Amp Modelling question.....

[apl]

I think that part of the nature of modellers is getting to sound good in various configurations. I'm sure that a good directing tone won't translate to a PA or a power amp/speaker.

 

[amra]

How is this concept fundamentally different than using a Marshall JMP-1 rackmount preamp as your pre-amp? You still have to have a power amp and speaker cab. A lot of the power in your sound is going to come from the power amp your choose....

 

[HangDawg]

Screw it, Lock the thread. Metalhead28 has spoken, and it is good.

 

[metalhead28]

I don't know man.
On the one hand, I agree that when it comes to heavy, chunky rythm, a 1/2 or full stack tube amp is pretty much unbeatable when it comes to playing live. Everything you said about that is true.

But on the other hand, modelers have impressed me to the point where I just don't feel like a full-on, all tube 1/2 stack is the only way to get a nice heavy sound any more - especially when it comes to recording. To think otherwise is to close your mind to technology, and if you are going to do that, you might as well take a stand against DAW's and ADAT and all the rest as well. Once upon a time, ADAT recorders were waaay substandard to recording with tape. Now that is not the case. Once upon a time, amp modelers were WAAAY substandard to real amps. Maybe they are not ready for prime time yet, but sooner or later they will be. Just like ADAT eventually was, and DAWs as well.

I promise that if you took your V-AMP pro, hooked it up to a low-tuned guitar with 11-53's on it, ran it through a couple hundred watt power amp, and then a 4x12 cab with full range speakers (like KB amps use) you would get as brutal and heavy a sound as you could want, and the audience would never know the difference.

Not trying to change your mind metalhead, but this is for others out there -you can get heavy recorded sounds with modelers, heavier than some people get with "real" amps. It's all a matter of perspective and of course, knowing your gear and recording technique....

I'm not condemning technology. Hell if my mind was closed to technology then I wouldn't have went out and bought that Valvetronix amp a few months ago. If modelers ever get good enough to pull it off convincingly I'll buy the first one.
I have tried to get a workable sound out of my modeler. In fact I get a sound that's good enough sometimes. Shit, I would love to be able to capture that vibe every time without needing to crank up my amp but most of the time it just doesn't work for me. It's true that some people do recordings with modelers that stand up pretty well, but it's never an easy endeavor I guarantee it.

I know where you're coming from with the comment about pumping the V-amp through a power amp with a low tuned guitar for super heaviness. Problem is I don't even like that sound. Maybe you can do that, but at the same time you cannot plug a V-Amp into anything and get the same sound that I get in standard tuning with moderate gain and the power tubes cranking in my 5150. The thing is - that's the sound I like. I think that is what makes a guitar sound big.
Obviously there are going to be people who don't agree, and I always know that you are going to be one of the few who bravely defend modelers in every thread that pops up like this . It's all about opinions. Different people have different views about what makes a guitar sound work. Like I said, alot of people these days actually prefer solid state or modelers to tube amps.

By the way, I heard Dark Tranquility live a few months back and they were using V-Amp pro's for their guitar sound (through Mesa cabs) and it was the most god-awful stage sound I'd ever heard. No definition and no cut through. By the way, they had dual rectifier heads sitting on top of the cabs that weren't even plugged in...somebody should have slapped somebody for that.

 

[gtrman_66]

Pushing a quality amp into the danger zone is like taking something that you know works and trying to coax even more out of it. You've got something to build from. You've got to get a handle on what elements of the sound make it good, or make it big. When you go to the fringes trying to get an unholy amount of gain you've got to keep sight of the part that sounded so good. I can dial my amp into that sweet spot with no problem. Trying to dial my VOX or V-Amp into that territory is a waste of time. You sweep it through the gain range and you never hear that fat growl in any form. It's just not there. Sure, when you crank the gain you end up with some of those similar saturation characteristics at the top of the range, but you blew right past the part where you had any balls in the sound to begin with

+1

That sums it up pretty well. My co-worker has a V-amp that he just happened to bring into the office today (we play guitars around here a lot on slow days) so I swiped it and played with it for a while. I got some pretty ok tones out of it running through the JBL control 1 monitors I have in the office, but it just lacks the sag and sing of a real amp.

After playing it for a while, I plugged into the little Vox Cambridge 15 practice amp that I keep under my desk and it, even though it's just a solid state amp with one preamp tube, was a bit more satisfying for my tastes.

 

[metalhead28]

Another thing that's worth mentioning is that people get their ears adjusted to what modelers do for them and start to feel comfortable with the sound and the response. Hell, if I listen to people playing through shitty amps or through digital modelers long enough I start to think that in certain instances they sound pretty good. I had a buddy who played with a digital amp, and even I thought his tone was not too bad. In the same band setting that he was playing in, he tried playing my amp and that was all it took to realize how weak his tone really was. it was like a rude awakening. He said "holy shit....I've never played through a tube amp before...so that's what it's all about."
Sometimes I go for a couple weeks without firing up a real amp. I just noodle and play around with my V-Amp through my monitors. After a while I think it sounds pretty good. Then one day when I turn on my amp, maybe do my little trick of sticking an overdrive in the FX loop...I get this huge sound that makes me want to piss on my modeler, and 15 minutes earlier I was contemplating trying to record some tunes with it.....
I think this is a common phenomenon as well.

 

[Dogman]

I don't know man.
On the one hand, I agree that when it comes to heavy, chunky rythm, a 1/2 or full stack tube amp is pretty much unbeatable when it comes to playing live. Everything you said about that is true.

But on the other hand, modelers have impressed me to the point where I just don't feel like a full-on, all tube 1/2 stack is the only way to get a nice heavy sound any more - especially when it comes to recording. To think otherwise is to close your mind to technology, and if you are going to do that, you might as well take a stand against DAW's and ADAT and all the rest as well. Once upon a time, ADAT recorders were waaay substandard to recording with tape. Now that is not the case. Once upon a time, amp modelers were WAAAY substandard to real amps. Maybe they are not ready for prime time yet, but sooner or later they will be. Just like ADAT eventually was, and DAWs as well.

I promise that if you took your V-AMP pro, hooked it up to a low-tuned guitar with 11-53's on it, ran it through a couple hundred watt power amp, and then a 4x12 cab with full range speakers (like KB amps use) you would get as brutal and heavy a sound as you could want, and the audience would never know the difference.

Not trying to change your mind metalhead, but this is for others out there -you can get heavy recorded sounds with modelers, heavier than some people get with "real" amps. It's all a matter of perspective and of course, knowing your gear and recording technique.

Here are a couple tracks with V-AMP guitars (some of you have already heard them..)

"Fantasy Fuel"

"Flesh Wound"

These really remind me of COC....I like what you have...

 

[amra]

Another thing that's worth mentioning is that people get their ears adjusted to what modelers do for them and start to feel comfortable with the sound and the response. Hell, if I listen to people playing through shitty amps or through digital modelers long enough I start to think that in certain instances they sound pretty good. I had a buddy who played with a digital amp, and even I thought his tone was not too bad. In the same band setting that he was playing in, he tried playing my amp and that was all it took to realize how weak his tone really was. it was like a rude awakening. He said "holy shit....I've never played through a tube amp before...so that's what it's all about."
Sometimes I go for a couple weeks without firing up a real amp. I just noodle and play around with my V-Amp through my monitors. After a while I think it sounds pretty good. Then one day when I turn on my amp, maybe do my little trick of sticking an overdrive in the FX loop...I get this huge sound that makes me want to piss on my modeler, and 15 minutes earlier I was contemplating trying to record some tunes with it.....
I think this is a common phenomenon as well.

I hear you man, I had a buddy that I used to jam with a few years ago that used to swear his zoom 707 sounded good, and then whenever we would jam together (I was using a randall combo and a SD-1 into it as a gain boost) he would always grumble about how he needed to upgrade his setup because it sounded weak and fake. Then a few weeks of jamming by himself later, he would be happy with it all over again.

I know exactly what you are talking about, plugging into your real amp, and wanting to piss on your modeler. Just like you said, if you play a modeler often you DO get used to it. You don't even realize it, until you hear something better. Truly nothing puts a smile on your face like a tube amp cranked up until the power section is saturating and chugs coming out of your the speakers are making your guts rumble, so we are on the same page there, bro.

However at the same time, if I had to play a live show with a modeler/power-amp/cab setup, I personally feel like I could pull it off, put smiles on everyones face, and be ok with it, too...and I guess that is where we will have to disagree...



Dogman, thanks for the comparison to COC, I dig the shit out of them!

 

[true-eurt]

True, I feel like I can probably comment on this from pretty much every side. I own anp amp modeler, a modeling amp, a solid state amp and a couple tube amps.

First thing to get straight: There is a big difference in what an amp communicates to you when you're standing in the room with it, or on stage with it, and what you capture from it in a recording.

I can dial in a very nice lead guitar sound on my V-Amp pro (modeler) and capture what I feel is a pretty good recording. However, standing in the room and playing that thing....it is just no comparison.....

...to standing in the room with my 5150 with a nice lead sound dialed in. That thing is crystal clear, super fat, extremely responsive to my every articulation, it has more character to the sound, like a big juicy, musical explosion. It is part of my instrument, it speaks. It gives my fingers the power, it's just hard to explain....

When I record it, it often doesn't end up translating that much better than my V-Amp, because the V-amp seems to approximate what the recorded amp sounds like rather than the amp in the room. It's much harder to make a call based on recordings alone. You're also depending on how well someone actually captured all of that mojo from their tube amp...maybe they didn't do the best recording or they don't have the ideal gear to put the sound across as it should be. Too many variables.

Now my modeling amp has slightly different characteristics. It's a Vox AD50VT. It's got similar qualities to my V-Amp pro in terms of what sort of general tones it is capable of.

You get an immediately more satisfying response from it simply because it's a real amplifier and not a modeler pumping through my monitor speakers.

It's actually not too hard to convince myself that it sounds nearly as good as some real amplifiers at lower volumes, but at low volumes real amplifiers don't do what they do best. If you crank that thing up, there is just no escaping the digital edge that it has, there's no escaping the slight wash that comes over the sound, there's no juicy fatness swirling around the room.

You might fake out most of the people who listen to you, but you won't fake out yourself if you're used to a tube amp. I bought that amp so I could have a host of different sounds that would fit in the trunk of my car to go out and jam with friends. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It does indeed sound pretty damn good.

I've found that it doesn't matter to other listeners nearly as much as it does to the player, and not nearly as much to the player who hasn't gotten used to something better.

Like Travis said, some players dont like what a tube amp reveals about their playing. I find that it makes my playing sound much better and I'm much more comfortable.

Some people need the security blanket of a modeler or some flat and smeared sounding amp.

I've had people come in to record with me who want to use my gear, they want me to dial it in. I dial in a lead sound for them which I think is expressive and beautiful and they freak out. They wonder how anybody plays a ripping lead with that tone. They need to plug into a lifeless washed out modeler or something so they don't feel threatened by the power and clarity of the tube amp. I don't know if that makes any sense but I think it was the same thing Travis was refering to.

Whether any of this means anything to you hinges on a few different things.

I enjoy playing so much that I can deal with plugging into my V-amp most of the time when I pick up my guitar. It's easy, it sounds acceptable, and it doesn't have to be roaring loud. When I get a chance to plug into my 5150 and crank it up it's like sex. It's like a zen sort of experience where I feel that I'm reaching my full potential.

I will not deny the beauty of that, but to totally denounce modelers is just being stuffy. They have alot of usefullness and if you truly love to play, the little bit of expressiveness that you lose is not going to stop you ..you deal with it.

Will they ever replace tube amps? I sincerely don't think so. If you're going for the pinnacle, there's only one way. Most people using modelers know they're not at the pinnacle and they don't care. Nothing wrong with that, if the sound inspires you.

Now when it comes to recording heavy metal rhythm guitar....oh nevermind, I'm not getting into that again.

Metalhead.....thank you very much for that indepth, understandable post. Travis did the same. I appreciate it. I understand what you said about the feeling that is hard to describe. That is how the guitar makes me feel period. I can describe and describe, trying to express what I feel, but never really expressing it to the fullest. I get all kinds of shivers and emotions happening inside me, I want want to moan and scream a lot....When you described it as sex, you hit the axe on the head.

I hope you don't mind, that I took the liberty to 'BOLD' and 'COLOR' certain areas for accentuation. And setting the paragraphs for easy spot reading.

Again, thank you for taking the time to post this. Everyone has been very helpful to me. Thanks to everyone !!!

It is all becoming understandable to me. Please let me know if I am understanding it correctly. I like that you referred to your amp as a

The amp modeler~ is a box or pedal(processors), modelling different amp sounds, that you run your guitar through to your soundcard or stand alone, and monitors are the source of sound amplification? For the money, if homerecording is what you do most, these are a good choice for getting those different amp sounds on your recordings, without having to buy each amp individually and since a modelling amp, does not read any better on a homerecording than an amp modeler does, the amp mod would do just as well.

The modelling amp~ is actually an amplifier, like a Solid State amp, with the ability to sound as several different amps. These work good for jam sessions, being light weight and versatile, but sound better at low levels and not so good for GIG'ing, because they just don't scream with an orgasm, like a tube amp does at those loud levels?

Solid state amp~Is pretty much the same as the modelling amp, with the exception of the modelling's chameleon capabitlities. Do modelling amps have as much power as the straight Solid State and does it sound as good at louder levels as a solid state does?

Tube amp~The Don Juan of amplification. The beast. The cry of soul. The shiver me timbers of axe pirates. The ultimate ride for a guitar player. The happy hooker of dirty sounds. The squeal of Deliverance. The fire of hell. The sweet of heaven. The scream of audio orgasm. The explosion of audio extra How am I doing so far....am I getting the jist of things?

I found a good read for the modelling amps. They even have mp3 listens for difference in the sounds.

 

[true-eurt]

This should be archived or sticky noted or something so every time a "modeling" debate starts we can quick post this excellent response. Nice job metalhead!!

I archived it in my music knowledge folder already !!!

 

[gtrman_66]

Solid state amp~Is pretty much the same as the modelling amp, with the exception of the modelling's chameleon capabitlities.

Not necessarily. While I'm a big tube amp fan in genral, I have had a couple solid state amps over the years that I liked. One was an old Acoustic 412G half stack, late 70s or early 80s vintage, 120 watts of rock. I also have one of the newer Marshall AVT "Valvestate" amps, a little 20watt pup with a single 10" speaker that I record with sometimes that is pretty convincing. I had an old Gibson Lab series, L5, that wasn't terrible either.

Tube amp~The Don Juan of amplification. The beast. The cry of soul. The shiver me timbers of axe pirates. The ultimate ride for a guitar player. The happy hooker of dirty sounds. The squeal of Deliverance. The fire of hell. The sweet of heaven. The scream of audio orgasm.

Generally yes, but not necessarily. I have played and owned some tube amps that didn't sound so great either. The old Peavey MX half-stack I had comes to mind. I don't know why I ever bought that thing,except it looked real cool mounted in it's own built-in flight cases. Actually, that feature was pretty cool, but the amp just sounded awful. I had a Laney for a while, can't remember the exact model, but that one didn't impress me much either.

 

[true-eurt]

Not necessarily. While I'm a big tube amp fan in genral, I have had a couple solid state amps over the years that I liked. One was an old Acoustic 412G half stack, late 70s or early 80s vintage, 120 watts of rock. I also have one of the newer Marshall AVT "Valvestate" amps, a little 20watt pup with a single 10" speaker that I record with sometimes that is pretty convincing. I had an old Gibson Lab series, L4, that wasn't terrible either.

Then, the Modelling amp is a tube amp? I am confused now. I was under the impression it was a Solid State amp...That is why I thought the modelling amp was just like the Straight Solid State, other than the versatility. Help me out here. My bwain is tired.

Generally yes, but not necessarily. I have played and owned some tube amps that didn't sound so great either. The old Peavey MX half-stack I had comes to mind. I don't know why I ever bought that thing,except it looked real cool mounted in it's own built-in flight cases. Actually, that feature was pretty cool, but the amp just sounded awful. I had a Laney for a while, can't remember the exact model, but that one didn't impress me much either.

Then the quest for Tube...Non-Tube...is all in the taste of the user?

 

[gtrman_66]

Then, the Modelling amp is a tube amp? I am confused now. I was under the impression it was a Solid State amp...That is why I thought the modelling amp was just like the Straight Solid State, other than the versatility. Help me out here. My bwain is tired.

Then the quest for Tube...Non-Tube...is all in the taste of the user?

No, a "modelling amp" is a guitar amp with the modelling circuitry bulit in and I believe just about all of them do have solid state power sections.

Solid state or "transistor" amps have been around for a long time, long before any of the modelling technology stuff came along. I never cared much for most of them, witht the notable exception here and there.

 

[metalhead28]

Then, the Modelling amp is a tube amp? I am confused now. I was under the impression it was a Solid State amp...That is why I thought the modelling amp was just like the Straight Solid State, other than the versatility. Help me out here. My bwain is tired.

Then the quest for Tube...Non-Tube...is all in the taste of the user?

A modeling amp is usually just a solid state amp with one of those digital modelers built into it. Take away the digital pre-amp so to speak (the modeler) and you would have a basic solid state power amp.

That being said, some regular solid state amps can sound pretty righteous, it's just rare to find one that competes with a tube amp. I think that's what gtrman was saying.

 

[metalhead28]

No, a "modelling amp" is a guitar amp with the modelling circuitry bulit in and I believe just about all of them do have solid state power sections.

Solid state or "transistor" amps have been around for a long time, long before any of the modelling technology stuff came along. I never cared much for most of them, witht the notable exception here and there.

Ha, beat me to it

 

[true-eurt]

These really remind me of COC....I like what you have...

Those things you keep putting in your avatar, remind me of OCD.....

 

[true-eurt]

No, a "modelling amp" is a guitar amp with the modelling circuitry bulit in and I believe just about all of them do have solid state power sections.

Solid state or "transistor" amps have been around for a long time, long before any of the modelling technology stuff came along. I never cared much for most of them, witht the notable exception here and there.

LOL!! That is what I thought, but somehow your answer to the question I had stated, really through me off and I thought maybe I had it all screwed up.

Thank you gtrman.

 

[true-eurt]

A modeling amp is usually just a solid state amp with one of those digital modelers built into it. Take away the digital pre-amp so to speak (the modeler) and you would have a basic solid state power amp.

That being said, some regular solid state amps can sound pretty righteous, it's just rare to find one that competes with a tube amp. I think that's what gtrman was saying.

You use the term 'usually'. Does that mean, not always or was that just something you worded that way? I am being a pest I know, but when you leave a question of usually in the air.....

 

[travelin travis]

for simplicity:

tube amp = tube power section and tube preamp section. the top dog. the shiz nit. a man's amp. the hemi of guitar amps. like gtrman_66 said though, there are crappy tube amps out there. plenty of them. when we say nothing beats a tube amp, we mean nothing beats a GOOD tube amp.

solid state amp = solid state power amp section and solid state preamp section. there are a handful of solid state amps out there that have a very desirable sound for some players. typically, the good ones do a good clean sound.

modeling amp = solid state power amp (possibly with a tube in the circuit) and digital (sound processor) preamp section. 1's and 0's just don't add up to the magical electron flow that goes on in a GOOD tube amp. it's really up to the user to decide if a modeler is good enough for his/her playing situation.

hybrid amp = tube power section and solid state preamp or the other way around. some guys like to put a modeling device or solid state preamp in front of a tube power amp.

 

[true-eurt]

Thanks a bunch Travis !!!