Thanks for your thoughts, as always! I appreciate it. You are an extremely likeable guy, and extremely charismatic, so you have a unique ability to draw people into you and really listen to what you have to say, which is quite a breath of fresh air in this industry. Being extremely close to Mark lewis and Suecof, these are the conversations we have had over the last many many years, and I truly learned alot from mark for sure. While I'm sure you will agree he is extremely opinionated, these in depth super nerdy type of conversations are really where you learn about this stuff, and truly see what makes an actual difference in your tracking and mixes etc. I have learned it truly is the performance, and great inputs (great amps, great mic pre's, great cabs etc) that truly define and what make our favorite records sound great, and much of what is talked about on youtube etc over the last few years, while maybe relevant to some extent, the vast majority of your favorite records it seems have a few things in common: Great performances, and great inputs. The more I learn, the more I come back and see that it really is those 2 things that make all the difference. It's just nice to hear some of these conversations get brought to light for others to learn about, because often I will speak of things I've learned over the years, but the vast majority haven't had similar experiences or know where I am coming from, but you bringing up some of this stuff (such as your V30 video) really explains and shows how much this nerdy tech stuff can matter on the the hunt for tone.
As far as brightness, I agree with your view points 100 percent. These speakers definitely smooth out of over time, and that is kind of the draw to them at the end of the day, is the character they take on as years of use go by. The bright/dark knob really is quite genius, and pulls whatever I Need out of it I think as well. It's so interesting how opinions on tones can vary from person to person, or how people perceive things. And on that note, I struggle with the fact that I can never really tell what a guitar tone is going to sound like in stereo, when just listening to a mono single guitar track. And I talk about this here all the time, i'm curious if you understand or run into what I'm saying as well. This is initially why I thought some of them were too dark for my liking. However, after double or quad tracking and panning them out, the stereo image became apparent, and they were lovely, and just as you said, had the right top end and weren't pushed past the limits of losing the tone etc. The gnarly midrange character was awesome, and much better than (to me anyways) my own personal OS mesa cab. This is something I Just can't wrap my head around, because obviously a panned stereo guitar tone with its wide stereo image, is going to sound nothing like a mono track up the middle; and even more so, that mono guitar track, atleast to me, gives me very little idea, if any, of what it is actually going to sound like when panned and double tracked. So for me, I've learned a mono guitar track really doesn't tell me much at all. Which caries over to "well what DOES this IR actually sound like?" There's no references initially in the tracking phase, unless of course you have reference mono tracks that you know and love etc. There's things I pick up on and things that stick out that make me go "oh that's gonna be real good in a mix etc", but really, it's extremely difficult. I'm just curious if this is something you run into, or tricks you might use or what you listen for when getting an idea of what this mono single guitar track will sound like when panned big and wide.
Also out of curiousity, what mic pre's did you use to capture this pack? Thanks for all the info, I know we all truly appreciate it!