Virtual guitar amps/analog guitar amps

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Chili said:
Ha ha, you didn't say please. :D

If I were to gig, I would definitely bring along a modeler to help me out. I'd use the stomp box sims so I wouldn't have to buy them. Thank God I don't gig. lol
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This says a lot,

Players today are very dependent on "settings" they get their tones by switching a lot of "settings"

I prefer to plug straight into a Marshall plexi, and use the pickups and guitar volume to change sounds, but its not really in style anymore. I watch guys play entire gigs and never touch the volume on the guitar, they have pedals for that.

Neither way is wrong, its just what you feel comfortable doing.
 
I don't agree with the idea that there are loads of terrible sounding amps. I can usually plug into pretty much any amp and have it sound alright. Not amazing, but alright. Although I have heard a lot of guitarists with terrible guitar sounds. I'm not entirely sure how they get them but they must be doing something stupid like whacking the bass up full and the treble down. I'm pretty sure it's not their amp making them sound like that!
 
PDP said:
This says a lot,

Players today are very dependent on "settings" they get their tones by switching a lot of "settings"

I prefer to plug straight into a Marshall plexi, and use the pickups and guitar volume to change sounds, but its not really in style anymore. I watch guys play entire gigs and never touch the volume on the guitar, they have pedals for that.

Neither way is wrong, its just what you feel comfortable doing.
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With modern multi-channel amps, you don't have to mess with guitar volume anymore. It's not a technique that I use often, but I have a lot of respect for guys that can manipulate a single channel amp into doing whatever they want just by fiddling the guitar knobs.
 
jimmys69 said:
Man, just read the opinions here as they were written. No tube guy ever said that sims are bad. Only the guys using them are seeming defensive.

...
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^^^^^^^^^^ THIS!!! ^^^^^^^^^^

It's what I've been saying all along. The sim guys (most of them) seem so defensive that no matter what any amp guy says or how he says it they claim the amps guys have told them their sims suck. I haven't seen anyone say the sims suck.
The entire thread was about how big of an impact sims are having in live work ...... NOT whether they sound good or not.
And I haven't seen nearly the insults they're complaining about.

It's all what you personally prefer.
 
While I don't gig anymore, if I did, I'd take an amp out, like Greg & all the others, it's not just the audio, I wanna see all the gear used to make the sounds, amps, cabs, drums, pa, bass, etc.....But, I still use ampsims on a daily basis even though I switched over to real amps/cabs for recording over a year ago.....

Check out this 72 year old, the original lead guitarist for Nazareth:



He's only 4 years younger than my Dad, & I'd just flip out if my old man were still doing shit like this.....
 
Greg_L said:
With modern multi-channel amps, you don't have to mess with guitar volume anymore. It's not a technique that I use often, but I have a lot of respect for guys that can manipulate a single channel amp into doing whatever they want just by fiddling the guitar knobs.
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I get that, often different amp settings are needed to cut certain genres.

Often the direct technique is abandoned because the guitar looses its edge as you turn down, but the right treble bleed can do wonders, a
simple combination of a capacitor and resistors that maintain the tone of the pickups as you turn the volume down. The key is to match the treble bleed with the amp gain and pickups.

How many guys know what treble bleed is in their axe?
 
PDP said:
I get that, often different amp settings are needed to cut certain genres.

Often the direct technique is abandoned because the guitar looses its edge as you turn down, but the right treble bleed can do wonders, a
simple combination of a capacitor and resistors that maintain the tone of the pickups as you turn the volume down. The key is to match the treble bleed with the amp gain and pickups.

How many guys know what treble bleed is in their axe?
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I do! My Les Paul is awesome at maintaining it's tone and clarity when rolling off the volume. My Hallmark Mosrite clone is good at it too now that I've changed the pots.

I have one of the king-kong top-dogs of multi-channel amps - the Marshall JVM410. 4 channels, 3 modes per channel, EQ section per channel, reverb per channel, FX loop per channel, volume per channel, gain per channel....the possibilities are literally endless. And it's full tube all awesome. I got it for it's recording possibilities, and it's everything I could want from an amp. But live, I'm a set-it-and-forget-it kind of guy. I'd rather gig with my 50w 1979 JMP. That thing is a single channel monster and it's just right with a few pedals and nothing else.
 
PDP said:
....that maintain the tone of the pickups as you turn the volume down. The key is to match the treble bleed with the amp gain and pickups.
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I just never turn down the volume. ;)

Well....maybe once in awhile I play with the guitar's volume knob and roll it off a bit.
On a couple of my guitars I added a 3-position mini-toggle tone switch. So I have three levels of treble low1/normal/low2......that way, I can set the amp for the brighter tone in the "normal" position, and then use the mini-toggle to adjust how much I want...but really, for the studio, it's rarely something I need to do while playing, since I set my tones for the track, and that's it.....but when I'm jamming, I like to be able to explore different tones while playing without having to always reach for the amp knobs.
 
Mention has been made of treble loss as a guitar's volume pot is backed off?

This can be compensated for (almost perfectly for a given cable) by fitting a capacitor of a few 100 puff twixt the hot tag of the pot and wiper. In practice this only works for one length of cable but then I would think most gitists have a favourite lead?

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
This can be compensated for (almost perfectly for a given cable) by fitting a capacitor of a few 100 puff twixt the hot tag of the pot and wiper. In practice this only works for one length of cable but then I would think most gitists have a favourite lead?
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I think someone already covered that, but in much vaguer terms.
Ex: "Treble loss can be fixed with caps" or something like that. xD
 
MrWrenchey said:
I think someone already covered that, but in much vaguer terms.
Ex: "Treble loss can be fixed with caps" or something like that. xD
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Oh!...Well us old uns tend to forget things and repeat usselves!

Dave.
 
PDP said:
You must not be the singer :(
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:thumbs up:

I once turned my buddy's amp down just a tad between songs because our drummer couldn't hear himself and I couldn't tell if I was singing the right song.

Here's what happened :spank:
 
As the drummer in one of my bands I sometimes have to fight what I call "volume creep". It's usually right after a gig during the next practice in the garage. The guys leave their amps set at stage levels and it's a massive wreck of noise. It's so loud that everyone struggles to hear themselves clearly so up goes the volume even more. My general rule is that if I can't hear my kick drum while sitting right there on top of it, the guys are way too fucking loud. I have to tell them to turn it down. They should use sims.
 
Maybe we discussed this, but a curiosity question. Since drums are the hardest to control, for a small room, what do you think about the MIDI drum sets through a PA? That way everything can get turned down to fit the venue and people can actually listen to the music.

Seems like it would work well. Thoughts.
 
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