more, and get 2nd takes, to make up for the loss )
I've been recording with two 5 watt amps and it sounds great and they get plenty loud enough to feel it. Of course I'm probably buying a 1970 Pro Reverb this weekend to run in conjunction with my Showman for gigs.
I finally succumbed to the trend of bluetooth headphones. Got in-ears for exercising, and now I can listen to TPS while cooking. I love it. I can even go to bathroom in the middle of the episode when I have finished my coffee. Hooray for uninterrupted TPS. The title on the other hand made me think of Clapton and that Champ he used to record Layla (probably something else as well) right away. But I do love turning the 4x12 equipped head loud in the other room. The thing is: choose both if you can. Don't settle on one thing, you'll find reasons to love both. Dan put it in words how it is to play with amp plugins. It's fantastic how you can mesh right into the song when playing with a song, and you can have it in your headphones in the middle of the night. But it acts like a mic'd amp that's loud and gainy, you won't have the experience of caressing the strings versus smashing the strings as much as with a loud amp next to you. It might be frutstrating that it doesn't react to your hits as much, but it's a great feeling to feel like you're part of the song and can figure out how to play the nuances of the song. It kinda feels like playing in a different room when recording. But I swear not many things slam the bottom end like hitting Marshall 4x12" with G12T-75 hard, so that your pants are flapping. Like you guys always say, it makes you play different when you experience your playing physically. And I'm sure Dan has been listening to Tool, every time he goes to drop tuning... riffs or the delay stuff.
Loud amp gives “more harmonics “ and pick response to me, but maybe there would be to use a different “pedal setup “ to compensate….. Great video, hanks for share
I have no experience with recording but I always heard Mick mentioning about how much easier it is to record small amps, so when I went to the studio to record my band’s first album I asked the studio guy “how loud should I set my amp?” And he said “as loud as you need to get the sound you like”. We recorded the entire album with the AC30 pealing the wallpapers off, 3 mics in front of it and a room mic, you could hear it from outside of the studio and it was really fun. Haha Not disagreeing with anything said in the video, just wanted to share the story. Haha
Awesome! Ha! I said more difficult, not impossible! I LOVE recording loud amps when the room allows. But your studio guy is totally right - whatever makes you happiest(
@@ThatPedalShow That’s why I said I’m not disagreeing! Haha You lot get absolutely brilliant recording sounds with loud amps every week, but I can see loud amps becoming a problem if the room doesn’t allow it. I just wanted to share the story because, just like you, I struggle without the volume so we had to crank the monitors in the control room to cover the sound of the amp blasting the next room and it was really fun. Haha
I live in an apartment with a family. I own a Blackstar HT5th. For me those 5W are way too loud and I very soon after the purchase installed a variable L-pad to get it down to manageable levels; the clean channel doesn’t have a master volume. Another observation I make is that if you really want that harmonic almost-feedback thing, it can still be achieved at relatively sensible levels. If I put my amp on a chair, tilt it to aim at my guitar and stand at arms length from it, I can get that in my rig (I play a Gretsch Jet).
So what i've learned today is that i don't like the sound of the Bugera. I'd love to see this revisited with a cheaper loud amp and a fancy pants quiet amp being less facetious, This reexplains and reenforces why real amps feel different than amp sims.
Some years ago, I built a cube out of three sheets of 4' x 8' plywood. I used some sound foam inside to deaden it. It's roomy enough inside to fit a 412 bottom and two low profile mic stands. I can get 105dB inside and with the door closed, it's only 70 outside it. Being in the basement of my house, I can record loud guitars even if everyone in the house is asleep. Get crafty and see what you can come up with.
Okay, so my takeaway from this episode is, big ones are much more satisfying to play with, but small ones fit in there so much easier. I mean, that's pretty much what Mick said at the end, right?
Cheers guys, interesting as ever. A small/quiet amp raised up to chest height and played fairly close has worked ok for me, just need to mind the pick noise being recorded too. Acoustic is fine, you can feel it. Headphones only with electric though ... I'd really rather not. Stay cool. :)
One could also argue hearing what is closer to being recorded has more utility given the context of the situation. Playing inspiration is one thing, but isolated tracks in a final mix rarely have an inspiring tone, as they’re sculpted to fit the surrounding frequencies. When playing a set path and not improvising (the vast majority of all recording) the importance of inspiration factor is scaled down to next to nothing. I would conclude from these recordings that for the purpose of, well, recording - the two are interchangeable, and implying higher wattage is superior because of inspiration is adding a variable that should lie outside the inputs for the function that determines which amp one should use when recording.
Tonally for sure - you could use either of these and get fantastic results! But it’s not about that, it’s about the performance. And the difference between average and great isn’t tone, it’s performance, so whatever makes the artist happy. But in the mix-ready point, I think I disagree. Most classic records will sound vastly different in the room than the final mix from a guitar POV. I mean //vastly// different once the producer has done their thing. So again, pretty much the only thing that matters is getting the performance. Cheers!
@@ThatPedalShow I can see where you’re coming from, but really the long and short of it for me is: Can the listener tell the difference between large vs small in the final product? If the answer is no, then nothing else matters. The two are interchangeable. If the player performance on a locked in tempo + locked in piece of material differs so greatly between the two that even after all the frequency cuts, other instruments, post-processing, and mastering it still remains noticeable, then it’s more an issue with the player than anything else.
It’s an interesting point that Sarah is making. The context of the situation is important. For writing my preference would be having an amp with cab so I am reacting to it, but when recording I’d shift to IR cabs. I’m just using a Revv D20 with no cab at the moment in my home studio, but looking forward to having the cab for writing and general shenanigans.
@@sarahdeleon9125 hmm, I am coming from a different perspective. I believe there is no „issue“ with the player. We are humans after all. Inspired, pushed by emotion, beeing in a good mood, exited to play or bored or nervous or angry or whatever. Giving a little more or a little less accents, great articulations, more feeling in the bends and vibratos, driving forward or lean backwards at the right places even if we are „in the pocket“ with the timing. As a recording engineer you have to make the musicians feel comfortable, get them „ in their zone“ . Then you will hopefully get the „greatest takes“ the musician that sits in front of you is able to perform, make it their personal moment. Otherwise we could program everything or let the next AI guitar bot do the „autogenerated takes“ necessary to do some elevator music „in the style of..:“ with perfect timing in the future. I love that human element in music and also the joint and shared happiness about great takes that everyone agrees to commit. In the end, if you sum all that up I still believe also the listener can feel that. Maybe not tell in detail why, but the end product feels different.
Steve Jones?...The Sex Pistols? I couldn't believe my ears! I thought TPS [ and Andertons channel ] existed in a parallel universe where punk never happened ! ...im kidding. I was pleasantly surprised to hear how good the small amp sounded recorded. Great show ,very interesting.
I bought one of those Bugera heads to tie me over whilst my old JTM head was been refurbed. I was surprised at how "alright" it was. I intended to quickly move it on after it had served its purpose but now keep it as a backup.
Since I live in an apartment, I play through studio monitors because I can’t be loud, but I wanted to solve that issue of feeling connected to a quiet sound. I built what I coined a “cab chair” by connecting vibration transducers to my practice chair, and sent all the bass frequencies to it. So I could keep the volume low, but still feel the rumble of the bass. It actually worked decently well.
Nice!
Now that's innovation!
Very cool idea!
The easiest way to make your own is to buy a Buttkicker Gamer 2 - traditionally it’s used for gaming to feel explosions, gunshots, collisions, etc. But it connects to your sound system, so if you use plugins, digital modeler, or connect your amp to your monitors, it will act as if it’s a subwoofer, and it’s easy to attach to most office chairs. It doesn’t work as good since my build had a transducer in the back of the chair too, but it’s good enough. To be a real product it would need a lot more tweaking but I think it helps. I’ve seen some other similar systems that bass players will use where it’s a platform with transducers that they stand on, so they can feel the bass. That seems like a great use case.
Now whenever he plays at home he has to be in that chair or else it won't sound or feel right. This could eventually turn into an adult guitarist "blankie" situation where he takes it everywhere. His bandmates will eventually have an intervention; "Listen man, this has to stop."
Joking aside, awesome innovation!
Dan, I mean this as the biggest compliment I can muster, I really admire your playing. The journey you’ve been on over the years on TPS is absolutely amazing. Your note/chord choices always surprise me in the best ways, and I truly look forward to your playing parts.
All the work you’ve put in with your jazz exploration and lessons from the masters absolutely shows every time you play. You have easily become one of my favorite guitar players. 😊
Ah, thanks so much Tony 🤗🙏
Dan’s the reason I got into Telecasters in the first place. Many thanks for that mate.
Well said, Tony. Dan's playing has really grown over the years.
Agreed, he's a rare thing... a truly unique sounding player. I recognise him without seeing him.
I can’t help think this myself, and for me it’s through the lens that so many players seem to plateau, and Dan seems to truly be pushing himself and progressing in ways I’d bet most of us wish we did. I personally feel kinda honored to be a part of the journey, along with the obvious benefit of hearing good playing. Props.
Whenever you guys do these tests for recording, I would love a section where you react to the recorded sounds.
I couldn’t agree more - that’s half the point isn’t it? Perhaps they will cover it in q&a on Monday?
Yes please!
Both amps sounded great recorded! As you say, all about the experience in the room. The disappointment on Dan’s face at low wattage was palpable.
Be interesting to see the match up of really expensive small amp and average loud amp.
That's a GREAT shout!
Agreed. Maybe they should have been both expensive?
Was thinking just this. No doubt a louder amp is more dynamic, but a better amp would also be more dynamic
Maybe the Princeton would have been a better comparison?
@@fly51256 I think he may have meant that a small, expensive amp and an average bigger amp would cost nearly the same. Therefore, a relatively expensive small amp and an affordable bigger amp would be a better comparison, dollar for dollar. TBH, I'm pretty sure a comparison between a big expensive amp and a small expensive amp would yield very few surprises.
Dan wearing headphones while wearing a hat on top is literally priceless. We love you Dan!
In the higher gain segment I very much preferred the Bugera. It sounded like a cranked amp, where the Two Rock sounded like a clean amp with a pedal.
I'd like to see a follow up video where the two of you listen to the recorded tones and give your thoughts on those. It's great to see your reactions to the tones you're hearing as you play them and how it inspires you to play, but if you're really concerned about the end product, that would probably be secondary to the tones you actually end up with. I also think the comparison would have been better if you had used the same speaker cab with each amp. It would have at least eliminated one variable on top of the $300 amp vs $6000 amp thing. 😆
A speaker designed to handle 100W doesn't open up when fed 5W. A speaker designed to handle 5W releases the magic smoke when fed 100W. You need a lower power speaker with a lower power amp if you want it to sound at all like the cone is flexing or the spider is hitting maximum excursion.
Indeed!!
Aah, my favourite few minutes of the week, the intro to the latest episode...... A little bit of Mick n Dan's sould. Many thanks gentlemen, great stuff!
Man, I love you guys. Just last night I was asking myself this after hearing some pretty audible pedal click over the sound of my 1 watt Marshall.
man, i experience the same thing last night, lol
Pedal companies need to make Silent Actuators a Standard . . . Can't stand that "Click"
@@michael_caz_nyc the click is a solid bit of metal passing over another bit of solid metal - which is why those switches last a long time. Silent switches are possible but there's often a compromise on reliability/durability over 1000s of 'clicks'. Also - silent computer keyboards are possible but they found that people actually need the click to know when a key has been pressed. use a touchscreen with no vibration or lights and it's a bit disconcerting, especially typing at speed
@@michael_caz_nyc tc electronic have some good switches on their pedals.
@@ivorharden Agree. Love my Polytune 3
Can I say just how great both of your playing was on this video! Well done Dan & Mick!
Thanks for the impressive. demonstration. In my opinion you left out something very important. The position of the guitar to the amp.
When you move the amp closer to the guitar, the speaker facing the top or pickup you get very different results and the interaction dramatically changes.
Therefore I would really appreciate a part 2 involving elements like position, closeness, angle and further assisting/enhancing pedal to achieve similar results. Thanks for ur amazing work!
When Eric Valentine recorded Slash he put the miked up speaker cabinets in one big iso booth, and had Slash in another iso booth with a 4x12 Marshall extension cabinet to hear himself, and 2 foldback wedges for blasting the playback at him because he hates headphones 😂.
Hey Curtis, Exactly Which albums or songs were recorded this way?
@@MAP448 check out Making Records With Eric Valentine "By the Sword"
EV is a legend. I love his remote rig for moving the mic around in the recording space from the control room. Sweet!
What great timing for this video - I've been looking for a new amp for recording purposes. You guys have expanded my gear knowledge and uses tremendously!
Brilliant, love everything you guys have been doing, and I love the long form videos.
I hope you have a great holiday! I am looking forward to see you live again. Dan, I hope you keep my idea about revisiting your pedalboards from your first year of TPS and comparing them to the boards you use today. I think a lot of people will enjoy that. Cheers!
Hey Brian, Mick here. First VCQ back will be 22 Aug. Thanks again for the suggestion. With some hilarity my most recent board is starting look a lot like the one Dan did for me all the way back then. Ha! Dan's has changed a bit.... Cheers!
I'm looking forward to it. Fascinating show today! From my point of hearing I have to say that the Bugera sounds like a much more expensive amp. The two rock though is chalk and cheese better than everything. I'm obviously not finished watching but I'd love to hear how they sound recorded dimed wide open making the power tubes howl. Enjoy your remaining holiday
Great Show!! After starting with guitar last year I learned so much from you D&M, thanks a lot. The biggest jump in my playing happened when I started watching you guys and just turned up the amps (JTM45 & Super Reverb TPS Wet/Dry) and started blasting away with my Strat & Germanium Fuzz. It is like Dan said, you hear every little detail and the slightest position difference in the fingers or the pick has drastic influence on the outcom. Moreover every mistake you make gets amplified immensely so that you can notice it instanly and adjust and stop making the mistake. Whereas on a silent setting you just strum you´re chords and you dont notice that the one string isnt muted correcly, but you cant hear it so you dont make adjustments.
Play loud !!! you´re playing will benifit massively from it
Hope you both a good vacation, great to have you back. Very useful lesson you both showed us all in this upload. Many thanks mates. Cheers! : )
Good job, Dan! Nice playing in the intro!
I think nowadays the best tool for homerecording is something like IR+Loadbox/attenuator, with whatever is the amp of your choosing. You can push the amp, most give you a uneffected line out option for reamping, some even with the option of using your favourite delays/reverb in the loop after the IR, which always sounds a bit more HiFi to me.
And then what about the acoustic and harmonic resonance between guitar and speaker? Loud studio mons maybe?
It's up for debate how much the resonance between guitar and speaker actually contributes in a recording environment and in a full mix.. For the average listener? Not at all. For us guitar players in a room, very much so. As you guys said in the end, that's why there are AC15s and stuff like Tiny Terrors in every studio, the answer lies somewhere in between.
But for homerecording? Amp + IR will do just fine.
@@MikeSingSing harmonic resonance makes a huge difference in the way Mick and Dan use it, and no one can argue that. If you have feedback vs don’t have feedback it makes a huge difference.
No need to run through monitors, you can have the speaker connected to the attenuated output of the load box to get some feedback but get a great recorded tone via IR+reverb via XLR. Really usefull for example when you want to have power amp distortion but keep a moderate volume through your speakers. Or go through a tube preamp to a cabsim based on IR with power amp emulation. By the way, did you try the Synergy preamps?
@@NathanNagel Yes, but feedback is different to the usual resonance stuff. It's either an essential part of your song or not. Just like every other effect.
This shows how important it is to use the right tone for the right element in your recording. Mixing a 2Rok and other amp (for example) adds width, depth and frequency range in your recording. That's right for some things and not others. Horses for courses!
Looking forward to this! I thought for a moment you guys were rocking a Tone King Gremlin
Amazing stuff, as allways. Really helpful and inspiring. Many thanks
Dan, that intro jam you had.... superlative! It was really quite divine. Love it!
As always, very useful and fun content.
I enjoyed Mick's American accent at 26:10. Also, throughout the episode, I was thinking "Right, so medium-loud amp then?" And then you said it. Once again great video, gentlemen. I do a lot of home recording, so it's good to get some perspective on these things.
I’ve been getting pretty good sounds through a Marshall DSL1, with an external Arthursounds preamp into the back at the 0.1 watt setting. The power stage overdrive is what seems to help a lot for extra harmonics and feel. Plus all the extra pedal-type tricks for low volume you guys have taught us over the years. The sadness of lack of volume aside, I’d be interested to see more experiments with the ultra low watt tube amps… as recording a good ‘large tube amp’ sound at low volumes like 80db or less would seem to be something of a holy grail for those of us who have to record at home. Many thanks for all you guys do at TPS, keep up the amazing work 🙏🎸
Amp, Loadbox for line out into Line 6 Powercab plus. Great at home low volume set up and you get the feel of the amp being pushed. Great show by the way
Excellent show , I recently purchased a Laney Cub12 15w knowing it has a 1 watt option purely for home use, tried it once and have been on 15w ever since, sounds much better even at a relatively similar volume.
Either way: both of you just sound amazing! It's such a "horses for courses" (Mick says). I can't wait for the live show to find out where everyone's at with this.
Love your work as usual :-) You both often say that you're curious to hear how the audio would turn out - it'd be interesting to see your reactions listening back to the audio for some of the shows
Cheers Dave! That was the original point of the Monday live show, but nobody could concentrate long enough to go through all that. Hahahah! FWIW, the audio is pretty much what I expected (having recorded so much guitar at this point!) The Bugera sounds totally credible and you could use it no worries. But. Neither of us were enjoying playing it much and that comes over in the performance. Just a little bit louder would do….:0)
@@ThatPedalShow That came through clearly - after all these years of videos I'm starting to get the impression that you guys like it loud 😜
Very cool demonstration! It must have been especially disappointing to play the 5W amp immediately following the 100W! Brilliant playing and discussion as always. Love the expressiveness when you're surfing the sound waves and sustain with the resonant harmonic feedback on the loud amp! Thanks!
Very interesting as usual gents...thank you. As someone who yearns for a 'real' amp, it gives me some food for thought (if I ever wanted to record at home). I live in a small flat so the more pleasing volumes just aren't an option. The closest I get is a good pair of headphones plugged into my Spark40.
One day I'll be able to experience the joy of a loud amp at volume...thinking maybe the end of September! ;)
Even though you were able to set both mic pre's up correctly for each amps sweet spot, the bigger amp had such a bigger sound filled with more harmonic artifacts & truthfully just a much bigger fuller sound that you would expect from a much louder amplifier. You guys proved that out within the 1st 8 minutes & 20 seconds.
Hey guys great show as always! I’ve taken small amps with hardly any volume and cracked up mic preamp plenty of times to get a colossal recorded tone before.
I always feel more inspired when I can feel the tone in my bones, and that always results in more volume! I do a lot of digital processor stuff at home but out with my buddies I’ve got a newer AC30CH and a 2x12 cab. With the right volume most of the night I could probably get by just working my volume control to clean up the sound. It’s not a huge high gain tone especially with a Stratocaster so it’s always nice to have a Tubescreamer or something to give the old preamp a kick 🦵
At home with my Line6 PodGo I find headphones uninspiring. Literally like you guys said in the comments I have to turn the monitor level up loud enough to get any real inspiration going on. On silent stages like church settings I use in ear monitors, but leave one ear open to the room. Although stage volume is low with a processor the mains usually put out enough volume in the room to inspire me, and I can usually get a personalized monitor mix so I can hear what I want.
In the end I would much rather go every where with my Vox AC30 but it’s a rather large amp physically and musically! Sometimes the processor is right for the situation. Or maybe a smaller amp like a Blues Jr.
20 mins in and enjoying the small amp. Mind you like 90% of people I'm listening through smart phone speakers.. think this one is going to be put through a proper sound system. 🤔 see if I feel the same 🤷♂️ top content as always. Man I love Fridays.
Great work as always, gents. For what it is, I thought the little Bugera sounded surprisingly good considering the absolute monster it was up against. My takeaway is that you get great sounds out of a loud, big amp, but you can still have a pretty good time if all you have to work with (for whatever reason) is something more diminutive in stature.
Totally that! I find little amps much easier to record. Just find that interaction sweet spot!
Awesome video this week boys🤘🏻
Dan and Mick, great show once again. I really enjoyed the comparison. Mick, I think you bring up a great point - some of the greatest albums were created in Monitors. I understand what Dan is saying for live sound, and the discussion around room resonance as well as impact to the actual guitar itself. Being an "in studio" player, what I find interesting is that I don't experience a vast difference in either using a MFX (Headrush, Helix, Neural DSP, et. al.), a live amp in a live room, or going directly through my interface as a DI into my DAW. I will say, there is quite a delay in the later - something about the DI signal path that's slow to response into my DAW for various reasons (computer doing all the heavy lifting, time synchronization between interface and computer, any clock drift being compensated for etc). In fact, through my monitor during recording live guitar, I feel the resonance in my guitar as I'm playing. I'd be really interested in seeing your take with monitors in the room, cabs isolated, and playing these same two amps. It would be really great do see and hear your experiences and if it still makes a difference. As much as you both were talking about feel and experience, as I was listening through a set of fairly flat response headphones, what I noticed the most was frequency range difference in the two setups - which would absolutely sway me to use one or the other. Much more range in the 2Rock v the T5 (which is expected).
Each time I hear both of you discuss the vast differences in any of the various contexts of "this v that" I sometimes feel confused as I'm not experiencing the same dissonance between various signal paths. I will say that I do hear the difference, but feel wise the "close enough" statement seem to continue to be true for me. Just a thought as I know there are many arguments in the chat on many things. Seeing what it would be like in a true "recording" type setup would be interesting to experience through your (Mick and Dan's) ears and feeling of the notes. I'm also reminded that the best recording were not only made through monitors, but with 15 & 30w amps.....
my tone journey went from 100 watt heads to finding the lowest wattage tube amp I could find while still fulfilling my tone needs... then I found the OX Box and now I can use larger tube amps in any environment. I can run them without the OX wide open or through the OX attenuated at any level I want or direct to monitors... I love the 40-50 watt range amps as a result.
.. I just love this show. Thank you Dan and Mick. Viva TPS. PS, got my first ever that pedal pup this week, he responded to TPS by walking all over the iPad. I call that rock and roll.
Hahah! Wooof!
The day may come when I don't drool over that Gretsch Jet, but it is not this day.
I never miss an episode of TPS and really look forward to this one. I ONLY record at home (and collaborate with others out of state). I was, at first, surprised that you used two entirely different amps. I then understood the point you were making on both setups. I was thinking the same thing that Mick said at the end... that there were amps "in the middle category" (paraphrasing) that could essentially perform close to both tasks. I guess I was just not ready to throw out my Fender Princeton (which I purchased because of TPS). Another fantastic show. Keep up the good work... believe it or not... it's needed. Thanks.
Wow. What an interesting video! Great playing as always, but the discussion was very thought-provoking
Thank you Connor. We were hoping that would be the reaction, rather than people just getting confused about which sounds ‘better’. Cheers!
Great video as always guys guys! I used to think the difference would be negligible once everything was mixed and tweaked in the studio … that was until I played a solo stood in the same room as a Sovtek Mig 50 (with a Russian big Muff in front of it) flat out. The solo sounds like a different guitarist, a whole different vibe and feel. There was more space, fewer notes as I was, frankly, terrified of the thing that close at that volume. Even with headphones to hear the backing track, the way the amp physically made me feel was a totally new experience and made me play in a vastly different manner.
Absolutely. That. Nothing remotely sensible or objective about it. But the difference is palpable. Nice one!
Great show. Yep, Mick you nailed it. Inspiration to play freely, musically, is a 90%er! Really does not matter at all what toanz you are able to coax out of a rig, if you cant feel inspired to ‘play’, all is lost. We don’t capture toanz we capture performances.
Glad you feel that way. The only I get, the less I care about ‘sound’ and the more I care about feel and performance. Now if I could only divorce the latter from volume! :0)
Useful episode for me as I use IEM’s so encounter a similar discussion, what you hear in a room is drastically different to what you hear when all you hear is the mic and speaker. Speaker choice (and mic choice) becomes different and perhaps cab size/choice has less impact on the overall tonality that you hear. I think a really interesting experiment would be for those who have never recorded or listened to their amp mic’d up to go through that experience and still see if they enjoy the tone they get when they can hear more speaker and less room, hope you’re both enjoying some well earned time off!!
I own a Bugera 5W, Fender Princeton 68 RI and a Fender HRD III. The Bugera is actually quite nice for recording because you can take it to the point of breakup without blowing the studio mic out. I also use it for band practice in our small rehearsal space. I mostly leave it there and dont worry about it. I think I bought that little beast for $150 back in 2012. Of course for a live setting, it is the HRD or the Princeton, depending upon the venue. But I really like having the 3 different options.
Another great video gents. Cheers.
Excellent episode !
Fab playing at the beginning there Dan!
Very interesting show guys
Always a treat to hear the Casino and the Red Gretsch
There's no substitute for feeling the literal vibrations from the speaker, (picking up good vibrations....!) even if there needs to be a compromise on tone/fidelity for that. It's why you still can't beat a good 4x12 blasting away behind you
A very cool video. The Bugera recorded surprisingly well with the LP and Gretsch. It was very apparent that the traditional Fender single coil tones revealed its shortcomings. I was astounded how bad the strat and fuzz sounded through the Bugera. Very inconsistent performance from the Bugera when throwing a variety of styles at it. Aside from the big iron sound of a 100 watt amp, the Two Rock's dynamic range is the defining feature of that amp. I own one too. It forces you to improve your right hand dynamics. This was also very apparent in the video. Also Dan's playing has drastically improved over the last few years. You can tell he's been working on improving. Love hearing you play Dan!
I can't get over how different these two amps seem to sound, not as a result of volume, but by design. Also, even if you had an amp with a 100 watt setting and a 5 watt setting, the sound difference would still manifest as the amp behavior is different. Very hard to have clear objective comparison. Yet I do appreciate this experiment.
Let the sound thing go Bergs, because it’s always subjective and it’ll always be different. It’s really about volume and feel. Cheers!
95% of my recording experience is isolated from my amp in another room. This is preferred as recorded audio and room audio can be vastly different as mics impart character. I usually only end up in the room due to things like capturing feedback or oscillations. The goal in recording is an objective finished product not a subjective room experience. Once your amp is passed through a mic and preamps it’s like listening with someone else’s ears. Live and recorded are very different. I love dual mono, stereo, etc for live but always record in mono and split in post if needed. It’s a completely different mind state and approach. Interesting discussion nonetheless.
You’re taking as a producer. So from your perspective the goal is a finished product. The musician’s goal - or at least should be- to impart some feeling and connection that transcends the notes. Your job as producer is to enable that on the musician’s level. Cheers!
@@ThatPedalShow A lot of us are both-- musician and producer. And engineer, and mixer, ha. I had the same reaction as Justin, "I am never in the room with my amp when recording." I hear my amps mostly thru the studio monitors. Recording fairly loudly and without headphones on gets the feel of playing in the amp room, at least a little, which helps with the performance aspect. We do what we can...
@@ThatPedalShow I think musicians should think like a producer when recording. Transcending the objective feeling of a record when recording it. The logic is because it's a one-time experience to repeat on your music player.
@@levivolaju883 Musicians should think like themselves, they are there to play. The producer's job is just to make it work and get the best performances out of the players. But thinking like a producer will make their lives easier when it comes to picking what to play (maybe pick a triad instead of a barre chord as it will cut through the mix better), how to dial in your sounds to fit in a mix (which might not always be the most pleasant sound in it's own or even on a stage), and how to perhaps pick guitars for certain parts because they fit better.
The interesting thing though is that the sounds guitarists are chasing are sounds they hear on records. It will never sound anything like that in the room. Most mics capture the amp close to the speaker. The sound picked up is just never what your ears hear at the playing position. I remember the first time I played through an actual amp at some volume, it was a revelation as I too was used to basically play over monitors, using cab sims, etc. Mostly because im a producer and the sounds I know and chase are sounds i know from records. I never had an issue with headphones and not having it loud, I just tried to recreate the sounds I referenced on records and therefor hearing it with cab sims etc. made total sense as that is what ends up on the record anyways. But I understand the visceral impact amps have on playing and having some air moving is just great and inspiring.
We had a beers n guitar pre party in an apartment and the neighbours hated when we cranked the clean channel into overdrive on a 1w amp set to 0,1w. My ac4 12 inch wasn't even breathing. These references are fun
I have several low wattage amps from 2W to 18W and love them. They cover a variety of tones and textures. But when I want to feel connected give me 100Watts and a 2X12, better yet give me 100W and 2X12 in stereo and submerse me in a room of moving air. The sound from the higher headroom amps seems to have an added dimension to it that is inspiring. I understand that isn't practical or even possible for some people but, that doesn't change how wonderful it feels when it happens. Great work and, while not the point of this episode, I thought both amps sounded great. I hope your having a great holiday.
P.S. My Cogmeister is under construction 🙂
This is an unbelieveable good sounding telly...
I was always of the impression that the point of these low wattage amps is so you can crank the master and get the power section cooking, without blowing out the double glazing. It's not really about actually being quieter, it's about getting more saturation at the same level.
I have a 100W Marshall head, and a 5w Blackstar combo. Whereas the Marshall never goes above about 3 on the master, even in a full band situation (and I usually only play it through a load box for recording anyway), I can actually open up the Blackstar. At band practice I can have the volume fully gunned, and it *sings*.
Brilliant episode! My Orange Tremlord 30 does well as a loud pedal platform for recording, and a quieter practice amp.
The Bugera sounds surprisingly awesome. They are both excellent sounding amplifiers and useful for their purposes. The cabinet that the Bugera is plugged into is probably enhancing the sound of it.
Glad you think so! It’s part of the reason for doing the vid. Little amp, nice mic, nice pre. Happy days!
I’m finding this video (& others) helpful as a reference library for plonking about in my apartment studio, where I dream that you guys will plug that echorec into the business end of the Hiwatt, drill a hole in the wall to route Micks lead and stand outside just wailing on that thing til the building comes off its moorings & vibes its way into the Welsh countryside.
Brilliant episode!I learned so much
I quite liked the (less) bass end on the quiet amp.
Would love to see you get Laura Mary Carter of Blood Red Shoes on the show. Greatest tone I've ever heard, she's running 100w Marshall with 4x12 cab alongside a 57 fender champ. With a few nice pedals chucked in for a huge sound. Women are really under represented on TPS!
So we have a British woman that been playing all the festival's across Europe for the last two decades Opened up for the likes of Biffy Clyro, Jane's addiction. And in 2019 music radar named her as best alternative guitarist in the world.
I've been playing through my starter amp, the Orange micro terror, for 8 years now and I've been satisfied spending my money on pedals. Can't wait for the day I get a 'proper' amp, but recently I've just picked up a Vox AC30 Plugin and that is amazing as well... all coming from my Desktop I cant really believe it!
Dan, I’m borrowing that harmonic with the bend behind the nut slathered with gain and delay-very nice!
Well, I borrowed it and used it at band practice tonight. It didn’t sound remotely as cool as when Dan did it.
Dan that Gretch and you make beautiful music together. The Tele is nice, but the Gretch is high fidelity.
This was a really helpful video inasmuch as I've recently gone from loud to entirely headphone recording, and my band's music is entirely improvisational.
When recording in my lounge back in New Zealand (Persian rugs over wood floors, not a large room), my bandmate and I are both running into stereo tube amps. My rig is a Princeton on the right channel, a double-mic'd Vibrolux on the left. The output is split and then runs through a Eurorack processor into a pair of Mesa 800w solid state bass amps each into a G&K 4x10 cabinet. We don't have to crank up the volume all that much, as when we're playing the room is entirely alive, the air sizzles and feedback is always possible, especially if I want to lean back into the Vibrolux behind me.
I'm now in Japan, with the culture of Japan, neighbours all around and my mother-in-law living downstairs. So when I really want to turn it up I might venture to really push my little Bose bluetooth speaker loud enough to hear my guitar, but generally I'm recording through headphones.
As both of you noted, the feeling between loud and quiet is entirely, entirely different. It's difficult to connect with what I'm playing, even when the headphones are up fairly loud. As Dan, I likewise hear myself in my headphones as a recording. And because improv pretty much requires that connection I'm having a heck of a time. It's almost like I don't know how to play guitar at all.
So if there's any fault in this video it's that you guys didn't solve the problem (or world hunger).
It’s about time someone did a Bugera T5 vs Two Rock comparison. I’ve been on the fence.
Hahahahahhaha!!!!
Great work again, gents! Using the same kind of cab would have been cool. One less variable. Cheers!
...i see i've come to the right place.
imho: i like these type of videos better since i struggle with this myself.
foreshadowing; am i going to be impressed with the 5 watt amps? hahaha!
rock-on! guys
cheers
What a cracking episode. I was enthralled. What sounded better? They both sound excellent to me!
Excellent, thanks Matthew! Totally agree on the better thing. That part of it is all subjective. What’s much less subjective is a great performance!
I have learn so much about the importance of frequency. I might not be a more advance player but I do sound better. Thanks guys!!!
As Mick mentioned the issue with practice at home with the 5 watt, or whatever lower watt amp and then rehearsing with band or gig with the higher wattages, the cab used seems to make a big difference in getting closer to the feel/connection to the sound you get from more watts, I switched from running my 5 watt into a 1x12 to running it into a 2x12 cab to get more "air" moving and get more of the feel back. Not perfect, but it's better, but getting the feel from "clean" sounds is really hard as 5 watts just can't do loud and clean. And then recording is a whole different thing. Years ago when I started I thought I was just going "play" the guitar, oh well.... so much to learn everyday. Great show as always gents.
In my home studio of doom I have a homemade fender champ type circuit (with EL34) and a couple of pine cabs I made with a 12 inch alnico blue and and 10 inch alnico gold. This really does the trick for recording to my tastes. That and an AC15 gets the job done without breaking windows.
Back in the day I had a crazy amp with two 9 X 8 inch cabs of death. I think it was a trainer. it was a million years ago in a galaxy far away.
Good show. There are plenty of variables at higher levels that can come into play. You’re driving the condenser microphone a lot more, which will introduce some harmonic distortion. The preamp is driven harder. Another consideration is bleed. The louder you can play the less bleed you have to put up with. I think most recordings these days even if “in the room” with a band in a studio is done at moderate levels.
Super interesting. I will say, though, at least in my experience, a big part that makes recording small amps interesting is recording small speakers. So perhaps that will be something to try out in the future! Thanks as always guys
Yeah that is a great point! Speaker size and type makes a huge difference in the sound.
Whenever I have recorded loud guitar amps in the studio, I'm never in the same room as the amps! I'd be in the control room, listening to the track through the monitors and my amp would be loud and cooking in the live room. Obviously in the control room you can turn everything up or down, but at that point it's not super relevant how loud the actual amp is to your performance.
Another thing I do is I have my amplifier as I call it room temperature and instead of headphones with one ear exposed to the actual sound that makes a big difference to me a big big difference and also what helps is the resonance that I'm actually getting from the instrument the natural residence which will send the vibrations up in down and especially into my gut so this is something I've been going on with for about for years and years and years and years and it's a good thing that you guys are bringing us up to people because a lot of us overlook it a lot of people overlook it myself no because I understand it!!!
We still need the show where you compare the new TC SCF to the old one. 👍🏻
Hearing a lot of Andy Timmons in that first minute and I'm here for it! 🤘
bottom line, you can be so loud that you can't hear your other tracks.
softube has an acoustic feed back plug in, ( in the studio; you can concentrate more, and get 2nd takes, to make up for the loss )
Enjoyed it greatly
I've been recording with two 5 watt amps and it sounds great and they get plenty loud enough to feel it. Of course I'm probably buying a 1970 Pro Reverb this weekend to run in conjunction with my Showman for gigs.
I finally succumbed to the trend of bluetooth headphones. Got in-ears for exercising, and now I can listen to TPS while cooking. I love it. I can even go to bathroom in the middle of the episode when I have finished my coffee. Hooray for uninterrupted TPS.
The title on the other hand made me think of Clapton and that Champ he used to record Layla (probably something else as well) right away. But I do love turning the 4x12 equipped head loud in the other room. The thing is: choose both if you can. Don't settle on one thing, you'll find reasons to love both. Dan put it in words how it is to play with amp plugins. It's fantastic how you can mesh right into the song when playing with a song, and you can have it in your headphones in the middle of the night. But it acts like a mic'd amp that's loud and gainy, you won't have the experience of caressing the strings versus smashing the strings as much as with a loud amp next to you. It might be frutstrating that it doesn't react to your hits as much, but it's a great feeling to feel like you're part of the song and can figure out how to play the nuances of the song. It kinda feels like playing in a different room when recording.
But I swear not many things slam the bottom end like hitting Marshall 4x12" with G12T-75 hard, so that your pants are flapping. Like you guys always say, it makes you play different when you experience your playing physically. And I'm sure Dan has been listening to Tool, every time he goes to drop tuning... riffs or the delay stuff.
Loud amp gives “more harmonics “ and pick response to me, but maybe there would be to use a different “pedal setup “ to compensate…..
Great video, hanks for share
Another class vid and I’ve just purchased the T shirt that Dan’s wearing. All phones should have a breathalyser for purchases in my humble opinion…🎸🙄
Thank you Lefty!
I have no experience with recording but I always heard Mick mentioning about how much easier it is to record small amps, so when I went to the studio to record my band’s first album I asked the studio guy “how loud should I set my amp?” And he said “as loud as you need to get the sound you like”. We recorded the entire album with the AC30 pealing the wallpapers off, 3 mics in front of it and a room mic, you could hear it from outside of the studio and it was really fun. Haha
Not disagreeing with anything said in the video, just wanted to share the story. Haha
Awesome! Ha! I said more difficult, not impossible! I LOVE recording loud amps when the room allows. But your studio guy is totally right - whatever makes you happiest(
This
@@ThatPedalShow That’s why I said I’m not disagreeing! Haha
You lot get absolutely brilliant recording sounds with loud amps every week, but I can see loud amps becoming a problem if the room doesn’t allow it. I just wanted to share the story because, just like you, I struggle without the volume so we had to crank the monitors in the control room to cover the sound of the amp blasting the next room and it was really fun. Haha
Hey Subro, if a cranked AC30 was good enough for Brian May, then its good enough for you! Haha!
I live in an apartment with a family. I own a Blackstar HT5th. For me those 5W are way too loud and I very soon after the purchase installed a variable L-pad to get it down to manageable levels; the clean channel doesn’t have a master volume. Another observation I make is that if you really want that harmonic almost-feedback thing, it can still be achieved at relatively sensible levels. If I put my amp on a chair, tilt it to aim at my guitar and stand at arms length from it, I can get that in my rig (I play a Gretsch Jet).
So what i've learned today is that i don't like the sound of the Bugera. I'd love to see this revisited with a cheaper loud amp and a fancy pants quiet amp
being less facetious, This reexplains and reenforces why real amps feel different than amp sims.
Some years ago, I built a cube out of three sheets of 4' x 8' plywood. I used some sound foam inside to deaden it. It's roomy enough inside to fit a 412 bottom and two low profile mic stands. I can get 105dB inside and with the door closed, it's only 70 outside it. Being in the basement of my house, I can record loud guitars even if everyone in the house is asleep. Get crafty and see what you can come up with.
You guys should give us a dry room mic that isn't changed at all for each amp so we can hear the difference in the room.
Okay, so my takeaway from this episode is, big ones are much more satisfying to play with, but small ones fit in there so much easier.
I mean, that's pretty much what Mick said at the end, right?
That’s what Pete said.
Cheers guys, interesting as ever. A small/quiet amp raised up to chest height and played fairly close has worked ok for me, just need to mind the pick noise being recorded too. Acoustic is fine, you can feel it. Headphones only with electric though ... I'd really rather not. Stay cool. :)
Nice suggestion. Bit of proximity!
One could also argue hearing what is closer to being recorded has more utility given the context of the situation. Playing inspiration is one thing, but isolated tracks in a final mix rarely have an inspiring tone, as they’re sculpted to fit the surrounding frequencies. When playing a set path and not improvising (the vast majority of all recording) the importance of inspiration factor is scaled down to next to nothing.
I would conclude from these recordings that for the purpose of, well, recording - the two are interchangeable, and implying higher wattage is superior because of inspiration is adding a variable that should lie outside the inputs for the function that determines which amp one should use when recording.
Tonally for sure - you could use either of these and get fantastic results! But it’s not about that, it’s about the performance. And the difference between average and great isn’t tone, it’s performance, so whatever makes the artist happy.
But in the mix-ready point, I think I disagree. Most classic records will sound vastly different in the room than the final mix from a guitar POV. I mean //vastly// different once the producer has done their thing. So again, pretty much the only thing that matters is getting the performance. Cheers!
@@ThatPedalShow I can see where you’re coming from, but really the long and short of it for me is: Can the listener tell the difference between large vs small in the final product? If the answer is no, then nothing else matters. The two are interchangeable.
If the player performance on a locked in tempo + locked in piece of material differs so greatly between the two that even after all the frequency cuts, other instruments, post-processing, and mastering it still remains noticeable, then it’s more an issue with the player than anything else.
It’s an interesting point that Sarah is making. The context of the situation is important. For writing my preference would be having an amp with cab so I am reacting to it, but when recording I’d shift to IR cabs. I’m just using a Revv D20 with no cab at the moment in my home studio, but looking forward to having the cab for writing and general shenanigans.
@@sarahdeleon9125 hmm, I am coming from a different perspective. I believe there is no „issue“ with the player. We are humans after all. Inspired, pushed by emotion, beeing in a good mood, exited to play or bored or nervous or angry or whatever. Giving a little more or a little less accents, great articulations, more feeling in the bends and vibratos, driving forward or lean backwards at the right places even if we are „in the pocket“ with the timing. As a recording engineer you have to make the musicians feel comfortable, get them „ in their zone“ . Then you will hopefully get the „greatest takes“ the musician that sits in front of you is able to perform, make it their personal moment. Otherwise we could program everything or let the next AI guitar bot do the „autogenerated takes“ necessary to do some elevator music „in the style of..:“ with perfect timing in the future. I love that human element in music and also the joint and shared happiness about great takes that everyone agrees to commit. In the end, if you sum all that up I still believe also the listener can feel that. Maybe not tell in detail why, but the end product feels different.
Steve Jones?...The Sex Pistols? I couldn't believe my ears! I thought TPS [ and Andertons channel ] existed in a parallel universe where punk never happened ! ...im kidding.
I was pleasantly surprised to hear how good the small amp sounded recorded. Great show ,very interesting.
I bought one of those Bugera heads to tie me over whilst my old JTM head was been refurbed. I was surprised at how "alright" it was. I intended to quickly move it on after it had served its purpose but now keep it as a backup.
It's a great little thing!