Back and forth with modelling vs tube amps.

Boromedic

It's horses for courses really isn't it, and it's what works for you and your situation. If (and it really is an if), some semi pro band picked me up and said we're silent stage, I'd have to get a modeller and work it out. While I have a choice it's amps all day for me, it's easier and I can get what I want straightaway. With a modeller it would take me ages to do that, because I don't find them intuitive.

Couple that with the reality that I find modelled pedals nowhere near as good as the real deal, for me it's an easy choice. The Timeline does a better job of delays than the Helix could, my comp is great etc etc.. As ever YMMV, if I had to go silent stage it would be something like Lee suggests a ToneX One or that Strymon Iridium pedal or something with my pedalboard.

monquixote

Boromedic said:

It's horses for courses really isn't it, and it's what works for you and your situation. If (and it really is an if), some semi pro band picked me up and said we're silent stage, I'd have to get a modeller and work it out. While I have a choice it's amps all day for me, it's easier and I can get what I want straightaway. With a modeller it would take me ages to do that, because I don't find them intuitive.

Couple that with the reality that I find modelled pedals nowhere near as good as the real deal, for me it's an easy choice. The Timeline does a better job of delays than the Helix could, my comp is great etc etc.. As ever YMMV, if I had to go silent stage it would be something like Lee suggests a ToneX One or that Strymon Iridium pedal or something with my pedalboard.

I did silent stage for my last pub band (a couple of members of the group really wanted to do it) and it was a bit of an arse ache. We had a good PA and Mixer and it did sound good out front, but it wasn't a fun time and it was a lot of work getting it all reliable. 

BrizzleRocker

I’m in a very similar position and curious as to where the tipping point is? 

Currently gigging with 100w head, 2x12 and two pedalboards! We’re playing some reasonably sized venues (400 to 800) and a few smaller clubs so the load in pain is real (I’m also carrying 4 guitars).

I saw the behind the scenes of Take That and it’s a silent stage, barring the drums. All Quad Cortex and Kemper. Even the musicians said they miss trouser flapping action but mostly because that’s what they’re used to.

My question to OP is - do you use in-ear monitors? Thats probably the single most relevant factor (and experience has taught me that not all venue sound engineers are created equal!)

octatonic

BrizzleRocker said:

I’m in a very similar position and curious as to where the tipping point is? 

Currently gigging with 100w head, 2x12 and two pedalboards! We’re playing some reasonably sized venues (400 to 800) and a few smaller clubs so the load in pain is real (I’m also carrying 4 guitars).

I saw the behind the scenes of Take That and it’s a silent stage, barring the drums. All Quad Cortex and Kemper. Even the musicians said they miss trouser flapping action but mostly because that’s what they’re used to.

My question to OP is - do you use in-ear monitors? Thats probably the single most relevant factor (and experience has taught me that not all venue sound engineers are created equal!)

I have in ears, but almost none of the venues that I play are geared up to allow me to use them.
(I have an EV PX12MP floor wedge that I can bring along if I need foldback.)

I've been gigging a pedalboard, two electrics, acoustic and a Matchless Lightning amp.
It isn't too much to carry- the main issue was when I really have to play at low level I don't want to be running the Matchless on 0.5 and have it sound shit.
But I won't know that until I get there and taking a Kemper rig instead means I will always use the modellingr ig which I don't like as much.

I think I've found a way around it for now- I've bought a cheap used Tonex pedal (not the small one) and I'll have that on the board with a profile of the Matchless for going direct to FOH for the smaller gigs and monitoring through the Matchless when I can get it to a decent level.

I can still bring my Lightning and just either use it or not.

So:

Guitar -> Pedalboard -> Tonex -> FOH
                                             -> Matchless

This also allows me to use the pedalboard for the acoustic guitar- I can create an acoustic preamp profile in the Tonex.
If I hate the Tonex I will look at the Kemper Profiler Player.

TTBZ

Currently borrowing a Captor so I've been trying out my loaded down amp vs NAM captures through the same IR, reverb etc. To my surprise I think I actually prefer the captures! To be fair they're captures of a really good 100w amp (Splawn ProMod) vs my real 20w amp (Marshall 2525H), but the captures sound bigger and respond just as well as the real thing. I'm currently only playing at home so don't really need any hardware or "amp in the room" feel, but if I get into a band again I'll definitely be considering a ToneX if they're anything like what I'm getting from NAM. I need to find out if the guy on Tone Hunt called TimR makes ToneX captures too!

Keefy

Boromedic said:

It's horses for courses really isn't it, and it's what works for you and your situation. If … some semi pro band picked me up and said we're silent stage, I'd have to get a modeller and work it out. While I have a choice it's amps all day for me, it's easier and I can get what I want straightaway. With a modeller it would take me ages to do that, because I don't find them intuitive.

Couple that with the reality that I find modelled pedals nowhere near as good as the real deal, for me it's an easy choice. The Timeline does a better job of delays than the Helix could, my comp is great etc etc.. As ever YMMV, if I had to go silent stage it would be something like Lee suggests a ToneX One or that Strymon Iridium pedal or something with my pedalboard.

This was my situation about a year ago. I have some great valve amps and more analog pedals than any sane person could wish for. I was offered a number of gigs with a tribute band that doesn’t use backline. I went through various combinations of analog amp sim with IR loader, and ended up with… a Strymon Iridium and a few fx pedals. 

Lestratcaster

Funnily enough in conjunction with this thread I used my old Marshall DSL 1 watt combo for an online lesson earlier (usually us my Kemper but as the learner bought the same amp I wanted to show him how to use the controls properly with mine) and I just had that "ahhh there it is..." moment with the valvey Marshall overdrive tone. It sounded so good with an SM57 mic'd in front of it!

I love my Kemper of course but there's just something about the DSL that reacted with my Les Paul in a way the Kemper can't, more natural warmth in the saturation and increased sustain.

Nerine

Fucks sake. Im missing my FM9T a bit… 

Especially now I have a dedicated power amp I could use with it. 

Doubly especially since the busiest band I’m in has just bought a better PA so would sound loads better out front. 

Curses. 

Boromedic

Keefy said:

Boromedic said:

It's horses for courses really isn't it, and it's what works for you and your situation. If … some semi pro band picked me up and said we're silent stage, I'd have to get a modeller and work it out. While I have a choice it's amps all day for me, it's easier and I can get what I want straightaway. With a modeller it would take me ages to do that, because I don't find them intuitive.

Couple that with the reality that I find modelled pedals nowhere near as good as the real deal, for me it's an easy choice. The Timeline does a better job of delays than the Helix could, my comp is great etc etc.. As ever YMMV, if I had to go silent stage it would be something like Lee suggests a ToneX One or that Strymon Iridium pedal or something with my pedalboard.

This was my situation about a year ago. I have some great valve amps and more analog pedals than any sane person could wish for. I was offered a number of gigs with a tribute band that doesn’t use backline. I went through various combinations of analog amp sim with IR loader, and ended up with… a Strymon Iridium and a few fx pedals. 

Cool, that's likely the way I'd do it too, I follow a few session guys who play in touring bands, and their current trend is to do a kind of wet/dry rig with an amp and an Iridium to front of house. Sounds pretty good too

DavusPG

A timely thread - I've been happily using and gigging Fractal modellers for 7 or 8 years now, but the urge to get a tube amp has recently appeared.

Where my experience may differ slightly from others in the thread is that our drummer has an e-kit, so everything goes straight to the PA (other guitarist uses a Helix, bass goes direct too, but with a cab for some fill). We use 3 monitors across the front so get plenty of our sound coming back at us. Getting a good sound has definitely been a learning curve and I think has been massively helped by our drummer's e-kit as we never have the problem of the drums drowning everything else out, but despite all that I'm a little fed up with the preset tweaking, and I guess ultimately am not totally happy with my sound. That said, I want to continue to use the functionality of my FM9 and don't want to be micing a cab, so have been looking into the Suhr PT15IR. I think that would easily integrate with my FM9 via the built in reactive load and the 3 channels to provide my base tones....whether it'll have the edge and that "something" I feel I'm missing I don't know, but I'd like to find out. For certain songs I could still use the FM9's modelled amps, but reckon that I'd get through the majority of a gig with the 3 channels on the PT15 and a selection of effects from the FM9.....curiosity will probably get the better of me, although it's a hell of an outlay for what could potentially be marginal gains that nobody in the crowd will notice. On the other hand it could turn out to be something that I've been missing out on all these years....

PhilKing

In the 90's I was using the Digitech TwinTubes for my gigging amp, but it was noisy, so went through Hush II to tame it.  I ended up moving back to a valve amp though (Marshall Silver Jubilee 50w combo) and using a Fender Princeton Reverb for recording.  I still have a rack set up (as I never sell anything!), but don't use it too much.  However, for bass, I have a valve preamp and stereo poweramp in a rack with 2 2x10 and 2 1x15 cabs, which lets me size it for smaller gigs (just one of each cab).

I also got the Johnson J-Station in around 2000 for recording, and liked it, but never really used it in anger.

I still like the push of an amp and speaker, but it's always a pain to carry them.

PolarityMan

octatonic said:

I have in ears, but almost none of the venues that I play are geared up to allow me to use them.
(I have an EV PX12MP floor wedge that I can bring along if I need foldback.)

We take our own PA with splitting on the front so everything goes to our rig first which splits into a soundcraft ui24 for managing our IEM mix then back out for FoH. When we played last week all 4 bands were doing this exact setup so it seems to be getting more popular even with amateurs. 

TheBigDipper

My band (self-penned originals, so no following and only small gigs or supporting on medium-sized ones) made a decision last year to go direct. Guitar, bass and e-drums. It was the e-drums that made it possible, as we're now all silent onstage and we all take the same monitor mix in the wedges. Small stages (10m between left and right PA speakers at the most, 5m more common) means there's no real need for an audience infill at the front - they can hear what we're hearing.

We don't use IEMs, despite the band owning an XR-18, because it's one more thing to manage at the gig and we don't have anything loud onstage that we need to isolate from. 

We might be doing a gig with a shared acoustic drumkit in a couple of months. If we do it, I suspect we'll use individual FRFRs as backline. But acoustic rock drumkits in the small venues we play are generally seen by us as bad news these days. 

Danny1969

PolarityMan said:

octatonic said:

I have in ears, but almost none of the venues that I play are geared up to allow me to use them.
(I have an EV PX12MP floor wedge that I can bring along if I need foldback.)

We take our own PA with splitting on the front so everything goes to our rig first which splits into a soundcraft ui24 for managing our IEM mix then back out for FoH. When we played last week all 4 bands were doing this exact setup so it seems to be getting more popular even with amateurs. 

I have the same system, Ui24 and 18 mic splits for FOH use. 
The Ui24 is a great desk for multiple stereo ears 

octatonic

I'm sticking with tube amps.
Added a Matchless Nighthawk today.

A C30 still eludes me.
Soon.

PolarityMan

Danny1969 said:

PolarityMan said:

octatonic said:

I have in ears, but almost none of the venues that I play are geared up to allow me to use them.
(I have an EV PX12MP floor wedge that I can bring along if I need foldback.)

We take our own PA with splitting on the front so everything goes to our rig first which splits into a soundcraft ui24 for managing our IEM mix then back out for FoH. When we played last week all 4 bands were doing this exact setup so it seems to be getting more popular even with amateurs. 

I have the same system, Ui24 and 18 mic splits for FOH use. 
The Ui24 is a great desk for multiple stereo ears 

We only have 8 splits but I'd really like to add another 8 so we can do 3 toms as an option. 

octatonic

This seems to be the best compromise for now.

Tonex has a Matchless model that is acceptable.
For gigs where I can't use an amp I can just use the pedalboard and switch between guitars, electric to acoustic etc.

When I can use the amp the Tonex output can be either a feed to the PA or I can just mic it up.
For what I paid (£250 used) I think it is a decent solution.
Certainly better than maintaining two separate rigs- a pedalboard/amp and a Kemper, especially when I might not know until I turn up to the gig if I can use the amp at decent volume or not.