Home Theater Guitar Experience

[Gearjoneser]

What do you guys think of this idea?

Since we're headed into a time where guitar could be perfectly adapted to your surroundings...what if you wired a house with small audio grade speakers in every main room, a small hidden rack with the most advanced amp modeler,
being powered by an audiophile tube power amp like a VHT. On top of that, the furniture-hidden rack would have a nice wireless system with remotes on your 3 main practice guitars. But, best of all, your computer or a CD player could be feeding a signal to that same system.

You could walk around the house, playing along to backing tracks, not worried about cables. Plus, the sound is like Madison Square Garden, ANYWHERE in your house. Or, if this kind of system would work in an apartment or condo, it would simply require less speakers.

If a person was to wire up a system like this that can be proven to be spectacular sounding, I'm sure there's a small niche market that would pay for the installation of this kind of package. Just an idea, but what do you think about a wireless guitar home theater?

 

[PUCKBOY99]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

That would be BADA$$ !!! :headbang:

We just remodeled our house & when we did the family room/TV room, I ran wiring to the 4 corners for surround sound in that room. When I was doing it, I said to the wife, "Man, it would be cool to hook the guitar into this".........her look required no verbal response. Needless to say, I'm still in the garage!!! :gurmpy:

I would imagine the only snag would be dead spots & the wireless, depending on the size of the house. Probably need a few relays or receivers.........but definitely a bachelor pad to be had!!! :beerchug:

 

[Ken]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

........


That just got thrown in to the design of my house. Too awesome. Of course, I think I'll take you one further and throw in a Bass POD and hook some V-Drums in as well. Mwahahahahha!

Now I'll just need to eventually convince the mortgage company I need the extra cash...

 

[PUCKBOY99]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

Hold The Phone: And You Can Drum Along Anywhere In The House & Get The V-drums Going.........ooooh, That's Good!!! :32: :32: :32:

 

[garublador]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

If you made a special wireless unit that used Bluetooth I'll bet you could even work it so only speakers nearby where you are at the time are playing. Combine that with the MaGIC system and it could all be computer controlled and do just about whatever you wanted.

 

[proxy]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

If you made a special wireless unit that used Bluetooth I'll bet you could even work it so only speakers nearby where you are at the time are playing. Combine that with the MaGIC system and it could all be computer controlled and do just about whatever you wanted.

Blue tooth has too small of a range. Its great but if I'm correct its range isn't much more then a few feet. The points of blue tooth is to hook peripheals up to your computer without a cable, however I will agree the technology is going in other directions too.

This is how I'd tackle that.

You could buy a bunch of wireless speaker systems, hook them up you your computer to feed a signal too and worry about the settings for each. Then buy one of those line6 guitar ports, hook that up to wireless unit, and have your unit on your guitar.

You could tailor the output to each group of speakers to them room and such. You'd also have a very upgradable system as well.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

I work on the custom end of the hi end a/v thing, and I think that it's a cool idea, tho I wouldn't do it, personally.

Suggestion: make sure the speakers can handle high SPLs, and are ultra efficient. Tannoy coaxial spkrs will work for this, as they are meant for commercial applications and will fit into the decor of a home. A typical audio speaker will sound horrible. When I play my Korg PXR4 thru my Audio Research preamp and VHT monoblocks to either my Sonus Faber or Thiel loudspeakers, I prefer the sound less than the PXR going straight into my powered Roland monitors. I think that having the seperate tweeter, or perhaps the crossover, does something funky to the sound of a live guitar. Just my opinion, based on lots of experience in this particuar arena.

 

[crazytooguy]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

Cool! Then, while I'm playing sitting on the crapper, I could hear myself electrified!! :laugh2: I'd have to install speakers in the bathroom to get the full experience, though.

 

[garublador]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

Blue tooth has too small of a range. Its great but if I'm correct its range isn't much more then a few feet. The points of blue tooth is to hook peripheals up to your computer without a cable, however I will agree the technology is going in other directions too.

Actually, the short range is the point. You can use the fact that Bluetooth can only go a few feet to let the computer know which room you are in, kind of the way you can use which cell phone tower a phone is using to find a person's location. Just put Bluetooth sensors around the house so they correspond to speaker locations. If you're close to a sensor you're also close to the speakers and the computer would know which speakers to turn on.

 

[Stratoplayer]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

Sounds like a great idea, but it sounds pretty expensive.

 

[proxy]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

Well if you had a large room it would require several sensors, and on top of that many rooms with many sensors, gets pricey fast. I forget what its called, but a little chip like they use on library books and other checkouts would work jst as well to tell the computer where you are and would be even less expensive, with a greater range.

 

[garublador]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

Well if you had a large room it would require several sensors, and on top of that many rooms with many sensors, gets pricey fast. I forget what its called, but a little chip like they use on library books and other checkouts would work jst as well to tell the computer where you are and would be even less expensive, with a greater range.

Nominal link range for Bluetooth is 10cm - 10m but can be lengthened by adding power. Here's a link to a story that talks about how TDK has extended the range to 50m using less power than 802.11:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/12/08/bluetooth_range_boosted_to_50m/

If you have rooms where a 50m radius isn't big enough then I don't think the added cost of sensors is going to be a deal-breaker. You'd be able to send information to the speakers and/or computer using Bluetooth too. You could swap amp models on the fly or control amp settings.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

Then you only sound great *in your house* and not where it really counts, at the gig. I guess maybe for those people who spend 10's of thousands on gear and never record or perform, it might appeal to them.

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

You could make it as advanced or as simple as you want. Lets say Amp Farm online or a POD Pro XT is fed into a small mixer. Then run that to a good power amp, out to speakers, which would be high end studio monitors like smaller KRK's. The whole system could be as little as $1600, which is only twice as much as many people's practice rig. The price would depend on how complicated you want to get.

Sennheiser Wireless
POD Pro XT
CD Player or online
Line mixer
Power amp
4-8 studio monitors - 8 inch woofers on some, smaller 6's on hidden one's.

That would be my idea, but could also be expandable.
If the rack gear was stored in your computer desk rack or Home Theater cabinet, you wouldn't even see a big amp sitting in your living room. Just hit one master switch, and pick up your guitar. I realize this isn't feaseable for everyone, but when you consider that there's people who drop big dollars on every imagineable piece of gear, I'm sure there's people that would be interested in this setup. It may not be the most lucrative business plan, but it you knew how to setup a guitar theater like this, you could put these together as a part time job. Or, just do it for yourself, for your own home.

 

[y2stevo]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

Man Brilliant Idea!!!!!!!!

if i ever somehow accumulate loads of money that has surplus leftover from gas attacks (which is unlikley) then i'd go full out with it...!!

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

You wouldn't necessarily need a system that would turn on and off, depending on which room you're in. The faders on your line mixer could be used to send signals to whatever room/s your speakers are in. I have some old studio monitors sitting around.
I may plug them into my Valvetronix head and see how they sound. I'd like to figure out how to make my guitar fit right into the mix of CD's that are playing, so I can jam along with them. It would be cooler to hear it that way, rather than just playing
out of an amp in unison with a stereo system. If I can do this with gear I already have, it would be a fun experiment.

 

[Guitarist]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

Very sweet, if not too sweet!

Now, just gotta find a woman that'll put up with that!...and maybe hand me the screwdriver...

 

[Jonny R]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

When I play my Korg PXR4 thru my Audio Research preamp and VHT monoblocks to either my Sonus Faber or Thiel loudspeakers,

Love those speakers. I've been thinking about a pair of Thiel to run off my Plinius amp.

So hard to balance spending between guitars and hi-fi

Those Sonus Faber speakers look beautiful too.

 

[lastwinj]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

the biggest problem with doin this, would be how to control the amp/digital modeler. most if not all modeler are proprietary in how they implement their code and switching (unless its midi)/ if the market is there, they will do it, though.
currently, i am in the process of designing a wireless control system for my amps. no more umbilical cable!!! or if you are really ambitious, no more floorboard.

germ

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Home Theater Guitar Experience

I suppose a line 6 floorboard could be scooted underneath your sofa, till you pull it out.
This system is more like your typical modeling amp setup, only the speakers would be mounted up high and possibly have a subwoofer in a corner. Also, your music could be pumped through the same system as your guitar, so it would all sound mixed.
It's not really that different from many people's computer recording setup, just bigger.

I suppose the only way to find out is to try it. The first step will be to see how a good modeler into a tube power amp into studio monitors would sound, then build from there.