fuck amp modellers!!!

[NRS]

Bullshit. How many sounds did Hendrix need? How many sounds did Clapton need? Page? Beck? Stevie? Keif? Townshend? Montgomery? Christian? Van Halen? Why do you need more than those guys? Conversely, how did any of them ever manage without a POD?

I'll tell you how they managed. They went through a long expensive trial and error process of experimenting with different guitars, pickups, pedals and speaker/amp combinations before finally finding the exact combo of gear that gave them the one signature sound they were looking for. Amp modellers are about just that, EXPERIMENTATION and allowing us mere mortals to have as many sound OPTIONS available to us as possible, reguardless of how many of them you actually end up using.

And of the above musicians you mentioned........You really dont know who currently owns (or would have owned) a modeller in the privacy of thier own studio and to what extent they may have used it. Often famous musicians cant or wont mention the products they use off stage unless theres an endorsement deal attached to it. Doesnt mean they dont tinker with them.

 

[ibanezrocks]

Screw the comment "if you need good equipment then you're not a good musician" how about if you need a million different sounds you're not a good musician???

stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

 

[guitar junkie]

just for the sake of saying so. i have worked as a stage hand with guys that tour all over the world and or country some of them you have heard of but i am not going to say their names. more than a few are using Line 6 units with say a Marshal stack. Paul Rodgers as a matter of fact had his guitar player using some line 6 gear. while a couple of big name Country guitar players were using the Vox Tonelab in their rig and in fact one of the bands was not even using an amp for the guitar players they just used those units. in studio i think nothing beats a nice amp! but when you are live and doing a huge show how many people can "really" hear the tone that much any way? just a thought....

 

[nkjanssen]

I'll tell you how they managed. They went through a long expensive trial and error process of experimenting with different guitars, pickups, pedals and speaker/amp combinations before finally finding the exact combo of gear that gave them the one signature sound they were looking for. Amp modellers are about just that, EXPERIMENTATION and allowing us mere mortals to have as many sound OPTIONS available to us as possible, reguardless of how many of them you actually end up using.

That's such total bullshit! So many people have this fixation on gear these days - "Oh, woe is me! I can't afford $100,000 in amps and guitars, so I'll never be able to find my sound and become a great player! But lo! This digital kidney bean will give me the billion sounds I absolutely neeeeeed in order to be a great! Thank God for modern technology! Without the kidney bean, I'd be destined to suck! Now I can sound like Dimebag one second and Brian May the next! What would I have ever done without that option?!"

 

[StudioMxpx]

if your on a low budget go for the Pod or tonelab..they are worth it..but for a serious recording go for a real tube amp..and i think for bass the Pod is the way to go

 

[larry_emder]

just for the sake of saying so. i have worked as a stage hand with guys that tour all over the world and or country some of them you have heard of but i am not going to say their names. more than a few are using Line 6 units with say a Marshal stack. Paul Rodgers as a matter of fact had his guitar player using some line 6 gear. while a couple of big name Country guitar players were using the Vox Tonelab in their rig and in fact one of the bands was not even using an amp for the guitar players they just used those units. in studio i think nothing beats a nice amp! but when you are live and doing a huge show how many people can "really" hear the tone that much any way? just a thought....

I agree that the real power of them is using them live. The only reason i got into my covers band is because the previous guitarist had a marshall half stack and the sound balance was terrible. Now i can use the podxt into the pa, and keep the other band members happy.

 

[sonnyboi]

Amp Modeller's can work... sometimes

I'd love to record an amp blasting away at full force, but I'd probably get evicted. I have used a Pod on a few recordings with some success. Ok, I know it's kinda weak in compared to real tubes, but,with a little tweaking, you can make it work. The distorted guitar on this track is a Les Paul running through a POD directly into the board (VS2480). We had to mess around with the EQ's big time, but it's still 100 percent digital. I did find that replacing the Gibson factory pickups with Zack Wylde EMG's produced a better signal for the POD to work with. It just sounded more alive.

http://www.songramp.com/view.ez?sampleid=23056

 

[Codmate]

I've lived in plenty of apartments. Recording in one is not ideal, but it can be done. I'll give you this - a POD is great for goofing around and practicing late at night; maybe getting some rough demo's down. I'll be damned if I'm ever going to let that thig get onto a finished product though. When it comes time to record it for real, its worth it to figure out a way to use a real amp. Maybe you move your rig to a friend's house to track guitars. Maybe you just play at a lower volume and during the day. It can be done if you really want to do it. If it doesn't really matter to you, though, do what's convenient - use the POD.

If I want to do some necessarily loud recording I generally do it in short bursts during the day. You can actually get some good distorted sounds fairly quietly if you use a pedal and a small amp.

Then there's always stuff like the Zvex nanohead, which is around half a watt:
http://zvexamps.com/amp_view.html

I agree with the view that digital devices, such as amp modelers, are just another way of producing sounds and that those sounds can be useful, but IMO they are not often useful as guitar sounds - more as 'interesting' noise creators.

Personally I like the response, musicality and tone of a good tube amp.

 

[ahuimanu]

Man....

Nothing worse than a worm/pussy who leaves uncommented negative feedback when he/she disagree's with your viewpoint...

 

[nkjanssen]

Nothing worse than a worm/pussy who leaves uncommented negative feedback when he/she disagree's with your viewpoint...

At least the negatives that people left for me on this thread had comments like "shut the fuck up". Nice.

 

[amra]

Yea, I got two negative rep points for this thread too. I've never given anyone negative rep before, especially just for disagreeing with me. Oh well.

 

[brighterstatic]

I have a bass pod xt that I try to record with, I dig the fx, but I find myself using it more on synth sounds and drum loops than my bass. Equipment is just to get the sound in your head to where ever that sound needs to go. It seems a bit odd to scream how ice cream is better than fried chicken. I dig either, if they are prepaired well. I cant stand melty ice cream or salminila.
anyway %$#* tube amps and modeling amps, PLAY ACOUSTIC...

 

[Supercreep]

I am really happy to see that across the net people are starting to see that the emporer has no clothes when it comes to amp modelers. I think the tide is starting to trun against them, which is a good thing for recored music.

In regards to the no talent artist blaming his tools comment, that is sort of like saying if a chef had only dog shit and piss to prepare a meal with and could not make a good tasting meal, it would be because the chef had no talent.

Your analogy is interesting but not apt.

You are overstating your case when you say modelers are piss and shit. They are useful and have their place. Maybe you can't find a place for them, but that is more a measure of your own creativity and not of the general utility of modeling technology.

 

[nkjanssen]

You are overstating your case when you say modelers are piss and shit. They are useful and have their place. Maybe you can't find a place for them, but that is more a measure of your own creativity and not of the general utility of modeling technology.

I keep hearing from the modeller advocates that modellers allow them to be so much more creative than they could ever be with a good amp and a couple of stomp boxes. Can anyone point me to examples? I mean, there are tens of thousands of examples in the history of popular music of how good a decent guitar through a decent amp can sound, but can someone show me an example of where someone has used a modeller to do better? I'm talking about something done with a POD that just couldn't have been done to the same effect with a tube amp. I want to hear all this creativity that people say they are finding by using modellers.

 

[StudioMxpx]

the only creativity is the new style called digital distortion that sounds like a dog took a shit on a mesa and chewed up its own shit and cracked the tubes

 

[Mr. C]

I don't see what the big deal is...if you like what you use it doesn't matter what someone else thinks. As technology advances so will the amp modellers. Look, Line 6 has even made a guitar to model other guitars. These types of advances will continue and possibly (God forbid I'm sure) we won't see much of tube amps. This seems to be the same arguement people had when we lost our much beloved vinyl records to CDs. You can still find them around, but CDs are here to stay (at least until the next new technology takes over!).

Oh, and one other thing, someone mentioned the electronic drum set. I believe it was Def Leppard's drummer who lost his arm and needed to use the electronic drums to be able to keep on playing at the level he was used to doing. So maybe this digital crap ain't always the devil in sheep's clothing we believe it is.

 

[Supercreep]

I keep hearing from the modeller advocates that modellers allow them to be so much more creative than they could ever be with a good amp and a couple of stomp boxes. Can anyone point me to examples? I mean, there are tens of thousands of examples in the history of popular music of how good a decent guitar through a decent amp can sound, but can someone show me an example of where someone has used a modeller to do better? I'm talking about something done with a POD that just couldn't have been done to the same effect with a tube amp. I want to hear all this creativity that people say they are finding by using modellers.

I'm not saying a Pod is better. Nobody is. I have both a tube amp and a Pod and a Variax. Useless? I don't think so - for you perhaps, but nobody's asking you to buy one, either. You're just throwing stones.

I don't have a Matchless and an AC30 and a Plexi and a.. get it? If I want to get a different sound and the POD gets me closer to it, either in conjuction with or apart from my tube amp - what's your problem with it?

Nobody is claiming one makes you more creative than the other. We are saying that if you can't get a decent sound out of it, you probably can't get a decent sound out of a tube amp either.

Also, I can use the POD for effects that rival or exceed the quality of stompboxes (of which I also have many) and stack them without the noise or expense of stomboxes.