Power amp and microphone blocks

[BoneToner]

This post mainly comes from a question/idea I had...

 

It seems like the profiling has already been done for the mics and the power amps from the cabs and the amps sections in the helix. If all the profiling has been done already I think it would be really cool to have the power amp sections of the amps and the microphones available as a effects blocks. If they have not already been profiled then I'm sure there are cooler things to be looking into, but if all the data has already been collected it would be super awesome to get these in.

 

I may be wrong but I would imagine that all of the amps power amp sections are already profiled and would just be [amp]-[preamp] of existing blocks. I think It would be really interesting to be able to mix and match different power and pre amps to get different sounds.

 

Also I have found the helix to be really great with recording guitar, bass, and vocals

 

I do not know if the microphones on the cabs were profiled by themselves or if they were profiled as a cab/mic combo. But if the mics were individually profiled It would be really cool to be able to have these available as separate blocks. This could be really awesome for vocals or when using the helix as an interface for recording a live amp.

 

 

[phil_m]

If I had to guess, I'd say power amp blocks are probably feasible. I don't know the details of how they model everything, but they have full amp blocks and preamp blocks already, so it seems like in one sense, they would have the power amp modeled separately already. Again, I have no idea how easy or difficult it would be to create a new block, though.

 

As far as mics, you kind of hit on it. The cabs are IR based, and when you shoot an IR, you shoot with a particular mic (or group of mics), so the mics aren't really modeled individually. They are part of the cab modeling signal chain. The idea of standalone mic modeling isn't necessarily new, though. I believe there are a few plugins that do this. I've never really checked them out, though. It seems like it would be a somewhat shaky proposition. If you're source is coming from something like an SM57, I have a hard time believing that any sort of digital wizardry is going to do a convincing job of making that sound like large diaphragm condenser like a Neumann U87.

[BoneToner]

I could be completely off base here but it would seem that creating the profile would be the hard part and actually converting the profile to a block wouldn't be too time consuming for the power amp

 

In my mind if you have all the data might as well use it.

 

That's true with the mics I guess it could just turn into a weird pre of the mic mixed with the actual mic used

[mileskb]

In another thread I had suggested just being able to BYPASS the pre-amp on any given AMPBLOCK effectively giving you just the power-amp.  In reality, as these are all digital already, it might just be a case of knowing how to set the pre-amp so it isn't actually doing anything.   

 

Separate power amp blocks would work as well too.   Just adding to the box.

[njglover]

It depends on how they modeled things. While it seems theoretically simple to just separate out the power amp, I imagine in practice it is not so simple. Let's say they modeled each full amp by profiling it from input to speaker output. Then they modeled each preamp by profiling it from input to effects loop output. Well, now we have a full amp model and a preamp only model, but we still don't have a power amp model. Maybe they never bothered to profile effects loop input to speaker output. Just depends on how they set things up. I guess what I'm saying is that it will probably take more time than you think it will take, so don't expect it any time soon.

[roscoe5]

It would be pretty straight forward to model rack tube power amps (and maybe preamps). A lot of this stuff is now out of production and is certainly vintage and cool.  This would open up some new options for us 90's kids that used to use and love rack gear, and expose the new generation guitarists to it.  No one wants to haul around a 20U road ready rack full of gear anymore, but you could do some cool things and very intuitive mixing, matching and routing with that stuff and there were some unique quality tones in some of it.

 

Tube Power Amps

http://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Helix-models-Rack-Power-amps/821070-23508?submitted=1

 

Marshall EL34 100/100

Marshall EL84 20/20

Mesa Strategy 500

Mesa Simul 2:90

Mesa Recto 2:100

Mesa fifty/fifty

Mesa 20/20

Mesa Baron

VHT two-ninety-two

VHT two-fiftey-two

VHT 2150

Peavey Classic 50/50

Randall RT2/50 (EL34 & 6L6 tubes)

Engl Tube Poweramp E810/20

Engl Tube Poweramp E840/50

Engl Tube Poweramp E850/100

 

Tube Preamps

http://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Helix-models-Rack-Tube-Preamps/821072-23508?submitted=1

 

Marshall JMP-1

Mesa Triaxis

Mesa V-Twin

Mesa Formula Pre

Mesa Studio Quad

Bogner Fish

Engl Tube Preamp E530

Engl Preamp E570

Randall RM4 (all modules)

CAE 3+ Tube Preamp

Soldano SP777

VHT Valvulator

Mako Mak 4

ADA MP-1

Peavey Valverb

Peavey Rockmaster

Peavey TG Raxx

Peavey TubeFex

Jackson JX-3

[roscoe5]

Oh, and I think someone else mentioned it, but mic only models may not sound the way you'd expect with guitar cabs since the cab models are IR's and IR's are created with power amp/cab/mic.  

 

Amplitube 4 lets you swap cabs, speakers within the cabs, and two mics.  I would suspect they didn't IR every single possible combination.  Use of anything but the matched cabs starts sounding a little funky.