Advise on Captor x Cab to use with 5150 EL34

[manticora]

Hello there,

I just bought the Captor X, and i own an EVH 5150 50W EL34.
I plugg the captor x into a soundcraft mixing table that goes out to JBL eon Speakers.
I have bought the EVH cream 4X12 Dynir from Two Notes store and it's quite good, but when i compare it to the 5150 EL34 directly plub to my 2X12 soldano cab i feel i miss something.

I am not a professional so i was wondering if any of you have suggestions about a DynIR cab to use with my 5150 EL34 and witch mic to use them ?
Or maybe the EVH cab i bought is great but maybe i need to use different mic with specific settings ?

IF any of you have great settings for mic / cab to use in the captor x with 5150 el34 that would be awesome

Thanks

 

[RossJohnDavies]

Hey @manticora

Thanks for getting in touch and a great question.

Ross from Two notes here. First up, remember that Captor X is not only simulating a cabinet, it is simulating a microphone / preamps / EQs and post processing like the Enhancer and Twin Tracker. As such a fairer comparison would be to mic up your Soldano cab and compare the PA sound of both devices. However, we can certainly get you closer to your target tone. If you can send us a screenshot of your remote session we can advise accordingly!

Personally on the Mic'ing front, I like to use a Dynamic Mic, positioned close and just off centre with a Secondary Condenser mic positioned further off centre and pulled back a touch; I blend the Condenser in to taste and this tends to be much lower in volume than the dynamic mic.

Let me know if this helps and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

 

[manticora]

Hey Ross,

Thanks for your reply !

Will try your advice regarding mi as i was usualy putain a ribon as mic A and a dynamic one as mic B.

What do you mean by sending you a screenshot of my session ?
Like a sound sample directly from Phone ?

 

[RossJohnDavies]

Hey @manticora

Thanks for getting back to me. Great - give it a go and let me know how you get on.

By a screenshot, this is just a picture of your Torpedo Remote session so I can see how you have everything configured.

Thanks so much and

 

[RossJohnDavies]

Hey @manticora

Thanks for getting back to me. Great - give it a go and let me know how you get on.

By a screenshot, this is just a picture of your Torpedo Remote session so I can see how you have everything configured.

Thanks so much and I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

 

[manticora]

Hello, ok got it,

Here is the capture of the settings i am using with my EVH 5150 EL34 50W :

 

[RossJohnDavies]

Hey @manticora

Thanks for sending that through! That really helps.

As a starting point, I would suggest choosing a primary mic; my personal choice here would be the 57. Then pull your secondary mic down in volume and blend in to taste - i would also suggest moving this slightly more off centre. Looking at your Post FX, I would suggest turning on the enhancer and using the thickness and body parameters with the Dry/Wet set half way - when you have the kind of tone you like, I would then opt to push the wet signal down a little.

If you could give this a go and let me know how you get on, that would be fab!

 

[manticora]

Hey @manticora

Thanks for sending that through! That really helps.

As a starting point, I would suggest choosing a primary mic; my personal choice here would be the 57. Then pull your secondary mic down in volume and blend in to taste - i would also suggest moving this slightly more off centre. Looking at your Post FX, I would suggest turning on the enhancer and using the thickness and body parameters with the Dry/Wet set half way - when you have the kind of tone you like, I would then opt to push the wet signal down a little.

If you could give this a go and let me know how you get on, that would be fab!

Thanks for your answer !
What you mean by choosing a primary and secondary mic ? i already have A for prime and B for second.
Did i missed something ?

After it's the secondary mic that i should move off center ?

Regarding Enhancer i didn't activate it cause i am not sure what it does and i feel like activating it is a little bit "cheating" as i wanted to have a sound as close as possible to a real cab without too much modification, but i may be wrong about the use of enhancer ?
Will have to test it but not sure what to move there ^^

 

[RossJohnDavies]

Hey @manticora

Thanks for getting back to me. In terms of your mics, think of your primary mic as the most prominent one in terms of volume; you should then use a secondary mic to blend in a little of the tonality that you feel is missing - you will usually find that your secondary mic is lower in volume. Indeed, your secondary mic in this instance would be the condenser and for best results i tend to move this a little further off centre.

The Enhancer is a combination of dynamic and tone-shaping tools especially tailored for your guitar and/or bass.
The Dry/Wet allows you to balance the cab sim signal and the processed signal by the Enhancer. At zero (knob turned all the way down), only the cab sim signal is heard. At halfway position, the level of the cab sim signal is equal to the level of the enhancer. At full (knob turned all the way up), you are only hearing the signal processed by the Enhancer.
Body is a compressor with a high-pass filter (set at 100hz in Guitar mode and 150hz in Bass mode). It only affects the low-mids and above frequencies of the signal. Body will render your tone fuller and more present. Thickness and Brilliance emphasize the low end and high end of the tone, respectively.

In a nutshell, you can user the enhancer to push your tone forward a little more and give you the sensation of a real cabinet in a room!

Let me know if this helps!

 

[manticora]

OKi thanks for your explanation, before that, i did something like this :
Knowing that i lowered the Condensed mic to -2db and off center it a bit.
I tried to mix brillance and thickness to keep agressive tone (less in the low i would say) and the body to have more... body
Seeing my screen, is more something like this ?
For the mic maybe i was not extreme enought ?

Regarding enhancer may i should go a bit more to dry like i do on my delay around 30% ?

 

[RossJohnDavies]

Hey @manticora

Thanks for sending this through - looking good! How is your tone sounding? What do you think you might be missing?

Thanks so much and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards,

Ross

 

[manticora]

Hey,
Thanks to an amp switcher i was able to compare the sound of my EVH 5150 through my soldano 2X12 cab and the captor X in real time.
From my hears, i feel the sound are close in terms of distortion, but the one coming out from captor x through my FOH is more "bassy" sound, less agressive than in the real cab.
In the real cab i feel the sound is more agressive and High pitched. (sorry i am french so i try to translate the best i can )

Any advice on how to achieve this ?
Maybe with the same cab i am using right now, or do i need to change ?

Thanks,
Antoine

 

[manticora]

No sure if i went to far with enhancer, but it seems with this settings the sound is way more closer to my real cab sound with these settings :

As i felt there not enough agressivness and too much bass, i didn't had too much thickness, and focused more on body and Brilliance.
I have to keep in mind i go out to FOH audio system that reactive different from cab i guess, so more bass naturally, but i feel i got back some agressivity with these settings.

What do you think ? maybe brilliance is too high ?
but i try to get the wet to only 35% to avoid too much modification on the dry amp sound ?

Thanks

 

[RossJohnDavies]

Good morning @manticora

Thanks for getting back to me. Looking great but the most important thing is, if it sounds good to you, then it's right!

If you want to dial in a little more clarity and bit, you could also try boosting 2kHz on the EQ a little - something I like to do to help me cut through the mix a little more!

Let me know if this helps and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Ross