Modelers

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Had to look that one up . Apparently you are not alone in thinking that -But according to this Pro Audio Files article there wasn't

https://theproaudiofiles.com/eric-cl...%20never%20did.

An excerpt from that article

Thanks! I needed that!

[phcorrigan]

Originally Posted by fazool

Yep - sorry I was sloppy in my writing and thinking....being lazy as I replied.

I was thinking of the old tube-amp versus transistor amp debate, wherein tube-amp-purists might say "you cant get great sound with transistors" meanwhile there entire pedal chain is transistors......

A bit of a digression, so please feel free to ignore this.

This also plays into the "vinyl vs digital (including CDs)" debate. What is it about vinyl records that people like, aside from the cover art, liner notes, and the fact that it's a physical object? The answer usually comes down to "digital sampling doesn't give the same output." Of course, most of those vinyl records people are buying right now have been digitally recorded and mastered, so to me that argument doesn't fly. Perhaps one problem is that digital recording and playback is too "sterile," and I think there is some truth to this. The clicks from dust and scratches perhaps adds something we somehow find comforting. Some of it might be that unless you have a record changer, something no self-respecting audiophile would use, you really have to pay attention to vinyl, since you only get about twenty minutes or so of play before you have to change the record or turn it over. Some of it might be plain old confirmation bias--we believe it's true therefore when we listen to vinyl it sounds "better," although we don't know how or why.

Another factor, however, might be the RIAA equalization curve, which effectively provides a kind of distortion, like tube guitar amps do, that people find pleasing. Also, these days the true audiophiles have tube amps, which tend to give a "warmer" sound due to their inherent distortion. Perhaps the human ear and brain have an affinity for a certain level of noise and distortion in our music. Even with live performances, there is always a certain amount of noise and such, so maybe that's part of why a recording that's "too clean" doesn't sound as pleasant to some.

Having said all that, I have very little experience with electric guitar amps. I've had three modeling amps and one tube amp. I still have the tube amp and I love the sound I get from it (helped along with a few pedals). The modeling amps just didn't do it for me. Perhaps a good solid-state non-modeler might give me a sound I like, but at this point I have no reason to find out.

Someone once said "The heart wants what the heart wants," and I can't argue with that (although I have some concern in general with tautologies). I suppose one could also say "The ear wants what the ear wants." I'm quite happy with my tube amp (other than the 40+ pound weight) and currently have no reason nor inclination to stray.

[jonfields45]

I’m quite impressed with my UA Dream 65. I can’t hear any advantage in the real thing.

But I’m probably no better than the next guy when it comes to observational bias (hearing with my eyes in this case). I’ve got an adult lifetime in semiconductor design to pull me strongly away from tubes. Given the tiny to no negative feedback in tube guitar amp circuit design I’m shocked how much any individual amp is considered similar to its factory issued model peers.

For me, modelers that offer too many options not on the originals and menus are a big turn off. Even the Dream has a master volume, boost with mods, and half a dozen speakers to select from… But today there are many excellent options and you can choose your poison.

Aside from Fender Tone Master’s the beautiful look of great classic industrial design on your living room floor requires tubes.

[jonfields45]

Originally Posted by jonfields45

I’m quite impressed with my UA Dream 65. I can’t hear any advantage in the real thing.

But I’m probably no better than the next guy when it comes to observational bias (hearing with my eyes in this case). I’ve got an adult lifetime in semiconductor design to pull me strongly away from tubes. Given the tiny to no negative feedback in tube guitar amp circuit design I’m shocked how much any individual amp is considered similar to its factory issued model peers.

For me, modelers that offer too many options not on the originals and menus are a big turn off. Even the Dream has a master volume, boost with mods, and half a dozen speakers to select from… But today there are many excellent options and you can choose your poison.

Aside from Fender Tone Master’s the beautiful look of great classic industrial design on your living room floor requires tubes.

I forgot to mention my Spark Go. It’s not a great slavish model of anything I’ve ever used, but so convenient to stuff in a gig bag pocket, battery powered, and loud enough for jamming with acoustic instruments. Plugged into my PA it’s gig worthy.

Try stuffing your Princeton Reverb in your gig bag

[Rolph]

Bob Womack:

I was paying attention to the order of your pedals/effects. Do you ever change the order, hear any difference? Why do many insist on going from guitar to a boost like the BK Butler in the 1st position. I use :BK Butler tube driver - delay -- to TC elect chorus/phlanger --- to amps, (stereo/tube)

I've not noticed a difference, if I change positions of the pedals. Can you expound? Thanks

[BoneDigger]

I currently own three SS amps. I am unsure if the ones that I have would be called a modeller. One of them, the Quilter Aviator Cub, I would definitely call a modeller, and a dang good one at that. It ONLY has Black Face, Blonde, and Tweed models. It doesn't try to be everything to everyone. It has reverb, but no other effects. It's a great sounding amp.

The other two are a Fender Tone Master Deluxe Reverb and an Orange Crush 35R. I'm not sure if you would call these a modeller? They are made to sound like a specific amp, but there are no additional models to switch to.

In the past, I have owned Katana amps, a Mustang or two, a Cube amp, and a few others. All of these amps have been sold or traded. I just don't feel the need to switch through various presets to find a good sound.

I should also mention that I own a Katana Bass amp. It does have some extra features that I like and sounds pretty good overall. I'm not sure if I would call that a modelling amp either though since it doesn't have all of the different amp settings that the Katana guitar amps have. I also own a Fender Rumble and in some instances it sounds better than the Katana.

I also own a few VST plugins that simulate amp cabinets and sounds. I just recently upgraded to Guitar Rig 7 (Native Instruments), and I also have the IK version. I think I have a couple others as well. I honestly don't use them a ton, but they are nice to have around sometimes for recording.

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by Rolph

Bob Womack:

I was paying attention to the order of your pedals/effects. Do you ever change the order, hear any difference? Why do many insist on going from guitar to a boost like the BK Butler in the 1st position. I use :BK Butler tube driver - delay -- to TC elect chorus/phlanger --- to amps, (stereo/tube)

I've not noticed a difference, if I change positions of the pedals. Can you expound? Thanks

An electric guitar amplifier is a sound creating device, not a sound reproduction device. Oh, the original idea was reproduction, but as bands got louder and musicians couldn't always keep buying bigger amps, they discovered that a pushed amp made some cool sounds. It took a couple of decades to really dial it in, but the nature of the beast had changed.

As I aid, the basis of "my" sound is pushing the amplifier into gentle power amp distortion. It goes back to the '70s when we pushed low gain amps up to gentle distortion and sag. Preamp distortion, pushing 12AX7 preamp tubes into distortion sounds different from power amp distortion. Most drive and distortion boxes also sound different; they are fizzier. Soooo... the idea is to get three different sounds from a single channel amp. We used to do a so-so job by setting the amp so that it sounded great as a lead amp with the guitar dimed. To clean things up we'd roll back the volume. With a good guitar that had the proper pots it worked, but it was REALLY loud. In the mid-'70s people were starting to want get a distorted sound at lower volume so amp designers came up with master volume. You could pull back the master volume and crank up the gain and voile', it was distorted. But that was preamp distortion.

Also in that period, some guitarists wanted the compression that a dimed low-gain amp offered but without the distortion, so compression boxes came out. Lowell George used two studio compressors to get sustain, for example.

So, with a clean boost out front into a low-gain amp in a modeler we can get all the best of the amp at survivable loudness levels.

Now, FX pedals: We who were playing in the '70s discovered that our heroes sounds on record were always different from ours. They would add a flanger to a distorted amp and it was DRAMATIC! We bought a flanger or phaser and plugged it into our distorted amp and it sounded like mush. Same with delays: my Echoplex into a distorted master volume amp started getting mushy really quickly.

In 1979 I went school to learn to be a recording engineer and my eyes were opened: Many of those dramatic sounds were recorded with the guitar dry and the echo, phase, or flange added in the studio. THAT is why they were so dramatic and clear.

So, yes, I move my effects around as needed, but the basic sound many producers want is a driven power amp with nothing but gain modifiers before the amp and then the other effects after the amp and speaker.

Does that make any sense? Here is an example:

The lead sound at 2:04 is mostly compressor with some delay and reverb into a pretty clean amp.
The complex, fabulous four-note sound at 3:49 seems to be that same sound (with a little whammy bar) routed through a custom rotating speaker system called a "Doppola." The front-end sound is the same, but the amp output is routed to both his normal speakers and the Doppolas. You can get a similar sound with a Leslie cabinet and a regular speaker cabinet - I have my practice rig set up this way. But the rotating speaker cab is at the end of the chain and is modulating the delay and reverb. If you get a Leslie pedal and place it in your chain before the amp, it won't sound anything like that.

On the other hand, Eddie Van Halen was known to plug his guitar into a flanger and then an Echoplex and run that into a medium-gain amp. If you try to accomplish that with the modulation effects and delay after the amp, you won't pull it off.

Clear as dirt, eh?

Bob

[FanoFan]

I have played a Mesa Lone Star Special for years and absolutely love that amp. A couple years ago I was asked to play lead guitar for a rather large church which was a silent stage situation. I'd never even used digital effects much less a modeler. After doing some research I went with a Line 6 PodGo simply because it was so much easier to program than a Kemper, etc. I would still choose the Mesa for blues, rock etc., but for P&W music a modeler is almost a must in my opinion. The tones I got out of that thing were amazing.

[AX17609]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

As I aid, the basis of "my" sound is pushing the amplifier into gentle power amp distortion. It goes back to the '70s when we pushed low gain amps up to gentle distortion and sag. Preamp distortion, pushing 12AX7 preamp tubes into distortion sounds different from power amp distortion. Most drive and distortion boxes also sound different; they are fizzier. Soooo... the idea is to get three different sounds from a single channel amp. We used to do a so-so job by setting the amp so that it sounded great as a lead amp with the guitar dimed. To clean things up we'd roll back the volume. With a good guitar that had the proper pots it worked, but it was REALLY loud. In the mid-'70s people were starting to want get a distorted sound at lower volume so amp designers came up with master volume. You could pull back the master volume and crank up the gain and voile', it was distorted. But that was preamp distortion.

Also in that period, some guitarists wanted the compression that a dimed low-gain amp offered but without the distortion, so compression boxes came out. Lowell George used two studio compressors to get sustain, for example.

So, with a clean boost out front into a low-gain amp in a modeler we can get all the best of the amp at survivable loudness levels.

I also played rock before anyone thought to call it "classic", and I agree with all of this. In my modeler, however, amps operate differently. All of the 30 amps have the same 6 knobs (gain, bass, middle, treble and volume) regardless of whether the original model had those knobs are not.

The "gain" knobs pretty much mimics what that knob would do on a master volume amp. The "volume" knob does not. It reliably turns up the volume, but it doesn't produce the power amp overdrive and tone shaping that you get out of a tube amp, particularly one with a tube rectifier. You have to create those effects in different ways. This process constitutes the dark art of modeler use.

What I read in your Post #3, is that you make two critical adjustments. You run the Prince of Tone as an 'always on' pedal and add a pinch of mid-range boost with an EQ. That sounds like the right formula to me, but I don't have the ability to do it with my current equipment. An upgrade is on the horizon.

[AX17609]

I finally bought a fancy-pants modeler -- a Fractal FM3. It was a tough decision, and I had been pulled this way and that for a couple of months. I investigated the Line 6 product lineup in depth, including consulting one of our resident experts, but I just couldn't land on a product. I also noted that HX Stomp and Helix users always seem to use a lot of effects. I rarely heard anyone use raw amp/cabinet tones. I found that suspicious.

Ultimately, I was persuaded by the input from Jeff McErlain, whose playing and tone I have come to admire. In fact, I'll be participating in his Blues Band Camp in a couple of weeks. Jeff admits that he can't use his stage amps around the house because they're just too loud. An Ox box helps, but he says that when turned too low, it just sounds like a swarm of bees. So, he uses an FM3.

He describes the FM3 as having the best blues tones, which I interpret to mean that it has the best edge-of-breakup amp tones. His favorite modeled amp is the JTM45, which is my favorite, as well. Touch and feel are pretty much identical to the real amp. He feels the knobs do exactly what the knobs do on a real amp, so he uses them the same way. His signal path is short. He just adds a little reverb and delay, as he normally would. He feels the biggest overall tone consideration is the choice of cabinet, of which Fractal has about a zillion. He said more than once that he finds it inspiring to play. Any concerns I had about the user interface were allayed when I saw a demonstration of the FM3 Edit software.

So, I don't know if this was the right decision or not, but it's what I did. It didn't hurt that the unit was on sale over the holidays. I hope I'm still smart enough to be able to figure out how to use it.

[GoPappy]

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the FM3 after you've had some time with it.

[Aspiring]

Originally Posted by AX17609

I finally bought a fancy-pants modeler -- a Fractal FM3. It was a tough decision, and I had been pulled this way and that for a couple of months. I investigated the Line 6 product lineup in depth, including consulting one of our resident experts, but I just couldn't land on a product. I also noted that HX Stomp and Helix users always seem to use a lot of effects. I rarely heard anyone use raw amp/cabinet tones. I found that suspicious.

Ultimately, I was persuaded by the input from Jeff McErlain, whose playing and tone I have come to admire. In fact, I'll be participating in his Blues Band Camp in a couple of weeks. Jeff admits that he can't use his stage amps around the house because they're just too loud. An Ox box helps, but he says that when turned too low, it just sounds like a swarm of bees. So, he uses an FM3.

He describes the FM3 as having the best blues tones, which I interpret to mean that it has the best edge-of-breakup amp tones. His favorite modeled amp is the JTM45, which is my favorite, as well. Touch and feel are pretty much identical to the real amp. He feels the knobs do exactly what the knobs do on a real amp, so he uses them the same way. His signal path is short. He just adds a little reverb and delay, as he normally would. He feels the biggest overall tone consideration is the choice of cabinet, of which Fractal has about a zillion. He said more than once that he finds it inspiring to play. Any concerns I had about the user interface were allayed when I saw a demonstration of the FM3 Edit software.

So, I don't know if this was the right decision or not, but it's what I did. It didn't hurt that the unit was on sale over the holidays. I hope I'm still smart enough to be able to figure out how to use it.

If you haven't already I recommend joining the fractal forums.

I highly recommend the section "tech notes" it has a lot of great stuff in there regarding how different things work like why different builds of the same amp may sound different at different settings on the pots, wolf notes, gain staging etc that really helped me understand how to change the controls.

[AX17609]

Originally Posted by Aspiring

If you haven't already I recommend joining the fractal forums.

I highly recommend the section "tech notes" it has a lot of great stuff in there regarding how different things work like why different builds of the same amp may sound different at different settings on the pots, wolf notes, gain staging etc that really helped me understand how to change the controls.

Done. When I see thread titles like "About the Plate Suppressor Diodes Parameter" I get worried about my level of competence.

[DavidE]

I have to say that I’ve owned all the biggies (FM9, Helix Floor, Helix Stomp, Kemper) and I’m just thrilled with the sound and feel of the Fender Tonemaster Pro. Incredibly easy to use. It’s not for everyone with its limited on screen routing capabilities, but it does everything I need and sounds great. Graphs be ****ed.

[Aspiring]

Originally Posted by AX17609

Done. When I see thread titles like "About the Plate Suppressor Diodes Parameter" I get worried about my level of competence.

Yes the rabbit hole can go pretty deep. The cool thing about the fractal units is that they can sound pretty great just on factory presets but then you can dive way deeper.

L