Why I went back to real amps.

Nerine

This is an amended version of a post I made in another thread, but I think it is probably a discussion in itself. 

I’ve gone back to amps after using the Fractal FM9 for a year. It sounded good. Definitely. No issue with that. I knew how to use it. I understood all of it. But ultimately, my analogue rig is just less hassle, more gratifying and no less portable or versatile. (I would NEVER use different amp presets etc for different songs because it's just a big no no for me. I don't want my guitar occupying different frequency ranges and therefore everyone's perception of front to back in a mix. Not live. No way. It's a sure fire way for some songs to sound good and others to sound disjointed and crappy in my opinion.)

Some of the drawbacks and findings from my foray into modelling:

You don’t constantly search for secret settings or values in the software that might all of a sudden grant you unicorn tears tone with an amp. You just use it. The controls are the controls. Some of the parameters I'd tweak in FM9 Edit and I'd be listening to my monitors with scrunched up face wondering if I'm improving things, making things worse, or making no appreciable difference at all. 

IR's are (in my opinion) the weak link in the modelling ecosystem. They are dynamically static and are essentially an EQ curve/filter added to your sound. I don't like them much, but they are essentially what we have right now. 

You have less/zero frame of reference when dialling in a modeller because the additional EQ options essentially take you out of the real world. Great for versatility, I suppose, but even as someone that understands all this stuff to pretty much the nth degree and having spent nearly two decades producing, recording and mixing records for a living, I would still question my EQ settings when dialling patches and CONSTANTLY second guess myself how they would translate live. How much low end do I need in this preset? Dunno. How much would the real amp have in this situation? Dunno - I've never played in this room before. Will I then need to low and high pass? Dunno. How much is the room killing or accentuating my low frequencies? Dunno. Ideally I need to check it against a real amp to see how close I am etc. and then tweak from there.
Same when you go from room to room.
I don't have that with an amp. It kinda sounds how it sounds. I need more low end - great, I'll increase the bass control. Do I still need more? Yes. Tough - the control is maxed. It's the room and no additional low end will help seeing as it's just being cancelled or not represented properly in the space you're in. It's not the amp. The control says so. No worries. No second guessing. 

Because dialling in a sound with a modeller generally takes a lot of trial and error and tweaking - it took me a fair few gigs and many a day/evening of messing around with it to get it where I wanted. Due to this you become loathed to mess with your presets too much when you get to a gig. Like, you could improve them, you could also make them worse just as easily. I found it to be a double edged sword. With an amp, you just go up to it and adjust the controls with no fear. A power amp with EQ controls on it may negate this somewhat, or even completely, but you're already then using guitar speakers because you're using a power amp (or a solution that looks like a guitar cab), and then you're edging back to diminishing returns over a standard valve combo. 

I found myself using the amp that sounded the best to me in my patches. I also didn’t deviate from the IR selection because I liked what I heard (and honestly I got a bit scared to change them because I felt like I'd stumbled on to a really good blend that seemed to translate well in most rooms so why change it, right?).

The options kind of become redundant once you settle on an amp you like. I understand it needs to cater for everyone's needs, but in my view, that's why the option paralysis tends to exist with these kinds of units. I own an actual 2203, so using the model of one was a bit pointless. I also found that switching amps out was a bit of a pointless exercise seeing as I'd usually dial them similarly and end up with a sound that was nearly identical to my previous patches. It makes the options a bit pointless seeing as you have a fairly firm idea of the "sound in your head" that you cannot really deviate from, because how a guitar sounds to you was likely something that was ingrained in you at a very young age.

Whether I like it or not, most of my biggest influences are staunch Marshall 2203 (or very similar) users so it should be of no surprise to me that that amp just works for me. That's not a conscious decision either, I've never really thought about it in any great depth. 

It's also one of the reasons I made a thread on this forum about the speaker/cab being more important than the amp for large tonal changes. I still stand by that. You flick through amps with the same cab, and the results make you realise there aren't that many unique ways to distort a guitar signal. So then you're relying on IR's and they are the weak link in the modelling ecosystem. 

The one thing I miss. Stereo to Front of House with cabinet modelling with simultaneous feed to fx return of valve amp for stage sound. But even that has its drawbacks and really is no different from running an amp (which I was already using) and a microphone. The stereo field only really works if all audience members can hear each PA stack equally. A lot of the time they can't, let's be honest. A mic on your combo, or a Two Notes Captor plumbed into your existing amp will do the same job.

Nerine

Continued:


I haven't yet mentioned that your rig is going to sound hugely different depending on the PA it's plugged into. Through something nice, great. Through a pair of Peavey tops? Absolute garbage. Therefore it's nice to have something on stage that picks up a bit of the slack - so you're taking a cab or a wedge along with you again. Guitar cabs all sound different. So do PA cabs, people. 

No latency in the analogue domain. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I could definitely detect latency in the digital setup. I'm really perceptible of this and it definitely was noticeable (sometimes annoyingly so) to me. 

My modelling rig could sound slick live. No doubt. A proper big sound that I have previously spoken about in the Fractal thread. My 2203, even with a simple open back 1x12 which doesn’t take up a heap of room, can sound vastly more devastating and visceral, and I think that’s the difference. 

My analogue rig has the footprint of two regular sized doormats. One for the pedalboard. One for the cab. 40cm x 60cm each. That's not exactly large.
My modelling rig had no smaller footprint. The pedal board was bigger (wider, which is worse) and the monitor on it's side takes up approx same amount of space as a decently sized 1x12 cab. So it's no longer space saving over an analogue rig, unless you use IEMS and silent stage. Provided you're not using a pair of Peavey tops of course. Even then, plug the amp into a Captor X/Ox or similar and enjoy silent stage with no cab.

Therefore, I began to ask myself what I was gaining (as my car gradually filled more from gig to gig with other ancillaries that removed the compromise from my awesome digital solution) and I’m not sure what the answer was. Was it tone? Not really. Was it convenience? Not really. Was it labour saving? Not really. Was it easier to lug around? About even. Was it more versatile? Not really any more so than my analogue rig. Did I like it? Yes, for the most part. Did it make me laugh like an evil maniac like my 2203 does? No.  

By all means, jump in to modelling and embrace it, but be prepared to potentially continually seek ways to tailor the setup for your desires, adding size and complexity along the way. 

Were I doing the rabbit hole again, I’d probably go Friedman IR-X into Fryette Powerstation into 1x12 closed back cab. 

That’s a decent solution, and the best of all worlds, in my opinion. I may still build the above rig as I think it would be stellar. Really compact and really great sounding, being all valve. 

I'll likely pick up the modelling thing further down the line again, but for now, I'll just grin when my 2203 is plonked behind me. 


Appreciate there may be many who disagree with the above and guess what? That's absolutely fine. It's not an issue. The above is my summation of having spent a year with a (really good) modelling rig for my use case. Your mileage may vary.

I also really like the Fractal FM9. It's a stellar piece of equipment and by far and away the best modeller you can buy. If I were just a home player, I'd have kept it. I may well get another in the future. Or more likely, I'll wait to see what they come up with next. 

Apologies for the verbal diarrhoea. I fully realise I could eloquent these points better, but I wanted to get thoughts down whilst I was remembering stuff. 

Anyway....

Moe_Zambeek

Interesting read. The continual need to tweak is always a thing for me too, not so much modelling because I didn’t like the feel more than anything else so never went there, but even something like a digital delay with lots of params
or the H9 I used to have. 

As far as JCMs go, there’s nothing much else on the planet that has the toothy grind of a JCM. Visceral is correct!

Petepassion

I’m old school, I like the controls in front of me, I know my basic settings and if something is a bit off, it’s very easy to tweak.
   Plus nothing looks better than a half stack…er, except a full stack of course, but that’s a bit of a handful. 

   Stand in front of your rig, crank it and grin like a madman.

Danny1969

What I constantly find is the more digital something is, the worse it will generally sound to my ears. It's a similar situation in the studio , the more plugins you pile on a track the thinner and more brittle it tends to get. In general the simpler the signal path the more real and "in your face" something sounds and that's what I certainly want for live use  and 90% of the time in the studio. 
So I've got a gig tonight, a small sold out show debuting our new Indies 80's band, a tribute to all the cool stuff like The The, Furniture, Bowie, Teardrop Explodes etc and I've debating between Pod Go with patches for songs and normal pedal board just turning pedals on and off as needed. 
In both instances I'm gonna use a real amp but I notice even only using the Pod Go for effects like Chorus  / delay etc the sound instantly loses something. Pull the Pod out the equation and join the leads together and whatever was lost is back. It's not volume, I can set the Pod so it's louder but it still sucks some life out of the sound somehow. 

The modeller and active PA cab, well I never saw the point of that. I've done loads of gigs with the pod direct to PA and that does solve a problem when you are touring in a little van and everyone is on ears anyway though. Use an active PA speaker and you may just as well use an amp. 

As Tom Bokovac says good tone is heavy to carry and I'm fine with that. To my ears I can't make a £350 digital box sound as good as a few cheap pedals. That kind of seals the deal to me so I'm analog man again. 

Nerine

Danny1969 said:

In both instances I'm gonna use a real amp but I notice even only using the Pod Go for effects like Chorus  / delay etc the sound instantly loses something. Pull the Pod out the equation and join the leads together and whatever was lost is back. It's not volume, I can set the Pod so it's louder but it still sucks some life out of the sound somehow. 

Before I sold my FM9, I thought I'd give it a go in 4CM with my amps. 

For whatever reason, it did not sound anything like as present, full, rich etc as my usual pedalboard that has some fairly run of the mill pedals on it. The delays and whatnot just sounded a bit lacklustre for want of a better word. Less vibrant or clear. 

Cirrus

@Nerine that's a great couple of posts, very well articulated and dealing with the actual practical reality of a digital rig. I found the same when I tried gigging a Helix Rack setup. not actually any less space on stage, and less context to help me understand what I was hearing from room to room and PA to PA.

Something I found was that over time and consecutive tweaking sessions I'd push the tone gradually more and more in a certain direction, always feeling like I was making small incremental improvements. Then I'd have a road to Damascus moment where I realised the sound was too pushed in some particular frequency range, lacking in another, or a room would reveal some inherent inbalance/ lumpiness in the low end that actual cabs don't have. So I'd try something radical like a new amp model, new IR, cutting back on an EQ block, and it would be a revelation and sound loads better... for a bit. I ended up always chasing my tail, and lack of context/ grounding was the reason why.

Just doesn't happen with real amps. They are what they are. Modelled amps, you have to try to listen through the monitoring situation to guess what's really going on.

welshboyo

Well, I'm completely the other way, but I'll caveat that in saying we are all silent stage/IEM and we have a pretty good dialled in PA (RCF's, Mackie Desk, Klang etc).

The new Dynacabs in Fractal-land whilst a bit of a departure to begin with (and I moaned like a bitch about them) have actually turned out to be a godsend for live work, just a slight change in mic placement makes up for the majority of rooms we play, and tbh, I rarely touch that - its a consistent tone every gig.

I'll also be honest in that I don't get this latency thing that gets pushed around, its obviously a thing and is just part of being digital, perhaps I'm lucky but in all the years I have used AX8, FM3, FM9 and Helix I've never ever experienced it - perhaps that's my poor hearing or lack of feel who knows!!!!!

I couldn't think of anything worse now than hauling a back breaking amp into a gig, cable it all up, pray it doesn;t go up in smoke when you flick the standby switch (yes Bogner, I blame you for that!!)  - my setup is now 1 board, 2 XLR's, turn on my wireless, and boom ready to go - 5 mins..

Nerine

Cirrus said:

@Nerine that's a great couple of posts, very well articulated and dealing with the actual practical reality of a digital rig. I found the same when I tried gigging a Helix Rack setup. not actually any less space on stage, and less context to help me understand what I was hearing from room to room and PA to PA.

Something I found was that over time and consecutive tweaking sessions I'd push the tone gradually more and more in a certain direction, always feeling like I was making small incremental improvements. Then I'd have a road to Damascus moment where I realised the sound was too pushed in some particular frequency range, lacking in another, or a room would reveal some inherent inbalance/ lumpiness in the low end that actual cabs don't have. So I'd try something radical like a new amp model, new IR, cutting back on an EQ block, and it would be a revelation and sound loads better... for a bit. I ended up always chasing my tail, and lack of context/ grounding was the reason why.

Just doesn't happen with real amps. They are what they are. Modelled amps, you have to try to listen through the monitoring situation to guess what's really going on.

I think this is put really well, and explains more succinctly my feelings exactly. 

It is indeed the lack of grounding and the lack of a consistent known reference point that is often the hampering thing. 

I would dial in a sound on my FM9 (towards the end I mostly had it plugged into the FX Return of my recently departed Small Box combo to take advantage of a valve power amp and actual guitar speaker which removed the IR option paralysis) and I would absolutely HAVE to go back to the amp preamp and then retweak the Fractal patch based on my findings after plugging into the amp and normalising the situation again.
I'd often have to add loads more top end bite (which if I'm being honest was always a bit tricky to do without harshness), and thin the low end out a bit. Then of course, it would just sound thin somehow. Then you get tweaking and tweaking and your ears get fatigued and you reference against the amp again and you're alarmed by the stark contrast again and you then stop... and probably think, I should just use the amp... (I mean I'm now trying to match how it sounds, right?!?)

You absolutely don't have that luxury from gig to gig. I find a modeller to be an unknown entity, whereas an amp you can absolutely know like the back of your hand, which gives you much more information about the environment you're playing in. It is your grounding, and it often informs me on a lot of the judgements I make when doing the overall band sound (which I do at every gig).   

One other thing I noticed, which I've just reminded myself about when typing the above: 

I could always listen to my "real" amp at higher volumes for longer than I could with the Fractal through the same power amp and speaker dialled in a very similar way using the same amp model, without my ears beginning to feel a bit fatigued or "pushed in" as I like to describe it. The problem was exacerbated when using FRFR monitoring (which I mostly used to try to make sound like a guitar cab/"amp in the room" anyway...) I didn't perceive the Fractal/digital model to sound harsh in the room, but my ears would be telling me a different story after a bit of play time, whereas I'd always feel fine after some old fashioned amp stuff. 

Nerine

welshboyo said:

Well, I'm completely the other way, but I'll caveat that in saying we are all silent stage/IEM and we have a pretty good dialled in PA (RCF's, Mackie Desk, Klang etc).

The new Dynacabs in Fractal-land whilst a bit of a departure to begin with (and I moaned like a bitch about them) have actually turned out to be a godsend for live work, just a slight change in mic placement makes up for the majority of rooms we play, and tbh, I rarely touch that - its a consistent tone every gig.

I'll also be honest in that I don't get this latency thing that gets pushed around, its obviously a thing and is just part of being digital, perhaps I'm lucky but in all the years I have used AX8, FM3, FM9 and Helix I've never ever experienced it - perhaps that's my poor hearing or lack of feel who knows!!!!!

I couldn't think of anything worse now than hauling a back breaking amp into a gig, cable it all up, pray it doesn;t go up in smoke when you flick the standby switch (yes Bogner, I blame you for that!!)  - my setup is now 1 board, 2 XLR's, turn on my wireless, and boom ready to go - 5 mins..

Yeah, this was the ideal and the reasoning for the switch to be begin with. Less hassle. 

Perhaps personality types come into it and it affects how you approach the technology etc. 

I've done silent stage gigs with the Fractal and IEMs and whatnot, and I liked the stereo stuff going on in my ears. That was nice. This was when we were using a real nice PA (we use my desk (Touchmix 30 Pro)). (Our singer owned the PA speakers and is on hiatus due to illness so we're currently using a makeshift craphouse PA.) The current PA rig isn't upto much regardless of how good the desk is and so adding the Fractal in there too is just going to use up more headroom. Especially when competing with an acoustic kit etc. 

The heaviest part of my rig is the amp head. That's not too much of a grind, although I agree wholeheartedly about Bogners. They absolutely suck balls for reliability. 

Roland

I’ve hated valve amps since the 70s. A stream of failures, not so much valves (that’s fixable within minutes), but sockets, capacitors, resistors … In consequence I like the reliability of digital. I like that, as we step from Intro to Verse to Chorus, my AxeFX takes care of effects, lighting changes, and tempos. No tap dancing, and trying to play whilst changing the lights.

Am I constantly tweaking? Only the guitar’s pickup selector, volume and tone. There might be 100s of amp models available, but I only use one, with four different settings: clean, edge, crunch, and solo. There are 1000s of IRs. I use two: the same speaker with two different mics, just as I learned to do fifty years ago. 

Does it sound digital? It sounds different, but that’s because I’ve EQd the output to reduce the volume of frequencies which interfere with the vocals and other instruments. I could add back the low frequencies for that glorious thump when I hit a power chord, but that would interfere with the bass at one end, and the keys at the other. A lot of the time I’m playing through IEMs, even at home. At a gig I certainly don’t want to have to turn my IEMs up to balance what’s bleeding past them.

So I understand why some people aren’t comfortable with digital. That’s not my use case.

welshboyo

Nerine said:

welshboyo said:

Well, I'm completely the other way, but I'll caveat that in saying we are all silent stage/IEM and we have a pretty good dialled in PA (RCF's, Mackie Desk, Klang etc).

The new Dynacabs in Fractal-land whilst a bit of a departure to begin with (and I moaned like a bitch about them) have actually turned out to be a godsend for live work, just a slight change in mic placement makes up for the majority of rooms we play, and tbh, I rarely touch that - its a consistent tone every gig.

I'll also be honest in that I don't get this latency thing that gets pushed around, its obviously a thing and is just part of being digital, perhaps I'm lucky but in all the years I have used AX8, FM3, FM9 and Helix I've never ever experienced it - perhaps that's my poor hearing or lack of feel who knows!!!!!

I couldn't think of anything worse now than hauling a back breaking amp into a gig, cable it all up, pray it doesn;t go up in smoke when you flick the standby switch (yes Bogner, I blame you for that!!)  - my setup is now 1 board, 2 XLR's, turn on my wireless, and boom ready to go - 5 mins..

Yeah, this was the ideal and the reasoning for the switch to be begin with. Less hassle. 

Perhaps personality types come into it and it affects how you approach the technology etc. 

I've done silent stage gigs with the Fractal and IEMs and whatnot, and I liked the stereo stuff going on in my ears. That was nice. This was when we were using a real nice PA (we use my desk (Touchmix 30 Pro)). (Our singer owned the PA speakers and is on hiatus due to illness so we're currently using a makeshift craphouse PA.) The current PA rig isn't upto much regardless of how good the desk is and so adding the Fractal in there too is just going to use up more headroom. Especially when competing with an acoustic kit etc. 

The heaviest part of my rig is the amp head. That's not too much of a grind, although I agree wholeheartedly about Bogners. They absolutely suck balls for reliability. 

This is where I'm probably spoilt then - PA - and the quality of it - we have invested as a band quite heavily into the PA as you do see/hear some absolute shite out there - so perhaps my experience is slightly different, if I was to return to a more "vocal only" PA then I'd be heading back to amp-land in some form - I could certainly see the PA as a limiting factor.

Its all horses for courses mate, and to some extent, a lot depends on the guys around you too - you mention acoustic kit, again I'm lucky in that our drummer is pretty good at controlling it all - I'd never tell him that though :-)

ElectricXII

Thanks @Nerine , this is a really interesting thread. I can see the attraction of digital modelling setups, and they definitely work for some people, and often sound good to me as an audience member hearing the FOH mix. However I get option paralysis when confronted with these kind of devices, and I don't even like LCD screens on pedals and switchers, where you have to create and scroll through patches, etc. 

I mainly play with older guys in an old-school rock covers band where I have either a Marshall or a Vox behind me, and a relatively modest, mostly analogue pedal board. We use our own PA and monitors for most gigs, and only use a house system for bigger gigs where the PA and soundman are provided.

The whole silent stage thing is completely alien to me. I've grown up without in-ears, where stage volume is at a level which is dictated by acoustic drums. This is rock 'n'r oll to me - feeling the amp behind me moving some air, feeling the bass amp. I really don't like putting things in my ears, even stereo headphones, and much prefer wedges, even if sometimes I would be able to hear much better with in-ears.

My Bluesbreaker combo is a heavy awkward bastard though.

Lebarque

Food for thought, @fastonebaz ;

fastonebaz

Lebarque said:

Food for thought, @fastonebaz ;

Funnily enough I was halfway through reading this when you posted. 

@Nerine articulated all my fears so well.

I like only having a few settings to play with and feeling like I'm using 90% of what I've bought rather than 1%.

p90fool

I'm in total agreement with all of this, despite really enjoying a modeller for the first time ever with my Pod Go.
I'm using it as a pedalboard into Marshall or Fender valve amps or a Peavey Bandit fitted with a Classic Lead 80 which obviously helps, but the new cab sims are finally really good into the desk too. 

But despite being a current digital user when I plug back into a simple amp it's like the other half of my musical instrument has been restored. For the party/wedding band I can live without it, but for the sparse sounding guitar duo I play with only a real amp lets me explore all of the dynamic possibilities of a great guitar and it's controls. 

bobeffect

God it's so easy to plonk my DRRI down, tilt it back with the Fender legs I fitted. Plug in my Helix (as a multi effects unit) and shove a 906 mic in front of it. Not exactly back breaking and it has been pretty reliable for me.... Hasn't broken down in at least 50 gigs and lots of practice. I bring a Boss Nextone amp as a backup but have never needed it. However the two subs and two tops, the lights, the cables and all the rest of the band stuff is a bit more taxing but the dolly trolley helps. Spent hours trying to get the Helix to sound good as an Amp replacement but the minute I flash up my Deluxe Reverb I wonder why I bothered. Each to their own of course.

thomasw88

Have tried loads of different modellers,  gone back to amp and pedal board.  I found that modellers sounded great in the house but I was always needing to tweak live. The best was the Humboldt simplifier which I used for best part of a year in rehearsals and did a couple of live gigs with it.  But it doesn’t sound as good as my badcat or h&k amp..

I play in 3 bands doing a wide range of songs, and tbh the tap dancing thing is  very over egged, I can think of about 2 songs where I find it a pita to have to try and switch pedals on or off simultaneously.  However when I used snapshots and whatever the boss gt equivalent is I always found that they never seemed right either.. 

i still use helix native in the house for home demos and it’s great. The  last two singles I’ve played on, the producer has used a combo of live amps and plugins and tbh I couldn’t tell which was which when the mix is finished.  I’m also definitely going to get a boss ir-2 at some point, and if I found a multi effects which was as good, and easy to use as my pedalboard then I would switch.  So not opposed to modellers per se.

willo

I've been back and forth. Yes, I find the quest for the perfect setting in modellers a problem; but no I don't miss the endless quest for the 'perfect pedal' that burnt both time and money when I was in amp land. I see them as similar issues.

I love the sound of a good amp micd up, but I also love the consistency of plugging direct into FOH. And, realistically, 90% of my hours are played at home so this is where I prioritise. 

The one area where I think modellers categorically win is as an audio interface. I love playing on my helix, loading up a backing track to play through the same speakers with, and then opening up a DAW to put down some ideas. That's seamless and something I was never able to come close to with amps.

Jonathanthomas83

Nothing beats a real amp in terms of visceral impact. I'm with you. However, I'm all in on modelling now, I will find it difficult to go back to real amps. 

The new 2203 model on the Axe FX sounds absolutely incredible, IMO. Gives me exactly what I need, because like you, I'm a 2203 man. But until now, I've really struggled to recreate the sound in my head of the memory I have of my old amp. But this new model just feels immense and sounds exactly how I like.

Danny1969

One trick I use with amps and recording is coming out the pre amp / effects loop send  into the PC with a speaker sim on the track. Then when I've nailed the part send the audio back to the effects loop return socket, crank the amp and mic it up and record it back in. This process means you only need the amp cranked for the 4 minute duration of the song, not for the 2 hours it might take to get the part right. 

I think my main problem is digital and companies insistence on making the whole unit digital when most overdrive and distortion effects  can be make for peanuts in their original analog form. I like digital reverb and delay on a parallel path but when the whole chain is digital it just seems not as present and real as some analog pedals into a valve amp. 

Another great thing about amps is value. All the 5 amps I have brought over the last 7 years are now worth more than I paid for them. All the digital stuff I've brought over the last 5 years has lost at least a third of it's value. 

Then there's the longevity issue. There's not many valve amps get written off (Marshall TSL and such aside) Even a PT change can generally be done for less than half the value of the amp. Most faults are well under a ton to fix. 

How much is a Helix or Quad Cortex board ? can you get one as a service part ? Being in the repair industry that kinda thing is always on my mind.