Torpedo Live's Tone Question

whammy_boy

New member
Hey guys,

A quick question about Torpedo Live's tone. Had this unit for about two weeks and absolutely love its versatility and ease of use. I play anything from blues to classic rock to shred, and I own a H&K Statesman and a Mesa Boogie Triaxis.

When I hook em up to the Torpedo though, regardless of the cab/mic combination I choose, I am having the feeling that some of the liveliness of my tone gets sucked out. The amp doesn't breathe the same way anymore and it feels like somebody put a strong limiter/gate on on my guitar. This is particularly noticeable on my leads. My drummer's comments are "Man, it feels so pristine, but it's digital and it's not alive anymore".

I can feel it in my fingers too. Yesterday I played for a couple of hours, and my left hand started hurting, which almost never happens to me. I tried hooking up both the preamp section of the Statesman (from the efx loop) to the Torpedo; and then its speaker output. Tried cranking up the amp, then turned down the volume. Same result. Same result with the Triaxis too.

I read about so many people raving about the Torpedo's tone and I am banging my head against the wall… Is this normal? Is there anything I might be doing wrong? Any suggestions are welcome.

Thank you so much in advance!
 
Hi whammy_boy,

can I ask you how you listened to your system with the Torpedo Live, and how you used to listened to your guitar sound before the Torpedo Live?
 
Sure,

I mostly monitor the Torpedo with studio headphones directly plugged in the unit. I purchased it for recording, so I also tried to plug it in two different mixing consoles - Soundcraft Spirit Studio and Mackie VLZ3. Similar results.

I used to listen to the guitar either directly in front of the cab (and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE that sound!!!), or miked up with all kinds of microphones - sm57, beta57, ksm32, akg c3000, electro harmonix EH-R1, oktava mk-012, and various combinations of those. To be honest, I was never 100% happy with the sound I was getting - mostly because of something small in the final mix of all frequencies. The other issue was volume - and that's part of the reason why I purchased the Torpedo.

But I am pretty sure there is something I am doing wrong. The question is what is that.

Many thanks!
 
The question is: when your drummer is giving his opinion, is he comparing a sound coming out of the PA with a guitar cabinet?

Because the way you listened to you miked sound can always be the weak element of the chain...

Meaning, you can compare a miking with the Torpedo with a traditional miking, through the same PA/Headphones/monitor.

If you drummer listen to your guitar tone through a 40KW system in a stadium I can bet he will found the sound of the 4X12 really weak and small sounding.

The wrong thing that most people do, is trying to compare their traditional 4X12 with an often too small PA used to listened to the entire mix. I can tell you that is always deceptive, for obvious reasons. And there is not much you can do with the Torpedo Live, I'm afraid.
 
Like Guillaume said, to have the feel of air moving etc. you need to be stood in front of your actual guitar cab & I think it's this that you are missing. The Torpedo products replicate the miking of a guitar cabinet; the way it feels/sounds when monitoring through studio speakers or headphones etc. is comparable to how it does when you mic your actual guitar cabinet & monitor this way (i.e. How one plays in the studio).

There's 3 ways main for the Torpedo Live to make sense in a live environment & all of the said ways obtain an immaculate & consistent front of house sound (it's really only the onstage sound/feel that will vary). Firstly, you can go the silent stage route by going cab-less & monitoring through in-ears or headphones (mentioned above); secondly, you can monitor through the PA monitors the same way that you do with vocals thus allowing you to avoid having to lug your cab around, yet without the need of in-ears (although your sound on stage will vary dramatically from venue to venue depending on the quality of the PA/monitors that they have); or finally, you can take your cab with you & plug it into the 'thru' socket on the Torpedo Live (this third option is my favourite as then you get the sound & feel of your actual cabinet on stage, yet your front of house sound that the audience hears has all of the benefits of the Torpedo & isn't at the mercy of the house engineers & their equipment).

...hope this all helps, I know that how one feels the sound in a live environment can make a big difference to how one performs. This is why a lot of professional players don't get on with in-ears as the studio feel can put you off a bit when playing live. If you were to mic your actual guitar cab but monitor through in-ears you'd be experiencing the exact same thing your are with the Torpedo so it's really just down to you finding how you feel most comfortable & then using it the way that suits you best. :)
 
My drummer is also a sound engineer and a studio owner. He knows way more about microphones and miking than me, and I completely trust his opinion. This particular comment he gave me was when he was listening to the Mesa/Boogie Triaxis hooked up to the Torpedo Live, and monitored with headphones. It just sounded dry. The main part that was missing was this high midrange shimmer, which I LOVE so much about my cab and speakers. And again, it felt like my guitar had a noise gate, cutting some of the sustain at the tail of each note I was playing - that's my main problem.

Some more info for you guys:
My cab is a custom built closed back 2x12, with 8 Ohm Eminence Swamp Thang speakers. I keep it off the floor, and it sits on top of a 2002 Twin Amp. This is also how it's miked. My microphone saga began with my own sm57, which I don't like for the same reasons stated above - it feels a bit harsh, and feels like it has a strong noise gate applied to it. That particular Torpedo patch my drummer was commenting was using a different 2x12 cabinet, but the microphone was the same 57, and it had the same feel in my fingers.

If I understand your answers correctly, the right strategy for me would be to download a cab with 2x12 Swamp Thang speakers (I remember I saw it somewhere online), then find the perfect mic or combination of mics that I like, get an Impulse Response from them and save all that in the Torpedo. Would that solve my problem?

Many thanks!
 
whammy, are you only using the headphone out or are you using the line out? i was using the headphone out into my in ears and it was missing something, i now go the line out to the in ears and use the thru on the in ears to the board. i dont know why they seem different to me but using the headphone out with any headphone ( westone, shure, audiotech,akg,sennheiser) sounds bad, really compressed.
 
I still believe this is down to how you are monitoring (especially considering you experienced the same thing when putting a real SM57 in front of your actual cab). When you say it's dry & feels like you are using a noise gate & getting reduced sustain; this is because you don't have any natural feedback occurring (a big part of the live sound/feel that we are all used to) & this can't really be rectified without monitoring through a loudspeaker I'm afraid.

Here's a little tip for you sound-wise as well, mixing microphones can give you a much more natural & three-dimensional sound (this applies both with real mics & in the Torpedo). Microphones have their own inherent tonal characteristics you see & learning how to place each different one & then experimenting with mixing multiple mics can work wonders for maturing a guitar sound. You can also experiment with placing mics far away from the cab in order to get more 'room' in the resulting tone. Experimentation is key to obtaining the sound you desire though & you certainly have to factor the miking stage in just as much as the cabinet choice really. Again though; the main thing you are taking issue with is a result of your monitoring method, if you want to maintain natural acoustic feedback then you need to get some actual guitar sound in the room for your guitar to interact with.
 
This is also how it's miked. My microphone saga began with my own sm57, which I don't like for the same reasons stated above - it feels a bit harsh, and feels like it has a strong noise gate applied to it.

whammy_boy, I think I can conclude that we did our job well, which is to accurately reproduce the behavior of a cabinet with an SM57. ;)

There are thousands of possibilities with a Torpedo, and the combination cabinet + microphone + mic placement has a dramatic effect on your guitar tone.

Apart from listening with the appropriate monitoring (of course the direct signal with headphones is dry, there is no reverb, nothing, it is designed to be dry), there is another way to use the Torpedo.

With our software Torpedo BlendIR, you can capture your own cabinet with all the microphones you like, and blend them to create your unique tone signature. That can help. ;)

http://www.two-notes.com/en/software/torpedo-blendir/#downloads
 
guillaume_pille, gotcha.

Using BlendIR is actually what I suggested myself in my post yesterday. And you are right, the SM 57 recreation is spot on - even with its flaws ;) One quick question for you. I saw a comment somewhere about the amp required for capturing cab/mic sounds being "as clean as possible", and I am not sure if I am getting this right. Is a normal hi-fi amp like an old Yamaha receiver good enough?

Pbfoot, it never occurred to me to use the line out with headphones. I'll give it a shot.

Thank you guys for all suggestions. I'll keep you posted.
 
Please do NOT use the line out with headphones, the impedance is not appropriate.

You can use the headphones out on the Live to feed the line input of a mixer. I don't recommend that, but it's safe. ;) I think it is what our friend was talking about earlier.

I saw a comment somewhere about the amp required for capturing cab/mic sounds being "as clean as possible", and I am not sure if I am getting this right. Is a normal hi-fi amp like an old Yamaha receiver good enough?

I would always prefer an amp with a flat frequency response and very low output impedance. A tube amp can work, but the result won't be accurate (meaning, very close to your real stuff). Is it bad? Well, if the result sounds good, who cares? ^^

A normal Hi-Fi amp can work, but if you push it hard (and you should push a little your cabinet) that kind of amp can see its temperature increasing and sometimes go into security mode. So please monitor carefully its behavior. ;) We recommend using an amp able to push 250W into 8 ohms, so you are sure not to ask it too much.
 
whammy, dont go line out straight to headphones, my shure psm in ear monitor acts to change the line level for my headphones or i will put the line out into a little behringer 4 channel mixer then feed my in ears ( doesnt seem to make much difference except more eq) to me the signal that comes out the line out vs. the headphone out is night and day difference
 
Impedance was my concern too. The good news is that I have a small headphone amp, very similar, if not the same as yours, Pbfoot. That should do the trick.

guillaume_pille, 250W into 8 ohms: how strict is that requirement? My cab is 2x12, and both are 8 ohms each. They are wired in series, which is 16 together. I really don't want to disconnect one of them, but if I have no choice, I guess I could.
 
I'm jumping into the discussion to offer a technical point regarding the headphone directly into the Line Out jack :

You should definitively not do that. Indeed, the impedance is not right, and that leads to a weaker sound and some trebles loss probably. No fear to break anything, but sound-wise, that's not a good idea.

But most importantly, the Line Out is a balanced output, which is not AT ALL a stereo output. If possible, it is the opposite. Instead of getting the same signal in your left and right ear, you get the same signal but in opposite polarity. This should lead to some wild phase behaviour between your two ears...

Long story short, don't do this :D

But, of course, you can use a headphone amp plugged into the Line Out.
 
Back
Top