Opinion: The axeman cometh

Posted on 30 Nov 2009 at 17:14

Guitar hero David Robinson discovers that a software emulator sounds just as good as a stack of old-fashioned amps - until you actually come to register the program.

It's been a long time since a piece of software really blew me away, but this month I had a bit of an epiphany. In music circles, especially among guitarists, the accepted wisdom is that when it comes to amplification, you can't beat the old-fashioned technology in a valve amplifier. There's a certain something about it that can't be reproduced any other way.

Classic rock recordings were made in big studios where they kept a stock of vintage amplifiers. These had to be positioned carefully relative to an assortment of microphones to get the right kind of sound. Even with an experienced sound and recording engineer, this could take hours.

Around 30 years ago, several people started making specialised electronic devices that were easy to use and capable of simulating all manner of vintage amps. You plugged your guitar into one end of the device and fed the output directly into either a mixer or a cheap solid-state amp and - hey presto! - you had the instant sound of Hank Marvin playing into a Vox AC30 or Jimi Hendrix into a Plexi Marshall stack. Except, of course, you didn't. What you heard was a sound that approximated the amplifier being modelled.

Return to fender

Over the years the simulations have become increasingly convincing, but Neville Marten, editor of Guitar Techniques magazine and a full-time member of a band, recently opined that "nothing beats playing through a real valve amplifier". The implication is that anybody who knows what's what can tell the difference in an instant.

Even more recently, we've seen software programs that do this kind of modelling on an ordinary PC. You plug your guitar into a USB or FireWire audio interface and the software supposedly makes it sound as though you've splashed out on a revered old Fender, Vox or Marshall amp. I've always dismissed these applications as a bit of a gimmick, especially the suggestion that you'd dare to use one of these setups on a laptop in a live situation. A blue screen crash in the middle of a solo really would be embarrassing. Especially if you've just gurned into your best lead guitarist ecstasy face.

Denis (my bandmate) and I both use hardware amp simulators when we play live. Doing so gives us the advantage of a wide choice of different sounds while only taking up an 18x6in piece of precious floor space on the minuscule area some venues call a stage. By comparison, one traditional amp needs four times the space, has a fraction of the versatility and weighs half a ton. In addition, if someone says we're too loud (or occasionally too quiet), then we only have to turn one knob up or down on the PA to solve the problem. My view has been that Neville Marten's right, but that 98 per cent of the audience can't tell the difference or they don't give a monkey's either way.

Blind faith

Nevertheless, I've always wondered what would happen if one of the guitar magazines carried out a genuinely blind test. Could the guys with the magically accurate ears really tell the difference? None of them has ever had the ingenuity or, perhaps, the bravery to try.

Anyway, one lunchtime while guzzling my sarnies I took a look at the Electronic Musician website (http://emusician.com), which belongs to an American magazine I've not seen for a while. Buried in its content was exactly the sort of blind test I had in mind. It compared a series of real amps against a set of laptop-based programs. The journalists tested the hard way, using not just any Tom, Dick or Harry to do the listening but five professional producer/recording engineers with extensive experience of recording guitars the old-fashioned way. You can read the full article and try the test yourself at http://tinyurl.com/bzwcgb.

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