Do you use amp modeling instead of amp?

[PDP]

The fact that the only thing you could see in the Sonny Landreth vid is that "he didn't touch the volume knob" makes your opinion pretty suspect but hey .... we all are guided by what's important to us and you're entitled to think as you wish.

What I saw was riffing at the same dynamic with the same sound which the poster(steveb) admitted was not very dimensional. Which was my original point concerning the use of amp modeling. Not whos better or who picks loud or hard. If modelers can respond and change effectively without changing channels or reaching for the amp.

 

[PDP]

Couldn't care less if you're interested in my opinion. I've gigged 5-7 nights a week for 40+ years and plenty of folks around here know that so my opinion's for those that care what I opine.

:

Good because I'm here to find what works with the way I play.

 

[Lt. Bob]

What I saw was riffing at the same dynamic with the same sound which the poster(steveb) admitted was not very dimensional. Which was my original point concerning the use of amp modeling. Not whos better or who picks loud or hard. If modelers can respond and change effectively without changing channels or reaching for the amp.

which is something I completely agreed with ..... I'll elaborate a little since you're new here and haven't seen me repeatedly state that very concern regarding modelers.
I almost always come into the modeler versus amp discussions with my opinion of modelers which is that they don't respond to dynamics very well.
The very thing you're talking about ..... and it's a bigger deal for me since I prefer to vary volume with picking techniques and that makes a modeler REALLY bad for me.
And it's not that I know nothing about modelers, I have about 8 of 'em and there's situations where they are what I need. So far, the most dynamic one I've found (and the one I use when neccessary) is the Rocktron Utopia. It responds well enough that I don't flat out hate it but it still doesn't do anywhere nearly as well as any of my many amps.
Still ..... some gigs require me to use one so that's the one I go for.
Eventually they'll continue to improve and some of the very newest and most expensive ones are probably pretty damned good but so far I haven't seen or heard one that would make me give up my amps for live gigs where I want my best to be heard.

So the fact that I don't use volume knobs much wasn't aimed at you other than to agree with your thoughts on modelers.

 

[PDP]

Fair enough and Thanks for your input.

 

[Lt. Bob]

cool

 

[Lt. Bob]

man .... I wish you could delete accidental double posts!

 

[mshilarious]

The question should be why *can't* a modeler respond to dynamics? Writing a level-dependent algo is fairly trivial, even I can do it So any modeler that doesn't respond dynamically should be thrown in the trash . . .

 

[Lt. Bob]

The question should be why *can't* a modeler respond to dynamics? Writing a level-dependent algo is fairly trivial, even I can do it So any modeler that doesn't respond dynamically should be thrown in the trash . . .

well, all I can go by is what I experience when I use one ....... ultimately I'm gonna trust my ears and the way the thing responds to my playing ...... all the electronics theory in the world isn't gonna change that. Sound and dynamic response can be a very subtle thing ..... hell, as a piano tuner I have a very expensive tuner with compensated piano scales built into it ...... theoretically it ought to be able to do a better tuning than I can but if my ears disagree with it, I go with my ears because they're right and it's wrong. The tunings are ALWAYS better if I follow my ears when needed regardless of any specs that say otherwise.

It's like when SS amps first came out and the early ones were horrendous.
There were LOTS of articles written about how they should behave the same if the specs matched up. We all know now that they don't usually ..... part of that is we've learned more about subtle things we either weren't aware of or couldn't measure very well yet.
As knowledge and tech has improved .... we've come to understand basic differences that weren't clear to us in the early days of SS.
Once upon a time we thought it was just fine to have a turntable and the speakers mounted in the same cabinet.
No one would do that today except in the cheapest shit.


I do agree that eventually modelers will get there.
Hell ... a few may be there now ...... that Eleven Rack looks pretty interesting to me.
But so far, none that I've personally tried have done it for me and I've tried quite a few.

 

[mshilarious]

No I think the JC-120 probably got it mostly right, but the cheap way to do a SS amp is a jellybean opamp into a jellybean class AB power amp IC. From there, development dollars went to onboard effects, zillion channel EQs, and other gizmos. But I don't think there is anything known about basic analog SS design today that wasn't known in 1975.

Of course there are lots of sexy things that can be done with DSP now, and that's still what you see in modern SS amps. Also with switching power supplies and class D amps you can push efficiency beyond 80% which makes for a much lighter amp, couldn't do that in 1975.

But you don't see a lot of back-to-basics build a good sounding circuit with gradual overload characteristics, because (forgive me) as Billy Joel sang, "you can't get the sound from a story in a magazine". But you can see a picture of an LCD and iPod dock . . .

I've pretty much chucked all the SS designs I was playing with earlier in the year because I doubt anybody really cares. Then I thought hey let's do a 21st century (but still all-analog) vastly smaller version of a Rockman that unlike the original doesn't sound like a piece of overcompressed crap, but hey, modeling headphone amp that dangles from your guitar jack for $39. Pretty hard to compete with that . . .

So I write simple little VSTs and combine those with commercial VSTs and that keeps me happy. I find one secret is just use the amp sims only for effects, cab models, and distortion, and use general-use high-quality EQs, compressors, and verbs around that. Because when you are writing a plug, it almost doesn't matter what it is, you tend to give yourself an upper limit on CPU per instance. Let's say that's 2% or whatever. So if it's an all-in-one amp sim, you have to do 30 things with that 2%, but if you break it down into a bunch of pieces that each can have 2% (and maybe 10% for the verb), you should be able to do a better job. That's my random theory anyway.

Also, distortion algos (compression too) always need to oversample. So if your amp sim doesn't, time for a new amp sim. Or you can just record at 96kHz and downsample after processing, that generally works pretty well too.

The hardware analogy would be to use analog rack gear around the modeler . . .

 

[ranjam]

That's pretty much the same conclusion I arrived at. Using a 'real' tube amp head, and going into say a Hot Plate and then the DAW worked much 'better' than any complete amp sim, and saved precious CPU resources. The Sans Amp stuff works great for bass and 'good enough' for a lot of guitar parts. But I learned so much about computers that I was amazed how little I knew before. And I still have a lot to learn, like when to use 96kHz and when it isn't that big a deal. The 'important' guitar parts with detailed overdrive parts still get the real deal, and those James Nolan type clean/squashed funky rhythm parts can use a sim that fools most people. Especially if it isn't mixed up front to be a focal part. Now that's a criterion no one thinks about. Really, anything mixed up front sounds best to me done with real gear.
Oh, and MOSFET technology in 1975 certainly wasn't at its peak; I believe the 'gate' changed from aluminum to polysilicon, so the SS amps just sound a lot better today, especially for bass players. I doubt many people here, or even touring 'pros' brag about how their tube bass amp sounds better than all that SS crud like Mark that you buy today.

 

[mshilarious]

Oh, and MOSFET technology in 1975 certainly wasn't at its peak; I believe the 'gate' changed from aluminum to polysilicon, so the SS amps just sound a lot better today, especially for bass players. I doubt many people here, or even touring 'pros' brag about how their tube bass amp sounds better than all that SS crud like Mark that you buy today.

That's true, the JC-120 was obviously a BJT amp. I like MOSFETs too, but that's not the biggest problem/solution to modern SS design. I mean the cheapies are still mostly BJT class AB ICs (unless they are class D). This is generally true of most smaller SS power amps, and many of the larger ones are discrete BJTs. So I don't if MOSFETs have made as much of a difference as they should . . .

Bassists don't use tubes mainly because they crave massive amounts of power and that's just too heavy and expensive with tubes (and especially output trannies that would have to try to cope with 6-string basses).

 

[Greg_L]

The question should be why *can't* a modeler respond to dynamics? .

They can, and do. The good ones do anyway. A 99 dollar POD from GC aint gonna cut it. Something good though, like Guitar Rig or Peavey Revalver will fool even the snobbiest tone purist.

 

[philbagg]

I've been using Guitar Rig 4 for quite a while now. It took a LOT of tweaking, but I finally got a great metal tone that I love. I could make it sound good on the POS Les Paul copy I was using, and then when I got my Ibanez it just sounded brilliant. It's always much easier to get good lead and clean sounds, and I've got some really good ones loaded up too.

 

[miroslav]

This is the only modeling that really cuts it...just check out the natural dynamics around 2:35!!!

Ain't no algorithm going to top that!

 

[philbagg]

What were we talking about again?

 

[Lt. Bob]

I actually don't agree that the JC120 was a great amp although I have had some good sounding SS amps.
I had a Dean Markley that was awesome .... it finally dies and I was sorry to see it go. And I had a Traynor that was awesome too.
The JC120 does one thing only ...... clean ..... clean like running into a power amp.
It does that fairly well but that's about it.

And the things they didn't understand about amps was not the electronic design of SS amps. What they didn't understand was how important the distortion overtones, compression characteristics as an amp was turned up and how those things changed at different volume levels and picking attacks were to getting a good guitar sound.
Much like even earlier they didn't understand that distortion was even desirable at all.
It's the progression of guitar playing and the sounds desired of it that changed in ways unanticipated by early SS amp designers.

 

[PDP]

The JC120 does one thing only ...... clean ..... clean like running into a power amp.
.

Adrien Beluw did all that crazy sonic stuff for Zappa, King Crimson and the Talking Heads (Remain in light) on a JC-120.

 

[Lt. Bob]

Adrien Beluw did all that crazy sonic stuff for Zappa, King Crimson and the Talking Heads (Remain in light) on a JC-120.

I'm betting there were some pedals in there somewhere.

 

[PDP]

I'm betting there were some pedals in there somewhere.

Definately, but he said the cranked JC gave him the feedback, sustain he liked. I was sure he was using tubes. Amazin.

 

[mshilarious]

I actually don't agree that the JC120 was a great amp although I have had some good sounding SS amps.
I had a Dean Markley that was awesome .... it finally dies and I was sorry to see it go. And I had a Traynor that was awesome too.
The JC120 does one thing only ...... clean ..... clean like running into a power amp.
It does that fairly well but that's about it.

And the things they didn't understand about amps was not the electronic design of SS amps. What they didn't understand was how important the distortion overtones, compression characteristics as an amp was turned up and how those things changed at different volume levels and picking attacks were to getting a good guitar sound.
Much like even earlier they didn't understand that distortion was even desirable at all.
It's the progression of guitar playing and the sounds desired of it that changed in ways unanticipated by early SS amp designers.

That amp is contemporary with some of the early FET-input opamp pedals. Now, it was indeed a clever thing to have a FET-input opamp, but I think they got a little too happy with that concept because the job of an opamp is to have zero distortion until you clip at the rails. So to "fix" that, they stick diodes in the feedback path And those design concepts carried into cheap '80s SS combo amps, and the reputation of SS was ruined for good.

Whereas the JC-120 has its input FET at low gain and its second stage more like a second-stage 12AX7, but if the gain feeding that is small then it won't be able to crush the second stage the way a tube amp can (and of course never mind the output stage, the JC-120 didn't have those goals in mind at all). But I think the got the FET stages backwards--for distortion, anyway.

Strange that you don't see a lot of discrete FET pedals at that time . . .