I picked up a Two notes Captor X as I need to be able to practice silently. Plugged it in and found out that I can’t get a decent sound out of it with the virtual cabs. Surely it must be user error as I have heard plenty of demos on youtube that sound decent enough… right?
I’m trying to approximate my Zilla Fatboy 2x12 (v30)
So I’m thinking that the IRs are the way to go, but I haven’t got a flipping clue what I’m doing and I can already see myself blowing a load of cash on stuff I don’t really understand…
What is the signal chain? Amp, captor and then headphones? If that’s it, even with a good IR it’s going to sound direct and upfront.
If you run it through a DAW first, you might be able to have a little more control over it through the use of mixing in some medium and far field IR’s to get some room in there and a tiny bit of some time based monitoring effect to room it out a bit.
Yes, that is the setup (although a headphone upgrade would also help with the sonic experience). Our laptop is largely unavailable at the time I practice so I’m not likely to be using it much. Also, would this add another layer of latency? (I’m already struggling with that a bit to my surprise, but I haven’t used any digital gear in my rig for years, but assumed it would be minimal in the Captor X).
The Captor X has plenty of options regarding reverb and ambience, but by ‘medium and far field’ IRs do you mean a mix of IRs with different mic distances?
Where would you suggest that I get IRs from and is there anything I need to understand beforehand?
I have been using IRs for a while but I am far from an expert. So here is a bunch of statements that may or may not help
IRs typically simulate the cabinet + microphone + often some sort of mixer console or EQ. This is very different from the “amp in a room” sounds you are used to.
there are, however, some “Room Mic” IRs that you can try out (see e.g. https://seacowcabs.wordpress.com/, they have some free IRs and many of them include a room mic of sorts)
another thing you can do along the same lines is to add some room reverb after the IR.
the quality of your headphones / speakers matters a fair amount. if you are aiming to play silently I’m guessing you’ll go for headphones, make sure they are not completely crappy
PS: I am a bit surprised that you have problems with latency. Good modern systems have / should have a latency of a few ms, indistinguishable from the latency of, say, your amp sitting 2m away from you. So maybe something is not working properly at the software level (audio drivers and whatnot?)
What @tommo and I are hinting at is really the difference between recorded guitar tone and what you hear in the room when you are jamming away. Which is often the bane of a lot of guitar players existence. Depending on where you are and the proximity you are to the amp, you are mostly hearing what’s bouncing off your walls, through two ears that are facing in opposite directions, Dimension and Space. unless of course you play with your ear up against the speakers while blocking the other that’s faces away (not likely).
Devices like the captor are primarily designed for silent Recording, and most IR’s are typically made with close mic placements, as they are typically more useful as a whole for recording. anyone who has ever been in a studio knows that the sound coming out of the headphones while that button is red is not always the prettiest, again because it’s right up against your head, there’s really nothing giving you that perception of dimension and space.
Nowadays a lot of IR companies provide stereo room mixes that you can mix in with the more direct mic placements, this is where a dedicated IR loader may help so you can fine tune the mix of multiple IR’s. And while this might not capture what your ear really hears, it’s a step in the right direction. Mixing in some slight amount of delay or reverb effects may also make the sound more alive. A lot of these things can be found for free as well. So if you don’t want to drop any money on a practice set up, there’s no need.
Guilty as charged, I had a decent pair that perished in storage, so I’m using a very crappy set. I’ll tap up the father-in-law to borrow his classy hifi ones to try.
Its not massive (I’m also surprised that I noticed), I notice it more with faster playing, its like I have been drinking, except instead of my hands feeling disconnected, its my ears!!
Sounds like a great place to start, thankyou
Yeah, I can go with that - I definitely prefer more off-axis tones. Funnily enough, I normally play sat in an arm chair (soft material) that is about 20cm in front of the cab in an attempt to reduce reflections, so I’m currently getting ‘extreme off axis’ action!
Along with Tommo’s comments about room IRs, this makes sense. I don’t mind spending good money for a good product, but there seems to be countless IRs on offer and you don’t get the opportunity to try them.
I believe with the two notes stuff you have access to all their wall of sound IRs to try before you buy. I am in process of getting a captor X so I can actually play my HRD more at the house as its wicked loud. You can basically do 1 mic or 2 mic setups and just with room size and everything. The thing even has studio reverb and delay as well as a noise gate so on top of just the fact that its and IR load box you also get 3 pedals built-in as well. Plus its bluetooth so you can edit stuff right from your phone. I dont think anything touches it in the price its at. SO if what your at is standing right in front of your amp then adjust the mics so its direct IN front or slightly off access of the cones. But in general IRs are meant to be straight to record sound. My fave is a 57 mixed with an R121. In addition as other said Quality headphones are key as well.
It would be good to see how you get on, let us know. You can try their virtual cabinets - the sound dips out every minute or so, but it only gives you 1 mic placement in that preview mode. I have tried some, but didn’t really like what I was getting. I got a free 3rd party IR from some web forum and whilst not perfect, was better than what I was getting from the virtual cab. But given the above thread, I need to get some better headphones, experiment a bit more and delve into some room IRs…
Just thought I’d update - still a mixed bag. With a headphone upgrade and purchasing a York IR pack (Zilla 212 to match the actual cab I have) I’m getting much better tones, mixing a sm57 and royer 121 mic (mix of on and off axis). So that is encouraging.
Still not used to the latency , its completely fine for most rhythm and slow melodic solos, but anything remotely speedy, it just doesn’t feel right - like I’m miming to a track or a little tipsy after a few pints. Is this something that I might get used to or should I try another unit like a Suhr RL and hope for the best? I don’t consider myself a tone snob or anti-digital and as a pretty casual player, I never expected to notice anything.
@Judmeister, did you end up getting a Captor X? If so, how you finding it?
I’m starting to think a divorce might solve the problem - move away from the wife and kids so that I can just play it through the bloody cab
yes i got mine Friday and have tried a head and my hot rod deluxe with it. I do not get any latency that I can hear and I’m really anal about it. I’m assuming they are loaded on the torpedo and not the PC right.
My signal flow is guitar into the amp and then speaker out of amp into torpedo then to my interface thru my studio monitors. I think it sounds awesome. I got a few cabs a Mesa 2x12 and the fender cleans one for the HRD and don’t have any issues. Are you using USB to Load or the Bluetooth feature from phone?
Glad to hear that you like it. I have loaded the IRs onto the unit, but using usb to laptop to control the presets when playing around with the IRs. I’m pretty sure I have used it when not connected to the laptop and didn’t noticed a difference… would tjat make a difference?
can you check and make sure your selecting torpedo only in wall of sound and not the computer as well. It’s in the top right setting. I’m not sure if when you select the computer cabs that it won’t have some sort of delay due to going from the computer and them to torpedo as in like a preview which may have some latency. I think that the default is 3.5ms which is very low but if you monitor through a DAW then the latency will be dependant on the Buffer size in the DAW if your coming stright out of the front of the captor x there realy should not be any notciable. Also make sure you have the latest firmware as well running I had to update mine as soon as I plugged it in. The irs I got were the Two Notes Dyn IR but also tried the others they had in there already and still did not get any noticable delay. Try and turn off the verb and the eq just to get a baseline then add it in and see how that goes.
Thanks for the response, I’ll recheck when I finish work. I don’t run a DAW - I’m using headphones only in the captor x and either run with the captor x stand alone or have the torpedo remote going to play around with the IRs (which I believe are all on the captor x, not the computer).
Can’t see that option, but I’m pretty sure I’m only running torpedo remote. Either way, I’m not connecting anything to it.
I’m finding that reducing the latency to the lowest setting 2 settings makes a difference - the audio is a little less ‘rich’ sounding, but still usable.
Funnily enough I tried turning of the reverb and it randomly turns itself back on after an unspecified time! Lol. I’ve just done a factory reset again to see if this sorts it.
Like @Judmeister I suspect something is going wrong with your audio drivers/ buffer size.
Sorry if I’m stating the obvious — haven’t read all the posts in detail, but these are a couple things I’d check:
is the audio driver correct? (either proprietary thorpedo thingy, asio4all or similar. On windows I usually get horrible latency if “DirectSound” is selected)
is the sample rate of your operating system the same as the thorpedo software?
what is the buffer size used by your IR loader? Average modern computers should be able to run amp/cab sim software at 128 or even just 64 samples. At 44.1kHz the latency should be in the 3ms range, which is undetectable if you are not a robot
I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m ballsing it up lol, I know next to nothing about audio production!
Taken from the manual:
The indicated latency is the actual latency of the whole device, measured from the input to the output. Even at the highest setting, the latency is low enough not to be noticed when playing. However, latencies add up when using several digital products, which can lead to a point where it becomes noticeable. In that case, lowering this setting can prove useful.
Latency is 1.2ms with IR Length at 20ms
Latency is 2.2ms with IR Length at 40ms
Latency is 3.5ms with IR Length at 100ms
Latency is 4.8ms with IR Length at 200ms
As per my previous post (I can’t believe I didn’t see the option to begin with) I find that the lowest 2 settings feel more ‘normal’ to me, albeit with slightly less audio quality. I’m no robot (I’m half deaf lol), but I can’t believe that ‘the latency is low enough not to be noticed when playing’ on the highest setting as mentioned in the manual.
Captor X sampling frequency is 96kHz and I am using it standalone (no pc - just guitar amp into Captor X and headphones). Checked for updates and have also factory reset.
I’m starting to think that I’m just going crazy now and should just give it longer to get used to it. Maybe having such a direct sound into my earhole is overwhelming my senses and I’m wasting everybody’s time and energy!
Like previously stated, there’s only really so much you are going to be able to do using it as a headphone amp. Live sound perception in a room is a totally different animal. Trying to get used to it is probably your best option.
Could be! But you should be able to test this @PickingApprentice, because if you tell us you hear a clear delay between picking a string and hearing the (simulated) amp, maybe it’s really there!
Can you use your actual cab as a multimedia speaker (with a “aux” input or something) — or do you have a pair of multimedia speakers that you can hook up to the output of the thorpedo unit? Do you hear. feel the same latency problem when using this setting, or is it only when you use headphones?
Its not like there is a large amount of space between plucking and hearing anybody watching and listening wouldn’t know… it just feels disconnected and its puts me off a little in both playing and enjoyment.
Ermmm, I might have a crappy mp3 speaker (wired) knocking around.
Its a good shout considering the below point.
I’ll give it a shot - got nothing to lose…
Edit: Also, I’m going to play in a mix also alot more, see if I can shed some of the uber scrutiny…if its all on my head, then I need to trick it!
, its completely fine for most rhythm and slow melodic solos, but anything remotely speedy, it just doesn’t feel right - like I’m miming to a track or a little tipsy after a few pints. Is this something that I might get used to or should I try another unit like a Suhr RL and hope for the best? I don’t consider myself a tone snob or anti-digital and as a pretty casual player, I never expected to notice anything.