Glad you enjoyed it. But make sure to also check out all the videos by Steve Albini. He knows about a trillion times more about amps and mic placement than I do. Best, Felix
Going through a amp is really the secret sauce. Because most analog synths are solid state, they sound terrific and technically very clean. However a synth through the guitar tubes is going to give it a lot of overtones and overall human warmth we all love. It really can make your electronic tracks feel more alive and less robotic/cold.
You should really add a disclaimer that one could easily blow a guitar speaker with bass frequencies from synths. Others are questioning only amps for some reason, but it is the speakers that can be damaged.
@@csharp57 nope. its not about level signal, it is about frequency range. while statement about hot signal is true, guitar speakers are not designed to reproduce low frequency range that much, and playing very low frequenices from a synth could blow it
I honestly doubt you're going to destroy them. I ran my 1000 watt power amp through 2 V30s for over 100 shows with synths/synth bass at full volume and my speakers are fine. I was literally shaking the stage.
I remember an interview with Geddy Lee of Rush from the early to mid 80’s, that they would record the synth parts thur a guitar/ bass amp and they would do it the same for there live performance. And his argument is that it make the synth sound more natural than being plugged into a board.
Brilliant, is my first thought! Second thought was ‘This makes even MORE sense for synths than it ever did for guitars’! With the purity of sound now, we are all aware of chasing a never-ending amount of computing and software sophistication, trying to warm-up/randomise/saturate etc the core synthesised waveforms…then this comes along as a technique crying out to be paired with that old CMI Fairlight I have in the cupboard (no, I really don’t). This is surprisingly one of the most interesting and compelling adventures into sound design and processing I have seen in ages. There is the slight drawback of course as I found doing vocals late at night. Next day cleaning up the tracks I realised the washing machine had been droning on the entire time, and I never noticed. Familiarity breeds deafness. But ambient intrusions aside, I freaking love this idea. I thought I was pretty intrepid back in the day, putting a tiny cheap Casiotone through a chorus pedal and a phaser pedal, and making it sound half-decent for the teenage band. Good work and a surprising number of commenters/contributors echo your views on this. Bad wordplay, sorry. Thanks! Keep safe, be well.
OMG did the same thing a few weeks ago while wanting to add my pedals in Ableton. Also for saturation or distortion this is a very good idea too. Thank you again for the clear and beautiful inspiration!
The Minimoog through my Bassman sounds phenomenal. The Bassman reproduces every nuance of the frequencies but the only drawback is that it lacks the thunder of modern bass amps.
geddy lee always put his synthesizers through speaker cabinets. he said without it they sounded empty and thin. a real speaker that's moving real air adds so much more space
Glad you made this...I was thinking how it might sound nice to run synths through stereo speakers and record in stereo with a couple matched mics or a handheld zoom stereo or whatever.
I wish this would be incorporated more with synths. Barely charted territory. Build in speakers still seem like a gimmick for toys but I really hope one day it will be part of the overal design of the instruments. A synth could be an acoustic instrument.
thats why your job as a sound designer is to design the room too! just as important as the initial sound is the space you create for it :) thats the magic of synthesis
I have a question, Felix (or anyone). Generally speaking, how loud do you need the amp to be? I've been wanting to try this technique for a while, but I live in an apartment building with close neighbours who I don't want to annoy. Do you need to have the sound cranked up or will this technique work well at more modest volumes?
any volume will do but if you want to be more complex... most guitar amps, but definitely all valve/tube amps, are designed to have a "sweet spot" where there is a characteristic breakup at a certain volume that many people find to be pleasing. it's likely that your amp will sound its best around this volume which is why almost all studios have small tube amps in them and almost all stages have large tube amps on them. note that this principle works the exact same for studio grade preamplifiers with transistors or valves (telefunken v72 or neve 1073 for example) where often producers like to run the signal in at a specific volume that is around the sweet spot. plugins are modelled on these principles though so dont feel like you have to spend wild money to get similar effects
I would be curious about your opinion on the Korg OpSix Guitar Amp effects. To my amateur ears, they sound absolutely wonderful on just about any patch and add so much character and liveliness to it. I was honestly blown away by the many different models of amp you can select from as well.
A really good example Of synthesizers being miked up in acoustic spaces Is the Depeche Mode construction time again album Too many of the new recordings Sound sterile
Great video! I was just watching some old footage of the late producer, Bruce Swedien (Michael Jackson's Off The Wall & Thriller), talking about how he used to always pump his synths through speakers in a studio that he would then record with mics
As I said in the video, take care of the volume of the line level signal. Too high volumes will damage any speaker. If you wanne be sure use a reamp box to convert it to an instrument level signal. Regarding low frequencies make sure to check the specifications of your amp. The Twin Reverb for example can handle a very wide range of frequencies. Your mileage may vary.
I do this in the DAW with ABL3 into an amplifier VST. That was how Roland was expecting musicians to use the TB303 in the first place. Can get some nice warm sounds.
@@ThomannSynthesizers Actually makes a lot of sense when you think how speakers roll off and color the sound. I sometimes drop IR's on a bass track to see if the contour of the speaker helps the part fit into the track better.
Jan Hammer in the 70's uses Twin Reverb with the Minimoog, and in the 80's I played bass in a jazz rock band where the keyboard player runs his Micromoog thru a Twin too. But for this style, the Moog where used mainly for soloing, so the bass sounds where not used as in techno styles. For this kind of bass sounds, you need a good bass bass amp, and of course, you always do bi-amplification routing to a guitar and a bass amps, cutting bass in the guitar amp and cutting highs on the bass amp. And for the budget, you always run your synth thru a SansAmp.
@Pete Testube I was using a Gallien Krueger MB112, it is very powerful class D combo and you can handle pretty wall because its size and weight. there are many brands in the market, Fender has some Rumble models that can fit well too.
@Pete Testube may be, I never used those amps but they are reliable, try to check first, I think that the most important thing is that the speaker no less than 12 inches to have more air in movement.
Urgh. you opened a can of worms here. people can also experiment with software cabinets, or record DI of their synth and re-amp stuff. I dont think there is much benefit to this, except running it through few distinct amps - FT is one of them, one of the rotary spiker ones can be also interesting, but there is another issue - when "miking" amp for guitar, sm57 will be set to the centre or to the edge of the driver cone, depending of the level of bass you want in recording. However, synths have different character. I think people first need to learn how to mike conventional amp and only then get into this. I like running key synths into Leslie, creating that crazy moving sound. But i also always record direct signal as well.
I tried guitar amps next to the set-up I use which is a PA with EV speakers. That sounds great but the vocals struggled to get through so I added a subwoofer.
Great video! I am a guitar player and found this very informative. Many tube/valve amps have an inherent hissing sound and I've had trouble with this in the past...any hints on how to deal with tube/valve amplifier hissing when recording with microphones? Your sound is very clear and I didn't pick up on much hiss at all. Thanks!
Way back when, I had to play my Acetone organ through a guitar amp. It added grit and almost made it sound like an overdriven Hammond. It's really the only way that I view as providing grit. By the way, the amp was a cheap 2 12 inch speaker Lafayette amp with just tremolo (which I never used) and tone controls.
I just put my 303 through my Fender Bassbreaker 15 tube amp and it sounds incredible. The amp has a direct Line Out so no need for microphones. I bet this was a secret standard practice in 80s and 90s recording studios.
I literally have been doing this for a couple years after I jokingly plugged a microphone directly into my amp input and started singing while messing around with the digital effects like tremolo and shit haha
Nice video! I own a Fender Twin Reverb. I Want to star experimenting. Could the Twin Rev. be damage if I send low bass synth to its speakers? or there is no problem for that? Thanks in advance.
As always an excellent explanation Felix. Much appreciated. Loving you little riffs as well. I wonder what you make of software emulations like NI Guitar Rig? I also watched a video interview of Pole recently (dub techno / electronica legend!) where he explained that he places his mics behind the amp for the optimal dub bass. I suppose it's one of the downsides of software emulations that you cannot use it wrong intentionally :) Anyway, thanks for the tips!
Good video 👍. I find that when the other instruments are being recorded in a room, synths will blend better in the mix if they are also "moving air". The reduced bandwidth and ambience also helps for synths with patches that have audible artifacts such as the DX7 or DX27.
I defintely agree with this. Many times I've buggered around with sounds on a synth, trying to find something that fits with everything else, and once recorded it doesn't sound right, because it just ends up so very dry. Sure one could bung effects at it, but you can end up losing things that way. By using an amp and real "moving air" as you say, it can add such a great ambience and cure this problem in one fell swoop.
This is an amazing video. Can anyone recommend any starter synthesizers? I have experience with Sylenth and Serum but I would love to get into the hardware synth space. Thank you Thomann for the video
I have been playing various synths, samplers and drum machines through different instrument amplifiers and guitar pedals for years… That Moog would sound amazing though my bass amp I know mine always has It is nice to see this level of explanation for the reason behind its benefits
can you please suggest an amp or monitor that has very full bass sound for a moog sub 25 / sub phatty? I read a bass amp wouldn't pick up the high pitch stuff
@@SureFeelsGood I have a Yorkville XM200 bass amp that also has a tweeter Although I have a Peavey Duel Two Twelve tube guitar amp as well…. If my memory serves correctly you have more than one audio output on your synth At the very least a headphone jack if not two direct audio outputs I would send one output to a bass amp and a second output to a guitar amp…. This is something I have done for years and years For example My Yamaha DX fm synth has a great organ sound I like to send my left output into my bass amp and my right output into my guitar amp with tremolo activated for a very realistic Leslie rotary speaker sound I hope this makes sense
Really enjoy these synth production videos you guys do. I have 2 amps I do this with, often utilising the effects on the Fender for more extreme amp type sounds.
I plugged some synths into my guitar amp years ago but haven't tried my DX7 yet. Sadly, half of the internal sounds on my beautiful and mint condition DX7 have disappeared. The battery voltage is good but it looks like the data is corrupted. Any ideas on a fix for that?
@@fixedfocusmediaofficial Cool, I still have one old hardware synth a 90s Kurzweil K2000, it loads patches from floppy disk, lo, The DX7 was the first synth I owned and it was magic at the time. At the time everyone was predicting the death of analog, oh well, lol! cheers!
Nice vid! I have to amp my synths for what I do. I compose for TV and film. If I just DI, A & R or music library editors & managers always say, "You need more up-to-date plugins". And they're not even plugins. If I amp and mic, they always accept the sound of my track pitches
well known technique since day one:), but say bye bye to the low end using guitar amps... some synthesizers like whole freq range, I wouldn't plug my model D into the guitar amp, probably bass amp can give nice growl, but entire freq range equipment allows you to hera how the synthesizer sounds in 'real' :). I like to send drums through amps though, cool effect.
So as long as i keeo the keyboard volume low it won't be too hot or should i keep the amp down and the keyboard up? The higher the volume on the keyboard the more electricity actually gets pushed through the guitar amp and bottlenecked? Or is it just the the high highs of the keyboard volume proportionally goes way higher than a guitar? (A guitar volume 10 less than keyboard volume 10)?
It depends on the amp. The twin reverb can handle them easily, but always be careful with volumes and maybe look it up for your own amp in advance to avoid unnecessary risk.
I read up on it in advance and reamp boxes can be a nice improvement but aren‘t necessarily required. I didn‘t have any issues with signal to noise ratio etc. But yes, I think with a reamp box you‘re gonna be on the safe side and run into less problems in the long run. Best, Felix
@@ThomannSynthesizers you are correct it's not required to pass the signal as you've demonstrated with these amps, but it is more about optimizing the signal transfer, ensuring all the harmonics, tonal quality from the source get through properly to the speaker, allowing the amp's circuit to function, sound, colour the signal as intended. Not just about the SNR. This difference is more apparent on the lower end of the frequency spectrum. maybe it can be said with mis-matched impedance It's like you put a leather glove on the microphone, sure it's gonna work but... To expand on the technique which also benefits from having the fuller signal the reamp box gives is mixing one or more reamped signals, in parallel with the original recording in the DAW.
@@Rareos I mean sure you can agonize over the tiny details but the differences are fractional and the introduction of more gear makes things less attainable for amateurs.
@@Claidheambmor Well it's not always fractional.. depends on the amp, what speakers are in the cab, is the signal a synth, maybe a modular synth which is much hotter. Either way it's not agonizing for even an amateur to be aware of the few types of signals they are working with, and helpful for their entire journey. Also you can do the same thing with any cheap buffered stomp box in bypass, which anyone with a guitar amp and a synth probably already owns.
I record sometimes my modular drummaschine/synth Monster into my huges&kettner amp and the built in spring reverb sounds amazing! Very good Results.. Grüße aus Wien 🤟🇦🇹 Euer Herr Fuchs
Hi, that a very interesting approach and surely very sonically contributive due to the different types of microphones and amps used. Being quite new in the synth world, I'm wondering which type of cable do you use to make the connection between the synth and the guitar amp a studio line cable or a guitar cable ? In addition when the guitar amp has 2 types of input Low Z and Hi Z which one has to be selected . Thanks for the interesting video, for reading my comment and maybe your answer. All the best Christian
This is how we always recorded sinths in the 80's pre acid. First guitar amps then we sliced the speakers, then we used distortion , flangers. Then Acid came (10 years later). Im Martain Hannets ex sound engineers form the 80's Manchester. The pre acid sound was also in Indian electronic dance music at the same time ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sB4RYBpwV0A.html.
Love this video. Question: I have a fender reverb deluxe that I feed my synth through for practices but I don’t really like the sound of it. The sounds feel thin and cheap. When played through my monitors, the synth has more body and presence. What amps offer a more robust and hi-fi sound? I’ve been told by a friend that the reason my fender amp sounds bad with the synth is that, with it being built of guitar, it’s not designed to carry that low-end. But there’s something about the sound quality across the frequency spectrum that feels kind of gritty in an unappealing way. Thoughts?
