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miked signal and the miked signal. (Which is a very
common set-up – typical of guitarists such as Eddie Van
Halen).
The sound that comes out of the speaker simulator is felt by
some to be more pleasing—a more rounded sound. I would
say this is mainly down to the low-pass filter and that a
similar effect is achievable with the EQ functionality. Mind
you the speaker simulator is certainly easier to use. It should
be said that just as any guitar sound is a matter of personal
taste, the speaker simulation is so too. If you do use it,
experiment and find out what works best for you.
I personally think it sounds best if using headphones, and I
feel that using it to feed a mixing desk loses more high
frequencies than if I had miked up a cabinet.
I myself don't use the GT-3 speaker simulator as I have an
external unit, a Palmer PGA-05, which, apart from being
more flexible, means I can use both simulated and direct
sounds simultaneously. The simulated sound goes to the
mixing desk and the direct thru goes to my power amp and
2x12s. Thus the power amp/2x12s are in effect my
monitors.
© Copyright 2000-2002 Barry S. Pearce et al.
Section 10
Problems
The worst feature of the speaker simulator is that it is NOT
related to any patch—it is a global setting and you cannot
simply switch this on or off between patches. It is also
dependent on the use of a preamp therefore if you don't use
an amp model you don't get the speaker simulator – you
could see Roland's thinking behind this but I think their
thinking is somewhat flawed, especially as the only true flat
response from the unit comes from preamps off.
This problem doesn't affect the GT-5, which provides a
choice of cabinets & a speaker simulator that may be
switched on/off on a per patch basis.
Creating On/Off
Functionality
Given that I have just said that you cannot switch the
speaker simulator on and off between patches here is a
cunning idea suggested by Kleber A. Gonçalves on the GT-
3 Yahoo Group. If you set your [Global]<Your Setting?> to
'Line (Headphones)' then under the preamp speaker
simulator, set mic level = 0, and direct level = 100. This
effectively turns the speaker simulator OFF and you now
get a sound equivalent of 'Power Amp (Stack)'. This now
means that the speaker simulator can be turned on and off at
will on different patches. There is however a downside to
this; If you ever use any of the preset patches the speaker
simulator will almost always be turned on for them and
there is little you can do about it other than copy the patch
and modify it appropriately. Still at least there is a
workaround.
This could also be useful for people who wish to make a
patch slightly more portable.
Obviously this is not required for the GT-5 that stores the
speaker sim on/off information in the patch.
Speaker Simulator
61
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