Alternatives to guitar amps for recording

  • Thread starter Thread starter warble
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manning1 said:
ronan. what do you think of this ?
ive had more than a few people tell me carvin make a pretty decent tube
amp. whats your take ? i dont know much about them.
peace.

I have not played a Carvin in a while but I remember them being "OK". I am sure its head and shoulders above a Pod.

I was recording through a 1935 tube radio today.
 
Thanks to all for the responses. Did take pops out this weekend. Played through a Yamaha MagicStomp box...not a bad little box and has some useable sounds. I'm kind of a Yamaha junkie, so I had to have him try it out.
Not all the sounds are killer, but there are some nice presets on it. Think I'm going to take the old Fender amp in for new tubes soon too. It's always been a nice amp, and my Dad's had it for over 40 years and it still fires up and actually works - even after some heavy gigging back in the day. He's having his 60th birthday next week, so getting the old Fender fixes would be a cool thing to do. He's still got great chops, and that might inspire some more playing if he actually had an amp that worked. Some new tubes and a general checkup and she'll be back for another round or two.
 
" He's having his 60th birthday next week, so getting the old Fender fixes would be a cool thing to do. He's still got great chops,"

From another old bugger who's having his 60th. birthday next week too, don't confuse age with decent chops, it's lack of playing that will slow you down, or disease, but not turning 60.
 
Hey Clive: certainly didn't mean that age was a problem :) I think my Dad will attest to what you saying. He hadn't played for like 10 years and has been working to fire up that "spark" again. I told him to hold onto the music - I know for myself, it keeps me moving forward. I play keys and sing, and can't imagine not doing it. Somehow he let it slip a bit, and I've been encouraging him to get it back. I can tell in the past couple times we've played together in the past few months, that the energy is still in there.
 
The Carvin Quad-X I used for a while (had to give it back eventually) was brilliant.
The clear channels added a 'sparkle' superior to any enhancer I've used.
The Crunch and Sustain Channels sounded great and had plenty of adjustment.
The individual FX loops were a good idea as were the MIDI in and out.
MIDI in gave you the option of channel changing from a sequencer and MIDI out gave you the option to change FX patches as you changed channels.

The sounds would give any Fender, Mesa or Soldano a run for their money.


On another tack find it funny to hear the old 'too digital' argument being rolled out.
What's NOT on digital these days?
Are these guys recording direct to vinyl or reel-to-reel?
 
only an opinion

real speaker sound is always the best.
line 6. has a great product that emulates various amp models and a variety of custom sounds from dirt to clean to blues etc.
 
OK - it pays to be flexible.

Clean sound - through a channel strip like a Focusrite Trakmaster.

Fatter sound - Roland SDE-1000 delay

Distorted - Boss SD-1 (Super Distortion) and Ibanez Tube Screamer

Various Recordings - Pod XT Pro

Live - Yammy G-100 Guitar amp mic'd with Beyer M-88

Whatever works.
 
Digitech?

Because of where and with whom I live, I can't use my amp.
I just picked up the Digitech RP200 for about $150.It's an effects processor. Most of the effects are quite good I think and there's plenty of adjustment for each effect...rate,depth,gain. I still haven't found the dirty guitar sound I'm after, but with more time to fiddle with this box, I may get pretty close.
Overall,... just for the delay,phase,flange,ovtaver, etc..., I think it does pretty well and will save quite a bit of money in place of multiple stomp boxes. On the delay for example, I can go from a barely noticeable slap(Gilmore?) to an infinitely sustained note (Zappa?).
I think it's worth checking out.
Cheers!
 
Hey, monkeyshock.

For the "Rauchy Version" of Eutychus, I had my RP50 set on Boutique cranked to 10, some compression, a little chorus, a little delay, and a little reverb. The EQ had some High boost. The guitar was bridge humbucker only. It's rather dirty, wouldn't you say?
 
i've been thinking about the Pod but haven't played around with one since they were introduced. when i first tried one i thought it was "sterile." there was no warmth. i'm eager to try out a Vox Tonelab. it uses a 12ax7 for a preamp so i would imagine that it would sound much warmer than the Pod.

currently i just mic my mesa dc-3. if i can't be loud then i bypass the speaker into my H&K RedBox and use a dummy load. The RedBox is a cabinet simulator and it works pretty well. my only criticism of the H&K is that it introduces too much of an "airy" type noise.

I'll probably end up getting either the Tonelab ($300 new) or just buying a few cheap amps from ebay. Someone mentioned a Fender Champ, how are they? do they rival the clean sounds of the rest of fender's amps?
 
My Fender Champ provides a very decent clean sound (but I often have to turn down the guitar volume about 1/2 or it "overdrives" the amp). For recording this is not a problem, but I think it would be somewhat of a problem live (I tend to leave the guitar volume & tone wide open for live work).
 
If you can't use an amp at ANY volume or don't have one or whatever, I would say a Pod XT with atleast one of the amp package upgrades plugged direct is your best bet.

Personally, I think the most versatile option for the money is getting a new Pod XT Live (again, likely with atleast one of the amp package upgrades) and running it through a SS amp with decent speakers (and at really low volume if necessary, since that doesn't have much effect on a SS amp at all) so that you can mic it.
 
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