Blackstar ht metal arrived

steamabacus

ThePrettyDamned said:

However, the clean sound emulated out is absolutely shite. Muddy as hell, regardless of what I do to the eq and isf. Shame. But through an amp, it's a nice warm clean. It won't be much good for most of my funk and stuff, but for rock cleans with a bit of hair it's just the ticket.

I have an HT-5 head that I use DI'd using the emulated out. What I have noticed is, as well as being 'dark', the emulated out is incredibly compressed.

I have evolved into a direct setup where I have the HT-5 emulated out on my left channel and my trusty old Session JD-10 preamp on the right channel. I also do a lot of looping utilising beats on the looper and this really highlights the difference in compression between the two. If you look at the waveforms, the JD-10 channel is noticeably much more dynamic with big defined peaks (and I'm even running it through some light compression from a MicroFX compressor) - the HT-5 channel is VERY squashed and flat.

I suppose this makes it easy for beginners to sit a guitar track in a mix and will keep things under control as a live DI, but you can't remove compression once it's there and I've found it can be very limiting. Having the other speaker emulation on the right channel has allowed me to regain some dynamics. I do intend to retire the HT-5's direct out and replace it with something more dynamic though - only the thought of having to rebuild/rewire my setup is holding me back at the moment.

[edit] Have a look at this audacity screen grab. The HT-5 emulated out is the left (top) channel, JD-10 plus compressor is the right channel.

mike_l

@ThePrettyDamned if you'd like to do a back-to-back Ht Metal/Ht Dual comparrison, I'll loan you my HTD,,,,,,,