Who's tried an Atomic Amplifire?

monquixote

I've had a bit of time to play with this now and so far my findings are:

The modelling is seriously good, easily on par with the AxeFX Ultra that I borrowed for a while. I don't think anything else can stand up to this for amp modelling at the price. 

The FX are pretty good, but not really on par with the Axe. 

The front panel interface is total shit so you really need to use a laptop to get anything decent out of it. This is a bit of a concern as I'm going to need to tweak it and band practice and I'm not looking forward to it.

mrkb

If you learn the method for jumping to the first parameter in each block, it makes onboard editing easier, but it is a bit slow. I still can't get a nice warm short plate type reverb, always sounds harsh and caverny.

monquixote

It's worth coughing for the M Britt pack. 

He really gets the best out of it. 

mrkb

I have the M Britt pack, but haven't tried it in depth yet. Think I'm spoils by the AxeFX, the Amplifire is not as good, but is portable and can run from a battery pack, so meets different use case.

monquixote

I took the Amplifire to practice on Tuesday. 

Normally I use my pedalboard into a Puretone into a Motherload Elemental. This week just the Amplifire. 

Previously when I've taken inexpensive one box solutions to practice (AMT F1, Tech21 Blonde, BluGuitar Amp1, Blackstar ID) they have just got lost in the mix, but this genuinely sounded great. 

I'm seriously thinking about getting a Matrix and running it into my 2x12 cab for gigs. 

Cabicular

Get a fryette ... Trust me

gearaddict

On the Amplifire 3 button model...I have a 'stageboard' for my Switchblade amp, which is actually a midi controller. Could I use that to effectively add extra footswitches to the amplifire? I'd need to power it separately I guess as I don't think the Amplifire has a 7 pin midi.

monquixote

Yep it takes midi

gearaddict

monquixote said:

Yep it takes midi

Kewl...any idea how straightforward it is to assign stuff to external midi switches? Do they just show up in the menus once you plug them in?

monquixote

I think it's more the case that various features have associated midi codes.

Download the manual.

koss59

I fancy buying one of these myself. Can the footswitches change amps or just turn a boost and delay on and off?
Its not clear if they can be assigned to do different jobs.

monquixote

Either patch change or effect on off

koss59

Cool thanks, so you could have it change from a Fender to a Marshall and have a boost and delay on each for example?

monquixote

Yes i think that would work

John_P

koss59 said:

Cool thanks, so you could have it change from a Fender to a Marshall and have a boost and delay on each for example?

Easily doable.    And as they can be assigned to switch presets and flip flop between them  you make and to switch effects within a preset you can have lids if variations. 
I had the 3 button version set so two buttons each toggled between two presets so quick access to 4 sounds and then had the 3rd button to give a variation on each preset - adding delay or a boost etc any of the effects can be added they way.    
Really clever system.   

gearaddict

monquixote said:

I think it's more the case that various features have associated midi codes.

Download the manual.

Hmm...yeah they seem to assign a set of codes to particular things. I think that won't really work with the H&K footswitch...I can't seem to find a way of assigning the code number it sends - other than scrolling through all the banks to get to the corresponding set of 4.

I suppose I could use my Pod500x to control it...it's just a bit big. But if I can assign the expression pedal on the pod to control parameters on the Amplifire, that would be cool.

monquixote

Get one of those cheap behringer floorboards

gearaddict

monquixote said:

Get one of those cheap behringer floorboards

Probably be better off getting the 12 button version though eh?

monquixote

Dunno how the price stacks up

gearaddict

Yeah, I don't really want to buy anything extra 

I might be able to make do with the 3 switches...can't quite figure out from the manual how it works but I think each footswich can toggle between two presets so you kind of have 6 sounds...then if I have my wah separately and an expression pedal controlling the amp model gain (not sure if that's possible though - the manual doesn't say which parameters are assignable to the expression pedal).

Also, with the Switchblade controller, if I go to bank 21, then the A-D footswitches send CC#s 80-83, which according to the manual control bypass, fx loop, boost and mod fx. Annoyingly, echo is cc#84...if I had that in the same bank I'd be sorted.