Brunetti Pleximan: Can it Do METAL?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brandon Breeze
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I don't think it sounds that bad, but I'd have to hear it in a full mix to make a final judgement

It has upper midrange bark, for sure, but the thinness could either be the recording or the amp itself, so it's kind of up in the air
Well, with a name like Pleximan I'm expecting quality classic rock tones but I'm not hearing any semblance of big sounding classic rock cabinet rattling chunk or creamy Plexi ish overtones at all. Sounds like a vanilla metal amp that someone swapped a 12au7 into V1 to clean up the gain with, ending up with an anemic hard rock-ish tone and not a rich classic rock tone at all.
 
Well, with a name like Pleximan I'm expecting quality classic rock tones but I'm not hearing any semblance of big sounding classic rock cabinet rattling chunk or creamy Plexi ish overtones at all. Sounds like a vanilla metal amp that someone swapped a 12au7 into V1 to clean up the gain with, ending up with an anemic hard rock-ish tone and not a rich classic rock tone at all.
I wasn't going for any sort of rock tones, there are plenty of folks doing those videos with the pleximan already. I will be making some videos with those as well at some point. Very curious what exactly you're listening on as well as this tone sounds beefy on any decent quality audio device I own. Sounds thin on my laptop, and phone, and so does every other video out there.
 
I have been looking for a Brunetti XL for over a year now. Two finally popped up on Reverb, one in the US but more than I wanted to spend. The other one is still listed but in Italy with a matching cab, not sure I really want to have an amp shipped like that but I'll admit it's crossed my mind a few times.

As for the pleximan, there is an all black one right now on Guitar Center used section, priced about the same as a brand new one costs. Of course, I can't find a brand new one for sale anywhere. Anyway, sounds good in the video
Much appreciated! I found this at a local shop for a great price, so I figured ehat the hell? The online demos sounded good for those classic Marshall tones!

What did you listen on? Just trying to get an idea of how folks are getting thin/anemic sounds when I'm hearing thick/beefy sounds from my audio devices here at home.
 
Funny, 2 hours ago was the first time I ever heard of this amp. There’s one for sale at GC close to me for $1100 and seeing PlexiMan set my Bassman/Plexi boner off. I’d love to check one of these out, just not for metal tones!
 
Funny, 2 hours ago was the first time I ever heard of this amp. There’s one for sale at GC close to me for $1100 and seeing PlexiMan set my Bassman/Plexi boner off. I’d love to check one of these out, just not for metal tones!
Just so you are aware if you go in and try to buy it, that GC has had that amp for at least 2 months at that price, so there is probably some wiggle room on the price.

So at least try to work out a deal. They were something like $1399 brand new so $1199 or whatever they have it for is a pretty crappy deal, in my opinion. Of course, if you can play it and it sounds good, pay whatever you think it's worth.
 
I wasn't going for any sort of rock tones, there are plenty of folks doing those videos with the pleximan already. I will be making some videos with those as well at some point. Very curious what exactly you're listening on as well as this tone sounds beefy on any decent quality audio device I own. Sounds thin on my laptop, and phone, and so does every other video out there.
I’m listening on the same system where many other clips sound fine.
 
its too dry and "barky" for anything more than 70s hard rock/metal, maybe a more aggressive boost could get it closer
 
I’m listening on the same system where many other clips sound fine.
I go for in the room tones, no layering, no post EQ, so you have a much better idea of what you're actually going to hear in the room vs multi layered, post processed stuff. There's not a single piece of audio I own that this sounds thin on. I ask for specifics, so I can maybe expand what I listen to my videos on before uploading.
 
There's not a single piece of audio I own that this sounds thin on. I ask for specifics, so I can maybe expand what I listen to my videos on before uploading.
Maybe your main listening platform is favorably coloring the tone and perhaps isn't transparent enough to accurately gauge it? The sounds thin comment has been posted by at least 3 people so it seems to be the consensus.
 
Maybe your main listening platform is favorably coloring the tone and perhaps isn't transparent enough to accurately gauge it? The sounds thin comment has been posted by at least 3 people so it seems to be the consensus.
I listen on multiple devices before posting videos. 2 different Bluetooth speakers from Harmon Kardon & JBL, Samsung Galaxy Buds+ & Galaxy Buds Pro, TV, Laptop, studio monitor, hell even listen on my phones. You're saying all of these things color the tone in such a way that it completely negates a thin sound? On top of the sound being gnarly in the room...

This is all from live audio, so it not going to sound like 40,000 tracks that are panned all over, with post EQ etc. It's supposed to sound like what the raw amp sounds like with as little influence to the tone as possible. If you don't like the tone, that's fine, but simply saying it's thin, and not letting me know what you're listening on is not very helpful.

The reason I question what you all are listening on, as mentioned before, so that I can potentially check these things out so I can listen to what you're hearing. If it sounded any thicker on my end it would just be muddy.
 
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What did you listen on? Just trying to get an idea of how folks are getting thin/anemic sounds when I'm hearing thick/beefy sounds from my audio devices here at home.

Apologies for the delay in my response. The audio does sound pretty bad on my speakers, but it is better in my headphones. Ok - here's what I think the issue is and of course *I'm not a professional* so this is just what I think I'm hearing.

1. Your AT2020 is panned fully left, and includes both your voice audio and the audio of the room. The gain on the mic is too low to hear your voice well unless I isolate the left channel to listen to what you are saying on my interface, and then I lose the SM57.

2. The SM57 tone is I assume on/near center on the dust cap, panned fully right. That's fine, but I hear some high frequencies and not necessarily the desirable ones... maybe some personal taste there though. The right side doesn't seem to be mixed with the AT2020, that side is much more clear and fuller sounding if I listen in mono to just that channel.

The main crux of the issue though: Room mic and speaker cab mic are in the same room, picking up the same guitar playing at the same time. There's a reason why multi-mic setups and positioning are truly an art form all of itself - what I think I'm hearing is phasing/cancellation between the two mics panned this way, making the sound very strange because some frequencies are getting squashed out by phase issues on the two mics.

I know it's boring, but for something like this, I would just use the SM57. You can duck that channel when you are speaking into the AT2020, but then when you aren't speaking cut the AT2020 completely. Maybe switch to the AT2020 for the room sound for a specific segment of the video, but for that mute the SM57 track. I learned myself from some old videos that people will still listen to your videos on their phones - my new phone is stereo, but lots of phones and tablets sum the left and right channels. Summed left and right channels when it's two different mics in the same room and panned is going to sound *really* bad without some kind of careful placement or studio trickery (one easy trick is to delay one mic by about 40ms, which works for stereo listeners but mono will still hear a phasing/chorus effect sometimes so it's not a perfect solution)

I bet if you re-uploaded this video with only the mono SM57 track, it would sound a ton better for most viewers. Cheers
 
Could you post a clip of just the SM57?

Apologies for the delay in my response. The audio does sound pretty bad on my speakers, but it is better in my headphones. Ok - here's what I think the issue is and of course *I'm not a professional* so this is just what I think I'm hearing.

1. Your AT2020 is panned fully left, and includes both your voice audio and the audio of the room. The gain on the mic is too low to hear your voice well unless I isolate the left channel to listen to what you are saying on my interface, and then I lose the SM57.

2. The SM57 tone is I assume on/near center on the dust cap, panned fully right. That's fine, but I hear some high frequencies and not necessarily the desirable ones... maybe some personal taste there though. The right side doesn't seem to be mixed with the AT2020, that side is much more clear and fuller sounding if I listen in mono to just that channel.

The main crux of the issue though: Room mic and speaker cab mic are in the same room, picking up the same guitar playing at the same time. There's a reason why multi-mic setups and positioning are truly an art form all of itself - what I think I'm hearing is phasing/cancellation between the two mics panned this way, making the sound very strange because some frequencies are getting squashed out by phase issues on the two mics.

I know it's boring, but for something like this, I would just use the SM57. You can duck that channel when you are speaking into the AT2020, but then when you aren't speaking cut the AT2020 completely. Maybe switch to the AT2020 for the room sound for a specific segment of the video, but for that mute the SM57 track. I learned myself from some old videos that people will still listen to your videos on their phones - my new phone is stereo, but lots of phones and tablets sum the left and right channels. Summed left and right channels when it's two different mics in the same room and panned is going to sound *really* bad without some kind of careful placement or studio trickery (one easy trick is to delay one mic by about 40ms, which works for stereo listeners but mono will still hear a phasing/chorus effect sometimes so it's not a perfect solution)
Much appreciated, thanks for the tid bits. I'll try some of the suggestions to see if I can make it easier for everyone to listen. I'm using a fairly basic interface with the Presonus iTwo, so it doesn't do a whole lot without using the DAW. I'm trying to keep the raw amp sounds as much as possible and am always learning new stuff to make recording better. Definitely interesting sharing a track like this and hearing so many differing opinions on it. Thanks again!
 
Check these out:

Here's the SM57 Only, on right side. Oddly, sometimes my ear buds will put the sound on both ears and other times it wont. Laptop only plays on the right speaker,


Here's SM57 left with AKG C214 on right. The C214 has a phase switch, I flip it kinda towards the end when you see me stop changing the settings. Seems like this definitely helped out.
 
Apologies for the delay in my response. The audio does sound pretty bad on my speakers, but it is better in my headphones. Ok - here's what I think the issue is and of course *I'm not a professional* so this is just what I think I'm hearing.

1. Your AT2020 is panned fully left, and includes both your voice audio and the audio of the room. The gain on the mic is too low to hear your voice well unless I isolate the left channel to listen to what you are saying on my interface, and then I lose the SM57.

2. The SM57 tone is I assume on/near center on the dust cap, panned fully right. That's fine, but I hear some high frequencies and not necessarily the desirable ones... maybe some personal taste there though. The right side doesn't seem to be mixed with the AT2020, that side is much more clear and fuller sounding if I listen in mono to just that channel.

The main crux of the issue though: Room mic and speaker cab mic are in the same room, picking up the same guitar playing at the same time. There's a reason why multi-mic setups and positioning are truly an art form all of itself - what I think I'm hearing is phasing/cancellation between the two mics panned this way, making the sound very strange because some frequencies are getting squashed out by phase issues on the two mics.

I know it's boring, but for something like this, I would just use the SM57. You can duck that channel when you are speaking into the AT2020, but then when you aren't speaking cut the AT2020 completely. Maybe switch to the AT2020 for the room sound for a specific segment of the video, but for that mute the SM57 track. I learned myself from some old videos that people will still listen to your videos on their phones - my new phone is stereo, but lots of phones and tablets sum the left and right channels. Summed left and right channels when it's two different mics in the same room and panned is going to sound *really* bad without some kind of careful placement or studio trickery (one easy trick is to delay one mic by about 40ms, which works for stereo listeners but mono will still hear a phasing/chorus effect sometimes so it's not a perfect solution)

I bet if you re-uploaded this video with only the mono SM57 track, it would sound a ton better for most viewers. Cheers
I have an AKG C214 with a phase switch, I see what you're saying, hadn't messed with it before, but there's a noticable difference when it's not in phase! Check out the videos above and let me know what you're hearing

TIA
 
Both of those clips sound way better to me.
The first video SM57 audio is only on the right side. I can switch my output to mono to get both ears in my headphones, but the video itself is definitely right channel only. One mic, no phase issues, but obviously I prefer to hear it in both ears by setting my output to mono (most people probably wouldn't take the time to do this, so just upload the video with the sound summed to mono for the general public).
In the second video, I assume both mics are much closer together and positioned closer to the speaker itself, so they also sound much better together - more on that below:

I'm no mic expert but I know that any time you have two mics, there is always some slight variation of phase if they are recording the same sound, which results in attenuation of some frequencies - call comb filtering. Comb filtering in general has a stronger effect on bass frequencies so thats why I'm leaning towards that being the problem with the first video for some listeners. Sometimes it's not that obvious depending on the mix, or how the mics are aimed, etc and all sorts of positioning and stuff. Like I said, an art form all on its own and one that I'm still learning myself. The "easy way" for us players is to just put whatever mics you are recording as close as physically possible. That's why the original video sounds funky sometimes, if the SM57 is 2 inches from the speaker cone, and the AT2020 is 6 feet from it, that's going to result in a much more sizable sound delay (and therefore more noticeable phase issue) than if you had both mics only 2 inches apart up against the speaker.

Not sure if you use any kind of DAW software, but I have Logic Pro myself and I can kind of simulate the funky phase thing. If I take a recording from an SM57, then duplicate that track exactly, and delay/offset the second track by say, 40 milliseconds, you can hear some... oddities. That's kind of the same phasing issue as having two mics several feet apart, since sound has a certain speed it travels, it'll hit the second mic a few milliseconds after the first one, causing the phase issue. Just useful to be able to "hear it for yourself."

A phase switch on a mic is a related, but different thing, it's switching the wiring for the output. If you imagine a simple audio sine wave, it would be the same as just flipping the ups and downs the opposite direction. This can work for certain applications for sure, it's just different than the comb filtering thing I was talking about. But if it sounds good, definitely put it to use. It's worth mentioning that most DAW's can also just reverse the phase of an audio track too, you don't need the physical phase switch - it is the same function of flipping the waveform around - but it is helpful sometimes to listen live while flipping the switch. Here's a pic describing what I mean:
polarity_phase_03.gif

Obviously it's more complicated than a sine wave since a guitar signal is a huge mess of waveforms but that's the idea.

I try to think of mic and phase issues as more of a "how can I limit / sound best" because you're never going to completely eliminate it. There's no such thing as a 100% perfect, zero phase issue, multi-mic setup. I am actually working on a little side project right now that involves multiple mics and have been researching this same stuff so it kind of works out because I have the info fresh in my mind. Hope it was useful.

---
Side note, I like the riff you recorded. Sounds pretty gnarly to me. Keep it up!
 
Both of those clips sound way better to me.
The first video SM57 audio is only on the right side. I can switch my output to mono to get both ears in my headphones, but the video itself is definitely right channel only. One mic, no phase issues, but obviously I prefer to hear it in both ears by setting my output to mono (most people probably wouldn't take the time to do this, so just upload the video with the sound summed to mono for the general public).
In the second video, I assume both mics are much closer together and positioned closer to the speaker itself, so they also sound much better together - more on that below:

I'm no mic expert but I know that any time you have two mics, there is always some slight variation of phase if they are recording the same sound, which results in attenuation of some frequencies - call comb filtering. Comb filtering in general has a stronger effect on bass frequencies so thats why I'm leaning towards that being the problem with the first video for some listeners. Sometimes it's not that obvious depending on the mix, or how the mics are aimed, etc and all sorts of positioning and stuff. Like I said, an art form all on its own and one that I'm still learning myself. The "easy way" for us players is to just put whatever mics you are recording as close as physically possible. That's why the original video sounds funky sometimes, if the SM57 is 2 inches from the speaker cone, and the AT2020 is 6 feet from it, that's going to result in a much more sizable sound delay (and therefore more noticeable phase issue) than if you had both mics only 2 inches apart up against the speaker.

Not sure if you use any kind of DAW software, but I have Logic Pro myself and I can kind of simulate the funky phase thing. If I take a recording from an SM57, then duplicate that track exactly, and delay/offset the second track by say, 40 milliseconds, you can hear some... oddities. That's kind of the same phasing issue as having two mics several feet apart, since sound has a certain speed it travels, it'll hit the second mic a few milliseconds after the first one, causing the phase issue. Just useful to be able to "hear it for yourself."

A phase switch on a mic is a related, but different thing, it's switching the wiring for the output. If you imagine a simple audio sine wave, it would be the same as just flipping the ups and downs the opposite direction. This can work for certain applications for sure, it's just different than the comb filtering thing I was talking about. But if it sounds good, definitely put it to use. It's worth mentioning that most DAW's can also just reverse the phase of an audio track too, you don't need the physical phase switch - it is the same function of flipping the waveform around - but it is helpful sometimes to listen live while flipping the switch. Here's a pic describing what I mean:
View attachment 255503
Obviously it's more complicated than a sine wave since a guitar signal is a huge mess of waveforms but that's the idea.

I try to think of mic and phase issues as more of a "how can I limit / sound best" because you're never going to completely eliminate it. There's no such thing as a 100% perfect, zero phase issue, multi-mic setup. I am actually working on a little side project right now that involves multiple mics and have been researching this same stuff so it kind of works out because I have the info fresh in my mind. Hope it was useful.

---
Side note, I like the riff you recorded. Sounds pretty gnarly to me. Keep it up!
Yes, lots of helpful info! I don't see any specific audio options for uploading videos, so I'll have to look into that. I suppose I'm going to need to look into some better audio equipment to listen to my videos before uploading. I can definitely tell a difference in the audio quality of the three video's, but it's not overly dramatic where one of them sounds like utter crap and the others sound better, they all sound decent on my end. I should probably utilize my studio monitor lol.

I have yet to use the DAW that came with the interface, just trying to keep thing as simple as possible, but may check it out if it will make life easier. I can unplug the interface from my phone at will to use the phone mic for speaking and mic(s) on the speaker for the guitar audio, just kind of a pain in the butt while also playing guitar etc


Thanks again!
 
Interesting, much appreciated. I need to get some other stuff to listen on apparently. The clips sound slightly different, but not dramatic on my end. That's listening on laptop, tv, galaxy buds plus & live, harmon kardon & JBL Bluetooth speakers. Figured that would cover all bases lol
 
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