Scuffham S-gear 2 With Crack Hit
Donnell Simon
I'm pretty fucking ecstatic. This had been something I'd lost sleep over. Technically speaking, it seems at this point in time we should be able to recreate "inspiring guitar tone" in the box, but I could absolutely never get it to work. Lucky for me, my primary body of work doesn't feature guitar much, and when it does it's an experimental/industrial tone, often with no cab sim whatsoever and heavily layered. I can make that work through trial and error and a variety of widely discussed and accessible pieces of software.
So, for example, all three amp designs have a toggle switch labelled Amp Drive. This isn't a conventional distortion or gain control, but, when switched on, lowers the headroom of the power-amp stage so that it is being pushed harder by the preamp. This can be used in conjunction with a hidden control for power-amp Sag, which mimics the condition whereby a (usually) valve rectifier struggles to supply enough power on sustained notes. Each causes a characteristic type of compression, and on top of that, you can alter the extent to which the virtual speaker loads down the power amp by varying its impedance. In a real amp, these phenomena contribute not only to distorted sounds but also to apparently clean tones, and so it is here too.
All three amps have a conventional tone stack with Bass, Middle and Treble controls, plus a Presence knob and a gain control, but there's also some more unusual parameters on offer. Clicking a button labelled Tweak makes visible three extra controls: the aforementioned Sag, plus High Cut and Presence Frequency dials which shape the treble response of the power-amp stage. These are present in all three amp models, and each also has its share of unique controls. The Duke, for example, has a Clean/Overdrive switch, which hots up the input signal, an additional Boost switch, which adds gain after the tone stack, a Bright switch, and a further switch that modifies the preamp bass response. The Stealer, likewise, has Push, Boost and Bass Shift switches and adds a Bright Contour control, which can have a fairly radical effect on the amp's tonality, and The Jackal also has its share of toggle switches.
The Pro Convolver module is a dual-channel affair, allowing you to emply two entirely separate cabinets and mics in stereo if you wish to. It comes with a choice of seven speaker impulses licensed from Redwirez, but you can also load your own, or use one of three speaker emulations created using filters rather than impulse responses. You can also choose to mic your virtual cabinet with an SM57 or a Beyer M160 ribbon mic, choosing from several placement options. There's basic level, EQ and pan controls, plus the aforementioned 'Z' control, which mimics the effect of changing speaker impedance on the power amp that's driving it. A small amount of delay can be applied to either speaker in a stereo configuration to enhance the impression of stereo width.
In use, S-Gear is slick and stable, with a simple user interface, clear graphic design and a general air of quality that matches its sonic tendencies. At least at this stage in its development, it's not yet a jack of all trades, and there are a number of classic guitar sounds that it simply doesn't cater for at present. I, for one, would love to hear a Scuffham take on the Vox AC30, so I hope they'll be adding additional amps in later versions, along with extra effects.
Many software amp simulators come with a virtual pedalboard so large there'd be no room on the stage for the band. S-Gear, by contrast, currently ships with only two effects, although more modules are apparently planned. According to Mike Scuffham, the next module to be added will be a Reverb Thing, which fills an obvious hole in the current line-up, while other effects such as distortion and wah are also under consideration. When you're using S-Gear within a DAW, of course, you always have the option of placing other plug-ins in series and, fortunately, both Delay Thing and Mod Thing are very versatile, and sound great.
At the heart of Delay Thing is a replication of an old-school 'bucket brigade' analogue delay line, without the noise but with the alternative of a simulated 'tube' sound if required. Repeats can be fed back, panned, filtered and modulated, and in general, Scuffham have done a great job of tweaking all the parameters so that it's flexible yet always useful within its context as a guitar effect. In keeping with the ethos of S-Gear as a whole, its sound is perhaps best described as warm, yet hi-fi: the tone-shaping makes sure the delays aren't too bright, but at the same time, you won't hear worn-out tape or overloading solid-state electronics here. Delay Thing is also capable of some very rich chorus effects, especially if you take advantage of the option of using two instances of it. It can't currently be sync'ed to DAW host tempo, though, which some may view as a limitation. The excellent PDF manual suggests using short delays to create a sense of space and ambience in the sound. A large number of the S-Gear presets do exactly that, and to very good effect.
Although they don't quite cover all possible bases in terms of delay and modulation effects, Delay Thing and Mod Thing are certainly versatile enough for most purposes, and in practice I never really found myself wishing for more. One thing I would like to see, though, is the ability to save presets for these individual modules, as well as for S-Gear as a whole. If you've spent half an hour perfecting a particular delay setup, it'd be nice to be able to add that to different amp presets with the click of a mouse.
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This past week I'm using my Helix with my Sony MDR-7506 headphones and it just really sounds bleh. Somewhat dead and flat, no liveliness from the guitar. All the patches and amps sound similar, of course they are different mostly in gain but there is this likeness between them all. Another way to explain is like a very bad eq curve. But the Global EQ is off, no eq in the patch. Just amp to cab. I also have OwnHammer IR's and scrolling through those is hardly an improvement.
But then today I downloaded S-Gear trial, load that up, Using the Helix as an interface on a patch with nothing on it and what the heck, everything sounds excellent, tone for days, guitar is awesome, that liveliness is back, the organic feel of the guitar is back. The OwnHammer IR's really sound good and they are vivid.
I have a Friedman ASR-12 and last weekend I was playing through that with the Helix, same patches and it was awesome. Later today I'll connect to the Friedman again just to make sure it still is sounding that way.
I use one of several pair of Sony MDR-V6 (nearly identical to the MDR-7506) with my Helix and other gear for years. The Helix sounds great through the Sony MDR-V6 headdphones. I also have a pair of Shure SE530 IEMs that sound great with the Helix.
So you're using Helix for guitar input and headphone output in both cases - Helix amp/cab/IR and S-Gear? If not, then I'd suspect the impedance of your headphones isn't agreeing with Helix's output. If so, then there's a couple of possibilities.
One is that you might need some high and low cut on your cab or IR models to compare with S-Gear. S-Gear amps have a fair amount of mid focus in the distortion voicing, lots of bass cut before clipping, lots of treble cut after clipping. You can do that which Helix, but it isn't necessarily the default of many of the amp and cabinet models.
I still use S-Gear amps and back of the amp effects (mods, delay and reverb) for all recording. The flexibility, ease of use and tone are very hard to beat. But I'm anxious to get Helix Native to have that option too, and to have the additional front of the amp effects from Helix Native that are missing in S-Gear. But Helix is a fantastic live performance rig in every way, especially coupled with a good Variax. Its great to have both options.
The fact that you are happy with the tone through the Friedman indicates that there's nothing wrong with the gear, only that you'll habe you EQ things differently for each output method. It's the nature of the beast.
Same headphones in both cases, same guitar, same cable, etc. In fact all I do is change to a preset on the Helix that has nothing on it, start up S-Gear and boom, sounds right. Close S-Gear go back to a preset on the Helix, sounds dead, thinner and as if a majority of the frequencies dipped considerably. Global EQ is off. I can change to a new patch on the Helix and just add an amp and an IR on it same result. Amp with Helix cab, same result.
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