Just ordered a Palmer Cab sim to use with a Two Rock...

I've had much experience with the PGA-04 with lots of high end
amps. It is IMO the best cab simulator available and with some
EQ tweaking it can get a decent sound, but I've always felt
that there was something lacking. Nothing can truly simulate
the interaction of an amp pushing speakers which are pushing
a mic.

With that being said, I would advise building an iso cab with
a floating mic holder inside. Now you can have the best of both
worlds. You and your amp in the control room with a real speaker
and mic setup.

 

This is OK, and I have a couple versions of that. But iso cabs are normally small enough that you can't really get rid of all the midrange emphasis from resonance. If you make a really big one, that is less objectionable.

But if you are in the studio, and they have a tracking room that is available, then head in the control room and run a cable to the cab in the tracking room is the best in my experience.

 

riverastoasters,

I totally agree with you about having the head in the control
room and cab in the tracking room. That is how I work, but
elambo is saying that he must keep the volume low. That is
what lead me to the iso cab routine.

 

The 09 with a Hotplate is just as good as the 04 IMO. I always
preferred tweaking the sound of the 04 with external EQ
rather than it's onboard EQ. The Hotplate will also give you an
additional line out which can be very handy. I sold my 04 and
kept the 09.

 

Since you will have the Palmer, then you have a line out, right? Then run the line out through the pass through, so you won't have bleed, and re-amp that signal in the tracking room.

I run speaker cables 25 feet all the time. Not a lot of loss that I can tell into an 8 Ohm 212. If you use a 16 Ohm 412 then I think there is even less loss because the line is like a resistor - the power loss to the cable is I^2 R where I is the current, so since for a given piece of wire R is fixed, then reducing the current reduces the loss. In order to cut the loss over long runs, then use big wire (14 or 12 gauge) which has small R per foot.

 

Ah low volume. Yeah I have that issue here at home, which is why I have the various iso setups. Which I am not altogether happy with.

I use a Hotplate in front of the iso cabs because the harder you hit the iso cab, the more cab resonance you contend with. But you still want to push the speaker around in there so it's not like bedroom volume, more like 4dB or 8dB. Then I also take a line (Hotplate has one) direct to the board. We can blend in a little direct sound, which with some EQ, actually helps a lot with the boxy aspect that iso cabs can produce.

I also have an iso booth which is about 5'x7'x7' and even that sounds a little confined. It's better than the iso cabs, but it's still not perfect.

So I'm going to build a studio out back.

 

You can use the Hotplate just as a speaker load and the 09 will
be feeding the sound to your recorder. You can aslo use the line out of the Hotplate to feed a signal to another channel in your recorder and than you can blend the two tracks.

 

There is a difference in the tone of the 03 and 04. Which is why one goes for reasonable money and one goes for mad money. IMHO, the only downside of the 04 is that on medium to high gain tones, it leaves some fizz in the DI Output tone. Which the 03 doesn't.

For other tones, the 04 is more versatile than the 03. It preserves the sparkle in BF Fenders better, for example. Another small thing: the 04 gives a visual indicator (LEDs) that an amp signal is present - a bonus given the consequences of accidentally SNAFUing the connections.

 

Cliff, Which EQ's have you found worked well when you had the 04?

 

I had been feeding the output of the 04 into a Millennia STT1
channell strip, using it's the EQ and sometimes the compressor.
From there the signal would feed into a Mytek A/D, then into a
Lynx AES 16 souncard into a PC running Nuendo.

The other chain I would use would be 04 into a Manley Vari MU
and then into a Manley Massive Pasive, to Mytek etc....

My rule of thumb, is Millennia for more transparent EQ & comp,
and Manley where more coloration and help is needed.

One could easily make do with just the Millennia or just the
Manley or any other quality EQ/Comp or channel strip.

 

And what he's trying to tell you is that is you use it as a load it won't matter.

 

Indeed what I'm saying...and what Cultreri been saying two times already.

 

Frequency compensated as in Fletcher Munson if you use the attenuation. But you don't you're using the line out!.