Music - Cab Clone part 2

Well, I got my speaker cable and fired up the Cab Clone. First impressions "well this doesn't sound terrible". I didn't have high expectations, I expected it to sound like a wet fart under a blanket due to all the negativity the Cab Clone has received. It's not that bad.

It is bad tho. But I will make it usable, I promise. For the first section here I am using my new Telecaster American Professional through my Orange Rockerverb 50 mk1, to the Cab Clone, to a Presonus USBbox into Cubase 5.

First things first, lets go through the Cab Clone itself. There are three modes and a volume dial. I left the dial at 12:00 for my initial tests here. Starting in "closed back" mode which is supposed to replicate a Mesa Boogie 4x12 cabinet. Spoiler alert... it fucking doesn't. My Telecaster had very little top end resonance and the bottom end was there..but it was confused and didn't know if it should be tight or loose. A very compressed and closed sounding signal. Had no body to it. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good. It was what I expected.

The second setting is "open" and this was a bit better, seems to boost the mid range frequencies a bit. But there are strange harmonic overtones going on here when using my Telecaster that I found the tone offensive. It was odd sounding more than anything... for sure it wasn't good.

Disappointment started to set in. I switched to the Vintage Cabinet mode, and this was okay. The frequency response was the most open sounding of the three. My Tele could breathe a bit more, but still sounded kinda fat, almost like humbuckers with tele twang. THIS I can work with. I adjusted the EQ a bit, cranked the power amp stage to get a more oomph and it helped thicken the bottom and get some more tele twang. It still felt very closed off, kind of like a blanket over a speaker cabinet but the mic behind the cab and not under said blanket... usable... or so I thought.

I started putting together some riffs for a new song. I got a lot of tweaking on said song still, but it's coming together. I laid down my primary guitar tracks, programmed some drums and then swapped over to my POD HD500 to do some bass work and a secondary guitar track.

The bass part went down nicely using the modeler and an octaver to fake a bass using my Telecaster. Then I moved onto second guitar territory. I booted up my AC30 tone I built as a base tone earlier and plugged in my ES-335. Blah. It sounded so gainy and brutal compared to what I got from the Orange which was rounder and thicker...but it was also more open sounding and more responsive feeling... how strange.

I tweaked the tone and recorded my parts. Still too much gain, but this song is far from final, so whatever. I then listened back and the difference between the Cab Clone and the Pod was criminal. The difference is so drastic that it's almost hard to believe. I promise I'll update with some audio clips soon.

The POD track was more dynamic sounding in a lot of ways. It felt more open, it felt more like a real amp in a room than the Rockerverb through the Cab Clone...which is not what I expected at all. I expected the REAL amp to sound more real than the POD. Granted I was using an AC30 on the POD, but still, very strange to me. I plugged in my original AC30 at this point in time and put it at as low a volume as possible to compare to the POD, it's off, quite a bit, but I tweaked it to match and it's
pretty damn close...

So now I have this fully digital tone from a POD that is 8 years old technology wise (which is eons in the digital world) and it's out performing a real, professional grade, amazing guitar amp and a cab clone... So now I'm wondering if I should just return the cab clone and get me a Helix (I wont, it's too expensive right now!)

I brooded over this all day. I was recommended by a forum user on the Orange Amps page to try "Wall of Sound" by Two-Notes. It comes as a 30 day trial with a 412 box and 212 box. I just took the default 412 setting and put it over my Cab Clone track in Cubase... wow. just wow.

Suddenly the amp opened up, the tone was bigger, fatter, more open sounding, with all the dynamic range that I remember from plugging this amp and letting it rip! I am impressed. I will have to do more digging into this software. The cabs are pretty cheap too and you just need to buy what you want to use. Sounds like we got a winner.

I'm going to burn through this over the week and then possibly return the Mesa Cab Clone and get a 16ohm version so I can use it with my AC30 as well.


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