Tuesday-evening April 12th

Special Line 6 User Group Meeting; Vetta

 

Go to page 4; Page 5 from several pages.

 

Cabinet, Cabernet Sauvignon delicate taste...

In addition we have a process for cabinet modeling. That is similar in nature were we will take the original cabinet and our target cabinet and listen to them both, put up some mics, take some measurements. We use the audio-precision, as well as custom toolsets to match the tone the cabinets. We have tremendous toolsets that we've developed over the years. Toolsets for body measurements, speaker measurements and all kind of measurements you can imagine.

So we'll look at those two cabinets and use our tools to figure out the difference and use that to drive the cabinet emulation. Or in the context of direct-outs we actually use a convolution process. It involves actually setting at the cabinet, throwing up mics, pre-amps and recording the actual tone coming out of the cabinet and capturing that. That recording become the “process” that reproduces the sound of a mic’ed up cabinet in a room. It’s not faked in filters, its an actual cabinet and mic that is reproduced though the convolution process.

You can say that we are quite active in all of these components and when it all comes together, we get a model.

 

A question from a User Group Member

Question: If you put those components together, does it immediately sound as the original or do you have to tweak it as well?

Darrell; I'd say in general that it sounds pretty bloody close. What's on the scope doesn't explain everything that's going on. So I'd say that the whole process is 60 to 70 percent scientific and 40 percent listening and tweaking until you get the sound right. And that's the sound through all the range of controls.

Our model will sound as brilliant and as broken as whatever amp it is that we modeled. Some don't approve of the Twin model for instance, which is over the years probably has been one of the more difficult models for everyone to agree on. Some of you like it and some hate it, and if you come to visit Line 6, and you're all invited to come, it's over in the U.S., (laughter) you can play our Twin and maybe if you like it you can sign it or something... (laughter).

 

 

Modeling philosophy

We go the extra mile to reproduce all that is the amp we’re modeling, both the brilliant and the broken. This has become a long philosophical debate for us: Should we fix the power modulation on the AC30? Do we fix the sagging?

But what we found overall with artists and with guitar players in general is that the things that are really 'broken' about an amp is what is giving it's unique dynamics and feel – and contributes to the intrigue of playing and wrestling with an amplifier.

In the past we’ve tried to 'clean it or fix what was broke' but then it gets very sterile so we 've chosen to leave the 'broken' stuff in there.