BluGuitar Amp X

I’ve always been intrigued by the Amp1 Mercury but never seem to be willing to pull the trigger. I’m already sporting a 2204 and 1959 so it feels a little redundant…really to the credit of the Amp1.
 
JiveTurkey said:
@laxu might FINALLY be roping some people into his world!
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GIF by Migos


EOengineer said:
I’ve always been intrigued by the Amp1 Mercury but never seem to be willing to pull the trigger. I’m already sporting a 2204 and 1959 so it feels a little redundant…really to the credit of the Amp1.
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Someone was selling a purple tolex Bluetone head that was a turret board wired, modded JTM50. I was very tempted to buy it but I had just got the Mark V.

Just had to tell myself "I bet you have those Marshall tones in the Amp 1 already!"
 
2dor said:
What really intrigues me about the BluGuitar amp stuff is that, from the vids I've seen, they seem to have that nice, fast & big thumping transient response you'd get from a tube amp.
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It definitely does. It's different from my Fryette PS-100 or the Mark V, but nothing about the Amp 1 says "that's not a tube amp" to me.
 
I had an Amp 1 Mercury for years but sold it when I moved countries. I use the Axe Fx III into nice studio monitors now but I kinda wanna buy another Amp 1 eventually just to have around. It's such a great little amp and awesome for when I want the "real cab" feeling. I tried using the Fractal into my real cab at the time (with the Amp 1 acting as power amp) and it was cool, but there's still a difference between that method and just using the Amp1 stand-alone. There's an immediacy and presence that's hard to describe.
 
I was wondering what amp circuits will the Bluguitar AmpX come with given some of their documentation states that buyers will only get the amp circuits from the Amp1 Mercury and Iridium editions.

I got a response to my question from them today; I asked if that 6505 circuit they demoed in their Jan. 15th stream would be included.

Here's what it looks like the plan is:

"The BluGuitar blueprints of Mercury and Iridium are free.
Iridium is going towards the 6505.
The 6505 is on the AMPX with all the functions but needs to be bought to get rid of some noise that we’ll implement.
We need that structure to create a budget for amps and special effects.
But you can test it on your unit with your guitar in your environment to take a real decision"

So, looks like stuff will be in there available to test but with some random noise introduced while trying it out.

Not sure how I feel about that for a 2K EUR unit.
 
2dor said:
Not sure how I feel about that for a 2K EUR unit.
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Disappointing indeed. For that price and as a successor to the Amp X, I had always expected and looked forward to the inclusion of 2 or 3 additional amps at no extra cost. Otherwise it would not be a step up.

At the very least I expected other “food groups” to be included like a Vox and a Tweed. This sucks.
 
jellodog said:
Disappointing indeed. For that price and as a successor to the Amp X, I had always expected and looked forward to the inclusion of 2 or 3 additional amps at no extra cost. Otherwise it would not be a step up.

At the very least I expected other “food groups” to be included like a Vox and a Tweed. This sucks.
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Kinda is yeah but there's still time for them to reconsider the approach.
What you suggested sounds acceptable tbh: 2-3 amps to pick from the roster of available BlugPrints would help make more sense for the purchase.
 
2dor said:
I was wondering what amp circuits will the Bluguitar AmpX come with given some of their documentation states that buyers will only get the amp circuits from the Amp1 Mercury and Iridium editions.

I got a response to my question from them today; I asked if that 6505 circuit they demoed in their Jan. 15th stream would be included.

Here's what it looks like the plan is:

"The BluGuitar blueprints of Mercury and Iridium are free.
Iridium is going towards the 6505.
The 6505 is on the AMPX with all the functions but needs to be bought to get rid of some noise that we’ll implement.
We need that structure to create a budget for amps and special effects.
But you can test it on your unit with your guitar in your environment to take a real decision"

So, looks like stuff will be in there available to test but with some random noise introduced while trying it out.

Not sure how I feel about that for a 2K EUR unit.
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So basically like a trial version of some plugins that play noise every once in a while so you can test it, but it's not going to let you gig or record with it. Interesting approach, but maybe the best way for "do I even want this amp?" testing.

To be fair the Mercury and Iridium alone do an absolute ton of stuff. If the Mercury was able to do Vox tones that would be probably all I'd ever need. I would imagine you can dial the Iridium to sound fairly close to a 5150 as is.

But it still feels like they should at least provide the amps they have ready atm, then sell new ones further along the line. I also wonder how it will work for licensing, like if you want to sell your amp, can you sell the extras you bought too?
 
laxu said:
So basically like a trial version of some plugins that play noise every once in a while so you can test it, but it's not going to let you gig or record with it. Interesting approach, but maybe the best way for "do I even want this amp?" testing.

To be fair the Mercury and Iridium alone do an absolute ton of stuff. If the Mercury was able to do Vox tones that would be probably all I'd ever need. I would imagine you can dial the Iridium to sound fairly close to a 5150 as is.

But it still feels like they should at least provide the amps they have ready atm, then sell new ones further along the line. I also wonder how it will work for licensing, like if you want to sell your amp, can you sell the extras you bought too?
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It could be done in 2 ways I guess?

- BlugPrints would be "unlocked" & tied to that physical AmpX unit
- BlugPrints would be "unlocked" & tied to a end-user account which will need to somehow be relayed to the unit (similar to what the Quad Cortex does)

If they want to milk that cow dry, they'll tie it to a end-user account so if you resell these, the new buyer will have to purchase their own BlugPrints.
 
2dor said:
It could be done in 2 ways I guess?

- BlugPrints would be "unlocked" & tied to that physical AmpX unit
- BlugPrints would be "unlocked" & tied to a end-user account which will need to somehow be relayed to the unit (similar to what the Quad Cortex does)

If they want to milk that cow dry, they'll tie it to a end-user account so if you resell these, the new buyer will have to purchase their own BlugPrints.
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Tied to a physical unit is not good in case it fails.

The license is probably tied to an account for purchasing them in the first place. Buy Blugprint -> receive license for account yourEmail@example.com

The Amp X afaik is not going to have BT, Wifi etc built in so you'd plug in USB. I assume there's an app that simply transfers some license file that unlocks the physical device's model. As long as you never reset the unit (or plug it in via USB, in case it validates the license against the account), you'd keep the model.

I hope they have some license transfer system figured out if you want to transfer. Alternatively, the ability to just give your account to the next owner so they can change the email it's tied to.
 
EOengineer said:
Maybe if they could get the thing out the door this century they wouldn’t be burning so much capital as to necessitate a business model that’s going to dead in the water right out of the gate.

Most guitarists are not going to be willing to roll the dice on a $2k device with paywalls. Just ask Kemper.
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I agree 100% , I mean the Iridium and Mercury sound good but honestly they have some overlap maybe one excels at metal but you can still obviously get a hard rock tone or classic rock tone
So basically you are getting
8 amp voicings with overlap for 2500 USD approx
Then you are going to paywall features
You could buy a used Amp 1 and a Fractal VP4 for like $1400 USD and IMO have way better effects
So yeah tough sell without a Vox 6505 Soldano , Bogner
Freidman Matchless etc etc in 2025
Also how much is a Blug print if it 100 to 150 EUR that adds up fast
 
EOengineer said:
Maybe if they could get the thing out the door this century they wouldn’t be burning so much capital as to necessitate a business model that’s going to dead in the water right out of the gate.

Most guitarists are not going to be willing to roll the dice on a $2k device with paywalls. Just ask Kemper.
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There’s just so much that gives me pause.

- CEO who seems to fly by the edge of his seat. How do you know the product will be well supported down the line? It’s not exactly something serviceable. Will the company be around in one year, let alone 5 or 10?

- really cool concept/idea, but how well does replicating schematics with solid state components really translate. How well does mimicking big power sections with a nano tube work? Probably fun to play and close enough but it’s kind of Blackstar levels of promising a lot. It’s been attempted so much and there’s always a trade off. I just don’t believe suddenly that there’s a free lunch.

- what’s the chances that the paid stuff becomes free or used as a sales incentive to buy? How reliable will the DRM be? Is it enticing to only include the Blu circuits and paywall meat and potatoes amps? How well protected is the DRM? what about for multiple units?

I like the concept of it, and I admire Blugs relentless passion for it to succeed, but I don’t really see it as a viable product/platform. $2000 is roughly what I paid for a BE100. MAYBE at $1000 with no additional DLC costs I’d think about it, and still likely pass.
 
MirrorProfiles said:
There’s just so much that gives me pause.

- CEO who seems to fly by the edge of his seat. How do you know the product will be well supported down the line? It’s not exactly something serviceable. Will the company be around in one year, let alone 5 or 10?

- really cool concept/idea, but how well does replicating schematics with solid state components really translate. How well does mimicking big power sections with a nano tube work? Probably fun to play and close enough but it’s kind of Blackstar levels of promising a lot. It’s been attempted so much and there’s always a trade off. I just don’t believe suddenly that there’s a free lunch.

- what’s the chances that the paid stuff becomes free or used as a sales incentive to buy? How reliable will the DRM be? Is it enticing to only include the Blu circuits and paywall meat and potatoes amps? How well protected is the DRM? what about for multiple units?

I like the concept of it, and I admire Blugs relentless passion for it to succeed, but I don’t really see it as a viable product/platform. $2000 is roughly what I paid for a BE100. MAYBE at $1000 with no additional DLC costs I’d think about it, and still likely pass.
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Oh god I didn’t even consider the cadence of their software updates. 1 every decade or so at the rate they’re going.
 
Yeah wow that is just a terrible look to paywall content especially on a flagship device. Kind of expect that from IK not someone like Blu who’s been working on this masterpiece for half a decade

QC are plugins first that happen to also work on the QC, I don’t see it as paywalled content

Kemper did these moves on their profiler player and look at the backlash, imagine how much worse on the flagship units. I hope they really revisit their pricing model cause the proposition isn’t great on paper if you need to keep buying packs.
 
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