Anybody else getting sick of modellers?

[fiftyshadesofslay]

Played a reunion gig with my (very old) metal band last night.

Spent a bit of time sorting out my QC rig beforehand ready for the show. Tried a bunch of amps in there, sounded pretty good. Also a few decent captures. Downloaded a nice TS capture then on to the IR’s. QC ones are good but I prefer OH so they got loaded up and programmed in. Set up the effects chain and programmed my fairly limited switching. On to the power amp, hooked that up and sounded okay, not really punching me in the chest but was decent. EQ’d a bit on the power amp and the QC. Gave it a try into my amps FX return for good measure. Not bad all round but still not amazing. Was hoping that the engineer will be okay with a feed from the QC direct rather than micing the cab.

So after all that, the gig sounded absolutely amazing. Why? Because I got so sick of all the faff I sacked it off and just used my Mesa Dual Rectifier, which sounded absolutely crushing just by setting everything at noon in about 2 seconds and leaving the rest to the sound engineer.

I will say that the QC did a sterling job as a Tubescreamer, Wah and tuner.

 

[James Freeman]

You're in the 'rediscovering amps' phase, it's a natural part of being a modeler owner.

You will soon find that you need a huge pedalboard with expensive pedals too.

Don't sell the modeler, it has its place.

 

[Orvillain]

Real amps always sound better.

 

[molul]

I'm actually grateful that they exist. And having big artists using them on tour is a hint of how good they actually are nowadays. That said, I think that some way to get a good tone really quickly it's needed now that the tech is in the right place.

 

[fiftyshadesofslay]

Capture the preamp of your amp….and play that into the return of that amp.
To my ears 100% the same results…but with the benefits of digital..which includes switching capabilities, post amp efx without 4cm, plug it into returns of other amps and get a familiar sound.

Capture the poweramp of your amp…and put that in a feed to foh together with a cabsim. Mitigates the risk a tech messes up micing your cab. (99% chance that happens )

I did actually try that too, it sounded okay but still nowhere near as good as the real deal.

 

[fiftyshadesofslay]

I couldn’t tell the difference between capture of my amps preamp…and the actual one. (Into its poweramp and cab)
You captured your amps preamp through its send…and it didn’t come out right?

Yes that’s right, it did come out okay and sounded fine but wasn’t as good as the actual amp.

 

[Orvillain]

I couldn’t tell the difference between capture of my amps preamp…and the actual one. (Into its poweramp and cab)
You captured your amps preamp through its send…and it didn’t come out right?

There's a noticeable high frequency loss and gain loss with the QC. It is good, and much better than the Kemper, but it isn't 1:1 copy.

The best amp capture platform right now is NAM. Everything else has compromises.

But also, if you're gonna take a preamp capture and then play it back through the poweramp of the same amp.... just use the full amp in the first place.

 

[Orvillain]

I couldn’t tell any difference…so I’m using the capture into the amps return…even if I have the actual amp right there.
That is…after I compensated for a wee bit of difference in gain and volume..but that’s easy enough.
Most satisfied I’ve ever been with my sound eversince(running preamp captures)…amongst Kemper/hybrid/analog/4cm rigs in the last few years.
Even my drive pedals got captured..,and are in a drawer atm..

Surprising that you guys experience it differently. I know NAM did better on null tests…but on an audible level…I couldn’t tell the difference in those experiments either.

You could tell the difference. That's why you had to compensate for a difference in gain. Like I said:

There's a noticeable high frequency loss and gain loss with the QC

 

[fiftyshadesofslay]

I could definitely tell, it was lacking a bit of low end and gain and didn’t sound as meaty as the actual amp.

It’s a three channel rectifier with a serial loop mod and I use it with the loop bypassed because the loop still sounds crap, could be something to do with it?

However it also didn’t feel the same, rectifiers are pretty touch responsive and this felt a lot flatter and compressed.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Spent a bit of time sorting out my QC rig beforehand ready for the show. Tried a bunch of amps in there, sounded pretty good. Also a few decent captures. Downloaded a nice TS capture then on to the IR’s. QC ones are good but I prefer OH so they got loaded up and programmed in. Set up the effects chain and programmed my fairly limited switching. On to the power amp, hooked that up and sounded okay, not really punching me in the chest but was decent. EQ’d a bit on the power amp and the QC. Gave it a try into my amps FX return for good measure. Not bad all round but still not amazing. Was hoping that the engineer will be okay with a feed from the QC direct rather than micing the cab.

Why did you do all that instead of just doing it the way you finally came up with using the real amp? Could've treated the QC every bit the same.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I didn’t notice any differences in the highs.

But did you do graphs? Because without, you're not allowed saying so!

 

[Piing]

"FRFR" since early 90's. Not missing amps at all. Specially now.

 

[DrewJD82]

You're in the 'rediscovering amps' phase, it's a natural part of being a modeler owner.

You will soon find that you need a huge pedalboard with expensive pedals too.

Don't sell the modeler, it has its place.

This is no joke. I'm on the out-swing of rediscovering amps and pedals again......it's been a month since I've plugged into anything but my AxeFX.

 

[fiftyshadesofslay]

""FRFR"" since early 90's. Not missing amps at all. Specially now.

 

[Sedaxel]

My band mate borrowed a QC for 3 or 4 gigs where we needed to fly.

In the studio, at high volume, he made it sound identical to his boogie MKII. At least that's what we felt. Impressive. We couldn't tell the difference (and that's a lot to say in his case, not in mine though).

We flight to the UK, to Barcelona... He also flight to Madrid as a guest guitarist in a big event.

Now he's going back to the amp. The feelings are: the QC is great. It's maybe the only option (well, any good digital modeller, I mean) if you can't carry your amp and still want to keep your tone more or less under control. BUT, if you want the amp experience in the stage, digital is still not there. He missed the response and the air of the amp behind him, which are reasons enough to think it's still worth to carry his amp and a big pedalboards over the comfort of just a little box. He didn't either like the response of the QC when stacking some boosts into de capture... Which he does live if he feels like it... And the amp just eats everything, while the QC can even start to squeal.

Not too much of a difference. He still thinks the QC is a life saver... But he's not buying one...

Regarding the audience... No, they're not going to tell the difference. It just sounds fantastic if the sound tech guy is not stupid.

 

[the-trooper]

What's next, people start liking sweet pickles better than dill pickles?

 

[GuitarAddicted]

You're in the 'rediscovering amps' phase, it's a natural part of being a modeler owner.

You will soon find that you need a huge pedalboard with expensive pedals too.

Don't sell the modeler, it has its place.

Yeah exactly like me!
And after I started to wire a new pedalboard with switcher, buffer, effects etc. my four year old daughter came and ask:“ Daddy what are you doing!“
And I said:“ I’m wiring a new pedalboard with a lot of expensive stuff that I already have in my FM9 to use it with an expensive amp that I have also in my FM9!“
Daughter:“Why?“
Me… sold everything and stayed with the FM9

It’s great to play an amp and a cabinet but I discovered that with two little children four years and six month, I don’t have the possibility to crank up a tube amp and a cabinet.
So I invested in a serious good pair of custom molded IEMs and that besides my Fractal was the best invest in gear that I eve did.

 

[sleewell]

Amps sound good. Modelers sound good. We're blessed with lots of ways to sound good these days and we should be able to recognize what would be best and adapt. If it's a situation where just direct into an amp is the best solution and you can move some air with lots of volume... do that. If a modeler or a hybrid rig would be better use that. If they want a silent stage be able to go direct that way too. Flexibility and not getting bogged down into only one way - being able to dial in good tones based on the situation in front of you is the way to be.

 

[James Freeman]

This is no joke. I'm on the out-swing of rediscovering amps and pedals again......it's been a month since I've plugged into anything but my AxeFX.

It has been a month+ since I fired my tube amps too, I'm having too much fun with a big pedalboard going into a Twin model in the AxeFx.

I'll admit, it has been a while since I was excited for a new modeler firmware, I think I'm reaching equilibrium.

 

[Sedaxel]

The powersection and cab remain the most important part…which are oldschool tubes and speaker.

I'm leaning towards this too.