Fake amp business idea with modelling - Anybody want to build one?

p90fool

I think for the majority of younger players digital is "good enough", but also I think there will be generations of new players for whom old school is just cooler for a long time to come.

I'm not saying you couldn't approximate Black Keys or Greta van Fleet sounds artificially, but you certainly don't come across those borderline chaotic tones by accident with a Kemper.  

ICBM

p90fool said:

I think for the majority of younger players digital is "good enough", but also I think there will be generations of new players for whom old school is just cooler for a long time to come.

I'm not saying you couldn't approximate Black Keys or Greta van Fleet sounds artificially, but you certainly don't come across those borderline chaotic tones by accident with a Kemper.  

But you can with a couple of fuzz pedals.

I genuinely see the market for the classic cranked valve amp sounds diminishing as our generation gets too old to play, however much we like them.

sweepy

Just buy a Kemper, seems like a daft idea tbh 

DJH83004

ICBM said:

p90fool said:

I think for the majority of younger players digital is "good enough", but also I think there will be generations of new players for whom old school is just cooler for a long time to come.

I'm not saying you couldn't approximate Black Keys or Greta van Fleet sounds artificially, but you certainly don't come across those borderline chaotic tones by accident with a Kemper.  

But you can with a couple of fuzz pedals.

I genuinely see the market for the classic cranked valve amp sounds diminishing as our generation gets too old to play, however much we like them.

it's a fair point IC, but I am still seeing loads of valve amps coming through the door, typically hand me downs where the owners don't really know what they have got, (AC30s, 2203/4s etc.), passed down by relatives or found in garages and such, and they love the sound when the amps are cranked, far better than any SS or modeller, whether they can practically use them is of course another matter    

Voxman

ICBM said:

Dominic said:

Even if there was a market I think the issue would be putting your " BESA MOOGIE " into a Mesa Boogie lookylikey cabinet would get you comfortably sued therefore the only way is in conjunction with the original copyright holder and I'm sure they wouldn't want to do it because even if it was half decent sounding it would eclipse their market for the real thing.

For me one of the issues is exactly that - it’s rare to find a digital amp, or an analogue solid-state one, with the build quality of a good valve amp... because it would cost almost as much and then no-one would buy it.

But that will eventually change - there are already high-end solid-state and digital amps, both ones that model specific valve amps (Kemper) and ones that don’t (Quilter), and ones somewhere in the middle (Yamaha).

So it wouldn’t surprise me if one of the big companies does do this exact concept. Marshall came fairly close with the JMD, although still with a valve power amp.

There is one superbly built modelling amp that comes to mind that I played many years ago. It was blindingly good and the modelling and fx quality was in my view exceptional.  It was the Hughes & Kettner Zentera combo that came with a Z-board floor controller. Rated at 2x100w stereo with 2 x Celestion Vintage 30 speakers, around the early 2000's this rig in those days cost around £2,500.  

These amps are treasured by their owners, who are mostly pro players, and are very hard to find up for sale (rarer than rocking horse droppings) because folk generally hold onto them for dear life.  I've played pretty much every modeller out there from Line 6, Vox, Fender, Marshall, Boss, Laney, etc (still haven't tried a Katana though) and I have yet to find anything that comes close to the Zentera for sheer tank like build quality and incredible modelling tones.

I'm sure the V30s made a huge difference though as most manufacturers fit their modelling amps with inferior speakers that don't do the amps justice, and use budget components. The Zentera used top quality components and had 2 x sharc floating point processors (or something like that) which were state of the art and very expensive in those days. 

IIRC Alex Lifeson of Rush used the head version of the Zentera live.

PolarityMan

I think zillas idea of rehousing modellers us a better shout. Their kemper shell looks ace

TeleMaster

Yea. If it looked like an amp head, but you could change the parameters and the model, that would be cool. 

I dont know why someone would buy a head of an AC30 that is only a model of it, that probably won’t even sound as good as an AC30, when they could just buy one of the new ones from a shop. Prices would be similar. 

A mass of options is key, but I like the idea of traditional looks. Maybe the offset Marshall font, like Friedman do. 

Buuut, isn’t this exactly what all of those Synergy and Salvation rack systems essentially are?

ICBM

TeleMaster said:

I dont know why someone would buy a head of an AC30 that is only a model of it, that probably won’t even sound as good as an AC30, when they could just buy one of the new ones from a shop. Prices would be similar.

The ability to save multiple versions of the control settings on the same amp would be the answer for a lot of players.

OK you could achieve that with a valve amp and motorised pots, but that would start to get complex and expensive.

TeleMaster

ICBM said:

TeleMaster said:

I dont know why someone would buy a head of an AC30 that is only a model of it, that probably won’t even sound as good as an AC30, when they could just buy one of the new ones from a shop. Prices would be similar.

The ability to save multiple versions of the control settings on the same amp would be the answer for a lot of players.

OK you could achieve that with a valve amp and motorised pots, but that would start to get complex and expensive.

All guitar things are expensive, and mostly the changes are very minor and insignicant to the audience. 

But, in my opinion it would be irrelevant to do that as different rooms sound different and even the same room can sound different on different days so you have to always change things based on your band and the room and everything. Even the most meticulously fine tuned patches need tweaking when you actually get it playing with a band.

You’ve set your amp up and now the drummer has a different snare, or different sticks and you need to turn the master up but that changes how your gain reacts with it, or the EQ etc. 

It’s problematic!

Freebird

I wouldn't mind making my vintage Vox AC15 look like a Kemper, so that I could appear to be modern and relevant.

TeleMaster

Freebird said:

I wouldn't mind making my vintage Vox AC15 look like a Kemper, so that I could appear to be modern and relevant.

Don’t wait too long as it’s been out years already, you’ll need to change it!

ICBM

TeleMaster said:

But, in my opinion it would be irrelevant to do that as different rooms sound different and even the same room can sound different on different days so you have to always change things based on your band and the room and everything. Even the most meticulously fine tuned patches need tweaking when you actually get it playing with a band.

You’ve set your amp up and now the drummer has a different snare, or different sticks and you need to turn the master up but that changes how your gain reacts with it, or the EQ etc.

I meant for having several settings you could switch on the fly for different sounds during a gig, as you would with a normal channel-switcher - but being able to save banks of them for different rooms would be useful as well.

BintyTwanger77

PhilKing said:

Many years ago, amp guru John McIntyre built me this.  It is all valve and has 5 preamps, they are:

Clean 1 - Vox style
Clean 2 - Fender Style
Crunch - Marshall on edge of breakup
Lead 1 - Marshall with higher gain and MV
Lead 2 - Boogie style drive

There are 2 effects loops, one for the Cleans and one for the Leads.  It's completely valve based, with relay switching.  It was too expensive to make a production pre-amp though.  It's also pretty big and heavy!

Want.

roberty

I guess this is bridging the gap between single use devices and digital technology.  One of the key benefits of software though is that it is soft

Rock music is basically a heritage genre now anyway, so future generations will probably continue to use equipment of the period

randella

It's an interesting discussion - as ICBM says it'd be useful to have a classic great-sounding single-channel amp (JCM800) with the three drive levels I use (a bit, some more, and lots) plus, say, a volume boost which is something I can't do without - all at your feet.

I guess the whole concept boils down to what attracts someone to modelling.  For me it's not the plethora of choices available, as I've got by with a good, solid distortion and a few basic effects for years - for me, modelling is about a) simplicity (cables) and b) weight.

A single-purpose modelling amp would fix one of these issues, but I'd still be left with a box that weighed only slightly less than its valve parent.

Don't let me take away from the idea though, as I say it's started a good debate.

duotone

deano said:

 modelling need not be hidden away behind a fake mask?

This is the way I feel about it, now modelling doesn’t seem to be so much of a ‘sin’