Head One Room, Cab Another = Easy Guitar Setup

[Aaron Miller]

I've got a live rooom and a mix room and the problem for me has always been that it takes forever to dial in my guitar tones. I've always been able to get decent tones but never quickly. I was spending hours running back and fourth from my mix room to the live room, first listening on monitors, then back to the live room to adjust mic and EQ, and so on, never being able to make real-time adjustments. Even though I have a great guitar setup, I sometimes resorted to guitar emulation programs just becuase it's so quick and easy.

Yesterday, using a 20' speaker cable, I set up the cab in my live room and the head right by my mixing desk. I dialed in the tone from there in real-time, listening directly through my monitors rather than the cab itself. In all of 30 seconds I realized that I would never ever go back to the old way again. My god! It was so fast and easy to get the tone I wanted. For me it takes away the only advantage of using emulation.

If you have ever had difficulty getting the tones you want quickly, you absolutely have to try this before buying another amp, more software, etc. (Well, I guess if your amp is a combo it may not work). Being able to hear exactly what is going to disk or tape and make adjustments in real-time is such a benefit. It takes all guesswork out of the equation and helps you focus exclusively on the sound going in, rather than what you think the sound should be listening to the rig itself. It is probably the best thing I've EVER done to make my recording process faster and better and I can't believe I didn't do it years ago.

Anyway, I'm just realizing that this probably belongs in the goodnews section. Does anybody have any tricks or tips to make this process even better? I'm aware of the need to eliminate latency. I also have no problem feelin' the groove through my monitors instead of the amp itself.

[Dean Roddey]

I purchased a small looping pedal for this purpose. I can record a little and start it playing back, then put on the heavily isolating headphones, and mess with mic positions and outboard gear and amp settings and such. The thing is, so much of it is mic positioning that if you have to be playing while you do it, that won't work. You have to have some way to have it playing while you mess with the mics, and you can't do that from another room.

One of these days I'm going to invent the remote controlled articulating amp mic stand for this purpose.

[Aaron Miller]

That's a pretty good idea. I would pay for it!

[ryancork]

that's what assistants are for!!

[beautyfish]

Originally Posted by Aaron Miller

I've got a live rooom and a mix room and the problem for me has always been that it takes forever to dial in my guitar tones. I've always been able to get decent tones but never quickly. I was spending hours running back and fourth from my mix room to the live room, first listening on monitors, then back to the live room to adjust mic and EQ, and so on, never being able to make real-time adjustments. Even though I have a great guitar setup, I sometimes resorted to guitar emulation programs just becuase it's so quick and easy.

Yesterday, using a 20' speaker cable, I set up the cab in my live room and the head right by my mixing desk. I dialed in the tone from there in real-time, listening directly through my monitors rather than the cab itself. In all of 30 seconds I realized that I would never ever go back to the old way again. My god! It was so fast and easy to get the tone I wanted. For me it takes away the only advantage of using emulation.

If you have ever had difficulty getting the tones you want quickly, you absolutely have to try this before buying another amp, more software, etc. (Well, I guess if your amp is a combo it may not work). Being able to hear exactly what is going to disk or tape and make adjustments in real-time is such a benefit. It takes all guesswork out of the equation and helps you focus exclusively on the sound going in, rather than what you think the sound should be listening to the rig itself. It is probably the best thing I've EVER done to make my recording process faster and better and I can't believe I didn't do it years ago.

Anyway, I'm just realizing that this probably belongs in the goodnews section. Does anybody have any tricks or tips to make this process even better? I'm aware of the need to eliminate latency. I also have no problem feelin' the groove through my monitors instead of the amp itself.

I think a few of us have gone this route. I have two amps in my control room, a '68 Princeton and an Epi Valve Junior. I went the extra mile of wiring wall plates in the control and live rooms and running speaker cable between them, so I can easily patch heads and cabs. I have a Celestion 4 X 12, and two 1 X 12 cabs with Weber Alnico and Ceramic speakers and can mix and match in the control room. It works great and I would never want to go back to running back and forth. There shouldn't be any real latency issues running 20 ft. of speaker cable, so enjoy!!

[SK1]

Makes sense to me. And, when your recording a direct signal, in case you you want to reamp later, the leads will be way shorter ...... which makes more sense to me.

[Flying_Dutchman]

Try this:
take the amp in the mixing room, cabinet in live room
run a guitar loop in the head with your sequencer and a reamp box
set the guiatr amp to a low level
run a headphone line to the live room
now you can move the mic in front of the cabinet and hear what the mic does
when you´re satisfied, go back to the mixing room and dial in the amp sounds

[SMT]

Sometimes I put on headphones, raise the volume on the head, guitar volume off, and try to capture the brightest noise that is coming out the the cabinet by moving the mic around....
I can´t remember what that tricks was called, something like "signal to noise ratio"...

It works great 9 out of 10 times..

[Aaron Miller]

Try this:
take the amp in the mixing room, cabinet in live room
run a guitar loop in the head with your sequencer and a reamp box
set the guiatr amp to a low level
run a headphone line to the live room
now you can move the mic in front of the cabinet and hear what the mic does
when you´re satisfied, go back to the mixing room and dial in the amp sounds

I like this idea too. I haven't got into re-amping yet but it sounds like a nice way to do it. I also really like the remote control mic stand idea that someone mentioned above.

I think a few of us have gone this route. I have two amps in my control room, a '68 Princeton and an Epi Valve Junior. I went the extra mile of wiring wall plates in the control and live rooms and running speaker cable between them, so I can easily patch heads and cabs. I have a Celestion 4 X 12, and two 1 X 12 cabs with Weber Alnico and Ceramic speakers and can mix and match in the control room. It works great and I would never want to go back to running back and forth. There shouldn't be any real latency issues running 20 ft. of speaker cable, so enjoy!!

I actually did something similar: I pulled out an unused cable TV box in the upstairs (mix room), used the same hole and cut through some floor boards, then installed a decent looking multi-purpose electrical box with a flip-open door in the downstairs ceiling, right where an old light fixture used to be. It looks OK for the wife and now I can just pass cables from the mix room above to the live room below. It only requires 15' cable runs since the mix room is directly above. I'm considereing putting in some sort of switching system like you mentioned as well a snake connection for running mic and headphone cables as well. It sure beats 50' cable runs and running up and down the stairs all the time. I'll probably put on some weight now.