Valves vs modelling musings..

HAL9000

My take on this. I like a simple amp - fewer controls the better - but with a decent base tone. Then it’s quick and easy to adjust on the fly, and I can concentrate on playing rather than wasting time tweaking.

Littlejonny

Fiftyshadesofjay said:

I think it’s definitely dependent on the scenario. After touring and gigging with amps and modellers I’ve found (somewhat unsurprisingly) that modellers are best for recording or really big gigs.

If you think about it, on a big stage nobody is hearing the amp, they’re hearing the mic’d up tone only so a modeller makes perfect sense, especially if it’s replacing an iso cab or an amp off to the side. In this case it won’t make much difference.

But for smaller gigs it can be jarring, with half of the bands sound coming straight off the stage with PA support (loud drums and bass for example) and then guitars stuffed through the PA speakers. This is where it doesn’t particularly work and the reason why I’m back to amps. Running a power amp and cab can mitigate this but it’s still not as good as an amp. 

I think this is probably very true…esp the bit about playing big stages. 

I don’t play loud, but I prefer my amp on fairly quiet, mic’d into the pa and coming through monitors. 

I think modellers can work live with the right monitor system and also a good sound engineer who’s on your side.

When I used to tour with a modeller, it sounded completely different at every venue because of different brands/models of wedge monitor.

As for the one-stomp preset thing @digitalscream ; mentioned is a massive convenience for certain types of gigs/player but you can still do that with an amp, just make sure there’s no speaker sim on the patches. 

patches and presets are ok, but I like being able to manipulate the tone as I go, responding to the musicians around me. 

digitalscream

Littlejonny said:

As for the one-stomp preset thing @digitalscream ; mentioned is a massive convenience for certain types of gigs/player but you can still do that with an amp, just make sure there’s no speaker sim on the patches. 

Oh, of course - I spent years, and many ££££, trying to get the perfect setup to do exactly that with an amp-based rig. The problem is that you have to jump through so many hoops to get there, and I found that there were loads of ground loop issues to deal with too (MIDI and amp control lines causing ground loops with their own ground connections), as well as poorly-shielded MIDI controllers etc.

With a modeller, you just get all of that by default.

If I started playing in a band again, I would of course have to go with an amp rig to begin with, because I just don't have a modeller to hand any more, just a few pedals and my old Jet City. If I was gigging on the regular, I'd put the same HX Stomp + Powerstage 170 rig back together, because it sounded perfect and was waaaaay too convenient relative to lugging an amp around (and maintaining it).