Jim Lill: "In-the-room tone doesn't matter" and he's right

TheGreatGreen

TheGreatGreen

Well-known member
This just came across my feed, thought you guys might find it interesting.
Here's everybody's favorite controversial youtube guitar player with yet another banger of a claim.



I'm glad this notion is finally getting some traction.
 
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Great video, and it all makes sense. And those of us that understand and have participated in the recording process can comprehend this perfectly, and know it all to be true. That said, considering many of us here spend the majority of the time enjoying our amplifiers at moderate volume at home sitting between 4 and 10 feet away from our cabs..."In the room" seems to matter quite a bit. In fact, For some of us...It's the only thing that matters.
 
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Finally getting some traction? I don't know in what world you're living in because for almost two decades this seems to be the majority opinion?

To me playing and practicing is about fun and recording is about, well, recording. So In-the-room is all that matters to me when I'm having fun. It's like being a teenager again.

I've used a Batman utility belt made of Marshall MS-2s for recordings many times only to fuck with some people/colleagues because everything can sound great recorded IMO. Especially if you add a shitton of post-processing. But apart from mimicking a shitty street musician (which was fun ngl) I've never used that thing for actually playing with a band. That's what my amps (in the room) are for.

I've recorded a ton of stuff, have developed a workflow, have my favorite DAWs and plugins, have mics that I like way more than the usual 57/58 et cetera but in-the-room still matters to me.. a lot.
 
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I haven't even watched the whole video yet (at work), but the premise is correct, and something I bring up fairly often especially when herbs complain about modelers not sounding like an amp in the room.

Your in the room tone doesn't not matter to anyone, except yourself. It does matter in the sense that you standing in front of the amplifier may be more or less inspires to play, write, create depending on what you are hearing. But, the moment you decide that you objectively have "good tone", you are making a colossal mistake because that sounds is going to get filtered and fucked with at multiple stages before it touches most other human ears. If you do not regularly dial in your tones through those common filters of preamp, mic, and applicable sound system/playback, then essentially you have never actually truly heard your tone in the way that you are presenting to other people. Your in the room tone is meaningless to anybody else, and most of us often dial in obnoxious midrange, or bloated lows, or ear piercings highs because we are trying to imitate other tones, which we've only heard through those same filters.

To bring up modelers again, guys who regularly dial in a modeler with some sort of "full range" setup are actually getting a much more accurate image of what their end tone is, than the purist dialing in a sound standing in front of a guitar cabinet. There are of course discrepancies in playback systems to be considered, but that filtering is much less drastic. I know that comment might stir some of the geezers up.

Humans are all kinds of fucked up, in their hearing and their memory, not to mention how drastically different something can sound when placed in a new room/venue/whatever. Without decently recorded clips (not a goddamn phone), I find any 'bedroom players' opinions on a piece of gear to be nearly worthless, subjective gibberish that is more about the experience of playing more than it is about the tone. It's great that they are inspired to play in their basements, but that's not necessarily going to translate to someone who actually creates music for other people.
 
What about splitting the guitar‘s signal with a ‘Y’ and feeding one side to the rig that is being recorded and feed the other side to the player’s ‘safe-space’ rig - with all the cushy warm compression and whatever tone settings, EQ, and FX allow the player to relax, feel confident, and shred. Put the player in an iso booth with his bedroom rig and in another room only the ‘recorded’ rig is going into the mix.
 
I think the main flaw here isn't the irregularity of human hearing- it's the position that "what matters to me MUST be the most important thing and if it's not also what matters to others then they're wrong". It's a failure of seeking to understand before being understood, and how wars start.

Every hobby has a multitude of facets that make up the whole, and different people take enjoyment from different aspects of the hobby. In reality to keep a community strong we need all of those people involved.

There seems to be a resurgence lately of YT-ers pounding the sand on "only recorded tone matters". News flash, recording artists and sound engineers aren't the people floating the sales that support the industry. Bedroom players are. Sweetwater sure as hell isn't doing a BILLLION in sales thanks to full-time working musicians...
 
Spaceboy said:
I haven't even watched the whole video yet (at work), but the premise is correct, and something I bring up fairly often especially when herbs complain about modelers not sounding like an amp in the room.

Your in the room tone doesn't not matter to anyone, except yourself. It does matter in the sense that you standing in front of the amplifier may be more or less inspires to play, write, create depending on what you are hearing. But, the moment you decide that you objectively have "good tone", you are making a colossal mistake because that sounds is going to get filtered and fucked with at multiple stages before it touches most other human ears. If you do not regularly dial in your tones through those common filters of preamp, mic, and applicable sound system/playback, then essentially you have never actually truly heard your tone in the way that you are presenting to other people. Your in the room tone is meaningless to anybody else, and most of us often dial in obnoxious midrange, or bloated lows, or ear piercings highs because we are trying to imitate other tones, which we've only heard through those same filters.

To bring up modelers again, guys who regularly dial in a modeler with some sort of "full range" setup are actually getting a much more accurate image of what their end tone is, than the purist dialing in a sound standing in front of a guitar cabinet. There are of course discrepancies in playback systems to be considered, but that filtering is much less drastic. I know that comment might stir some of the geezers up.

Humans are all kinds of fucked up, in their hearing and their memory, not to mention how drastically different something can sound when placed in a new room/venue/whatever. Without decently recorded clips (not a goddamn phone), I find any 'bedroom players' opinions on a piece of gear to be nearly worthless, subjective gibberish that is more about the experience of playing more than it is about the tone. It's great that they are inspired to play in their basements, but that's not necessarily going to translate to someone who actually creates music for other people.
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100% yup
 
I haven’t watched the video, but by the comments it feels like the age old argument of in the room vs recorded sounds. One is not better or worse, they’re just different. In the room with a cab is going to sound different than adding the additional mic, then Preamp, then recording device and playback. Then mixing in a song. I gave up several years ago getting in any discussion when someone says a Modeler just doesn’t feel right because it can’t get that in the room sound. It’s not supposed to unless you disengage the power modeling and use it as a Preamp out to a power amp/guitar cab.
 
PDC said:
Put the player in an iso booth with his bedroom rig ...
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Actually that sounds.. nice.

DanTravis62 said:
No offense to country players, and youtubers but y'all live in a different tone universe to me 😂

It's a little hard to take sweeping generalizations seriously coming from them
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Here we can certainly agree. I mean, come on.. I don't even pretend to know anyone or pretend that I've ever heard a song on any of these CDs that the Lill guy is emotionally attached to and considers great guitar tone or whatever or that I would actually give a flying fuck about the guitar tone on some backwater country songs.

I mean. I literally could not give a fuck. I'll be a war correspondent in Ukraine before I would even consider listening to that music.
 
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cetanu said:
Actually that sounds.. nice.


Here we can certainly agree. I mean, come on.. I don't even pretend to know anyone or pretend that I've ever heard a song on any of these CDs that the Lill guy is emotionally attached to and considers great guitar tone or whatever or that I would actually give a flying fuck about the guitar tone on some backwater country songs.

I mean. I literally could not give a fuck. I'll be a war correspondent in Ukraine before I would even consider listening to that music.
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I dig some country stuff, there's some incredible pickers out there. Love the metal stuff too. Different strokes I suppose.
 
cetanu said:
Here we can certainly agree. I mean, come on.. I don't even pretend to know anyone or pretend that I've ever heard a song on any of these CDs that the Lill guy is emotionally attached to and considers great guitar tone or whatever or that I would actually give a flying fuck about the guitar tone on some backwater country songs.

I mean. I literally could not give a fuck. I'll be a war correspondent in Ukraine before I would even consider listening to that music.
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While they're all technically proficient country players

All of those players Lill mentioned have the literal exact same Tele >>> expensive overdrive pedal >>> cranked cathode biased voxy amp guitar tone

Like, ALL of them

So, not only do I not really care about the music he listens to (which sucks) but all of the tones he likes are really only one tone

They're all the same basic rig, with the same basic characteristics

Any differences in the recorded tone are going to be with preamps, mics, post fx, etc

It's the country equivalent to an LTD w/active pickups into an 808 into a 5150 into v30s for YouTuber/satellite radio metal
 
ewill52 said:
I dig some country stuff, there's some incredible pickers out there. Love the metal stuff too. Different strokes I suppose.
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Some incredible musicians, certainly. Some of them probably more proficient than I'll ever be. But the songs and "tones" just aren't doing it for me.
 
I think Lill's main point applies to every genre, not just country. It's the same whether you're talking about a Tele into a Vox or a Solar into a Badlander.

Appreciating good in-the-room tone is fine when it happens to sound good to you specifically, but chasing in-the-room tone is a fool's errand, specifically because there are so many variables that you'll almost never be able to fully isolate and control, not to mention how much that in-the-room tone will change depending on exactly which points in space your two ears occupy at that moment.

Oh you got your in-the-room tone sounding how you want it? That's great. Now move or even just tilt your head an inch in any direction. Hey look the tone is completely different. Better start tweaking those knobs again. Also, if you ask somebody to listen to your in-the-room sound with you while you play, they're going to hear something completely different than you do because they're standing in a different spot. Now let's take that rig and put it somewhere else, like a stage. Now a different stage. Now a stage with an audience out front. Completely different tone every time, better start tweaking, etc.
 
TheGreatGreen said:
I think Lill's main point applies to every genre, not just country. It's the same whether you're talking about a Tele into a Vox or a Solar into a Badlander.

Appreciating good in-the-room tone is fine when it happens to sound good to you specifically, but chasing in-the-room tone is a fool's errand, specifically because there are so many variables that you'll almost never be able to fully isolate and control, not to mention how much that in-the-room tone will vary depending on exactly which square inches of space in the room your two ears occupy at that moment.

Oh you got your in-the-room tone sounding how you want it? That's great. Now move your head an inch in any direction. Hey look the tone is completely different. Better start tweaking those knobs again. Also, if you ask somebody to listen to your in-the-room sound with you while you play, they're going to hear something completely different than you do because they're standing in a different spot. Now let's take that rig and put it somewhere else, like a stage. Now a different stage. Now a stage with an audience out front. Completely different tone every time, better start tweaking, etc.
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Yes, and I'm not disagreeing with the main point he's making, at least technically

What I am saying is that it's kind of a "no shit Sherlock" that most experienced players take into consideration already.
 
That's a 20 minute video, with two minutes worth of ideas.

If you play long enough, you'll figure out what works, and it'll evolve over time to suit your needs.

When I first got into recording, I found that I needed to dial my amps in vastly different than what I was used to. Like a lot of high gain players, that usually meant less gain and more mids. Over time I kinda got to where my 'in the room' vs 'recorded' amp settings got closer together.
 
To me “in the room” is the tone not using a mic that you hear, your ears being the microphone. As someone else mentioned I’ve also played many gigs where my speaker is not mic’d. Stage volume for guitars .
 
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DanTravis62 said:
Yes, and I'm not disagreeing with the main point he's making, at least technically

What I am saying is that it's kind of a "no shit Sherlock" that most experienced players take into consideration already.
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I think you might be overestimating the competency of a lot of guitar players haha. :D

Almost everybody I talk to where I live doesn't really think beyond their own cabinet. I mean sure, most pros who have spent time in the studio and on large stages know about this stuff, absolutely, but so many guitar players are exactly those less experienced players who spend so much time chasing their tails over this kind of thing.

I guess I'm just glad the idea feels like it's finally starting to reach the larger community.
 
TheGreatGreen said:
I think you might be overestimating the competency of a lot of guitar players haha. :D

Almost everybody I talk to where I live doesn't really think beyond their own cabinet. I mean sure, most pros who have spent time in the studio and on large stages know about this stuff, absolutely, but so many guitar players are exactly those less experienced players who spend so much time chasing their tails over this kind of thing.

I guess I'm just glad the idea feels like it's finally starting to reach the larger community.
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I actually think the whole "less experienced players chasing their tail" thing has contributed to the popularity of certain types of modern amps - to me, lots of the Friedman stuff sounds like it's attempting to be a already recorded marshall, and seems to appeal to a lot of those people
 
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