Torpedo CAB M

[bayswater]

Anyone using one of these? I read an article that recommended this as a reasonable substitute for amps, cabinets etc. It seems to be billed as a cabinet replacement but the description at Sweetwater lists emulation of cabinets, mice, pre-amp and power amps. The article I read implied you can plug the guitar into one end and a DAW into the other, and get a reasonable substitute for the standard live performance signal path.

Comments?

[daniel.sneed]

This wont help the way you might expect, I suppose.
But I spent some very long times trying to get good guitar cab simulation with standard equipment.
To not avail.

What I can say is a real guitar cabinet has a special high roll-off, and that is a real concern.
To my ears 36dB/oct roll-off is too much, but 24dB/oct is not enough.
I've been setting a 30dB/oct roll-off with a DBX PA2, which is now in my guitar processor rack.
No, I'm not kidding.

BTW in the bass area, it's a matter of taste first, but also a matter of who is playing along with you (none, bass, double bass, bass-drum, ...).
IMOE much flexibility on low end is required to get satisfying results with guitar cab simulation.

[bayswater]

30db at what Hz?

I assume you're not talking about a setup to completely replace everything between the guitar and DAW which is what I'm looking for. I can always use a Vox amp, mics, play around with the positions of things etc to get a sound, but it would be nice to plug in, hit a preset an play.

I have a POD, but none of the Fender settings sound remotely like Fender to me. The Roland is recognizable because of the chorus effect, and you can convince yourself the Vox is somewhat voxlike, but all the cabinet settings sound the same to me. The Live Room plugin in DP sounds better.

Someone I know playing in a live band regularly has ordered one of these to try out for recordings. So I guess I'll hear from him on how it does. He uses a couple of different amps and cabinets for bass and guitar and will hear the similarity or otherwise immediately.

[daniel.sneed]

30db at what Hz?

Depends of the project.
For very jazzistic warm guitar sound, crossover is as low as 1,5kHz, for modern rockistic guitar sound around 3kHz, and for acoustic like guitar sound around 4,8kHz.
Keep in mind that is no parametric EQ. That is crossover low-pass.
You can't achieve that with an standard digital EQ.
That's why I finally went with a DBX PA2.

In DBX PA2, you can chose between Lingwitz-Riley and Butterworth crossover types.
Butterworth has a 36, 30 and 24dB/oct choice.
Lingwitz-Riley type has only 24 and 36dB/oct.
So I went with Butterworth.

To go farther (maybe you will), you can add a small amount of *ringing* param EQ, to mimic speaker resonant behaviour around crossover frequency.
To my ears, the best ringing frequency is just above crossover. Tweaking frequency slightly to taste (by ear) until you feel you hear a *realistic* cabinet.

Of course, as you may expect, that's not a straight guitar to DBX PA2 setup.
My basic no-amp setup is : guitar > overdrive stompbox (Fulltone Fulldrive II) > di-box (Radial J48) > mic preamp (TC Gold Channel) > unbalancing transformer (Lundhal LL1576) > mixer mic input.

Don't be stomped. I said I have really spent long time on this subject, and when it comes to guitar sound, generally my friends say I'm a picky person.
To be honest, I don't think you have to go thru all this hassle to play guitar with a no-amp setup.
I just wanna help you to understand why most basic no-amp sounds are not totally satisfying.

[bayswater]

Thanks for the details Dan (dAn). My current setup is similar -- distortion pedal, J48, Art Preamp, sometimes to a POD, then Mic input on converter. This sort of works, but doesn't give the response to playing the traditional path does, at least not a response I'm used to.

On the butterworth filters: no plugins? There are lots of them out there. Is it the 30db setting that's missing from those available?

[daniel.sneed]

On the butterworth filters: no plugins?[...]

You're certainly right about plugins. Lots of them around. But I should have mentioned, my (very) long quest was for a no-amp and no-computer live setup. In this area, getting some 30dB/oct low pass is a real concern.

[bayswater]

On the butterworth filters: no plugins?[...]

You're certainly right about plugins. Lots of them around. But I should have mentioned, my (very) long quest was for a no-amp and no-computer live setup. In this area, getting some 30dB/oct low pass is a real concern.

Thanks for the clarification.