Has anyone else gone "virtual"?

[Wyliee]

Recently switched over from a Hiwatt/plenty o' stomp boxes rig to a Line6 Flextone.  I still use a couple of the pedals in conjunction with the Flextone and have spent countless hours editting the amp with my laptop in order to get the sounds I want.

I play in various churches around the Puget Sound area and need a broad spectrum of sounds so I ultimately switched to more of a 'virtual' rig.  It doesn't quite capture the super subtle nuances the Hiwatt does, but it is pretty darn good.

 

[Justinginn]

I've got a Line 6 toneport just for messing around with. I like the high gain, but ignore the clean tones. I've got a 50 watt Traynor that I use for jamming and I like the cleans on that a lot better.

 

[stubhead]

As an addendum, I would say that modelers start to work much better when you force yourself to really get in there and fiddle with the EQ's, tuning the speaker cab models, acknowledging that natural tubes are a compressing device etc. When I caught myself seriously considering the idea of carrying three separate amps, I said "Enough!" and did the work... your first modeler will take three months to nail, but it gets easier. :laughing7:

 

[AndyG]

As an addendum, I would say that modelers start to work much better when you force yourself to really get in there and fiddle with the EQ's, tuning the speaker cab models, acknowledging that natural tubes are a compressing device etc. When I caught myself seriously considering the idea of carrying three separate amps, I said "Enough!" and did the work... your first modeler will take three months to nail, but it gets easier. :laughing7:

Agreed  :sign13:

As one poster pointed out, most of the Guitar Rig presets are actually pretty useless, but they are a starting point.  After all, when you buy your amp, pedals etc, you don't just plug in and expect the tone you want, you have to tweak.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the sound of tube gear ... but the versatilty of a virtual rig, whose tone can be made to 99.99% of the real thing will win every time.

Tone is such a personal thing as well ... what one guitarist loves another will deem to be noise.

 

[mayfly]

As an addendum, I would say that modelers start to work much better when you force yourself to really get in there and fiddle with the EQ's, tuning the speaker cab models, acknowledging that natural tubes are a compressing device etc. When I caught myself seriously considering the idea of carrying three separate amps, I said "Enough!" and did the work... your first modeler will take three months to nail, but it gets easier. :laughing7:

Yes!  This is very important.  I spent about a week tweaking the hell out of my vox tonelab to get it to the point where it works well in a live situation.  In fact it works so well that I haven't turned on my "real" amps ('66 super reverb, '65 deluxe re-issue, several AC30 clones, Marshall plexi clone) in several months  

The tones are in there - you just have to find them.

 

[bpmorton777]

I never used the presets in my PODXT, they all sound like garbage. Maybe they sounded good to the guy programing them. Also, when playing with headphones I tend to turn the treble and reverb up too much. sounds totaly different through my KC150. BTW a big keyboard amp and a pod will be way cheper than a tube amp of like power and also cheper than a Line6 amp.

Brian

 

[Justinginn]

Yeah... I've been getting some better clean stuff out of it with tweaking. Just took a while.

You can't beat them for being quiet. I can play guitar at 2 am and sound pretty dang good...  :hello2:

 

[tfcreative]

I'm using a Pod XT Live, but I really look at it as more of a starter kit to myself more familiar with what I do and don't like. I still see myself going analog in the future, but never to a larger armp. I don't use any of the Line 6 presets, though. I really prefer to tweak out my own.

 

[guitlouie]

NEVER!!!  :evil4:

 

[misplacedsanity]

One of these gives you the best of both worlds:

http://www.atomicamps.com

 

[mayfly]

Now that's an interesting idea!  Can you control the pod via a footswitch?

 

[bpmorton777]

that is very cool! Im just wondering where the hadle is on this thing so you can carry it to a gig.

Brian

 

[blue313]

Now that's an interesting idea!  Can you control the pod via a footswitch?

Yeah, but it isn't cheap.
http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Line-6-FBV-Shortboard-Footswitch?sku=420880

 

[mayfly]

Now that's an interesting idea!  Can you control the pod via a footswitch?

Yeah, but it isn't cheap.
http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Line-6-FBV-Shortboard-Footswitch?sku=420880

Gack!  That's what I paid for my Tonelab!

 

[bpmorton777]

I own the short board. It is well worth the money. The pedal acts as a wha, volume, or tweak depending on the program and is independant of what other four effects you have programmed. It also displays the program name and tuner function so you dont have to look at the pod itself. The other cool feature is that it is connected with standard cat5 ethernet cable which is cheap and you can run hundreds of feet with no problems.

Brian

 

[taez555]

No matter how good virtual instruments get, they'll always just be a short term investment.  I can still record my 5150 from 15 years ago with a good ol' SM57, but can't for the life of me record Virtual instruments because my half decade old computer running a now outdatted operating system isn't compatiable with ANY software on the market today.

erik

 

[bpmorton777]

that's really a software v/ harware thing.

Brian

 

[Superlizard]

They have a *loooooong* ways to go when it comes to emulating a tube amp's dynamics... i.e. pick soft, cleaner - pick hard, more dirt - and using guitar vol knob to go from practically clean to "mean".

You listen to these emus, and they sound one-dimensional.  Not lively and 3-D like a real tube amp (that's the dynamics).

And that's something they may never be able to emulate.

OTOH, you can slap so many layers of crap (dist/od pedals, FX, etc) in your tube amp rig that it sounds emulated and one-dimensional too.

More processing = less tone.

 

[mayfly]

They have a *loooooong* ways to go when it comes to emulating a tube amp's dynamics... i.e. pick soft, cleaner - pick hard, more dirt - and using guitar vol knob to go from practically clean to "mean".


More processing = less tone.

Give a Vox Tonelab a try - it actually does this surprisingly well.

but whoops - it has s tube in it  :headbang:

 

[bpmorton777]

"They have a *loooooong* ways to go when it comes to emulating a tube amp's dynamics... i.e. pick soft, cleaner - pick hard, more dirt - and using guitar vol knob to go from practically clean to "mean"."

the Pod does do this. If I back off on my guitar's vol knob the "amp" cleans up. You can also use a boost pedal in front of a pod with the same results as a real amp and there are pick dynamics. The Tube Screemer model within the Pod also acts like a real tube screemer should.

Brian