Slashdot Mirror
New Developments in Music Technology
jonerik writes "The Christian Science Monitor has this article on acoustic and electronic music technology, including a visit to MIT's Hyperinstruments lab, which has developed a series of Music Shapers; ball-shaped musical toys which are covered with 'a patented thread containing sensors that react to the way the child handles them. The child manipulates a preprogrammed "little seed" of music and helps it "grow" by the way he or she shapes it.' Also worth a read is this article (free reg required) on the Line 6 series of bass and guitar amp emulators, which do a pretty decent job of mimicking various amp or amp/stack combos; from a '53 Fender Deluxe to a mid-'60s Vox AC-30 to the sludgy murk of a '70s Orange stack. 'Line 6 uses a technology called modeling to measure the characteristics of a particular vintage amp, from the distortion of its original tubes to the resonance of its speaker cabinet. The company has developed a way to reproduce those measurements in a powerful D.S.P., or digital signal processing, chip that contains models of dozens of classic amps.'"
I bought a line6 over a marshall about 3.2 seconds
after pluging into one. It's also nice not having
to redo your tube bias if you accidentally knock
the thing. It's great for touring. If you play
guitar, you have to try one of the line6 amps
out. Also, it's got really cool blinking lights.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
Well I guess we know how Michael Jackson wrote his last few albums, now, don't we?
Probably Michael Sims too.
This sounds (no pun intended) like that musical instrument played by Magnificus in Isaac Asimov's Second Foundation... I just hope it doesn't have the same consequences :)
Actually, I'm not sure if he was called Magnificus in the english edition (I have the spanish one) but you know who am I talking about...
My website
Do we look forward to the day when the recording industry has intervened with guitar manufacturers and the only guitars you can buy are MIDI guitars that have embedded technology to prevent playing of copyrighted music?
This well end up in techno / rave music, I just know it :) DJs can't resist anything technological that makes new sounds... On the other hand, that works out good for me, since I have no musical talent and love techno music...
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
1) Bash Religion
2) Skip Article, Bash Topic
3) ???
4) Karma!
-theGreater KarmaWhore.
I think I'll go shower now.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
> Line 6 uses a technology called modeling to measure the characteristics of a particular vintage amp, from the distortion of its original tubes to the resonance of its speaker cabinet. The company has developed a way to reproduce those measurements in a powerful D.S.P., or digital signal processing, chip that contains models of dozens of classic amps.
Great! Now I can miss a note and make it sound like I missed the note on a classic amp! I want a technology that makes ordinary people sound like classic musicians.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
'Line 6 uses a technology called modeling'
Modeling, eh? I imagine that might have applications throughout science.
MMMM.. but the crackle of analogue tubes.. not to mention after you done using your analogue amplifier you can put the tubes into your analogue computer that runs your tubular analogue robot.
No, that's not the first post. It's just a first-post emulator. ;)
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
Look here for a review of a Line 6 amp simulator way back in October 2000.
No fee required there, btw.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
You can use it in combination with a service (pay per month) that lets you download "tones" - amp and effect combinations that model the sounds on specific songs. So you just search for "Comfortably Numb" and you've got a pretty damned good version of the tone. It also comes with tab and backing tracks for a lot of tracks, plus other backing tracks for different chord progressions. Even without subscribing to the service you can rip your own CDs or use your own MP3s and play along to them, and even play them at half speed. Great stuff, and it sells for about $170.
For more details see this review
Even more interesting is the Variax, a guitar that contains a software algorithm to model other guitars. Plugged in, the guitar can sound like a banjo, sitar, '58 Gibson Les Paul, Telecaster, Acoustic 12 string, you get the picture. As in the amps, its not 100% of the original, but this terrain is akin to where we were with computers in 1980.
Line 6 uses a technology called modeling to measure the characteristics of a particular vintage amp
... modeling ... that you speak of?
What is this strange new technology called
Now my four-year old will be getting membership in the RIAA to protect their musical compositions on this thing.
it sounds like a cool toy, and i couldn't find it on thinkgeek. and as long as its as cheep as it looks, i would get one ($25US max)
This stuff has been around for years and although it is getting quite good, the experienced guitarist can still pick apart a digital and analog amplifier easily. Modeling amps have a limitation where they model only one setting of any one amplifier. They only sound correct at a given setting, and don't respond well to picking dynamics the way a real tube amp does. Tube amps sound so different from day to day, depending on so many variables, and there's just nothing that can come close to emulating that yet.
I use a Line6 POD in the studio, but outside of headphone jamming and last-second recording, I would much rather plug into my Mesa Mark IV or my Rivera TBR-1SL. Digital amplifiers just don't "feel" right. They don't seem organic enough and sound overprocessed and compressed. They're getting better, and the replacement of tube amps by digital equivalents is inevitable, but that day is not today. Maybe in 5-10 years.
If you honestly cannot tell the difference between the best digital modeler and the real deal, you do not have a ear for the guitar.
Music Shapers will enable children to more efficiently find frequencies and harmonics with the maximum annoyance factor.
;-)
Honestly, they are just embroidered round pillows, with 70's style designs on them. I'm sure they were originally developed for stoners.
The Line 6 amp is neat though; any word on when this amazing technology called "modeling" and "DSPs" can be used for other purposes?
...
Emulating the sound of tube amplifiers is not exactly new. I remember that Crate had some pretty cool amps about five years ago that used a set of DIP switches to select an emulation profile.
Also, a lot of DSP-based digital effects equipment have been offering this technique for years. The problem used to be, and perhaps still is, the quality of the signal. DSPs add a noticeable lag and tend to compress the dynamics of the signal. On digital effects this becomes evident when you compare the raw signal (guitar plugged directly into an amp) with the DSP signal with all effects switched off.
I suppose these problems will disappear as sample frequency, resolution and processor speeds increase.
The bottom line, this good be good but I would have to hear it first. Specs don't tell you everything.
I'm sure glad the big brains over at MIT are solving these pressing problems of our time! I'm happy they're not wasting their time with stuff like hunger and disease.
No, it is much nobler to get a baseball to make a sound with a computer.
Before you ask what *I* am doing to solve world hunger and disease, I'm doing nothing.
Then again, I'm not going to university and getting a degree for trivial things.
It evens out.
There is this dominant misconception in the experimental music community which equates advancement in interactivity with branching. There is the implication that people want to follow potential branches down certain paths in a musical piece, like they do in a game. When I studied music, one of my teacher, Elliott Carter remarked on this problem that in music there was a 'best branch' and that branch should be the composition.
I don't believe that people get anything out of explorable musical branching. They miss the powerful attitudes and completeness of the gestalt of the combination performance and composition statement.
This type of research also mistakenly equates play and exploration with the acquisition of musical knowledge. Playing with layers of music, turning off and on beat patterns, minimalist chord patterns (pretty much what these squishy toys do, btw) does not teach one how to compose. It may teach them to listen, but not in the same way that something like the Suzuki method does. There are plenty of stupid Flash toys on the web which allow you to make music like this. What do you garner from this play?
To me, this all rings of rationalizing the computing experience as an art education experience by re-thinking musical education in such a radical way that music itself is re-evaluated (to my thinking mis-evaluated).
And this is research for self-promotion. You'd be amazed how often this guy, Machover gets in the press with these toys and his Hyper-Instruments. Sure, they're fun to play with, but give a kid a drum set and a few lessons and (s)he'll really learn something. Music.
idealord music
If the musicians strike, the producers say they'll substitute "virtual orchestras" without any live players. They believe audiences won't be able to tell the difference.
This might apply for some Broadway shows, but the majority of productions depend on the interaction between the conductor and the performers. I perform in a renaissance dance troupe, and not only will our musicians adjust their playing for what we're doing, but there's a palpable energy in our interactions with the band. Actors and dancers aren't machines; performing to recorded music can be unforgiving.
I also noticed this watching Cirque du Soleil's new production Dralion -- one of the acrobats in a "solo" took a misstep needed and a moment longer to get back into position; the musicians slowed minutely to give him time to recover.
How do the Line 6 models differ from traditional "guitar processers" that condition an instrument a certain way or emulate an amp's sound? While I'm sure the quality has improved greatly, this sort of thing has been around since the 80's.
Also, poster of this article, thanks for telling us about the free reg. I get pretty tired of slashdot articles where you click on the link and you have to go back because you have to be registered and don't have the time to. Anyhow, nice job.
Well I've seen modeling amps for a long time now. Not to mention software that lets you model microphones. That's really cool: you tell it what type of mic you have, and what type you want it to sound like. Great for small studios. Though for vocals I'd recommend renting some good studio time.
Also, I've seen at least one amp that had banks of real tubes and capacitors, etc., but the connections could be re-arranged electronically to match the classic tube amps. Now *that* is cool!!!
I hate to point this out, but physical modelling has been around since the mid-80's in music technology research labs like CCRMA and CNMAT, but only until the early 90's was the technology available to implement the algorithms cheaply.
Many other companies (specifically synthesizer companies) make products based on modelling - Access Music, Waldorf GmbH, Novation, etc. Don't forget the big boys like Yamaha, Roland, and Korg.
If you want more information on new technologies in music, I'd suggest looking at Hartmann's Neuron and related products - they're actually using neural nets and controlled feedback to add musical randomness into the sound.
Finally, there are other people who have been making unique music instruments for quite some time - but not necessarily for child development. Check out Buchla and Associates for some really unique instruments.
Detachment 3 Media
Exposed, Exploited, Exploded
I sincerely hope that this new technology helps to generate some *good* new music. It seems that everything I here these days, is PURE CRAP!!!!!
Think of how many songs have lasted for 300 years or more. Now, think of how many new songs will last into next week, much less the next decade or century.
I won't hold my breath..
Take a look at this quote...
"Then in 1983, three crucial innovations hit the music world, sparking a digital revolution. PC and Macintosh computers became widely available; Yamaha brought out a keyboard-based music synthesizer called the DX7 that could make an unprecedented number of new sounds; and computer and music companies established MIDI..."
Well, The DX7 was launched in 1983, but every other 'fact' in that bit is just plain wrong.
When there are lots of magazines and websites that concentrate on nothing but music technology, how on earth did The Christian Science Monitor get picked as an authority on the subject?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
My guitarist for my favorite band (Thrice) uses Line 6 modelers. They are definitely awesome, and I've demoed a line 6 amp in the shop and it is well worth your money. They are still kind of expensive for someone like me though. But then again, you get what you pay for. For musicians on a budget, I think the drastically cheaper multitrack digital recorders on the market now are much bigger news. I just put in an order for a Fostex MR8 last night. Its a digital multitrack recorder that meets my needs for around $300. I've been doing a lot of feature comparing and review reading and stuff and it is cheaper than some of the others but it is better. Plus it uses compact flash memory instead of some buddy proprietery storage. It has a USB for doing .wav outs. etc.
This reminds me of an episode of TNG where a gaggle of children are kidnapped and given instructions in various fields of study. One child was given some device that seems similar. I'm sure a more...invested viewer would be able to cite season and ep. #.
My earliest exposure to DSPs was in my Centris (not Quadra yet!) 660 AV, arguably the first true consumer level multi-media box; stereo audio i/o., video capture via rca jacks and QuickTime 2.0, and a screaming 2X CD ROM drive.
Sigh. Great machine in its day.
The Line6 amps/modelers are a step in the right direction. This type of technology is defintely going to replace vintage tube amps eventually.
It's unfortunate that they sound like shit compared to the real thing. I tried out several of their products recently and nothing touched a real tube amp. It still sounds synthetic and digital.
They're getting closer though, another 5 years and they might have something.
Amplitube is quite awesome at emulating some of the best amps out there. I've started using this as an alternative to mic'ing my triple rectifier at my studio, simply because the amount of control you get is so much greater (IE changing the amp after the guitar was recorded)
Also, Sonic Foundry's Acoustic Mirror does a great job of mimicking any environment, even the charicteristics of a piece of equipment (vintage mic or amp).
I believe both of these products have demo versions you can try out, and they are both directx plugins (so use with Sound Forge or some other audio editing app).
'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST
What you get is a sequence of digital slices lined up in a way that mimics the original waveform. The problem is that it sounds grainy and "processed", and its easy to tell the difference between that and the real thing.
The question is, how fine do the slices need to be cut before you can't tell the difference between a series of digital slices and an analog waveform? If not 24-bit tech, what about 128? Maybe it will be too expensive to truly capture analog sounds with digital technology.
This is a real problem, because fewer and fewer companies make tubes any more and there are a lot of us guitar players who still are not satisfied with the way these modelling amps sound.
Perhaps the advent of quantum computing will provide the solution. After all, if something can be both a particle and a wave, then maybe we will have real waveforms to work with in order to create sounds.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
To go with my banjo...GOD! how could I have been SO shortsighted...
Weezer used line6 equipment on their last tour. Both guitars and bass used Pod Pros. (One of their rack mounted units). They didn't use any amps. They said they a/b'ed the pods against amps and couldn't really tell the difference. In fact, they liked the pods better in some cases.
One of the main reasons for using the pods is that they got a much "cleaner" stage sound -loud amps are hard to control in the mix. This was essential for them because it was during their wacky tour where they played weird locations like bowling alleys and 7-11's -all small, uncoventional venues.
Personally, nothing has yet been able to replace a real amp for me...
The DMCA does not require any manufacturer to include copy protection schemes except for Macrovision.
I'm sure you're being sarcastic, but I don't think that spreading misconceptions about the DMCA helps our cause any.
I play bass and I've got a POD Pro that I've been really happy with.
One of the neat things about it is that when you select an amp model, the bass, treble, drive, and other controls on the POD behave the way those controls would on the real amp.
Without having played through all of the different amps and cabinets that the POD emulates, it's hard for me to say how accurate all the emulations are. But the SWR model does sound a lot like my SWR amp, and the Ampeg model definitely seems to have the SVT feel to it.
The manual has an interesting description of all the different amps and cabinets that they modeled, along with some history of the companies and designers that produced them, and some of the well known bands and recordings that used them.
The SPDIF out (on the Pro model) and all the other in and out connections are really useful. If you play bass or guitar you should check one out.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
lets hope the christians now have more instruments at their disposal than acoustic guitars and songs "like michael row the boat ashore"
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It just went into circulation yesterday
As far was we know
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This is really old news.. Line6 has been out for about 7 years now. Get with the times.
I find it interesting how a lot of the /. crowd so far (~40 posts) seems to like the Line6 modelling amplifiers - it's solid state and techie so I suppose it is natural they're a hit here. Check out alt.guitar.amp, most of those guys aren't nearly as enthusiastic. I've yet to hear one so I can't make a judgment either way...but I do love my JCM900 for what it does best - pure overdriven tube sound at high volume (not practical for many I know).
These 'sophisticated hyperinstruments' AKA 'Load of Balls', look to me like re-packaged tamagotchi technology.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
Might be a bit off topic, but does anyone have a good reference on the math dealing with guitar effects? Like you might learn in a signal processing EE class. I found some good explanations of what distortion is, but I haven't found a good source for other effects. Would be a great lab for a college DSP class...
I don't care much about this topic, but now I have a reason to fly to myrtle beach
Line6 isn't the only one who does this. Roland/Boss has had amp/cab modelling features on their effects processors for years. Behringer and Digitech to name a couple more also have products with this feature.
Roland has a modeling technology that they call COSM. It's similar to the Line 6 technology, but goes a bit further. Roland not only tries to simulate vintage amps, they simulate microphones and effects boxes as well. It's a pretty simple concept. Roland records a reference device (i.e. a modern mic, amp, or set of monitors) and records the vintage device. Then the differences in the sound characterisics between the two are analyzed and a model of the vintage device is created. Basically, the COSM processor then modifies the signal so that it will match the modeled device when the reference device is used. I haven't been able to find a good link for the COSM modelling. Just go to http://www.rolandus.com
While thinking philosophically, we see problems in places where there are none. -Wittgenstein
Does it go to 11????
I HATE digital effects, and being what in people used to call a "shoegazer" band means I use a lot of effects. I'm always tripping over stomp boxes in shows. I'm also a die hard tube amp user, but I thought I'd check out the Line6 and see what all the fuss was about. It was a good amp, and I came REAL close to buying it. Sure, you could tell that it wasn't a pure sound, but it was a GOOD sound.
I didn't buy it however (can't really afford a new amp at the moment), and had to go back to playing through 1 amp.
Has anyone played through one of Fender's Cyber-Twin's yet? It supposedly reroutes the analog signal path to achive different amp sounds instead of digitally emulating them. I haven't had the chance to play on one, and I'm wondering how they sound in application.
i'm the jedidiahmarkfoster your parents warned you about
Some of the articles in this thread referred to copyright in the digital audio processed by instruments. This sparked in me a little question regarding music that is partially or entirely MIDI-encoded at source (and in some genres, that's practically all music).
Which is the original work in these cases from the point of view of copyright, the MIDI or the version published/released on CD? Are they both copyrighted? Clearly the released version carries a copyright, but does the MIDI original as well, or is copyright inherited between representations so that there is just a single copyright, or what?
Does anyone know how copyright works with respect to MIDI sources?
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Where can we meet? Here's five dollars.
Years ago, I graduated from MIT in EE. I did two projects of some relationship to this article - 1) a thesis on modeling of tube amp behavior and 2) a toy that would "improvise" classic blues endlessly. I was amazed that Minsky in AI loved the blues toy. It was really very simple and drew upon my experience as a local professional guitarist around Boston at the time. I tried to tell them that in my mind it was really a dumb trick, but those experiment music types just couldn't get over it... I got a prize that year. The tube amp was more fun. I used a 1960 Fender Tweed Vibrolux as my subject and created a "block model" of the time/function elements that required combination in a non-linear fashion and left it at that. It involved quite a few long time constants in the description, which is often an area where amp simulators fall apart. At the time, implementing the device in hardware would have been prohibitively expensive, and so I left it on paper and got out of school. I decided not to pursue engineering much after that, other things to do. I have used the Line6 products, and they are very good as the technology progresses. However, they don't really sound or feel that much like my real old Fenders. Instead, they use certain preconceived notions of how people use the amps and cater to those tastes. For example: I don't like to overdrive my old Fender Deluxe Reverb much - that is for rock guys, and I don't do rock anymore. The Line6 products will do a good job of mimicing a "cranked" old amp, but fails to capture the subtlety of one that is instead turned up only to "4". I love that sound! My $0.02
That's f***ing funny! LMAO!
Oh for some mod points.
No Comment.
Legendary Christian rocker Michael Roe released an album in 1996 entitled "The Boat Ashore". Clever.
i'm the jedidiahmarkfoster your parents warned you about
...You slashdotted line6's site!
Tomorrow you will find a new tone in their database available for download, called "Slashdot," when you pluck a string, nothing happens.
The neutrality of this sig is disputed.
I like the idea of the GuitarPort, and wish they made a version tailored for the bass. I am sure that Gibson will produce a similar product that uses their new MaGIC system of multichannel digital transmission over Ethernet. The interface box could be much cheaper since it would not need to do an analog-to-digital conversion. They could use a custom DSP instead to provide additional horsepower for realtime effects.
I agree Line6 amps sound about a thousand times better. But after about 0.32 seconds, I went and gat a real tube amp. Later I got a brand new SG. Then a Musicman bass. And I still spent less money than I would have if I got the Line6.
On a side note, I'd much rather get decent wah modelling. Why does all modern wah (analog or digital) sound like dog shit when compared to a really old wah (one of those 2 square foot ones)? I know the old inductors used non-linear cores, I know that was a large factor in the response. I know other people know this. But I don't know why nobody makes a good wah wah!
And as to the Variax being "plug and play", the Roland synth system is available factory-installed on a multitude of guitars, including Fenders.
I think it's pretty cool.
I'm going to go lie down now.
I actually like the Line6 series of modelers. Ive worked with both the POD 2.0 and the BassPOD. Both are nice modelers. Their decent enough for live shows (although they really dont replace a nice high end amp) and the fact that you can get swap other peoples programmable models is a nice feature. The PRO model is a little too pricey though, but for home use and jam sessions the POD 2.0 is a good investment.
I tried the CyberTwin and Deluxe and was pretty unimpressed. Didn't sound a lot better than your average all digital sim. I love my Line6 AX series. It does a very musically usable sim of a lot of things I couldn't afford. BTW, the trick with Line6 gear is volume. Graininess increases with volume driven from the unit. Most of the pros that use Line6 gear run the devices at lower volumes and make it up with the PA. If I can keep my 120W to around 4 or 5, the sound is very, very competitive.
maybe my ugly sister will now live her dream
Okay, I'm not a parent, but I play one on TV.
I'm not strictly a luddite, either, but I think it's tremendously important that toys given to children not be technological black boxes. The true fallout of the current generation of playstation zombies won't be any sort of attention span issues or predilection towards violence, but the total lack of intellectual stimulation and natural curiousity brought on by the use of toys that discourage (or forbid, thanks to the DMCA) tinkering and explorative destruction/reconstruction.
Another '+1, Insightful' to you anyway.
Hey - I don't work for any of these companies or own their stock. But I do own several vintage Fender & Marshall amps, tons of discrete audio processing gear, and have a nice home studio. I have to say that my Line6 AxSys 212 amp, coupled with Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge 6 audio software, allows me to tap into an incredible array of sonic possibilities that would be very time consuming and expensive using non-digital technology. Sure, there are some disadvantages (such as the learning curve - digital is very different than analog, but that shouldn't be much of a problem for the ./ crowd) but overall the quality can be amazing. For example, I compared a master tape recording, utilizing a 65' Fender Deluxe Black Panel amp, Sennheiser 421 mics, and multi-track analog tape, against the equivalent Line6 patch (seasoned to taste of course) direct to disk. I could not tell the guitar tracks apart (and yes you can get feedback at low volumes if that's your cup o' tea)! Coupled with the enhanced productivity and relatively low cost, digital modeling is an attractive alternative to the old school way of processing a signal chain. Not to mention that you can do all of this in the privacy of your headphones, or your apartment, or with the baby sleeping, etc. Very high bang for yer' buck ratio, in my opinion.
Since the Line6 products at the time were cheaper, they sold better. Tube amp purists wouldn't touch either product, so it was left to those of us who either didn't care, or weren't irrationally biased against the fledgling technology. I guess to many people, any difference in sound between the products was worth the savings in buying a Line6. Plus, Line6 seemed to have the far superior marketing team. So while Johnson struggled to carve out their little niche, Line6 grew and flourished.
Now, unfortunately, Johnson has all but gone out of business (I believe they were a spin-off of Digitech, which is still going strong). I bought a J-Station about 2 years ago and have loved it as well. Again, I felt it sounded slightly better than the Line6 Pod, but then maybe I was biased for Johnson by then. It's too bad that they didn't have the marketing team to compete better and stay alive - as many of us here say, diversity and competition is always a good thing.
Other companies have been entering the fray in the last couple of years (Fender Cyber-Twin, etc), so certainly there is still some competition and great things to look forward to in the future. I'm just a little sad that I won't get to see what the Johnson engineers might have come up with next. Hopefully they're still working on similar things, either at Digitech or other companies.
One of these days I'll have to pick up a Pod (or whatever the Line6 equivalent is these days) just to add more sounds to my arsenal. Should be great.
Say hello to zMac.
The real question....
Does the Line6 amp go to 10 or 11? Because 11 is one louder than 10!
I have a Line 6 Guitar Port and all I have to say is that it is absolutely FANTASTIC! For $150 you get 6 classic guitar amps + effects + cabinets emulated 100% digital straight into your recording software and it sounds great.
Now, of course, you can ALWAYS get a better sound in a recording studio with the real equipment, but you are going to spend $1000's of dollars doing so.
I wish I had had this thing before I bought my Mesa Boogied DC5 a few years ago. I absolutely hated that guitar amp! If I had had a Line 6 Guitar port, I could have experimented with amps and effects and determined long ago that I should have bought a Marshal amp. I know you can try them out at the store (and you still should), but the hours you can spend with the Guitar Port narrowing down the list of possible candidates is worth it.
Digital music technology has come a long way (and boy is it getting cheap). If you haven't checked some of this stuff out (especially the Line 6 brand hardware) you're really doing yourself a disservice as a musician.
Bryan
I think this is a symptom of a larger problem.... There's just not enough of a market for effects and stomp-boxes to encourage the kind of R&D needed to get awesome/realistic sounds out of today's gear.
I mean, you only have to take a look at the synthesizer business to get an idea what I'm talking about.
Korg basically hired *one guy* to come up with all of the sounds used in their Triton and Karma synth workstations - and these are their flagship units!
When you're looking at something like a wah pedal that'll sell for under $149 or so, retail, when it's all said and done - how much are you going to pour into design research on it? Don't forget the fact that these things will only end up being sold mail order through musician's catalogs and at music stores. People won't be picking them up at their local WalMart or Best Buy store.
Right now, if I was a tube amp manufacturer, I'd probably try to maximize my return by recycling tried and true designs that I already kow sound good to most people. The majority of my buyers are either going to be A) younger kids who never heard the original design from 20-30 years ago anyway, or B) working musicians who are trying to replace their old gear that finally wore out - and would likely buy a new "work/sound-alike" of their old standby.
For something as cheap as a stomp-box or wah pedal though, I'd just have an E.E. throw together a cheap to build circuit that sounded "good enough" and go with it.
24 bits @ 96 KHz is beyond the ability of the human ear to discern any differences.
In fact, with a good antialiasing filter, 16 bits @ 44.1 KHz will put you below the noise floor of all but the best amplifiers and cover the whole range of human hearing. Problem is, an antialiasing filter suitable for 16/44.1 is VERY tough to design without causing distortions in the range of human hearing. 24/96 is easy to develop a suitable antialiasing filter for.
Problems ensue when you are processing the data, though. If you process 16-bit data in the DSP with 16 bits of precision, then at every step in the processing chain you'll likely have rounding errors. Such errors accumulate.
For 16-bit data, I believe most people use DSPs with 24-bit internal precision at a minimum. For 24-bit DSPs, 32 is probably the minimum. I don't know what the likes of Line6's products use. A floating-point DSP would do VERY well for eliminating rounding errors, but those cost $$$.
Interestingly enough - These amps try to use a model of another amplifier's nonlinearities to emulate the nonlinearities of said amp. In my line of work, we do the exact opposite. (Correcting for nonlinearities in RF amplifiers to minimize distortion of any form.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Looking forward to the chip-embedded kazoo that won't let me play Mary Had a Little Lamb :)
I was actually joking more than being paranoid, but I think that such a thing is possible.
They key to this would be something that would digitize what is being played, analyze the patterns, and compare it to existing song parameters.
"setup there has to be some point where the computer red-flags what you're playing, compares it to a staggeringly huge database of known melodies, markes it as copyrighted and cuts off all signal to your speakers."
you know that the rolands VS series don't have that option..
"Korg basically hired *one guy* to come up with all of the sounds used in their Triton and Karma synth workstations - and these are their flagship units!"
Bullshit -- I know several of the voicers for this unit and work with one of them. My company does 3rd party sound design...I know my partner was one of many 3rd party designers, and there are quite a few within the company.
Besides, there are several great sounding Wahs these days. My BadHorsie doesn't sound like the old Morleys but it sounds good on its own (it was designed by a specific artist for his specific needs). I have a few pure digital Wahs that don't emulate anything, but work well on their own...and I have a few ancient ones that are good but noisy as well and I couldn't use them on any of todays recordings unless I needed to go for a very specific sound and the realism was more important than the noise floor. By the time you run a do-noiser on these, you are back to the same 'plastic' sounds of the digital ones.
Clif Marsiglio
Sonikmatter.com
if you run red hat and netscape 7.0, do not click on the tagline "the only thing republicans need to know". its a flash that moves your netscape window around, so you can't close it. i had to ppower cycle. thanks.
I've been the proud owner of a Johnson Amplifer's J-Station for some time now which is also an amp modeler. Does a good job for $150 bucks, flash upgradeable and sounds great. Fully user programmable presets, and several internet sites have sysex files available for it.
I've also seen several wars going on between the owners of Line 6's and Johnson's offerings. But both really do a good job for the money.
-- Rick
While they were recording 1984, he "discovered" synthesizers and went totally apeshit over them. I read an interview where he said he felt more creative playing keyboards, because he occasionally made a mistake and the unintended result was cool; unlike guitars where he never made a mistake and only got what he intended to play.
(Completely matter-of-fact and un-self-concious -- just flat not in the same Universe as arrogance and humility. One of the all-time great rock and roll quotes. I'm not doing it justice.)
Ok, so maybe *one person* programming all the Korg Triton/Karma sounds was an exaggeration - but it still seems to be scarily close to accurate.
For example, look at all the people out there working their butts off to create top-notch sound patches for these synths, and despite practically begging for jobs in forums devoted to the synths, they aren't getting hired.
(For just one example, go to www.irishacts.com and look at that guy's devotion to the Korg line!)
Korg has customer service reps regularly reading the forums these people post on, so they can't claim "We never knew these guys were out there!"
The fact is, they're on a pretty tight budget for R&D of these things, and most folks who try to make a living out of developing patches for synth workstations have to start their own businesses. Then, *maybe*, you'll get paid to work on one project for a synth maker - or maybe not. It's not like they're eagerly hiring on every talented patch-developer they can get their hands on.... They've got too much of a niche market for their products.
For anyone out there who would like a Line6 POD 2 but wants to spend a little less, check out the Behringer V-Amp 2. It's a very nice piece of equipment, plus any updates that they put out will be freely available via flashable EEPROM. The sounds are excellent, and it comes with a footpedal and case.
Addlepated - punk & metal
This is way off topic right now, but there are reasons not everyone is picked up.
A lot of programmers are one trick ponys. They have the chops to get something done, but its not something ultimately markettable as a whole. Others, are great programmers and can do anything ya need if given a lot of guidance and feedback from the public -- something you aren't given when only a dozen others have this same device and they too are all working on a deadline -- deadlines are VERY important...I know one programmer that was working for us that just couldn't cut it. Very capable and given all the time in the world, he can do some amazing things. Give him a deadline and you'll see a total of 15 usable sounds in a months time.
Too many guys will work for 6 months to get a GREAT bank of sounds and you wonder why they aren't working for these companies...its because it took them 6 months to do the sounds, something a professional designer would have done in 3 weeks...
There are reasons companies don't go with unknowns. Folks also have to fit into the corporate lifestyle of these companies...are their sounds what this company wants to represent in this iteration of the machne...can they follow the unwritten specs for it -- for example, Kurzweil, Korg, Yamaha and Roland all have specific amounts of padding they want in their sounds (and they don't have time to have one of their engineers redo EVERYTHING...expect tweaking, but more than a few params and you can expect the sound to be skipped)...do you need the sound to clip at -12, 6 or 0dB? There are specific reasons for things like this -- some want more headroom before clipping occurs...others want the damn thing as hot as possible so it sounds hip and radio friendly in the show room.
Most of these guys just don't get it. Some do...and they sell their sounds or give them away and get picked up by a company that does 3rd party where they are given a chance to work on a major project and get their name out there. What? You think Korg is just going to hire them off the street?
If you know anyone with great sounds looking for a company to market them, send a note to my email (above) as we work with both hardware manufactures, the software guys and folks that market 3rd party soundware...
clif marsiglio
co-founder / sonikmatter.com
Dude, I am ten times beyond sorry. The only thing
it did in mozilla was play the flash. I'm modify it
so I can annoy republicans without making their
redhat boxes freeze. Once again, I'm very sorry.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
That's what I want to know.
modelers are only good for low volume playing & sound like arse turned up loud.
line6 is no big deal, there's much much better modelers out there like the roland vg-88, for exampe. A*L*L modelers and solid state amps have the effect that they fade at high volumes. what i mean by "fade" is that they don't sound like an amp playing but rather they sound like a recording of an amp playing. the result is a very unsatisfying playing experience because the responsiveness, dynamics, and subtleties are gretly diminished or gone all together.
Maybe the music ball is new, but amp modelling has been around forever - Roland's VG-8 is what 6-7 years old or more now? And I'm sure there were toys before then. My VG-88 which is 3 years old emulates cabinets, mic placement, guitar body (want an f-hole? want a steel body? want a bigger chamber? Want a sitar? Dial one in). Anyhow - sounds like Line6's marketing droids did a great job at getting a free product placement (kudos to them), but this is _not_ news.
no problem, i didn't loose any data. it was funny as hell for the first ten seconds, by the way.
Ok, for the numerous comments about tube sounding better than solid state and simulated stuff not sounding as good as the real thing. Those people are all 100% correct. There is no way anyone can reproduce this stuff exactly, but they have done a super job at putting it together and the bottom line is... The individual analog effects will sound a little better yeah, but the advantage of the line 6 would be that you can have the full range of all of these effects at your feet as someone else said, without spending a fortune. And they sound "good enough" for a lot of people. It is still a fair cost involved though. There is also a conveniency factor that they have.
The same theories I guess apply to game system emulators. All the systems in one. Is the real game system better, heck yeah but can you play playstation on your SNES? I guess it comes down to your music style and what you consider to be quality. You won't go buy a single digital effect because that wouldn't usually make sense. Individual analog effects just sound more realistic. I have made analog recordings sound good in a minimal amount of time and digital ones sound like crap though because of the ease of use factor in devices are a HUGE issue (at least for me). Line 6 devices have one big thing going for them for what complex things they do. They are incredibly simple to operate. Their stomp boxes use knobs instead of pages of LCD menus and stuff that you forget how to use by the time you need to change them. In comparison to many similar devices, I think they are way ahead in ease of use. Some musicians do even mix the directbox style sound with the line sound to create new sounds. For example the bassist for Sonic Youth if I recall correctly, used a channel of direct sound and another channel connected to a mic for an amp, and blended the two. You can do a lot with the digital stuff if you put your mind to it.
The press always gets everything right, from the big picture all the way down to the last detail... except for stuff you happen to know something about. They fuck that up every time.
Welcome to the desert of the real!
Whoever the guys at line6 are who pick the
amps to be modeled are definitely not metalheads.
I have tried lots of line6 stuff, and I have a line6 pod-xt.
For example, the JCM 800 model. Now there's a
pretty decent metal amp. Lots of metal guys use
a JCM 800. But the line6 JCM800 just sucks for metal. Though, in the manual, it talks about how
this is a great metal amp... They need to hire some real metalheads (who aren't already deaf) to help them out with their metallic amp models.
Also, the analog delay models in the pod-xt suck. You can't get those space-gun sounds like Steve Stevens does in those Billy Idol songs, because
the delay time won't go less than 20ms.
OTH, there are some decent sounds in there, if they happen to be what you like. I don't doubt that the models of the amps are fairly accurate. I just question the taste of the guys at line6.
e.g. Also, the plexi-variac model. This is supposed to be a marshall plexi run with a variac
adjusting the voltage a la Eddie Van Halen. The thing sounds NOTHING like Eddie's sound.
Why? Well, no wonder. Reading the manual, they modelled it with the voltage boosted to 140V. Well, dumbasses, Eddie didn't boost the voltage, he cut it to 90V. That's how you make an amp clip
harder, cut the supply voltage. You don't boost it.
Bottom line. If you're a metalhead, line6 probably isn't for you. (Though the Spinal Puppet patch isn't _too_ bad.) Use your ears and decide
for yourself.
Regarding the Variax it has absolutely nothing to do with the Roland-synth based guitars. They try to sound exaclty like a guitar through emaulating it, not making a synth of it through sensing the pitch of a tone.
This might apply for some Broadway shows, but the majority of productions depend on the interaction between the conductor and the performers.
I've seen an interesting device called a Radio Baton being used around here once or twice. It requires some basic coding skills to really use it correctly, but it gives one person quite a bit of control over a whole performance. The basic idea is that you have a recorded sequence of notes in a computer, and whenever you hit a sensitive table with one of the batons, it activates the next note in the sequence. Also, the spot on the table that you hit changes the amplitude of the sound. So one person could ideally control a whole orchestra of sounds and keep the pacing as necessary.
Here's one website on the device. Google up more if necessary. And if you believe that computer-generated samples will never completely sound like the real thing, check out information on a program called Gigasampler, a revolutionary program which learned to read music samples from ROM instead of RAM, allowing for extremely large and complex samples, far closer than anything else I've heard so far.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
I have been a long-time tube snob, and the Line 6 amps were the first solid state stuff I ever bought. Until Line 6 stuff was well known, guitarists would come up to me in droves at gigs (yes, I actually play in public regularly, and get paid well for it) and compliment the tones. The newest cadre of amps (the Duoverb and the Flextone III) are amazing and really capture the "breath" of the real tube stuff. The modeling improves as the available DSP's get faster.
The PODs are fantastic, the new PODxt especially, but the proof's in the pudding. Almost every recently-recorded song you hear on the radio or on an album was probably aided with a POD. Engineers love it when I bring them in to the studio because they don't have to work hard to get a great sound that fits perfectly in the mix. I have only heard complaints about the gear on the Internet (go figure), and never from real live working musicians.
And the new Variax is great. At its current price point it is incapable of replacing a good vintage "real" guitar, but it plays just like any other guitar, and several of the models are dead accurate. The 12-strings are a little off (as would be expected), the banjo, sitar and other resonator models (dobro, tricone) are surprisingly great, and the Strat, Teles, and Les Pauls are unbelievable. And the guitar just feels good; it's not a geek toy that looks like a guitar, it's an actually decent guitar that just happens to do amazing things.
Put the guitar together with a new Vetta and you just spent about $3,000 to reproduce about $150,000 worth of vintage gear, much of which is more fragile and scary to gig with than the far less expensive Line 6 stuff. I don't work for these guys but I do not hesitate to recommend them to other musicians. If you actually play for pay, you can't afford not to check them out.
I was VERY tempted to buy one, the mic input on my laptop is fucked (since I bought it) and hisses like mad. It did only work on windows and that made me wary of it.
The I got the "guitar port" interpretation of Eric Johnson's "Cliffs of Dover" from a magazine (Line 6 sponsored). If the sound on that track is supposed to sound anything like the original, I will not buy it, to me it sounds like shit, too buzzy.
I might be partial to this, I love Eric Johnson's distortion tone (even if I like it a bit smoother, more OD and less distortion), but if that is a good example of the quality, thanks very much but I'll keep my analog preamp (marshall drp-1), it sounds a lot smoother to me.
Line 6 == IBM Deathstar of amps!!!
Get a Teese RMC3. All the wah action you could want. Yeah, it ain't cheap, but it is out there if you really want it...
You get musicians by helping the child grow the seed of music inside them NOT the seed of music outside them.
Manipulating the seed of music outside might help the seed of music inside grow, but one must not forget the difference between the two.
How is this a new development in music technology? I know I first saw the Pod at _least_ 3 years ago. It's still very cool, nonetheless, and it would be extremely handy, especially since my old amp burned out (lightning storm), and you can just plug it into your computer audio system. I remember that old model Pod even emulates my ol' favorite, a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier!
...gather 'round, gather 'round, lads and lassies. I am here to tell ya. I started playing guitar when G-L-O-R-I-I-I-I-I was the rage at all of the sock hops. And nothing, no NOTHING, no N-O-T-H-I-N-G will rock your beloved Les Paul or that Fat Strat like a Line 6 POD.
I be one very satisfied customer.
RAWK ON!
I'm getting my master's degree in music technology. I'm posting anon so that its not linked to me or my school.
I have seen personally a demonstration of MIT Media Lab's toys. We were excited to see what they would bring, but where as the hyper instruments are very exciting, MIT's pedigoical efforts are sad. Yes its interesting to develop new technologies, but none of what has been proposed helps foster anything similar to the skills needed for real music. What I have seen proposed was nothing more than over-budgeted toys. There was not a single shread of real research or musicology involved.
MIT has a huge budget, but there "demo-or-die" mentality has only produced sad toys. Maybe they should consider research instead of the bottom line.
almost two years ago I tried the Fender Cyber-Twin (dumb name, oh well) and was quite impressed with the overall tone and 'feel' of the amp. I worked with someone who gigs on a regular basis who happens to be a Fender snob, and told him about it. He was initally skeptical, but two weeks later, after having tried it, he was extremely enthusiastic about it. The ability to skip from Deville to Champ to Princeton Reverb was pretty impressive, and he started budgeting the $CAD1700 to purchase it. Having said that however, the effects do have to be used sparingly. In particular, anything that affects the frequency-domain rather than the time-domain can have a significant lag. They do differ in tone and feel from the real thing, but one of the primary reasons many musicians I know would be interested in these types of amps is the variety one has at ones' fingertips. In live sets, the tone does play a significant part, but not nearly to the same degree as in the studio. It's been said, many times, many ways.... use the right tools for the job at hand.
Keen idea man lynches
- Marshall vs Fender
- Les Paul vs Strat
- Solid state vs tube
Think of them as Linux vs Windows for the guitar crowd.This space for rent.
has DRM built in and requires a CC# installed to charge you for playing music the RIAA thinks it owns ? Will it call home when you start strumming Stairway to Heaven to report you for a license violation if you play and someone else hears it ? :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Have you tried anything like Roger Mayer's wah upgrades? I've yet to actually purchase one, but they seem interesting, and people on the web seem to give them good reviews..
Roger Mayer did work for Jimi Hendrix, and made effects for Hendrix, Beck, Page, etc..
But when I first got the thing, it has an RJ-45 type jack on the side (unfortunately) for the optional foot pedals. Imagine my potential excitement when I thought that I could possibly hook ethernet into it..
"You've slashdotted the POD again; reset it back to California, VOX, then back to California again."
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
perphaps oranges open parameters
This "brain-damaged" epithet is getting sorely overworked. When we can
speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled;
batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented,
deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts,
Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong; senseless,
spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked; {beef,
beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numskulled,
pinhead; asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple; brute, lumbering, oafish;
half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have
a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon,
individually and in combination, isn't it a little to be
limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective?
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