Has Anyone Recorded with Emperor Cabs?

[cGoEcYk]

I've been enjoying my Emperor cab. I feel like it is a little different animal with my Legend V12's that I put in it than the 1x12's I pulled 'em from. Has more internal resonance... nice for lively cleans. May feel like the mids are jumping out less jumping out less aggressively, but lows and palm mutes come out huge and nasty (even with my bass super cut, around 8:30).

Settings are: Maxon 808, Bass- minimal, Mids 10, Treble 1:00, Presence 1:00.

I listened back on some of my rough recordings. I feel like it sounds a little "distant" and compressed though I was micing basically right on the grill cloth and spent a good bit of time trying different mic positions. I wasnt recording all cranked, but maybe that would help. I'm also wondering if the larger cab design makes the Legends bigger and darker and maybe V30 clones would be an answer, though my ENGL V30 was ultra harsh (could be due to design, different voice than a Recto cab).

I think these are basically designed like Orange cabs. I've heard some Orange cabs are a little hard to record and other cabs are too in general... as a result of grill design/distance from cone perhaps.

Anyone have thoughts/experience with this kind of thing or suggestions (open to anything). I was hoping to use this cab for legit recordings. I gig around and play in bands as a bassist since I'm an early guitarist but down the line I am sure it would sound great in band/live settings.

 

[flaik]

I'm pretty sure this band, Earthrise ,was recorded with an emperor 6x12. The guitarist posted a thread about it on here a while ago.

I think his username was rug.

 

[cGoEcYk]

Thanks for the link! Awesome music, was totally in the mood for a find like this. Makes me want to focus my writing back into the doomy/post-metal styles.

 

[Blasphemer]

I'm pretty sure all Russian Circles albums since Station were with Emperors, and High on Fire's newest is most likely with them, as well.

 

[Smallz]

Both bass and guitar on that Earthrise album were recorded with Emp 6x12s with Webers. Thanks for the kind words.

 

[cGoEcYk]

How did you guys get such a huge sound and guitar tone on that album? Good use of compression or multiple layers deep of guitar?

 

[Chuck]

I've heard these cabs are just for show

 

[fitterhappier]

I've heard these cabs are just for show

Maybe play one first before you start making stuff up.

 

[fitterhappier]

I've been enjoying my Emperor cab. I feel like it is a little different animal with my Legend V12's that I put in it than the 1x12's I pulled 'em from. Has more internal resonance... nice for lively cleans. May feel like the mids are jumping out less jumping out less aggressively, but lows and palm mutes come out huge and nasty (even with my bass super cut, around 8:30).

Settings are: Maxon 808, Bass- minimal, Mids 10, Treble 1:00, Presence 1:00.

I listened back on some of my rough recordings. I feel like it sounds a little "distant" and compressed though I was micing basically right on the grill cloth and spent a good bit of time trying different mic positions. I wasnt recording all cranked, but maybe that would help. I'm also wondering if the larger cab design makes the Legends bigger and darker and maybe V30 clones would be an answer, though my ENGL V30 was ultra harsh (could be due to design, different voice than a Recto cab).

I think these are basically designed like Orange cabs. I've heard some Orange cabs are a little hard to record and other cabs are too in general... as a result of grill design/distance from cone perhaps.

Anyone have thoughts/experience with this kind of thing or suggestions (open to anything). I was hoping to use this cab for legit recordings. I gig around and play in bands as a bassist since I'm an early guitarist but down the line I am sure it would sound great in band/live settings.

V30s sound great in the Emperors. They can sometimes be finnicky with different speaker types though. I once put a WGS Retro 30 in one of my 1x12s to test it out, and it sounded terrible. Way too much low-end, just way too flubby, which drowned out everything else. I currently run a WGS Veteran 30 and a Reaper which sound great.

It might be the speakers.

 

[fitterhappier]

How did you guys get such a huge sound and guitar tone on that album? Good use of compression or multiple layers deep of guitar?

Rug used an ENGL Powerball and a Thunderverb 200 on the guitar tracks

 

[rug]

Rug used an ENGL Powerball and a Thunderverb 200 on the guitar tracks

Indeed! Yeah, I did two takes, Powerball on one side, Thunderverb 200 on the other. I don't know which one is right vs. left, but the two amps seem to balance each other out pretty well, and while I plan on doing more experimenting with amps when recording, it's nice to have a solid base to lean back on.

I did also record 2 takes of just the Powerball through some 4x12 (not sure what it was...maybe a Marshall?) at our producer's request for any parts where he wanted the recording to get louder, rather than automate sliders and stuff. So there might be a bit of that here and there, but yeah, the base tone are those two amps. As far as the actual tone goes...well, the producer said he wanted to capture how loud we are during the recording, so he made the decision to have me record with my live tone as is...gain on 10, volume at 10, which is pretty different from the settings that I've usually done for recording...you know, you back off the gain, bump the mids, all that. We did a few test runs and he said it would sound good so we just trusted him and it worked out great! It's a mix of close mic and room mics, so maybe experiment with that. For the type of stuff we do, we really want as much room mic as possible.

One thing you might consider is going with Weber 65s for the speakers. When we were putting in the order for our cabs, I asked for V30s, because that's what I knew and I knew it would sound good. They gave the price for that, as well as a few other speakers, which included the Weber 65s, and they said that those were the speakers that they recommend, that's their "go-to" I guess. I'd never heard of them, but their hand made to order fairly close to where Emperor is based out of...I thought about it for a few seconds, and decided that with all the positive comments I'd heard about their cabs, that if it was good enough to be their standard speaker, it was probably good enough for me. And it has been.

Oh, one other thing I thought of. I'm playing an Ibanez MMM1 baritone, and the pickups are pretty muddy and sludgy...my tone isn't very bright. I can really tell the difference when I play with my LTD 607B with BKP Warpigs. Eventually I'd love to get some Warpigs for the MMM1, but that's down the road a ways. To give it a little more life for my live tone, I put a Tubescreamer in front of the Orange and it sounds pretty dang good.

Hope some of that helps! I definitely don't have a the best ear when it comes to "constructing" tone, so I don't know what else I can tell you. I've been pretty fortunate...I plugged it in, didn't change any of my amp settings from playing through a Mesa 4x12, thought it sounded badass, and decided that's what I was going to roll with.