Barefaced was definitely on the list of FRFRs when I was looking for one. Awesome quality cabs but ended up going with Accugroove in the end. For anyone in the US looking for one, definitely consider them as well, been extremely happy with the purchase 🤘
Being a Bass player I moved to Barefaced sometime ago. Replaced a heavy 4x12 with 2 tiny, light 1x10s. Load ins are so much easier now, and my tone improved massively.
YES Finally, someone moving the mic around on an AVD cab! I don't know why nobody just uses their iPhone and walks around, recording the sound in all the parts of the room. That's the selling point, but nobody ever does it! Nice to see Barefaced making the rounds, these AVD cabs are groundbreaking, and the company needs support right now. Something about fire code or some such, rent debacle, it was on the news and everything.
@@CraigFlowersMusic no rent issues, just the landlord of our building (that contains almost 100 businesses turning over tens of millions) failing to act on reported fire risks for years. We’re back in the building and the factory is running normally but we’re also making longterm plans to keep the business secure - it’s not like we can just “work from home” on laptops!
@@BarefacedAudio Good to hear production is humming along, I was under a slightly worse impression lol Also gratifying to see you got both Ariel and now Rabea, idk why I find it gratifying to see Barefaced in particular succeeding, except that I feel like I know genius when I see it.
I've been using a stereo Barefaced rig with my QC at home for the last year. These things are the GOAT of flat response cabs. Alex and the team really know what they are doing.
Barefaced are amazing!! I know a couple of guitarists and one bass player who love them. Another great company is Zilla. Both let you customise several aspects of your kit.
Sounds very good. When you moved the mic behind the cab you could immediately hear all of the low end you were talking about, especially with the high gain tone. Sounded super full and mean for that and the cleans were awesome as well.
Barefaced are to me the only cab at their frfr? that could stand toe to toe with how I run my rig currently....-they are the best I've ever tested thus far. 🔥
I'd be curious to hear a direct comparison between an FRFR cab, and some decent sized studio monitors, although I know thats pretty much impossible to capture without being in the room.
That’s definitely on our to-do list! The first key difference between the Reality and a good studio monitor is that in the lows the Reality has a similar frequency and transient response to a normal guitar cab, to make modelled sounds sound and feel more like real guitar amp sounds; in comparison a studio monitor will feel like it’s going too low and responding too fast, it won’t have that natural interaction between pick attack and what you feel. The other key difference is that studio monitors have cardioid response in the mids and highs but omnidirectional response in the lows (unless soffit mounted), whilst the Reality has almost omnidirectional response (to be precise it’s more like figure 8 where the front is narrower and the back is wider). Obviously other FRFR cabs aren’t at all like this because they don’t have the AVD and second tweeter and crossover.
That "Just Cause" preset sounds INCREDIBLE. Ive been pretty happy with my L6 Powercab plus but these seem like another great choice. I heard this theory that the reason some FRFR cabs sound "off" (for lack of a better term) are because they arent built like guitar cabs and are instead shaped like a stage wedge or a PA speaker. Between this and the powercab, I think that theory holds water.
My bass player went barefaced years ago and the number one thing for me was it was easier to hear him wherever I was on stage. he never seemed to need to be louder. And even if he played louder it didn't seem to get in the way. Had to get my own!
My current bedroom rig is guitar > scarlet 2i2 > laptop > fortin nameless suit > scarlet 2i2 > headrush frfr or some Sony studio headphones. The the neural plug ins they can be standalone programs. And they all sound amazing.
Although everything about this is hard to get across on a RUclips recording, it might have been interesting to have a direct line from QC and compare that a couple of times. I’m interested if there were things about the cab which were different to listening to large studio monitors or PA, and also whether you think the projection and clarity would work above the stage level in a rehearsal or small bar gig, for your own monitoring and to feed the room without reinforcement?
We did a video like this on our channel where we compared the Reality, a Reformer with the speaker that was being modelled in the send to the Reality, a DI, and the PA system we have in our studio. Here it is: ruclips.net/video/x-1gNMp1Pcc/видео.htmlsi=8vlAmbCIJsS5GFqE Rabea still has the cab so I suggested he try some rehearsals/gigs with it - it's not quiet, we know that! ;-)
The talk about miking made me think of playing a Korg synth ten or so years ago. On the drum track it had the option to room mike or individual toms and kick and snare etc. miking. Total science fiction 😎 You could actually play with bleed of the mikes...
I mean if you're using a modeler you'd be going straight to front of house for your audience sound. This would be just for stage monitoring in a live setting most likely, but should be able to keep up with a drummer no problem
@@Utube-s8m Huh? That... Doesn't make any sense in response to what I wrote.... Did you reply to the wrong comment? Nothing I said had anything to do with cost or the purchase of equipment
man, blend that mic position just behind the cab along with the 57 on the driver, work out some minor phase issue and i bet that would sound just incredible. thanks for taking the time for the demo! appreciated!
I recently made the jump and bought a Quad Cortex. My main concern was being able to play through something which wouldn't flavor the output the same ways traditional cab/speakers do. I also didn't want to play the QC through headphones. I wanted good sound with the feeling of an amp. After seeing what a some 2x12 FRFRs were costing here in the US, I hit up Thomann's site for fun and found: Harley Benton G212A-FR Active Cabinet. It's a 2x12 2x100w cab, has XLR and 1/4" options. It is only available with a 220v option though. I ordered it and also ordered a 240v/120v 1500w convertor from Amazon, cost was around $60. Works great. the HB FRFR sounds good and gets loud, pushes air, and is to lean back if you wanted the sound directed up. I was also able to reclaim some space. The EVH 5150iii head, a 2x12 cabinet, and pedals/pedalboard took up a bit of space. I'm happy I made the switch and change on the HB...
That was one of those things where it came partly down to packaging - Rabea's cab has the Activier 1 mono amp module, but we also offer a stereo version, the Activier 2, so there's twice as much stuff to fit in there, and if we added EQ would we need to add two sets of that too? And the other puzzle is how to choose the voicing of the bass and treble controls (frequencies and slopes) - a huge part of the tone of different guitar amps is the EQ curves of their controls, so how do we add EQ to an FRFR cab without boxing it into one tonal place?
It sounded amazing wherever you put the Mike, except for the last spot just sounded good! I really liked it behind the cab,either way your playing is always awesome
It's so good when you're crammed onto a tiny stage with your cab firing past your ankles but you can still hear your proper tone because of our the AVD and rear tweeter disperses sound.
I have the Kraken V4 Amp and am considering using an FRFR cab because the 200w output is just too loud for home use plus would like to leverage the IR flexibility. I've been considering the Fender but I hadn't heard of Barefaced. This is interesting.
I bought one of those Celestion speakers and put it in a Thiele cab, and it didn't sound right. There's gotta be a spec for the cab build that's correct for it.
Nice Rabea! Visited the Barefaced warehouse in Brighton today - They're the nicest guys! Thanks to Davie who spent 2 hours with me trying their amazing cabs!
FRFR speakers are going to be used by a lot of people using great amp modeling multieffects like Quad Cortex, Ampero, etc. I bet we will see some more brands coming out with these after NAMM.
I wonder how it would sound if you ran the line out signal from a tube amp into one of these. I've owned the Atomic Reactor FRFR cabs - 1 18-watt and the other 50-watt (both tube power) - with a Headrush and they sounded amazing but they were too heavy and too loud.
You could run the line out from a tube amp into an Activier in a Barefaced AVD cab with a conventional guitar speaker. If you take the line out from a tube amp without speaker modelling into an FRFR cab the highs will be too harsh. We can also fit a passive input plate to a Activier cab, so you can crank up your tube amp into the speaker bypassing the Activier module, or run line out into the Activier bypassing the tube amp's power stage. All the tonal and volume options!
With an Activier 2 module you can run full stereo with an active master Reality and a passive slave Reality. It's so nice to be able to get amazing stereo guitar sounds live without having to carry two entire valve combos or stacks!
Yes, it's not a conventional port which just improve low frequency output and efficiency using a Helmholtz resonance, it's our patented AVD which also lets the the mids and highs through, using the slot to diffract them and the horn to further widen their dispersion and improve efficiency and coupling to the air in the room. The biggest problem we've found with the AVD is representing it honestly in videos - it works much better in a room with human ears and brains than when you're trying to mic the room sound to let people hear in a video how well it's working!
I’m not sure why one would mic up an FRFR? The speakers are designed to reproduce an already complete tone from the modeler. The modeled tone represents an amp/cab, and any effects after it’s been recorded, so running that thru another mic and signal chain defeats the purpose. I guess you can disable the cab block if you’re set on using a specific physical cab. I only use my FRFR (Atomics, and Mission Gemini) to project my tone on stage since typical stage wedges also color the tone.
Do you mean for the purpose of this video? Or in general? Obviously for the purpose of the video I needed to try mic it up! So you could hear it haha. But in general yeah, I agree
@ I’m referring to the general idea. I watched your video (well done btw) on my iPad which was sonically pointless as well 😂. Your experiment sounded great under my limited circumstance. Would have sounded even better on my full studio setup. I’m just pointing out that we need to remember that a modeler produces a fully realized sound that is purposefully not colored with additional real world speakers. I guess unless you’re using it as a specific sound in your situation. There’s really no wrong way if it sounds good to you right?
Was dead keen on getting one for a Kemper, but comms fell away from the typical sales cycle, and found it difficult to get the right amount of info to make a purchase decision - ended up going down the Mesa route. Would still be keen to try one at some point.
So the Activier is a preamp+power amp module we’ve designed to fit into any of our guitar cabs. The original Reality 112FR is a passive FRFR cab, adding an Activier (we build it into one of the AVD panels on the back) makes it an active FRFR cab. However, we can fit it to any of our AVD guitar cabs that are not FRFR, so fitted with normal guitar speakers. For a lot of guitarists we think this is a best of both worlds, because you can get the tone and feel to a guitar speaker you love, the effortless, super reliable and super light power of the Activier and then your “amp” tone coming from analogue or digital modelling pedals. We can also fit an Activier cab with a passive input so you can swap between using your tube head or the modelling pedals and Activier. Email us if any of this is confusing because I know at Barefaced we’re doing things different to the norm!
@ thank you! So with my fm9 I can use an activier frfr, or, turn off the cabs in the fm9 and use a regular cab fitted with activier… tough choice… i like the tweeter idea though… i seem to be missing the high end with my laney frfr112.
@@johnhajewski1343 yes, you can take either approach! Do you tend to change your speaker models between patches or do you just stick with one speaker sound? Do you use in-ears live?
I really like the idea of FRFR…you can gain stage ya stuff in your modeler…sort out ya tones and they’ll be consistent every time when you plug into an FRFR! Just so easy!
Funnily enough this is how Barefaced started because as a bassist I wanted to be able to DI straight into a PA with all my FX etc and get the same sound onstage without worrying about the monitoring - and then I wanted enough output to be able to go without the PA in those venues where the PA is a bit feeble. And now fifteen years on we're making an active version of that for guitarists!
@@mrcoatsworth429 we've found that the Reality is particularly good for gigs when you're on in-ears and all the other Activier AVD cabs are great for gigs where you're hearing the sound in the room and micing the guitar speaker.
He's getting the bass of the cab as well as the high mids of the room sound reflecting back. Its doing funny stuff to the midrange and high frequencies due to phase.
I'm still waiting for my upsizing 2x12 with a Celestion BN 300S and a Thick Boy from OverTonez Audio...600w for my baritone. I can't wait to try it. It will arrive in a few weeks...
@ BTW what does your FRFR sell for? I have a Fender FR10 that’s a nice home until and useful for recording, but I’m leery of gigging it. If the Barefaced FRFR is truly useful in a gig it would be worth whatever your price is. I’m guessing $1k
I think direct opposite. The frfr 12 is 1000 watts not 200. And a frfr speaker is a flat response speaker. I seen a guy playing go girl on one and i was immediately sold! I heard it on others but the fender really doesnt color anything and also that toot is super sick and the output to go straight into pa is nice too! So many ups for teh fender in my opinion
@@JoshStewartmakesmusic having seen the innards of the FR12 (and the price) there’s no way it’s a 1000W amp or a 1000W speaker! I’m sure it’s good for the money but expecting it to compete with the Reality is like expecting studio monitors at one price to be as good as ones that are three times the price - making great sounding speakers is expensive and our little business has a much lower overhead than most.
@@BarefacedAudio I believe you but I’d have to try it out. I love my fender atm! Sorry about the autocorrect. I wasn’t meaning disrespect to you guys btw! Not go girls but I heard them play gogira on the fender and I was sold!
FRFR are just powered PA speakers marketed to guitarists. You can save a lot and get great sound from something like an Alto or Yamaha or JBL. The Headrush is a rebranded Alto.
Very interesting. It would be informative to see a comparison to something like a Katana Gen 3 50 which can be used as a FRFR cabinet at 1/3 of the price and with loads of other features.
THAT SOUNDS GREAT. I USE A ATOMIC CLR WHICH SOUNDS PRETTY GOOD AS WELL BUT IT IS 500 WATTS BI AMPED. I LIKE THE FRFR CAB FOR STAGE MONITORING RATER THAN AN IEM.
I've been through FRFR after FRFR cab. I can tell you right now the absolute best solution for modelers is the Seymour Duncan Power Stage. You can run any modeler into any guitar cab and you get ALL the benefits of the amp in the room and flexibility of modeling. Forget FRFR cabs and just buy a Seymour Duncan Power Stage.
We've got quite a few customers using the Power Stage with our passive AVD cabs. What you get with an AVD cab is vastly better dispersion than with any normal guitar cab, which makes life so much easier on rehearsals and gigs (and you don't have to always sit in the perfect spot when practising at home!) If you don't want/need the flexibility of an FRFR cab like our Reality you can have an Activier module in any of our guitar cabs, so you get the tone of a your favourite guitar speaker (we have tons of custom choices), and the convenience of a powered (and hilariously lightweight) cab, along with the dispersion benefits of the AVD. Just turn off the speaker modelling bit of your modeller and off you go!
Someone tested the Duncan power block against a tube amp for power and in his opinion the amp felt better. That’s how I use mine and through a regular guitar cab. I don’t want it sounded like it’s going through monitors. But tbh I use my amps more. I haven’t had them that long and I want to enjoy them. With the new administration coming into the country tariffs will cost me an arm and a leg to get my amps maintained now.
I didn’t know that! We just tried to make the best guitar FRFR cab possible and then it ends up costing what it costs and we have to hope people see the value!
It's a pre/power module we designed, with a very clean single knob analogue preamp into a class D power module. It was a lot of work, especially getting it as quiet as it is, but we think it was worth the effort to make a system that's a real step up.
They sound very transparent, but for the cost, I can't justify that, lol. Besides, I just hang out with some friends and jam with a Quad Cortex and some old KRK 8's (2nd Generation, the ones with that 200hz boost/distortion in them, lol) on chairs and still have fun. Although if I wanted the most accurate sound that sounds more like the record sound but live and loud, these could work.
Sadly making things this good is annoyingly expensive - a lot of expensive parts and a lot of man-hours. Everyone who owns one seems to think they're good value though, which is reassuring.
@@BarefacedAudio Well, they are like High Quality Studio Monitors with High Quality Drivers/Amplifiers which I'm sure aren't cheap. On Stage I bet they are fun to use though. Amp Modeling is getting better and better, so I'm sure the price will drop a bit maybe on the products in the future. I say it's a win-win anyways. They sounded good no matter where he put the mic, and that in itself is VERY impressive. I probably wouldn't be so biased about cost if I weren't broke, lol. You guys did a great job! Thanks for the response!
We can absolutely do a 2x12" version of the Reality - we have designs for a vertical 212, a horizontal 212 and an XL vertical 212 ready to go. Just need someone to order one!
I'd kill to hear this set up with Dave and Ben. Im always so scared of solo playing FRFR cab content. Does it sit well with acoustic drums? does the low end of amp sims get in the way of an in room bass?
Rabea still has the cab and I suggested he give it a go in rehearsals with the band. We've only had really great feedback from everyone who's used a Reality cab and a lot are busily gigging with them.
@@BarefacedAudio Holy smokes, Barefaced thank you so much for responding! I've been hyping this video up to my band mate since seeing it. Out of curiosity- do I need to buy a cab AND the activier?
@@jangelo2038 you can choose an active or passive Reality on the product page (if you choose active then it includes the Activier module). We also sell the Activier as an "add-on" for all the other AVD cabs (and the One10 bass cab) so it's a separate product on the site too. Sorry it's a bit confusing but we're only a little company, we sell too many different products (I suspect if a proper business expert got involved they'd get very angry with us!) and our website can only handle a limited amount of options on each product! But just email for help if anything isn't clear!
@@BarefacedAudio this is super clear. I can’t tell you how much you guys have turned me as a company just by reaching out. I’m not in the best financial position this season, but next year I’m jumping ship!
I have one of the Harley Benton 2x12 cabs with the Celestion speakers that retail for $99. Total cost $230 which included shipping. So in essence you buy the speakers and get the cabinet for free. And what a cabinet it is.
The argument could be made that if you want it to sound like an amp in a room you need to feed it that signal, IR's are giving you the sound of an amp mic'd with it's own character and frequency response so the a FRFR is simply faithfully recreating that. FRFR should sound like a good PA or set of studio monitors as they should also be recreating a full range of frequencies inputted faithfully. I suspect that using a IR created with a mic with close to flat response might get you closer to a amp in the room tone. But I guess that question would be is that helpful, do you want to hear what the audience is hearing or something that sound's like a amp in the room (which is not what the audience is going to hear unless your IR's are presenting that to your PA/FRFR/Monitors)
I mean it’s never gonna sound like a real amp on a cab cause the ir will always be cab and mic together. I guess the monitoring is the important thing, and if it can do the feedback thing, why not use an frfr speaker. It simply works
We did some experimenting with this in a video a few months ago and you can get them to sound so close it's almost impossible to tell. But it does take some time to figure out !
Its overkill mic'ing up a p.a. into a p.a....it can be done for sure, but it requires an astounding set of lug holes to get it phased properly! lucky me!
There's almost never a reason to mic an FRFR cab - but this video would be quite boring/pointless if Rabea said "I've got this cool cab here, but as it's FRFR you can listen to the DI sound and I'll just tell you how it sounds to me in the room!" So this is the one time you want to mic an FRFR cab!
I know it claims to be 1000W but I think that’s some very optimistic marketing… 😉 Also, it’s not the watts you hear, it’s the dB SPL, so that comes down to how the speaker system turns electrical watts into acoustic watts, which an AVD cabs is uniquely effective at. Getting FRFR guitar loud enough is far less of a challenge than achieving serious volume with FRFR bass cabs and that’s how we started Barefaced back in 2008, and if you do some searching online you’ll see that we’re probably the best in the world at this stuff…
Your tones are nice mate, a big bit too wet in my lugs personally for most of your atmospheric/ambient/spacious print though, to get amp in the room try reducing the size of the room via your weapon of choice, amp in the room remember! not auditorium in the smaller room mate.
Depends on the "camp" your mind is in. ..FR is the way to go for modelers in my opinion. Based on Captures, profiles, ECT your getting the intended sound and variations based on signal chain through speaker,mic,cab position...takes time to setup everything if you're a capture maker so y not take full advantage as a player and listener. If you dump everything through a Poweramp and actual speaker cab, your diezel vh4 and bogner ubershall are going to sound super similar vibe.... coming out the same speaker. If we are all tone whores and hoarders as we should be. Why would you not have a FR.
Barefaced was definitely on the list of FRFRs when I was looking for one. Awesome quality cabs but ended up going with Accugroove in the end. For anyone in the US looking for one, definitely consider them as well, been extremely happy with the purchase 🤘
That sounds freaking incredible when you moved the mic. For the first time, it sounded awesome. That tone was great, in my opinion.❤😮
Being a Bass player I moved to Barefaced sometime ago.
Replaced a heavy 4x12 with 2 tiny, light 1x10s. Load ins are so much easier now, and my tone improved massively.
Amazing how consistent the tone starts no matter where you put the mic, great design by barefaced!
YES Finally, someone moving the mic around on an AVD cab! I don't know why nobody just uses their iPhone and walks around, recording the sound in all the parts of the room. That's the selling point, but nobody ever does it! Nice to see Barefaced making the rounds, these AVD cabs are groundbreaking, and the company needs support right now. Something about fire code or some such, rent debacle, it was on the news and everything.
@@CraigFlowersMusic no rent issues, just the landlord of our building (that contains almost 100 businesses turning over tens of millions) failing to act on reported fire risks for years. We’re back in the building and the factory is running normally but we’re also making longterm plans to keep the business secure - it’s not like we can just “work from home” on laptops!
@@BarefacedAudio Good to hear production is humming along, I was under a slightly worse impression lol Also gratifying to see you got both Ariel and now Rabea, idk why I find it gratifying to see Barefaced in particular succeeding, except that I feel like I know genius when I see it.
The tone.......................................a sign of your great ears my man..............stunning
I've been using a stereo Barefaced rig with my QC at home for the last year. These things are the GOAT of flat response cabs. Alex and the team really know what they are doing.
Are you running two of their cabs? Or doing the stereo option they offer? I’m a little confused on which cab to buy plus which activier module
@phoenixbt I have one Reality 112 with the stereo activier module, and one Reality 112 without an activier.
Have you ever used headrush? That's what I'm using now but this intrigues me
@@arnyarny77 I've never tried the headrush units, but I've heard they are not nearly the same experience.
@@arnyarny77try the quad.
Dude, hell yeah. This what youtube should be about. Experimenting, trying shit, "what if I did this?". The room mic Experiment was fun to hear
That was really cool as you moved the mic around the room 👍 i enjoyed hearing the different perspectives
Full range flat response
For real for real
full range freakin rad
@@RabeaMassaad Glad I wasn't alone (until 2:56)
Fulltone Resonating Frequency Rectifier
full frequency fart receptacle
LETS GOO BAREFACED!!! love themm
Barefaced are amazing!! I know a couple of guitarists and one bass player who love them. Another great company is Zilla. Both let you customise several aspects of your kit.
fantastic video, thanks for sharing this. Especially enjoyed seeing the different mic placements
Sounds very good. When you moved the mic behind the cab you could immediately hear all of the low end you were talking about, especially with the high gain tone. Sounded super full and mean for that and the cleans were awesome as well.
Barefaced are to me the only cab at their frfr? that could stand toe to toe with how I run my rig currently....-they are the best I've ever tested thus far. 🔥
I'd be curious to hear a direct comparison between an FRFR cab, and some decent sized studio monitors, although I know thats pretty much impossible to capture without being in the room.
That’s definitely on our to-do list! The first key difference between the Reality and a good studio monitor is that in the lows the Reality has a similar frequency and transient response to a normal guitar cab, to make modelled sounds sound and feel more like real guitar amp sounds; in comparison a studio monitor will feel like it’s going too low and responding too fast, it won’t have that natural interaction between pick attack and what you feel.
The other key difference is that studio monitors have cardioid response in the mids and highs but omnidirectional response in the lows (unless soffit mounted), whilst the Reality has almost omnidirectional response (to be precise it’s more like figure 8 where the front is narrower and the back is wider). Obviously other FRFR cabs aren’t at all like this because they don’t have the AVD and second tweeter and crossover.
That "Just Cause" preset sounds INCREDIBLE. Ive been pretty happy with my L6 Powercab plus but these seem like another great choice.
I heard this theory that the reason some FRFR cabs sound "off" (for lack of a better term) are because they arent built like guitar cabs and are instead shaped like a stage wedge or a PA speaker.
Between this and the powercab, I think that theory holds water.
My bass player went barefaced years ago and the number one thing for me was it was easier to hear him wherever I was on stage. he never seemed to need to be louder. And even if he played louder it didn't seem to get in the way. Had to get my own!
My current bedroom rig is guitar > scarlet 2i2 > laptop > fortin nameless suit > scarlet 2i2 > headrush frfr or some Sony studio headphones.
The the neural plug ins they can be standalone programs. And they all sound amazing.
Although everything about this is hard to get across on a RUclips recording, it might have been interesting to have a direct line from QC and compare that a couple of times. I’m interested if there were things about the cab which were different to listening to large studio monitors or PA, and also whether you think the projection and clarity would work above the stage level in a rehearsal or small bar gig, for your own monitoring and to feed the room without reinforcement?
We did a video like this on our channel where we compared the Reality, a Reformer with the speaker that was being modelled in the send to the Reality, a DI, and the PA system we have in our studio. Here it is: ruclips.net/video/x-1gNMp1Pcc/видео.htmlsi=8vlAmbCIJsS5GFqE Rabea still has the cab so I suggested he try some rehearsals/gigs with it - it's not quiet, we know that! ;-)
I was thinking of having just a cab. then Bea uploaded this. it's very affordable!
The talk about miking made me think of playing a Korg synth ten or so years ago. On the drum track it had the option to room mike or individual toms and kick and snare etc. miking. Total science fiction 😎 You could actually play with bleed of the mikes...
It definitely sounds pretty sick. I like it 🎸🎸😎curious to hear how it sounds with a band playing
I mean if you're using a modeler you'd be going straight to front of house for your audience sound. This would be just for stage monitoring in a live setting most likely, but should be able to keep up with a drummer no problem
@@gdawgs101unless you’re a home guitarist which many of us are. We do the buying. Bands get the freebies.
@@Utube-s8m Huh? That... Doesn't make any sense in response to what I wrote.... Did you reply to the wrong comment? Nothing I said had anything to do with cost or the purchase of equipment
man, blend that mic position just behind the cab along with the 57 on the driver, work out some minor phase issue and i bet that would sound just incredible. thanks for taking the time for the demo! appreciated!
Sounds great! Playing is on point as usual! 😎🤘
I recently made the jump and bought a Quad Cortex. My main concern was being able to play through something which wouldn't flavor the output the same ways traditional cab/speakers do. I also didn't want to play the QC through headphones. I wanted good sound with the feeling of an amp. After seeing what a some 2x12 FRFRs were costing here in the US, I hit up Thomann's site for fun and found: Harley Benton G212A-FR Active Cabinet. It's a 2x12 2x100w cab, has XLR and 1/4" options. It is only available with a 220v option though. I ordered it and also ordered a 240v/120v 1500w convertor from Amazon, cost was around $60. Works great. the HB FRFR sounds good and gets loud, pushes air, and is to lean back if you wanted the sound directed up.
I was also able to reclaim some space. The EVH 5150iii head, a 2x12 cabinet, and pedals/pedalboard took up a bit of space. I'm happy I made the switch and change on the HB...
A nice to have would be an onboard bass and treble EQ that can be tweaked for different venues
That was one of those things where it came partly down to packaging - Rabea's cab has the Activier 1 mono amp module, but we also offer a stereo version, the Activier 2, so there's twice as much stuff to fit in there, and if we added EQ would we need to add two sets of that too? And the other puzzle is how to choose the voicing of the bass and treble controls (frequencies and slopes) - a huge part of the tone of different guitar amps is the EQ curves of their controls, so how do we add EQ to an FRFR cab without boxing it into one tonal place?
It sounded amazing wherever you put the Mike, except for the last spot just sounded good! I really liked it behind the cab,either way your playing is always awesome
It definitely sounds pretty sick. I like it 🎸🎸😎
been waiting for someone to demo all their cabs! since that rob video a few years ago
Great thick lo end, not quite what we usually hear from you, yes behind it is really cool from where we are! Great room vibe…..
Damn above the cab and behind it sounds wicked… How’s that even possible, I mean I know how, just the fact that it is, man that’s awesome
It's so good when you're crammed onto a tiny stage with your cab firing past your ankles but you can still hear your proper tone because of our the AVD and rear tweeter disperses sound.
Sounds killer 👍👍
I have the Kraken V4 Amp and am considering using an FRFR cab because the 200w output is just too loud for home use plus would like to leverage the IR flexibility. I've been considering the Fender but I hadn't heard of Barefaced. This is interesting.
I bought one of those Celestion speakers and put it in a Thiele cab, and it didn't sound right. There's gotta be a spec for the cab build that's correct for it.
Dammit the title should be FR FR cabs...are they really For Real ? 💀
I’m changing the thumbnail
I changed it hahahah
@@RabeaMassaad Love you Rabea xx
@@RabeaMassaad L e g e n d
@@RabeaMassaad fr fr🙏
Nice Rabea! Visited the Barefaced warehouse in Brighton today - They're the nicest guys! Thanks to Davie who spent 2 hours with me trying their amazing cabs!
@@andymarsal thanks for visiting! (NB: factory, not warehouse, we make everything here!)
Excellent ! Love your sounds and playing! It should be nice to have the comparaison with amp+cab..
They are essential for modeling pedals
FRFR speakers are going to be used by a lot of people using great amp modeling multieffects like Quad Cortex, Ampero, etc. I bet we will see some more brands coming out with these after NAMM.
I just bought a Laney fr112 for mr ToneX .. OMG .. what a great gigable rig
I just got the tonemaster frfr and it makes my qc really feel like an amp. They're awesome
Amazing tone dude!
I wonder how it would sound if you ran the line out signal from a tube amp into one of these. I've owned the Atomic Reactor FRFR cabs - 1 18-watt and the other 50-watt (both tube power) - with a Headrush and they sounded amazing but they were too heavy and too loud.
You could run the line out from a tube amp into an Activier in a Barefaced AVD cab with a conventional guitar speaker. If you take the line out from a tube amp without speaker modelling into an FRFR cab the highs will be too harsh. We can also fit a passive input plate to a Activier cab, so you can crank up your tube amp into the speaker bypassing the Activier module, or run line out into the Activier bypassing the tube amp's power stage. All the tonal and volume options!
Wonderful Progressions
Maaaaaan 2 of those would smoke all sorts of goodness!
With an Activier 2 module you can run full stereo with an active master Reality and a passive slave Reality. It's so nice to be able to get amazing stereo guitar sounds live without having to carry two entire valve combos or stacks!
Darn, and when you moved it, the third time, it sounded even better.
The barefaced cabs are ported to make the sound spread more evenly around the room, even the non-FRFR ones have that same type of effect.
Yes, it's not a conventional port which just improve low frequency output and efficiency using a Helmholtz resonance, it's our patented AVD which also lets the the mids and highs through, using the slot to diffract them and the horn to further widen their dispersion and improve efficiency and coupling to the air in the room. The biggest problem we've found with the AVD is representing it honestly in videos - it works much better in a room with human ears and brains than when you're trying to mic the room sound to let people hear in a video how well it's working!
The real test is does it cut thru a drummer bass amp and a real amp in live room mix no pa
These might sound great for my overloud thu software, currently I'm using two headrush frfr
I’m not sure why one would mic up an FRFR? The speakers are designed to reproduce an already complete tone from the modeler. The modeled tone represents an amp/cab, and any effects after it’s been recorded, so running that thru another mic and signal chain defeats the purpose. I guess you can disable the cab block if you’re set on using a specific physical cab. I only use my FRFR (Atomics, and Mission Gemini) to project my tone on stage since typical stage wedges also color the tone.
Do you mean for the purpose of this video? Or in general?
Obviously for the purpose of the video I needed to try mic it up! So you could hear it haha. But in general yeah, I agree
@ I’m referring to the general idea. I watched your video (well done btw) on my iPad which was sonically pointless as well 😂. Your experiment sounded great under my limited circumstance. Would have sounded even better on my full studio setup.
I’m just pointing out that we need to remember that a modeler produces a fully realized sound that is purposefully not colored with additional real world speakers. I guess unless you’re using it as a specific sound in your situation. There’s really no wrong way if it sounds good to you right?
Was dead keen on getting one for a Kemper, but comms fell away from the typical sales cycle, and found it difficult to get the right amount of info to make a purchase decision - ended up going down the Mesa route. Would still be keen to try one at some point.
Feel free to put your Mesa on top of a Barefaced cab!
Sorry if this was asked… what does “activier” mean? Did not see an explanation on their site.
So the Activier is a preamp+power amp module we’ve designed to fit into any of our guitar cabs. The original Reality 112FR is a passive FRFR cab, adding an Activier (we build it into one of the AVD panels on the back) makes it an active FRFR cab.
However, we can fit it to any of our AVD guitar cabs that are not FRFR, so fitted with normal guitar speakers. For a lot of guitarists we think this is a best of both worlds, because you can get the tone and feel to a guitar speaker you love, the effortless, super reliable and super light power of the Activier and then your “amp” tone coming from analogue or digital modelling pedals. We can also fit an Activier cab with a passive input so you can swap between using your tube head or the modelling pedals and Activier.
Email us if any of this is confusing because I know at Barefaced we’re doing things different to the norm!
@ thank you! So with my fm9 I can use an activier frfr, or, turn off the cabs in the fm9 and use a regular cab fitted with activier… tough choice… i like the tweeter idea though… i seem to be missing the high end with my laney frfr112.
@@johnhajewski1343 yes, you can take either approach! Do you tend to change your speaker models between patches or do you just stick with one speaker sound? Do you use in-ears live?
I really like the idea of FRFR…you can gain stage ya stuff in your modeler…sort out ya tones and they’ll be consistent every time when you plug into an FRFR! Just so easy!
Funnily enough this is how Barefaced started because as a bassist I wanted to be able to DI straight into a PA with all my FX etc and get the same sound onstage without worrying about the monitoring - and then I wanted enough output to be able to go without the PA in those venues where the PA is a bit feeble. And now fifteen years on we're making an active version of that for guitarists!
@ This is definitely how I felt as a guitarist. lol! Definitely will be checking out Barefaced.
Have you tried your head into some of their standard guitar cabs?
Welcome to our world.
I remember using a Roland Keyboard amp at College that made my Boss BR-800 COSM effects sound massive... Would this be something similar??
@@StrudlePie yes, like a much better version of that!
Fantastic!
Should u mic the cab?since the idea of impulse response is a emulation of mic'd cab
No, of course not. But he needs some way of capturing the audio for this video.
@@mrcoatsworth429 we've found that the Reality is particularly good for gigs when you're on in-ears and all the other Activier AVD cabs are great for gigs where you're hearing the sound in the room and micing the guitar speaker.
Holy s*** When you put the mic behind the cab, it sounded even better.
He's getting the bass of the cab as well as the high mids of the room sound reflecting back. Its doing funny stuff to the midrange and high frequencies due to phase.
Limp Bizkit riff also improves the tone
@Fl4ppers yeah, it sounds wide and it sounds deep, and that actually sounds clearer.
@@dazzhotchkin Wes was a monster riffer. Hated that band but massive respect for him.
I'm still waiting for my upsizing 2x12 with a Celestion BN 300S and a Thick Boy from OverTonez Audio...600w for my baritone. I can't wait to try it. It will arrive in a few weeks...
It's in final QC now - made a video with it yesterday. Sounds incredible! Looks so good too.
That's makes me so happy! Especially if I have it at home...🤗
Love to see a Bareface vs Fender FR-12 shootout.
I feel that would be a bit unfair on the Fender!
@ BTW what does your FRFR sell for? I have a Fender FR10 that’s a nice home until and useful for recording, but I’m leery of gigging it. If the Barefaced FRFR is truly useful in a gig it would be worth whatever your price is. I’m guessing $1k
I think direct opposite. The frfr 12 is 1000 watts not 200. And a frfr speaker is a flat response speaker. I seen a guy playing go girl on one and i was immediately sold! I heard it on others but the fender really doesnt color anything and also that toot is super sick and the output to go straight into pa is nice too! So many ups for teh fender in my opinion
@@JoshStewartmakesmusic having seen the innards of the FR12 (and the price) there’s no way it’s a 1000W amp or a 1000W speaker! I’m sure it’s good for the money but expecting it to compete with the Reality is like expecting studio monitors at one price to be as good as ones that are three times the price - making great sounding speakers is expensive and our little business has a much lower overhead than most.
@@BarefacedAudio I believe you but I’d have to try it out. I love my fender atm! Sorry about the autocorrect. I wasn’t meaning disrespect to you guys btw! Not go girls but I heard them play gogira on the fender and I was sold!
Fill range flat response ❤❤❤❤FRFR
They are For Real For Real. I’ll see myself out.
We are!
FRFR are just powered PA speakers marketed to guitarists. You can save a lot and get great sound from something like an Alto or Yamaha or JBL. The Headrush is a rebranded Alto.
Yes, many of them are. This isn’t, lots of tech details on our website, RUclips etc explaining why!
Are these all presets from your Neural plugin???
Very interesting. It would be informative to see a comparison to something like a Katana Gen 3 50 which can be used as a FRFR cabinet at 1/3 of the price and with loads of other features.
THAT SOUNDS GREAT. I USE A ATOMIC CLR WHICH SOUNDS PRETTY GOOD AS WELL BUT IT IS 500 WATTS BI AMPED. I LIKE THE FRFR CAB FOR STAGE MONITORING RATER THAN AN IEM.
I've been through FRFR after FRFR cab. I can tell you right now the absolute best solution for modelers is the Seymour Duncan Power Stage. You can run any modeler into any guitar cab and you get ALL the benefits of the amp in the room and flexibility of modeling. Forget FRFR cabs and just buy a Seymour Duncan Power Stage.
So you've got your modeler into the power stage and the power stage into a regular cab right?
We've got quite a few customers using the Power Stage with our passive AVD cabs. What you get with an AVD cab is vastly better dispersion than with any normal guitar cab, which makes life so much easier on rehearsals and gigs (and you don't have to always sit in the perfect spot when practising at home!) If you don't want/need the flexibility of an FRFR cab like our Reality you can have an Activier module in any of our guitar cabs, so you get the tone of a your favourite guitar speaker (we have tons of custom choices), and the convenience of a powered (and hilariously lightweight) cab, along with the dispersion benefits of the AVD. Just turn off the speaker modelling bit of your modeller and off you go!
Someone tested the Duncan power block against a tube amp for power and in his opinion the amp felt better. That’s how I use mine and through a regular guitar cab. I don’t want it sounded like it’s going through monitors. But tbh I use my amps more. I haven’t had them that long and I want to enjoy them. With the new administration coming into the country tariffs will cost me an arm and a leg to get my amps maintained now.
For real for real
Price wise they're close to Line 6 Powercab.
I didn’t know that! We just tried to make the best guitar FRFR cab possible and then it ends up costing what it costs and we have to hope people see the value!
What powers the speaker? I guess it is not valves/tubes so solid state?
Probably a class D solidstate amp.
It's a pre/power module we designed, with a very clean single knob analogue preamp into a class D power module. It was a lot of work, especially getting it as quiet as it is, but we think it was worth the effort to make a system that's a real step up.
1x12 isn't enough. I use the Laney 2x12 FRFR with my Helix, and that sounds mint, big, thick, plenty of low end, and loud as fuck.
What strings do you use?
They sound very transparent, but for the cost, I can't justify that, lol. Besides, I just hang out with some friends and jam with a Quad Cortex and some old KRK 8's (2nd Generation, the ones with that 200hz boost/distortion in them, lol) on chairs and still have fun. Although if I wanted the most accurate sound that sounds more like the record sound but live and loud, these could work.
Sadly making things this good is annoyingly expensive - a lot of expensive parts and a lot of man-hours. Everyone who owns one seems to think they're good value though, which is reassuring.
@@BarefacedAudio Well, they are like High Quality Studio Monitors with High Quality Drivers/Amplifiers which I'm sure aren't cheap. On Stage I bet they are fun to use though. Amp Modeling is getting better and better, so I'm sure the price will drop a bit maybe on the products in the future. I say it's a win-win anyways. They sounded good no matter where he put the mic, and that in itself is VERY impressive. I probably wouldn't be so biased about cost if I weren't broke, lol. You guys did a great job! Thanks for the response!
Have you used it in a live performance?
The only thing i dislike about most brands offering frfr cabs is that they stick to single speakers instead of like 2x12s
We can absolutely do a 2x12" version of the Reality - we have designs for a vertical 212, a horizontal 212 and an XL vertical 212 ready to go. Just need someone to order one!
Full range, Flat response. Basically means the enclosure itself doesn’t color the sound you’re pushing.
I agree, it's important to let the enclosure get very involved!
What great timing! I was just introduced to Bare faced cabinets last week. Can you do a demo of the regular 1x12 & 2x12 if possible?
sounds great man! wicked solution to those with a QC, 200w too thats a winner!! Will you take one for touring?
I'd kill to hear this set up with Dave and Ben. Im always so scared of solo playing FRFR cab content. Does it sit well with acoustic drums? does the low end of amp sims get in the way of an in room bass?
Rabea still has the cab and I suggested he give it a go in rehearsals with the band. We've only had really great feedback from everyone who's used a Reality cab and a lot are busily gigging with them.
@@BarefacedAudio Holy smokes, Barefaced thank you so much for responding! I've been hyping this video up to my band mate since seeing it. Out of curiosity- do I need to buy a cab AND the activier?
@@jangelo2038 you can choose an active or passive Reality on the product page (if you choose active then it includes the Activier module). We also sell the Activier as an "add-on" for all the other AVD cabs (and the One10 bass cab) so it's a separate product on the site too.
Sorry it's a bit confusing but we're only a little company, we sell too many different products (I suspect if a proper business expert got involved they'd get very angry with us!) and our website can only handle a limited amount of options on each product!
But just email for help if anything isn't clear!
@@BarefacedAudio this is super clear. I can’t tell you how much you guys have turned me as a company just by reaching out. I’m not in the best financial position this season, but next year I’m jumping ship!
At around 17:29 the sound was amazing.
FRFR for monitoring is interesting to me
I have one of the Harley Benton 2x12 cabs with the Celestion speakers that retail for $99. Total cost $230 which included shipping. So in essence you buy the speakers and get the cabinet for free.
And what a cabinet it is.
3:14 It says "Full Range Live Response" on the module.
The argument could be made that if you want it to sound like an amp in a room you need to feed it that signal, IR's are giving you the sound of an amp mic'd with it's own character and frequency response so the a FRFR is simply faithfully recreating that. FRFR should sound like a good PA or set of studio monitors as they should also be recreating a full range of frequencies inputted faithfully.
I suspect that using a IR created with a mic with close to flat response might get you closer to a amp in the room tone. But I guess that question would be is that helpful, do you want to hear what the audience is hearing or something that sound's like a amp in the room (which is not what the audience is going to hear unless your IR's are presenting that to your PA/FRFR/Monitors)
Love the videos!
Is there a place I can buy tabs for fire by the silos?
I mean it’s never gonna sound like a real amp on a cab cause the ir will always be cab and mic together. I guess the monitoring is the important thing, and if it can do the feedback thing, why not use an frfr speaker. It simply works
We did some experimenting with this in a video a few months ago and you can get them to sound so close it's almost impossible to tell. But it does take some time to figure out !
Its overkill mic'ing up a p.a. into a p.a....it can be done for sure, but it requires an astounding set of lug holes to get it phased properly! lucky me!
There's almost never a reason to mic an FRFR cab - but this video would be quite boring/pointless if Rabea said "I've got this cool cab here, but as it's FRFR you can listen to the DI sound and I'll just tell you how it sounds to me in the room!" So this is the one time you want to mic an FRFR cab!
Brooo I had that same Tool shirt in 2001 lol
❤️9:00
8:52 he unleashed the filthy and its working, look at the face.
For Real For Real Cabs
Is the fender one louder than this one?
I know it claims to be 1000W but I think that’s some very optimistic marketing… 😉 Also, it’s not the watts you hear, it’s the dB SPL, so that comes down to how the speaker system turns electrical watts into acoustic watts, which an AVD cabs is uniquely effective at.
Getting FRFR guitar loud enough is far less of a challenge than achieving serious volume with FRFR bass cabs and that’s how we started Barefaced back in 2008, and if you do some searching online you’ll see that we’re probably the best in the world at this stuff…
It took me a minute but I thought you were all taking different cabs to the rehearsal space.
Would it work good with two of those in stereo ?
Yes, we actually make a stereo version, the Activier 2, so you can run one active cab and one passive slave cab for a very neat stereo rig.
Perfect for guitar synth players with 2.
Your tones are nice mate, a big bit too wet in my lugs personally for most of your atmospheric/ambient/spacious print though, to get amp in the room try reducing the size of the room via your weapon of choice, amp in the room remember! not auditorium in the smaller room mate.
Depends on the "camp" your mind is in. ..FR is the way to go for modelers in my opinion.
Based on Captures, profiles, ECT your getting the intended sound and variations based on signal chain through speaker,mic,cab position...takes time to setup everything if you're a capture maker so y not take full advantage as a player and listener.
If you dump everything through a Poweramp and actual speaker cab, your diezel vh4 and bogner ubershall are going to sound super similar vibe.... coming out the same speaker.
If we are all tone whores and hoarders as we should be. Why would you not have a FR.
Does anyone know how it takes analog pedals/fuzz ?