Damien's Digital Doom -Midlife Crisis, Your Input

[Damien's Doom]

I'm 58, I pursued non pro music level in (doom/prog/thrash) during the Hollywood metal scene in the 90's, and recently been buying lots of powerful/impressive digital gear. My recent amp sims and plug ins are many like recent UA Lion, UA compressors, Shibalba amp sim by Amp Locker, Tracks FX, Neural Audio, Kontakt, Arturia Synths, and even many more in Logic's stock. Realizing that I will never see myself with long hair again or going out posting promoting my band on posts ever again saddens me. Even today finding musicians online has been very challenging and dissapointing, nothing found! I even went back to Hollywood to find absolutely nothing but shit in the Hollywood metal scene, its all dead! Hollywood Music/amp stores are gone, Mesa Boogie is gone, amp moding shops gone, Carvin and tons of others I knew of all gone!

I was homeless in a van not long ago and in December had $3000 to buy a trailer to live in and convert into part home and studio, be a snowbird in Baja/Arizona. Well, my 95 E250 van broke down in December 2024 and lost my 3000 to repairs, hotels, gas, a U haul rental and... So, On June 1st 2025 Housing put me in this subsidised apartment and sadly its become depressing, I miss the freedom of the outdoors and playing loud, going anywhere at any time. My amp gear was very noisy unless i used my digital gear. I was hoping to be happy in here but i'm not! I'm miserable! So now that i'm in here its impossible to play loud, even my Roland TD20 V drums, its gonna collect dust! Even singing loud could be an issue! Neighbors! Rehearsal rooms are 2 to 3 times my rent. Its hard for a 58yr old metalhead who is aging bad and finding a part time or temp full time job is harder but do have a permanent SSDI fixed income already. My solution could be by selling my hard ware amp equipment and return to buying a trailer? Honestly, the only thing I'll miss out of this apartment is the beautiful and endless hot showers. Yes, seriously! This photo of my amp gear is what I have and believe I could get about 2500 at least? Add another 500-1000 from savings and Im back at what where I began, nice. I definately gotta start to consider Mexico, far into coastal areas of Baja. My US income, Mexican citizenship and meds will be there. However, I'm scared! Of what?

My question and fear is... Ive not heard in real time and/or loud a digital setup using "FRFR" Headrush speaker cabs with a Symour Duncan Powerstage with an amp sim in high gain. Ive seen Ola England starting something similar with the Fender digital Live Rig setup and another guy who also in a live rig using all digital with an actual Peavey 4x12cab. My fear is the unknown and after yrs of using amps and tubes and holding on to my beloved VHT, Hot Plate, Hush2c, all well over 15-18yrs and suddenly to go into a computer, interfaces, OS, latency, and a mouse? Through my headphones and ref monitors (even at low volume) all my amp sims and FX all sound killer! Some other guy on You Tube by Kyle Bull did a video on the Seymour Duncan on how to get a lot of volume and whoa... nice! My Mesa is 8ohm, it will need rewiring to 4ohm and 16ohm also, and will need it in stereo so... sell that and get a Marshall 16ohm or the Headrush for less than 400 bucks? Tempting! Will it all be worth selling my gear to go digital and my trailer? Thanks to Zzounds they have given me credit if I want to buy hardware in the future. I already have almost all my digital gear on my Mac and really like it and fkng love playing with the EQ's and Parmetric Eq's and compressors, digital units that I could NEVER afford in hardware. So all I need is money and my trailer right? Will I be dissapointed with the digital gear? Anyone have experience or using them in a band rehearsal, live even? You thoughts? Thank you for reading.

 

[sleewell]

can a homie get a tl dr???

 

[TSJMajesty]

Oh fuck no. You gotta break that up into smaller sections.

 

[Jazz Padd]

I read your story, hopefully thinking out loud can help you to sort things out. All the best.

 

[Damien's Doom]

I read your story, hopefully thinking out loud can help you to sort things out. All the best.

Thanks, it did help. I also keep looking at my amp and fear I may start to cry hard if I plug my guitar! Haha...

 

[Enchilada Jones]

You can get accustomed to "FRFR", and if you only have one option available you can get accustomed to it no matter how mediocre it is. So yea you can get by with headrush. But if you are playing in a home environment I’d say get some near field (studio) monitors instead. Software and hardware amp sims are great through them at the kind of levels you are looking for. Then keep watching Craigslist and Facebook marketplace for combo amp that has an effects loop so you can use the speaker/cabinet/power amp of that combo to hear the loudness when you can. The beauty of that plan is it can be just about any old amp since the bulk of the tone is going to come from your amp sim.

 

[la szum]

Oh fuck no. You gotta break that up into smaller sections.

Haha!!

At least it is not colour-coded.

 

[la szum]

I vote for you doing what allows you to have the most freedom making music you enjoy.

Chasing the past (and wanting to recreate how it was for us back then) never works out well.

 

[[Nathan]]

I haven’t used a "FRFR" in a while but recently using an orange pedal baby into 4x12s has been awesome, and you can have it at any volume range

Theres a bunch of budget SS poweramps (magnum44, Harley Benton, pedal baby etc) that you can pair with any 1x12, 2x12, 4x12 etc. Could be an alternative to "FRFR"

The cool thing about this is you can feed the poweramp things like a preamp pedal, modelling unit like a helix or you can take an output from your interface and blast your plugins through a real cab, all sounds awesome imo (maybe you can do the same with "FRFR" I haven’t used them in a while, I just found the versatility of the poweramp/cab combo to be great).

 

[DrewJD82]

While not in the same situation you are, I had to give up a home where I had all the volume freedom I could ask for to an apartment with neighbors below and beside me, pretty much put an end to recording vocal tracks whenever I felt like it.

I think there's some benefit to having minimal tools, I know I was less productive with the more shit I got. I was playing more, but I wasn't writing nearly as much and for a while, that was wasted time for me. For me, sometimes wanting is better than having. Not always, but sometimes it's absolutely true.

I'd go with the bare minimum to appease your playing appetite and put the rest of it into savings and just keep doing whatever you can to save up. One small accident, trip to urgent care, car issue, etc and you're screwed without a little chunk squirreled away. You already saw how quickly savings can go!

 

[BenIfin]

Haha!!

At least it is not colour-coded.

" Why, why invisible sky daddy .... do they always come for me .... are they perhaps color-blind " :)