Has Modelling Taken over ?

John_A

Having moved from a JTM 45 and pedals to a Helix I find the difference in 'feel' non-existent, Playing at sensible volume with my cab mic'd and fed back through my monitor it doesnt 'feel' and different.

It 'may' if you are stood right in front of a loud amp, but then you are potentially ruining it for everyone else, the poor singer trying to hear themselves, the audience member stood in the 'wrong' part of the room, the sound engineer trying to balance everything

John_A

timmysoft said:

Amps are for old people 

I'd say rather than 'old' it's people who are stuck in a timewarp.  There's certainly a place for amps, but more and more they are becoming replaced because modelling works better in many situations.

As no spring chicken myself the types of gigs I'd be looking for a modeller is much more appropriate, try turning up for the cruise ship gig with a 4x12 and see how far you get

Twinfan

You may not feel it's any different, but others do.  It's subjective and personal 

John_A

Twinfan said:

You may not feel it's any different, but others do.  It's subjective and personal 

Cant argue with that

sw67

I Use a monitor on a pole behind me and to me and the band it feels just like my amp. It did take a lot of work and the helix sounds out the box were not that great. It has taken me a year at gig volumes to get 4 presets that work. Clean / dirty / more dirt / acoustic

Handsome_Chris

Gadget said:

I'm surprised you guys gigging with modelling stuff don't just hand-out CDs to the audience.

"It's all digital; you won't hear a difference", We can't feel any dynamic difference playing live anyway and hey, now we don't need to carry any gear in and out of the pub.

Or maybe just loan-out IEMs, so there's no need even for a PA and the landlord needn't worry about the noise levels.

@Gadget , you do realise that there are people who play to audiences larger than their home?  

Handsome_Chris

p90fool said:

timmysoft said: 

Amps are for old people 

Very true, as are acoustic instruments, musical dynamics and plain old skill. 

Wah! I can't play this old thing! Where's my squishy compression and safety mid-scoop?!

@p90fool ; you are bang on the money.  Like you I believe that dynamics and skill are a very much in contemporary guitarist's tool kit.  There is only so much pentatonic scale noodling blues rock that can be regurgitated and people have recognised that. 

Too right you can't play that old thing, it's been done to death.  Wisdom duly awarded.

guitartango

I would to go digital but spending a few £k on a digital unit which in 3 years time is obsolete and no longer supported is not my cup of tea. In ten years time my tube amp will be still going, my pedals will be still working....but I maybe not

Knock the price down to under £1000 for a kempler and i may be tempted.

Gadget

Handsome_Chris said:

Gadget said:

I'm surprised you guys gigging with modelling stuff don't just hand-out CDs to the audience.

"It's all digital; you won't hear a difference", We can't feel any dynamic difference playing live anyway and hey, now we don't need to carry any gear in and out of the pub.

Or maybe just loan-out IEMs, so there's no need even for a PA and the landlord needn't worry about the noise levels.

@Gadget , you do realise that there are people who play to audiences larger than their home?  

What's your point?

deano

Personally this issue isn't ever going to end. @ICBM is spot on. When the valves run out, that's when things will change. At some point they will be legislated out of existence as too environmentally unfriendly, or companies will simply stop making them as too uneconomical, if only guitar players want them.

Haych

sw67 said:

I Use a monitor on a pole behind me and to me and the band it feels just like my amp. It did take a lot of work and the helix sounds out the box were not that great. It has taken me a year at gig volumes to get 4 presets that work. Clean / dirty / more dirt / acoustic

This isn’t meant to sound pissy, I promise, but from a modeller with probably hundreds of sounds and it’s taken a year to get out of it what you’d probably get out of one amp and a few pedals in a couple of rehearsal sessions?

Sorry, I know that’s gojng to read like I’m having a go, I’m really not - I’m just trying to understand your use case. 

Handsome_Chris

guitartango said:

I would to go digital but spending a few £k on a digital unit which in 3 years time is obsolete and no longer supported is not my cup of tea. In ten years time my tube amp will be still going, my pedals will be still working....but I maybe not

Knock the price down to under £1000 for a kempler and i may be tempted.

Conversely my valve amp has croaked on me twice since June, my modeller has croaked once since September 2011.  It's still supported.

My tube amp , however,  twice since June has let me down.  It is basically a heavy ornament/conversation piece in my house.

Handsome_Chris

Gadget said:

Handsome_Chris said:

Gadget said:

I'm surprised you guys gigging with modelling stuff don't just hand-out CDs to the audience.

"It's all digital; you won't hear a difference", We can't feel any dynamic difference playing live anyway and hey, now we don't need to carry any gear in and out of the pub.

Or maybe just loan-out IEMs, so there's no need even for a PA and the landlord needn't worry about the noise levels.

@Gadget , you do realise that there are people who play to audiences larger than their home?  

What's your point?

Well from your comment I am guessing that you have never been to a venue bigger than a pub, or are yoiu saying that modelling equipment is solely for small venues?   If this is true, I need to brief my guitar boss for using his rig incorrectly.

Twinfan

I've had a variety of valve amps over 10+ years of gigging.  Only a vintage amp let me down when a component failed.

I'm not fixing what ain't broke!

Handsome_Chris

Twinfan said:

I've had a variety of valve amps over 10+ years of gigging.  Only a vintage amp let me down when a component failed.

I'm not fixing what ain't broke!

So did you get your vintage amp with it's broken component fixed?

Twinfan

Of course!

My point was that after many hours of home use, rehearsals and gigging I've not found valve amps to be unreliable.

Handsome_Chris

Interestingly enough, you say that only a vintage amp let you down when a component failed.   If found that a modern valve amps let me down when a components failed, and an Axe-FX II let me down when a component failed.

Maybe we need to get away from building these amps with components?  :P 

p90fool

timmysoft said:

You’re old 

Undeniably, but I still need an amp to react to how I play, to be easy to dial in and not be thrown in the recycling when they die. 

Most of my income is from playing music and I just need something which works. I've gigged with modellers from Line 6, Oberheim, Behringer,  Boss and Atomic since 2005 and every single one of them is now landfill. All credit to the Katana, it lasted exactly 13 months, so their onboard warranty timer is excellent, but the Atomic Amplifire didn't even last six days before it crapped out. 

Yes I'm old so I fix all my own stuff, even digital gear when I can get the parts, but I can't afford to buy two of everything for backup like I can with real amps. 

You can hurl ageist insults around all you like, but I love hi tech gear and I want a good amp modeller. Even the latest generation work best for painting-by-numbers guitar playing with very little in the way of nuanced input. 

Although I play in a contemporary pop band I'd hate to disappoint your age-related expectation of some blues wankery, so here is some. I recorded it as a bit of fun even though I don't really play that style, but it does illustrate what I mean about a simple, cheap valve amp reacting to how a player hits the strings and uses the volume control.

You can bluster all you like about how modellers are better than old people's amps, but they just can't do this simple thing well enough for me. I'm a bloody guitar player, not a one-finger synth monkey.

Now get off my lawn!

Twinfan

Probably!

Will you be able to get hold of a new part for a 10/15/20 year old Kemper or AxeFx, that's the point people are making.  I think once you sign up to digital modelling you sign up to having to replace it with a new version every so often like you do with mobile phones...

Cirrus

guitartango said:

I would to go digital but spending a few £k on a digital unit which in 3 years time is obsolete and no longer supported is not my cup of tea. In ten years time my tube amp will be still going, my pedals will be still working....but I maybe not

I've never understood this point of view. I think it's fundamentally fucking with people's impression of digital modelling that they think of it as an advancing field where a each generation renders the last load of gear obsolete. It's not like that at all. If it sounded good and was a tool that helped you make music yesterday, it's still that today.

I spent 10 years running valve amps. My AC30 had a new quad of EL84s typically costing £50 every 6-12 months, as part of keeping it in good working order. So there's £500 right there, at least. Ignoring that on occasions I had other amps I was running concurrently with the AC30. Ignoring Rectifiers and Preamp tubes, too. In those 10 years I probably spent a grand on valves.