Can you emulate a speaker cabinet with amp EQ?

[BigRedX]

21 hours ago, warwickhunt said:

No I get this, we mix our own sound via our digital 'desk' and gig in venues with in-house engineers but we either accept that we turn FOH over to an engineer or we mix ourselves; different if you are taking your own engineer who will handle the PA.  On multi line up gigs such as festivals you are unlikely to have that option to just turn up and say 'We'll give you a stereo feed of our mix' as the engineers will have no control over balance or issues arising!  

 

In fact the sorts of gigs my bands do, sound engineers will love this, because there's less for them to do (we play gigs with several bands who already do this). We even supply DI boxes and XLR leads (usually better quality than the ones at the venue) so all they need to do is supply the correct number of inputs at the stage box. EQ'ing the backing track is no different to EQ'ing whatever music is being played between bands at a gig. There'll be no balance problems because we'll have spent several rehearsals working on the mix through a PA. 

 

IME bands with traditional backline only have balance problems from one gig to the next because they fiddle with the settings of their amps etc. Whether that is down to the fact that you can rarely set up in exactly the same relative locations in every venue, or some in-built desire to fiddle even when there is no need to do so. I do know one guitarist who used to zero all the controls on his amp at the end of a gig or rehearsal and spend ages getting them to the right place next time. In the days when I was still using a conventional rig I never found the need to muck about with the controls. I'd plug in and there was my sound.

[BigRedX]

And it's not always the sound engineer's fault if you don't sound like you think you should. 

 

At multi-band gigs they may well be presented with a completely different musical style for each band which ideally requires EQ adjustments for all the instruments, so it's hardly surprising if they try to save time by trying to use some common sounds for some. As I said previously most of the time they will be hearing your band for the first time when you do the sound check. If you're sound is different from the norm, either bring your own engineer or give the FoH a pre-mixed and EQ's output.

 

Bands with backing tracks can be a nightmare for FoH because it's not always obvious what's on the backing and what is being played live. And many bands don't help themselves by trying to replicate their recorded sound exactly on stage and have far too much on the backing to the detriment of the overall live sound. I'm in charge of the backing for both bands I play with, and have started turning down instruments that I don't think are making a significant contribution to the overall live sound, to the point where either someone else complains that something is missing from the mix in which case I turn them up very slightly, or until they are entirely silent.

 

However, even then there it is still possible for the FoH to muck things up. With one band the set up is simple. Vocals, synth player with two keyboards, Bass VI and backing that has drums and some very minimal additional keyboards. Ideally once the sound balance is right FoH there should be little reason the change it because we have already got all our relative volumes programmed into the synths and bass VI effects (we've spent a good deal of time in rehearsal fine tuning this), but we've done several gigs where we can hear the balance changing as we play for no apparent reason.

[LukeFRC]

3 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

And it's not always the sound engineer's fault if you don't sound like you think you should.

I've been in a situation where the backing tracks EQ was utterly unsuitable for a full PA - there is a learning curve to get them right. 

[Rich]

My god, this stuff is quite intriguing even if it is pretty much all waaaaay over my head. May I just make one small amendment though:

On 31/07/2023 at 18:54, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

My number one complaint about concert sound is pounding deep bass that has no resemblance to what players want for tone bloody kick drum, at levels that drown out the rest of the band. 

Thanks. As you were.

[alexa3020]

50 minutes ago, Rich said:

My god, this stuff is quite intriguing even if it is pretty much all waaaaay over my head. May I just make one small amendment though:

Thanks. As you were.

Ha! At my last gig, everytime the drummer hit the kick there was some weird feedback on stage that sounded very similar to a bass note! Leaving completely unable to hear my own bass at times! That was a fun gig luckily it was inaudible out front.

[BigRedX]

1 hour ago, LukeFRC said:

I've been in a situation where the backing tracks EQ was utterly unsuitable for a full PA - there is a learning curve to get them right. 

 

If backing tracks are unsuitable for FoH it is because they haven't been mixed on a PA, but just on home studio monitors which rarely show the true extent of the bottom end.

 

We do all our initial mixes at home, but the final levels and EQ setting are done in the rehearsal room running through a decent medium-sized PA.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

1 hour ago, alexa3020 said:

Ha! At my last gig, everytime the drummer hit the kick there was some weird feedback on stage that sounded very similar to a bass note! Leaving completely unable to hear my own bass at times! That was a fun gig luckily it was inaudible out front.

I heard that effect quite clearly through the PA at a concert last winter. It created a constant drone that was so bad that not even halfway through I left. It was Max Weinberg's (of Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band} band, with a supposedly pro at the FOH. How a deaf guy got that gig I can't figure.

[Phil Starr]

On 31/07/2023 at 09:35, alexa3020 said:

If you have a clean cabinet (FRFR or getting towards it maybe), is it possible to emulate a coloured cabinet sound with just amp EQ?

When playing around with cab simulations, to my ears it just sounds as if an EQ is being overlayed on top, which is definitely taming the harshness of the treble, warming the sound and probably bumping or cutting some other frequencies.

If that's the case, would you always be better going for a clean sounding cab because it offers way more versatility?

 

On 31/07/2023 at 10:12, alexa3020 said:

Interesting! so in digital speaker emulation  they are just overlaying a static EQ on top and getting close?

If you wanted to achieve this with analogue pedals and an amp it is theoretically possible, but you'd need 2 eq's. 

 

On 31/07/2023 at 10:49, alexa3020 said:

In my case, I now have a much clearer (more accurate I guess) cabinet. and while I can hear myself much better, it sounds quite sterile when flat. I do have to eq it significantly differently in comparison to my original cab.

It did get me thinking should I be using some sort of cab simulation instead.

I think you've actually got this. Cabs, amps, pedals, strings and basses all add colouration to the sound. Amp/speaker sims are the equivalent of adding a coloured filter to a photograph. You can do this physically with a physical filter on the lens, use your phone or camera's internal processing or add it later in the studio or at the mixing desk. The think is that a sim is just adding extra filtering, if your amp/speaker already have a bit of bass boost and mid cut then a sim that adds a bit more of both in an attempt to sound like an Ampeg isn't going to work. Hence the comments about blankets being thrown over your sound and the need for multiple eq's. To continue the photography analogy using rose tinted filters isn't going to make everything in the picture pink.

 

it sounds quite sterile when flat most cabs and speakers do some version of the smiley face eq, bass and treble boosted and mids cut back. The majority of people prefer that sound (there are scientific reasons for that) so any flat response speaker is going to sound very different until it is warmed up a bit. Whether you choose to use an amp sim or eq your own sound is really a personal choice. The amp sim is really the ready meal option, quick and simple, possibly made by someone who is a good cook and better than most of us could do, or maybe ready meals just aren't for you. Have confidence in your ears though, the end all you want is a good sound. 

[BigRedX]

On 31/07/2023 at 10:12, alexa3020 said:

If you wanted to achieve this with analogue pedals and an amp it is theoretically possible, but you'd need 2 eq's. one to eq your pre-amp on your amp how you like it, and one after the amp preamp (not sure how you would do this)  to replicate the speaker cab.

 

Why would you need two EQs? Just one as you are no longer fighting against the baked-in sound of the cab(s).