Vox AC tone in a pedal?

Musicman20

A lot of these on the market.

What would you suggest for a classic clean to dirty, with plenty of Vox jangle.....

meltedbuzzbox

A vox amp?

Musicman20

meltedbuzzbox said:

A vox amp?

 No space if I’m being honest. I’m considering an AC15 but to be honest I can’t fit more amps in!

meltedbuzzbox

I could be wrong here but would an equal pedal be just as good as any action pedal?
I would assume it's the eq curve that defines the amps characteristics?

Unless you are planning on using the fx loop/pre amp trick thingy?

JohnPerry

I've had the Wampler Ace Thirty (twice), the Carl Martin AC Tone and the Tech 21 Liverpool.

The Carl Martin was just a box of filth I didn't think was Voxy at all.

The Wampler is great clean (very jangly and authentic) but I didn't much like it overdriven.

The Liverpool is a fantastic pedal clean or dirty, with immensely powerful tone controls. The cleans may be not quite up there with the Wampler, but it's close - and all-round a better sim for me.

I can get a Fender Princeton to sound very Voxy with it.

It has not killed my GAS for a Vox or el84-type amp (or another one, since I have owned a few) but it certainly staves it off

smudge_lad

The Joyo AC Tone is pretty awesome

robwright

+1 for Joyo

baggybill

Bearfoot/Bjfe emerald green distortion machine

Musicman20

meltedbuzzbox said:

I could be wrong here but would an equal pedal be just as good as any action pedal?
I would assume it's the eq curve that defines the amps characteristics?

Unless you are planning on using the fx loop/pre amp trick thingy?

Might well try the pre amp into effects loop...

I have an old Zoom G3 and I'm surprised at how much I like the Vox AC patch on it....

To be honest I'll end up with a Vox amp one day as I absolutely LOVE the sound....but until then....

StefB

Give the Carl Martin AC options a swerve.  On paper they (and their PlexiTone siblings) are everything you could want, but as @JohnPerry says above, they have way, way, way too much gain to be of any use.  Which is a shame as there's a great YouTube review of a guy running a Tele through the single channel AC Tone model and he gets Francis Rossi's tone on the intro to Down Down off to a T.

poopot

If it’s a cranked ac30 tone, I have this that I can let go.

https://youtu.be/MwTyZNBmIIA

Clone of a catlinbread galileo...

rich75

+1 for the Tech 21 Liverpool.

The character control gives you a wide range of tones and alters the gain structure, plus the EQ is very powerful. I used mine as a mid-gain drive pedal (with speaker sim turned off) into the front end of a clean amp and it did a really good job of giving the sound that Voxy character. 

Wazmeister

baggybill said:

Bearfoot/Bjfe emerald green distortion machine

x 2

Cirrus

meltedbuzzbox said:

I could be wrong here but would an equal pedal be just as good as any action pedal?
I would assume it's the eq curve that defines the amps characteristics?

Unless you are planning on using the fx loop/pre amp trick thingy?

Nah, a stack EQ curve doesn't really cut it - amps introduce distortion and different EQ curves dynamically, depending on the input signal. They can also be fast or slow dynamically, limiting the rate the signal can change over time... there's a lot going on, lots of different attributes interacting. An analogy would be trying to use coloured filters to turn a painting of a mountain into a portrait of George Vth.

Grocer_Jack

I have the Wampler Ace 30 - sounds great at 'home' volumes but I haven't had enough time to dial in an equally good tone at band levels. 
I also have the old big box mains powered Carl Martin AC Tone and I agree that it doesn't quite capture the vox chime, but it still gets lots of use and has an absolutely fantastic clean boost option incorporated. 

crunchman

smudge_lad said:

The Joyo AC Tone is pretty awesome

I think this is designed for direct use, and has built in speaker simulation that you can't turn off.   If you want to use it in front of an amp it might not be the best option.

I think that the Tech 21 pedal that it is based on has the option of turning off the speaker sim.

Sassafras

breezytele

Origin effects Revivaldrive can summon up a Vox tone.
It emulates a valve amp’s circuitry , including a control (amongst others)  for negative feedback , and this seems to work convincingly.

vale

rich75 said:

+1 for the Tech 21 Liverpool.

The character control gives you a wide range of tones and alters the gain structure, plus the EQ is very powerful. I used mine as a mid-gain drive pedal (with speaker sim turned off) into the front end of a clean amp and it did a really good job of giving the sound that Voxy character. 

am pretty sure the joyo AC tone is a clone of the tech 21 liverpool. i'm too lazy to search now (i'll let you) but i remember when i used to be into pedal making that one of those joyos was a direct clone. worth going to freestomp & similar sites & saving the 'is a clone of' lists for joyos & behringers. joyos in particular because they use through-hole componentns, proper 3pdt stomp switches & decent metal enclosures.

ignore the 'joyo' = cheap stigma. the same parts with same tolerances soldered into the same order will give the same result. (".. & that is why i love physics" as brian cox would say).
i've got the joyo british tone, which is a dark brit-rock marshall-esque tuned preamp & tonestack in a box (based on another tech 21 i think). have had it five years, never had a problem, & still as good as they day i bought it for £20. sweet.

meltedbuzzbox said:

I could be wrong here but would an equal pedal be just as good as any action pedal?
I would assume it's the eq curve that defines the amps characteristics?

Unless you are planning on using the fx loop/pre amp trick thingy?

the basic principle is that the pre-amp (with valve subs) & tone stack go into a box & you run it through a valve amp clean power channel that will amplify (in a valve stylee) that psuedo first stage.

in the pedal the tubes will be substituted by transistors (sometimes diodes or transistors used as diodes, or a combination of, or an IC) that effectively mimic the dynamic response curve of the original valves under load, as far as is possible.
then you get the tone stack from the original amp following from that, to bracket & shape, scoop etc.

so eq is part of it, but eq on its own wouldn't be enough, as it wouldn't be getting the full pre-amped 'shaped' signal to work with.

but like boutique dirt boxes, getting it right can be a fine art, as it requires filtering the transistors to get a good balanced bias between minimum tolerances (hfe, forward voltage). just as with a valve amp. but far less effort that valve amps i think, as transistors are a far more predictable & standardised kind of technology, especially modern ones.

gibsongretschfan

See if you happen to run in 4cm with some sort of fancy switcher, using the Liverpool direct to the effects return without your amps preamp in the road is pretty much spot on for me

robmattrach

Have owned the Boss bc2 and the Wampler 30 something/Ace30.  The Boss was too compressed when dirty, but the cleaner sounds were ok.  The Wampler was good clean but i could not get the dirty sound i was after- Queen and Status Quo type crunch.  However I loved the boost on it and used it on its own for a solo lead sound stacked with other drive pedals.  Currently own the Bearfoot emerald green pedal which is the best i have tried... but also bought a Vox ac4HW which it doen't work well with.  There is a certain irony that the Vox AC4HW does not have the sound I am after as well... which proves that getting the sound on an album, be it sutdio or live from a concert, is not the sound in your head!  Good luck in your search...