I can't get a tone as good as my Boss GT-100 amp sims from my actual tube amps :(

[Babazon]

Hullo

I've bought a Bugera 6262 Infinium (5150 clone) and a Peavey Valveking 212 to try and use their real tube tone in my recordings.
I have been using Boss GT-100's amp and cabinet sims with 5150 lead channel sim and Rectifier modern channel sim. That has the chug and warm feel of tube gain.
After delving into loadboxes and cabinet sims I even got a loadbox and a Mooer Radar Cabinet/Power amp simulator pedal to use in my chain, I got the best IR's people talk about and loaded onto the Radar.

Boss Tone is great I just turn the gain up to 25-30, bass at 3.5, Mid 5.5 and Treble at 7, stick Boss's own 4x12 sim and clean boost and we're rocking. But I know it's just a sim, and any audio savvy person would understand that.


Tube amps.. firstly I can't get the tone I want, I have to deal with power, fuse blowing out, loadbox being overloading and causing feedback squeal, tubes making scratching sounds as if tube goblins got inside the amps and began scratching their long goblin nails against the tubes, and after all, the signal isn't what I want even after adding the best cam sims.

My chain looks like

1. Guitar => Boss GT 100 => Tubescreamer sim => FX Send to Amp input => Amp Fx Send => Mooer Radar with Power amp and Cab sim => FX Return from amp => Noise Suppressor sim => USB to daw
2. 4 cable method, but I take the amp spkr out to loadbox, then Radar cabinet sim , and then my external sound card into DAW


What do I do? What should my chain look like? How much volume / gain on real tube amp should I aim for? How do I get of those scratch noises?

[paranoid]

Do the amps sound ok with real cab to your ears? you got a lot going on there that could effect your tone, may not be the amps. If I was not going to mic a real cab to record my amp I think I would just use the modeler.

[metalhobo]

replace the tubes

... but yeah, I agree with paranoid that if you're not going to actually crank the tube amp into a speaker and mic it, you're better off with the modeler.

[Babazon]

Hey

Amps sound ok via cab but I can't turn up the volume too much because I have neighbours.
The Valveking 212 has scratching sounds from its own speakers. Is it the tubes? That one is not auto biasing and I'm a little bit of replacing the tubes and biasing at home. Amp technicians cost more than the cost of this amp here in Germany.
I would love to mic an amp, but my neighbors would need ear surgery afterwards. I play black metal

[pianoguyy]

I can't turn up the volume too much because I have neighbours.(

tubes sound best when hot. if you aren't turning it up, they aren't getting hot.
and when compared to a modeler, the modeler is reproducing the sound of a cranked tube amp. you simply turn the master volume (or your monitor volume) down to compensate.

[pianoguyy]

it is always easier to get a modeler to match the sound of an amp than it is for an amp to match the sound of a modeler
mostly because of all of the other variables that make sounds sound different. but also because... well... that is just sort of what modelers do. Amps sound like themselves, nothing more. Modelers sound like every amp.

[Babazon]

I understand guys, thank you.
I will invest in a Torpedo Captor 8 ohm and that way I can hopefully crank up the volume and still maintain bedroom levels and keep gain at 3/10 and improve the sound I get from the amp
My previous loadbox (Junk named Harley Benton) was feeding power back to the amp when I turned the volume up above 5/10. Result was EEEEEEEEEE squeal.
I need 11 for a tube amp apparently.

[metalhobo]

a dummy load really only gets half way there, if that. the "tube magic" is a very specific combination that involves a guitar, few if any effects, and a tube amplifier turned up LOUD plugged directly into one or more speakers. this is for live sound. for a recorded sound, it also involves a microphone. change any one thing in that combination and you're going to be missing the mark. there are lots of complexities with the interaction, beyond simple power tube breakup/compression, including the amplifier interacting with the speaker, the speaker breaking up, and the speaker pushing air against the cabinet and the microphone's diaphragm. linearize any one thing and the magic is gone. hence why people still record with amplifiers turned to 10.

now a modeler/speaker/mic simulation can do a decent job at what it does, and people have made systems which approximate some of the "magic" I described above, but only when operating solely in their little closed world. start to add in external pieces, like a tube preamp or a tube amp/dummy load combination, and you again start to disassemble the "magic." TLDR: you take "half the magic" of a tube rig and combine it with "half the magic" of a digital rig and you will NOT get the "full magic" you'd get with either by itself.

thus, my advice is the same as above: if you cannot turn up the tube amps loud and mic them up, then stick with recording the 100% digital rig. if you don't like the sound of the amps when recording at bedroom volume (which is a much different thing than liking the live room sound of an amp at bedroom volume, which is almost universally shitty), it's unlikely you'll like it when cranked, either. I mean, cranking will definitely sound better on the recording, but it doesn't inherently change the character of the amp (on record), beyond some changes in timbre and increased distortion and compression. tbh, I've never seen the VK as having the reputation as a good amp for heavy metal, so it's not surprising to me you wouldn't get good results with that. the bugera, if it's a decent 5150 clone, you should at least be able to cop that sound. have you tried running the bugera through speakers, or just with the dummy load? I've heard recordings of 5150s through V30 speakers at bedroom volumes that sounded decent. most of the times people don't turn up 5150s to the point of power tube breakup anyway so that would be the first thing I'd try before getting another dummy load, is running it thru a speaker, quietly, and micing it. that will at least tell you if you like or hate the amp so you can avoid going down the rabbit hole with it.