Why convenience is so important (and guitar amp head switching again)

As home and project studio owners, we often yearn for a new piece of gear, or to learn a new technique or skill. But having an ergonomic setup is equally if not more important. After all, why do we have home studios if not to allow us to try out creative ideas whenever we want? No travel, no waiting.

We setup our studios so there are few or no barriers between having an idea and trying it out. All our gear is hooked up exactly how we like it. We have a blank DAW template song file ready to go. Favourite mic's are already plugged in, and we have our favourite chair. Hell, we don't even need to get dressed! How many tracks have your recorded in your pyjamas?

Our studio layout can be tailored exactly to our needs. Once we have our monitors located in the best position for monitoring everything else can be slotted in. Don't like bending down to setup a piece of outboard, no problem, it's your studio so you can locate it at eye level. Want to perform a vocal at the monitoring position,  just buy an adjustable broadcast mic holder and swing it into position.

As regular readers of this blog will know, we love the idea of having several amp heads and one speaker cab. It saves space and there are lots of affordable and brilliant sounding low wattage tube heads available. The only problem is switching between them. Each amp must be powered down when disconnected from the cab, and we must wait for an amp to warm up when we reconnect it. And of course there is no way to complete a quick comparison between heads when choosing a tone for a track.

The Kahayan 8x4 amp and cab switcher does not produce new tones. You cannot process sound through it, and whilst looking professional it's hardly a striking visual addition to the studio. But what it does do is so much more useful.

Plug all your amps into it, plus a single cab, then connect your guitar, and you can power up all the amps and switch between them at will. This is the ultimate in convenience! We can compare heads instantaneously.

No other 'dumb' device we have tried has proved so creatively empowering. Sometimes convenience is more important than new gear or skills.

Thanks for reading and watching
FairFax

Why you don't need an amp and cab simulator plug-in

As we know, great electric guitar tones comprise four fundamental elements ..

1. playing technique
2. the guitar itself
3. the amp and cabinet combination
4. pedals

Line 6 were the first to identify the problems guitarists face recording their instruments at home, 1) achieving reasonable tone at neighbour friendly volumes, and 2) effective monitoring.

The POD was revolutionary and provided not just a convenient way to record reasonable approximations of  the sound of a complete rig, but for some the ONLY way. Additionally many guitarists found they could experiment wildly and produce hitherto impossible to create tones.

Today, almost every DAW comes with a plug-in that allows us to process a DI'd electric guitar sound sourced from the DI input that most audio interfaces provide. If your computer and drivers are good enough to enable you to record at acceptable latency,  real time software monitoring through your plug-in may also be possible.

Unsurprisingly, guitar amplifier manufactures have responded to this attack on their bottom lines by introducing low wattage amps that produce great tone at low volume. Whilst some have introduced digital modelling into their amps this has not, and probably will never, prove popular with guitarists, who widely regard tubes and analogue processing as the best way to achieve great tone that is responsive to playing technique.

These new amps are not only low wattage and sound great but incredibly affordable. Look no further than models produced by Blackstar, Orange, Marshall, Hughes & Kettner etc etc.

Although many of these amps have cabinet simulated DI outputs there is little reason to use them when you can run them at low volumes and place a dynamic mic (such as the Shure SM57) in the standard professional position within inches of the speaker cone.

The classic method to getting the tone you want is then to ..

1. setup your guitar gain, amp settings, amp gain and pedals for the sound you want
2. use the latency free monitor mode of your audio interface; send a copy of the input signal back to your headphones where it is mixed with the stereo monitor backing track
3. fine tune the sound by experimenting with mic placement whilst playing
4. hit record!

Because DAWs allow us to delay creative decision making right up until mastering, some musicians will prefer not to commit their tone at an early stage and want to record a dry DI signal that can be processed later. But great performances often require the right sound and 'physical' feedback that only   a mic'd up amp can provide, and hey, it never did Jimi Hendrix, Nile Rogers, Prince and SRV any harm did it!?

Thanks for watching and reading
FairFax