Quote:
Originally Posted by redir
The JC120 is the best sounding SS amp I have ever had the pleasure of playing through. I also had a Randal back in the 80's that was kick arse amazing.
So what is modeling then? It's taking those great creations and... modeling them. Why not just have the real deal? I guess if you really want to sound like Eddie or Satch then you can preprogram a patch and have at it. That, after fiddling through thousands of presets to tweak to get something close that in the end is ... still a model.
What does the future hold? What will it be like in say 2040? Will there be modeling technology that models the models of the past? "Dude I just got a Zoom 505 model that totally rips the 90's canned modeled guitar sound like no other!"  |
Yes, certain sounds "imprint" and come to mean certain things, and modeling
is used to achieve that effect. Electric guitarists are often unaware that they are following that principle, but other instrumentalists do it all the time and often know that's what they're doing.
Examples:
A Hammond B3 and the like is a complex analog device (with tubes) that makes a Twin Reverb look like a cinder block in the old-school technology sweepstakes, and even more so with something like a Leslie cabinet. Some folks still use the "real thing", but a great many professional acts use something that simulates them with....modeling.
(Oh, what about those stops on the big Hammonds. They're modeling tubes--well, pipes I guess is the preferred term--but they aren't the real thing)
Or how about the original drum machines. Cheesy sounding even then, but they've been imprinted on listeners as sounding from the street. Some producers use the real boxes, some use samples from those boxes, and some use Virtual Instrument TR-808s and the like...you know, modeling.
I love the Mellotron. I really love the Mellotron. I was imprinted with records that used it at an impressionable age. In terms of hardware and money for VIs I'm somewhat constrained, but I have much more convincing Virtual Instruments for the "real thing" ones the Mellotron was to stand in for using tape strip samples as technology--but they don't sound like a Mellotron any more than a TR-808 sounds like Clyde Subblefield. I doubt I'd ever want to maintain a real Mellotron if I could afford one, but I play one often, using...modeling.
You mention Satch and Vai and the like from that generation. I believe some of them have moved off their original big racks, and now tour playing the songs the audience comes to hear using....modeling.
Why not use the "real thing." There's those practicalities I've referred to.
You get simplicities. Yes, you could have a Twin Reverb, a hand truck, an attenuator, and some kind of speaker simulator/direct out box. Or you could consider one of these new amps. That's a lot narrower than the simplification of something like a B3 etc, but it still might be a logical choice.
Yes, a Princeton, a cable and a Tele is pretty simple too. I know, I've lived there. It doesn't do exactly what a Twin or a Twin with some additional stuff can do, but it usually did what I had to do.
I used to have a Marshall amp, just for those rare times when I wanted to record a Marshall kind of sound. Sold it. Modeling is close enough for that occasional use (mine was a combo, the modeling does a better mic'ed up 4x12 closed back cabinet simulation even if it doesn't get the playing feel perfect). I gave up the "real thing."
Or someone could choose modeling a 20th Century beat box, not to save an aching back or because it won't fit in your Honda Civic, but because you can do a lot of handy interaction with DAWs and controllers and the like that makes things better at meeting some goals as well as easier.
I don't know if guitarists who have a complex setup of effects (stuff that the Satch generation helped pioneer) sometimes prefer modeling for additional ease of use, repeatability and flexibility, or largely because it's easier to cart around in an era of tighter touring budgets. My guess is it's both.