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Post subject: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 8:49 pm
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I have read that the new version 2 Mustangs will enable you to use Amplitube software thought the Mustang III amp. Is this a fact? Anyone else able to do this? Is that what the Studio Pre Amp setting is used for?


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Post subject: Re: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 9:23 am
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As far as I am aware, there is NO magic connectivity between Amplitude and any Mustang amp.

What you can do, is take the output from Amplitube (ie the audio output from your PC) and feed this into the input of an ordinary guitar amp - which could be the Mustang or anything else - if you want a re-amping sort-of effect.

Or you could feed the output from Amplitube into the fx-return or aux-in of an ordinary guitar amp - again Mustang or anything else that has such sockets - to make use of that amp's power-amp and speakers, to amplify the Amplitube output.

But that's just ordinary audio connections, there's nothing special going on here between Amplitube and the Mustang.

Of course you could do all this the other way round too - take the Mustang's output (from its fx-send, XLR out (V2 amps), headphones out, USB) and use this as input to Amplitube. Again this is just normal audio connections, nothing special about the Mustang, and (apart from the XLR option) no difference between V1 and V2 amps.

The "Studio" amp model is just a plain amplifier. That is, it just neutrally amplifies the sound without adding the tone/colouration/whatever of the other models that are trying to emulate the charactertistics of a particular 'real' amplifier. It has nothing to do with Amplitube.


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Post subject: Re: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 3:44 pm
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Hi Dacop,
In fact, as many friends of the forum know, at that time it was rumored that Fender used, for the Mustang, a software based on IK Multimedia Amplitube and designed together with IK Multimedia. (even since the times of Mustang V.1)
Reading this often, I ended up believe it, so much so that I had written to the technical assistance of Amplitude / IK multimedia because I wanted to try to solve a particular problem that I thought it depended on the software that they had designed.
They made ​​it clear that if the problem was on Amplitube they could try to help me to fix it (by downloading the latest version etc) but for the rest, IK Multimedia had nothing to do, no kind of cooperation or relationship with Fender and therefore any problems on the Mustang was to be notified only to Fender, who had designed and/or was responsible of its software.
I made a poor figure in a certain way .. :lol:

Dimitri


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Post subject: Re: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 11:55 am
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I'm very interested in this topic. I find there are some excellent sounding amps in Garageband 10.0.2 and Scuffham's S-Gear. I usually play my guitar using a Rocksmith Guitar USB cable into my MacBook Pro and listen via a set of Audio-Technica M50 headphones, sounds awesome. But, sometimes I prefer to ditch the headphones for my M-III amp. I've been a 1/8" stereo-stereo from my laptop to the Aux-In on the amp but unfortunately the sound is not nearly as good as the headphones.

One thing about the Aux-In is it bypasses the amps controls so you can't dial in the sound to try to emulate the headphones. I'll try 1/8" stereo to 1/4" mono from the laptop to the amps guitar input and scroll to the #83 Basic Studio Pre preset. At least going that route should allow access to the controls.

Any other suggestions?


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Post subject: Re: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 2:01 pm
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Hi,
last year i talked about this thing of the equalization in a topic...
here it is, you can start from here : http://forums.fender.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=88936

if you use the aux in you are bypassing the virtual amplifier and effects section : basically you are amplifiyng the audio signal by the real power amp, a solid state amp, and the speaker that hasn't a frequency response to reproduce properly a cd quality track or even mp3 @128 kbit/s...
if you want to hear a backing track with a better sound from the speaker of the Mustang you should have to experiment with the equalizer included in ITunes (or other audio player / audio editor in your Mac o.s) to compensate the inadequate frequency response of the Celestion speaker.

Dimitri


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Post subject: Re: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 2:11 pm
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frondizi wrote:
Hi,
last year i talked about this thing of the equalization in a topic...
here it is, you can start from here : http://forums.fender.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=88936

if you use the aux in you are bypassing the virtual amplifier and effects section : basically you are amplifiyng the audio signal by the real power amp, a solid state amp, and the speaker that hasn't a frequency response to reproduce properly a cd quality track or even mp3 @128 kbit/s...
if you want to hear a backing track with a better sound from the speaker of the Mustang you should have to experiment with the equalizer included in ITunes (or other audio player / audio editor in your Mac o.s) to compensate the inadequate frequency response of the Celestion speaker.

Dimitri


Thank you Dimitri, I'll check out your link.


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Post subject: Re: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 3:52 pm
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I guess it's just a matter of EQ more or less. The speakers in my headphones are much different from the Celestion in my MIII. The amp modeling in Garageband and S-Gear if fantastic but the end point, the speakers, are the sticking point.

Is anyone else using amp modeling software they their Mustang?


Last edited by Codeseven on Thu Oct 16, 2014 12:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 12:27 am
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There is nothing wrong with the speakers in the Mustang amps. Indeed, they are very capable units deliberately voiced to give the 'right' frequency response for a guitar amplifier.

The issue is simply that headphones and guitar-amp-speakers are two very different things, with different frequency responses, etc. So the same audio will sound very different when listened through them. Neither is right or wrong, they're just different. This is a well-known fact, and the correct way to solve it is to EQ the sound differently.

I suspect that most PC tools for guitar amp modelling, probably deliberately voice their outputs (EQ etc) for headphones or maybe FRFR speakers, as that's what people will connect to their PCs. I think the best way to solve this, and successfully use a guitar amp speaker, is to adjust the EQ output within the PC tool before sending it to the Mustang.

Adjusting EQ for different speakers/headphones has been discussed at length in this forum before, I recall some forum users did some detailed experiments and posted really useful settings for different scenarios. I don't have links but I'm sure a forum search will find these posts easily.


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Post subject: Re: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 7:44 am
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Thanks Scott.

Searching the net I came across a suggestion to eliminate the cab enclosure simulation from Garageband, I'll see what that does. To me music has always sounded better thru earbuds or headphones. Trying to emulate that an amp speaker definitely 'sounds' like an EQ mission.

I'll do a Search and see what I can find.


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Post subject: Re: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 10:14 am
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.... Also, it's come to mind that I could bypass the laptops audio all together usings it's fir wire port connected to my Presonus Firepod. That perhaps might clean things up a bit but I'll still have to compensate for the Celestion.


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Post subject: Re: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 12:31 pm
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I'm not sure why you'd want to use amp modeling software with Mustang III V2, it sounds to my ears better than any of the modeling software out there. That said, I use an Iphone, Yonac Tonestack and an IK Multimedia Blueboard as a multi FX unit into my Mustang III v2. BTW my Muatang III V2 is the one of the best amps I've ever owned, and I've had many...


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Post subject: Re: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 5:09 pm
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Hi Joebeets,
what we are discussing in this topic is not about the quality of modelling of the Mustang amps , but a different aspect:
how to get a better sound from the speaker when you want to play along with a backing track and so you connect a notebook to Aux In of the Mustang to amplify that backing track... basically you need to use un equalizer (in the media player software) to compensate the inadequate frequency response of the Celestion speaker for what concerning an audio track (including cymbals for example which have very high frequencies range). Obviously this compensation will affects just the Aux in signal coming from the music player: the guitar tone will be unaffected.

Dimitri


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Post subject: Re: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 1:27 am
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Quote:
compensate the inadequate frequency response of the Celestion speaker

There is nothing inadequate about the Mustang amps' speakers. They deliberately have a particular frequency response that best suits guitar amplification. They are deliberately not FRFR or "hi-fi" speakers. They are designed to make a guitar sound good. The flipside is that they aren't so good at reproducing other sounds, hence this discussion, how to EQ another source to use the speaker. But that's just a consequence of the physics of speakers, not a failing of the Mustang speaker in any way. (Just want to be sure no-one thinks this topic is suggesting a defect in the speaker)


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Post subject: Re: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 8:58 am
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scott-uk wrote:
Quote:
compensate the inadequate frequency response of the Celestion speaker

There is nothing inadequate about the Mustang amps' speakers. They deliberately have a particular frequency response that best suits guitar amplification. They are deliberately not FRFR or "hi-fi" speakers. They are designed to make a guitar sound good. The flipside is that they aren't so good at reproducing other sounds, hence this discussion, how to EQ another source to use the speaker. But that's just a consequence of the physics of speakers, not a failing of the Mustang speaker in any way. (Just want to be sure no-one thinks this topic is suggesting a defect in the speaker)


I agree. I think the M-III is a great amp (including the speaker). "The flipside is that they aren't so good at reproducing other sounds, hence this discussion, how to EQ another source to use the speaker." This, exactly.

I had in my mind that guitar amp software (Garageband, Amplitude) played thru a guitar amp would be a natural combination (guitar software/guitar amp) and produce a similar sound thru the amp speaker as I have been enjoying listening to that software thru my headphones. But that is understandably not going to happen without doing some tweaks. As has been pointed out, there is a big difference between headphone speakers and an amp speaker. Though the M-III is a solid state modeling amp it doesn't mean an outside source (iPod, software) can be fed in and reproduced without some tweaking.

Looks like correcting for the Celestion's expected frequency response via EQ is the answer to replicating more closely whats being fed into the Aux In. Is it as simple as +/- a few decibels at certain frequencies before the source is fed into the amp? Garageband has an EQ option that I can easily manipulate if beforehand I know which frequencies need to be booted or reduced, such as boosting the lows and high's but reducing the mids.


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Post subject: Re: Amplitube and Mustang III v2
Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 12:01 pm
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Reading some posts over at the Scuffham S-Gear Forum it is recommended that the best amp to play S-Gear (and probably guitar amp modeling software in general) live thru is a Full Range Flat Response (FRFR) amp. That way the amp modeling is not colored by the amp itself.

Can the M-III be set up to mimic an FRFR amp or is there an existing preset available?


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