Uncompressed clean test signals

[woodyc]

I was wondering if anybody knows of any clean uncompressed direct recordings of soloing, particularly like tapping, sweeping, and fast alternate picking?

These guys have what sounds like some very useful stuff for rhythm loops:

Metal Guitar - REX, Stylus RMX, Kontakt, ACIDized Wav & Apple Loop formats

[defaced]

You might have luck finding some at the Ultimate Metal Forum, in the Andy Sneap section.

[R.G.]

This is similar to an idea I had a ways back - testing effects and amps with various "pickups" by recording various guitars direct to DC at high fidelity. Want to see how a 59 les paul sounds through your amp? that's track 27.

Sadly, my friend with the used vintage guitar store moved before I could do this, and I was unaware at the time, a couple of decades ago, of the effect of pickup inductance and control resistance on the ultimate sound. Sigh. So close.

[woodyc]

This is similar to an idea I had a ways back - testing effects and amps with various "pickups" by recording various guitars direct to DC at high fidelity. Want to see how a 59 les paul sounds through your amp? that's track 27...

Yeah exactly. What is doubly cool is that if you record an audio clip of track 27 thru your effect or amp, it could be the basis of very meaningful comparison with other gear.

Also like everybody, I test amps with a guitar, but I can't do some of the stuff a lot of guys are playing now. And its unfortunate because stuff like alternate picking produces several very distinctive sounds that not all amps do well. It depends on details of how the circuit handles successive big transients. But its a hard thing to fine-tune if you can't play the licks well.

[Steve Conner]

Better still, you could run the audio files through a LTSpice simulation of your proposed circuit, and do "amp design" without ever getting your hands dirty!

For me the big advantage of the "re-amping" approach is that it's the basis of serious ABX testing. You can have the amp play exactly the same thing over and over, record the output as you swap in whatever brand of capacitors is fashionable this week, and feed the resulting 24-bit WAV files into an ABX comparator program where you can investigate the sonic differences under controlled conditions.

[Pedro Vecino]

The re-amping can be useful in certain circumstances, but it can never be the basis of AB testing as you propose. The reason is that the most important ability of an amp is lost in this process: the ability to express directly through it once you take the role of spectator, not a guitarist playing through it as if it were a new experience. Is the tactile experience associated with the expressive capacities of the amplifier which modulates in real time the expression.
We should not forget that the spectators receive the musical message and the music always has prevailed over the sound. What happens and here is forgotten is that the sound (the response of the whole instrument) determines in the musician his expression and it is a part of the music that the spectator perceives. I hope to explain well because my english is very poor.
In certain styles prevailing mechanical forms of playing can have its uses, but its resolution in the real world (handling all variables) is very poor. At least for me.

[woodyc]

Better still, you could run the audio files through a LTSpice simulation of your proposed circuit, and do "amp design" without ever getting your hands dirty! ...

Its a useful thing to do, for hifi, but for large signals, the tube models are inadequate.

[Steve Conner]

The reason is that the most important ability of an amp is lost in this process: the ability to express directly through it once you take the role of spectator, not a guitarist playing through it as if it were a new experience.

I understand this argument, but I'm not sure I believe it. If the amp "feels" different to play, it must be due to a change in the sound it makes. The amp has no connection to the guitarist's senses other than the sound it produces.

What you describe amounts to a positive feedback effect where the guitarist gets inspired to play better by a good sounding amp, but some little difference in sound must exist to start the effect off. I argue that this little initial difference is what can be detected by AB testing using a reamped signal.

If you're not careful, the amp has one other connection to the guitarist's senses: the guitarist's knowledge of what brand of capacitors is inside and the psychological fantasies he builds around that.

Its a useful thing to do, for hifi, but for large signals, the tube models are inadequate.

I doubt they are adequate even for hifi.