WOS III vs. hardware C.A.B. Pre-Sales Questions / Use Cases

New to forum, joined just to post this. Long time DAW user since early 90's, current DAW is super beefed Intel PC running Cubase 7.

Current guitar recording rig is ENGL e530 preamp into Digitech GSP1101 with c63 firmware (not using any of the 1101 amps or cabs, using ONLY as hardware IR loader with XLR out to a TC firewire interface) and using Catharsis and other free impulses. It sounds *fantastic* for a direct sound and I've been using it for years/very comfortable with it.

While looking into newer tech I very recently came across Two Notes and am currently using the WOS III plugin and bought the MesOS cabinet. Quite impressed. I am CONSIDERING to purchase the C.A.B. to perhaps replace my 1101 and I have a slew of questions that I am hoping the community can help me with, so here goes.

1. Is the SOUND QUALITY of the hardware C.A.B. unit identical to the WOS III plugin? IOTW, if I prepared WOS III in the same way I would prepare C.A.B., is there any discernible difference between actual SOUND? If NOT, is the primary advantage of C.A.B. to eliminate the need for a PC and VST host and slap on your pedal board to make a nice easy gig rig to FOH? For those who ONLY do recording is it more sensible to just use WOS III and spend the money on cabinets and IR's?

2. Can the C.A.B. print both a DIRECT preamp tone AND the MIKED tone at the same time to separate tracks so that I can later go back and adjust the raw preamp print with WOS III?

3. Can the C.A.B. be setup to save a preset that uses MORE than one cabinet in an instance, just like you can do with WOS III or is the output of the C.A.B. limited to just a single cabinet?

4. What is the deal with the software called PI-101 that sells for $289? Is it the same thing as WOS III but with a boatload of included cabinets?

I have more questions but do not want to make this post too long.

some answers for you:

1) check out the FAQ http://support.two-notes.com/knowledgeb ... rticle=114 while there, you'll likely find a whole bunch of applicable questions answered.

2) the CAB doesn't have the option of multiple outs. You could mult the pre-amp and record the CAB and the dry. If you are combining these later, you would need to account for the CAB analog/digital analog path vs the dry. Having the CAB would allow for the lowest latency while tracking.

3) the CAB allows a single cab at a time, the exception being using a third party IR that is a multi mic or multi cab IR or using an IR created in BlendIR (free software utility) that combines multiple IR's

4) PI-101 is an older version which is replaced by WOSIII with the cabinets available as in app purchases and in configurable bundles.

Very helpful and speed reply - Thank you.

I think in my specific use case, which is DIRECT RECORDING ONLY and no live shows, using WOS III VST plugin and buying select IR's from Le Boutique is more practical than buying the C.A.B. hardware box since my end goal and the options provided by WOS III would allow for more flexibility.

I will continue to experiment with the WOS III and buy a few more cabinets. Brilliant idea to let people demo and try out the cabinets before purchase.

Any idea if more MIC'S might be made available for purchase?

I will keep my GPS1101 for now and use it in conjunction with WOS III.

The 1101 sounds very, very good with the right user impulses (amazing in fact how BAD the factory IR's are) but of course does not have all of the amazing extra refinements that we have inside of WOSIII. The WOSIII has more "air" and "room feel" than the 1101 does due to the incredible coding and design of the mic movement - that was made clear to me within one hour of using the plugin and getting comfortable with it.

Thank you so much!

each cabinet is using 8 different mics. The recent Capture Masters cabinets now often feature a more diverse selection of microphones including AKG414, ShureSM-7B, Sennheiser MD409, Neumann U47, any many others. (always 8 mics per cabinet so these would replace the original set......depending on what the capture studio has and chooses to use)

It will also be in many cases possible to see an existing cabinet get a new treatment...ie different mics, studio and pre-amps. A good example of this is the Vox AC-30 from Studio Mirador which augments the 2 AC-30's already in the library http://store.two-notes.com/index.php?id ... &id_lang=1

So if I purchase one of the "Capture Masters" offerings, the download will also include the extra microphones that were used when creating the IR's and will show up in the list when tweaking?

Those same mics would then disappear when I switch back to my MesOS cabinet?

Any idea if a new "promo" will be coming up with some nice discounts for those folks buying a bunch of add-ons? Website still has wording about an OCTOBER promo that has since passed so it sounds like you guys are due for another big sale. Ha.

Thanks for the insane fast replies. I'm not used to getting such quick responses to ANYTHING. =)

Andy - BTW, there is a linking error inside of your KB/FAQ.

Go here:

http://support.two-notes.com/knowledgeb ... rticle=114

Then click on the "The only differences between our products are listed **here** and include, for instance, the Overload feature, or the number of cabinets you can emulate."

It is supposed to load up http://www.two-notes.com/en/hardware/to ... 1/#compare but it instead redirects to a http://www.two-notes.com/en/artists/theo-silva/#compare

Might want to remedy that. Thanks.

ok thanks, the Two notes guys are on here and I'm sure they'll address that.

The new cabinets do not have extra microphones, they have 8 choices just like the others. The difference is that the early format required that every cabinet use the 8 specified microphones and now the format is open to the choice of the studio doing the capture.

Two notes does do specials fro time to time. Afaik, there is currently a package deal on the vintage pack from Studio Mirador. There are also the on going deals where multi cabinet purchases qualify for different discount levels by quantity.

The WOSIII allows one to audition any cabinet prior to purchase so you'll be able to peruse the library and see how the new microphone options open up many possibilities

Is it true the hardware C.A.B. offers ONLY the 5 band EQ and not Low-cut, Exciter, Comp, Spatial??

yes, same with the Live although they both include a Reverb with a choice of 5 types and Reverb mix as parameters. Studio and WOSIII will get a reverb in an upcoming update. The low cut parameter is the one that Two notes most often get as a requested addition to Cab/Live.

Using the power modeling, one can dial in any needed compression (in my opinion)

ok thanks, the Two notes guys are on here and I'm sure they'll address that.

Click to expand...

They did address that thank you for noticing the bad link.

Great. I must say, so far I am very impressed with the level of SUPPORT from Two Notes, even just this forum thread here. Very rare today to see support even close to this... maybe Focusrite comes close?

So I must ask, can the C.A.B. hardware as built SUPPORT the extra features like Low-cut, Exciter, Comp, Spatial that could augment the unit with a firmware update or is it more than likely C.A.B. and Live will live without those extra features?

Hi Nizz, thank you for the kind words, we do our best.

CAB and Live share the same hardware, and the latest update and specifically the new reverb exhausted all the remaining ressources of our processor. There is no room left and I can tell you just adding the reverb was not piece of cake.

Hi Nizz,

I'm in the exact same boat as you, so please update us on your findings

For a while I've been recording using my rack gear, which outputs a pre-amp level signal (from a JMP-1 preamp) directly into my audio Interface (Focusrite 2i4) and then I've then used IRs and other cab simulations by plugins in my DAW. I've been looking for some better tones, and was just about to buy a Two Notes C.A.B or Live unit. The main selling point for me was overall superior sounds and power amp simulation. I'll admit that Pete Thorn demo of the CAB helped push me towards a purchase, sounds wicked!

However - truth be told I would much rather have the flexibility of being able to tweak cab sim settings during mixing than using a hardware box, which would effectively "bake" in the cab simulation to my recorded tracks.

So plugin seems to offer the most flexibility - but at the end of the day I'm after the best possible tone.

Price is of secondary concern (although obviously I'm not exactly made of money...)

So I'm also very curious about the question you ask: does the Two Notes hardware, CAB or Live, sound better than using the WOS plugin on a powerfull PC with enough CPU cycles.....
I want to buy whatever solution offers me the best possible tones for home recordings...

Cheers,
Kasper

One thing to consider is that owning a hardware Two notes products gives you a licence for the included cabinets so you automatically then have a library in the WOSIII included. You can then for example use the CAB for monitoring and the WOSIII for mixing. In addition, any Torpedo Cabs or commercial third party static IR's you add would also be available on both hardware and plug-in (the Cab/Live can hold 512 IR's and 32 Torpedo cabinets at any given time....but your library can be interchanged as needed)