Hotone Ampero II Stage (MP-380)

[Sascha Franck]

Line 6 has Color screen 4 times the size

It's 7 years younger. An eternity in digital land. Besides, the screen is pretty bad under bright lightning conditions.

Cap sensing touch switches that load parameters

Yes, those are excellent. But absolutely redundant once you have a touchscreen.

Snapshots

True, but you can sort of emulate them with Boss gear (not too much fun, but still).

Color assignment for switches

See my comments about the screen. Everything applies - they're newer and still extremely bad to decipher on bright stages (one of the main reasons I sold the Floor). I rather have the GT-10 switches which you can see under any lightning conditions.

Scribble strips

Excellent - but in no way something L6 came up with.

 

[saarangnarayan]

View attachment 11439

The only thing that’s impressed me so far is the I/O.

 

[timbuck3]

I won’t be giving Doug Castro any dough.

any relation to fidel?

 

[paisleywookiee]

any relation to fidel?

I don’t know; ask him. I’m guessing not.

 

[Desertdweller]

It was just a side remark, maybe a bit snarky. In a nutshell, designs get copied all over the place and especially in the land of floorpedal based modelers, there's really no first or anything.

Meh so what. The Axe FX was the next level from the TC G-Force with nearly identical routing and screens. Nothing wrong with iteration of good ideas.

 

[GTR37]

Meh so what. The Axe FX was the next level from the TC G-Force with nearly identical routing and screens. Nothing wrong with iteration of good ideas.

View attachment 11468

View attachment 11469

This makes me ill , I had forgotten how bad the initial screens and routing were

 

[Desertdweller]

This makes me ill , I had forgotten how bad the initial screens and routing were

Those aren't the initial screens, that's how they were on all the Axe FX units up until the III. I have a different opinion as well, as I used the G-Force for over a decade, it's home to me. I have nostalgia for that piece of gear.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Nothing wrong with iteration of good ideas.

Of course not.

 

[ragingplatypi]

Amen. Majorly annoying with the HX Stomp, too, where you either accidentally trigger patch selection or, should you want to get to patch selection, trigger a normal switch. And as if that wasn't bad enough already, this happens for the combination of left/middle and right/middle switch. WTF? Of course there's no option to deactivate it (fwiw, as excellent as the Helix Floor/LT is in terms of editing, as much of a UI disaster the Stomp is).

Play hair metal. Wear pointy cowboy boots.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Play hair metal. Wear pointy cowboy boots.

A voice of reason. Finally. Thanks!

 

[Bob Zaod]

Hotone as a whole

Their MIDI Ampero Controller is outstanding. Built very heavy duty and so easy to program. I got mine for 100 bucks shipped. Instant switching on my MX5 too. No PC capability but I dont care about that. Connect with my phone via bluetooth and APP and had all 4 switches programmed in less than 5 minutes. For another 20 I added the little 2 switch controller that plugs right into it and it also programmable from the phone. Same build quality too. It's crazy the quality for the price.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Their MIDI Ampero Controller is outstanding. Built very heavy duty and so easy to program. I got mine for 100 bucks shipped. Instant switching on my MX5 too. No PC capability but I dont care about that. Connect with my phone via bluetooth and APP and had all 4 switches programmed in less than 5 minutes. For another 20 I added the little 2 switch controller that plugs right into it and it also programmable from the phone. Same build quality too. It's crazy the quality for the price.

I bought one of these. You had to download some unsupported android app that wasn't approved in the Play store. I ended up installing the app on my iPad and it worked once then stopped. I wanted it to work but put me at the end of patience rope at the time. Amazon return was swift for this one.

 

[Bob Zaod]

I bought one of these. You had to download some unsupported android app that wasn't approved in the Play store. I ended up installing the app on my iPad and it worked once then stopped. I wanted it to work but put me at the end of patience rope at the time. Amazon return was swift for this one.

Wow yeah no issues here on my S20 and the firmware updates are pretty regular. Only had it a few weeks and already updated firmware twice since. That also went smooth.

 

[Lysander]

Fresh off the presses!

 

[Sascha Franck]

Fresh off the presses!

Coincidentally, I've seen this half an hour ago already. Raw amp tones defenitely nothing to write home about IMO. The electric tones seem to have a sort of honky signature mid bumb - might be just what you need live, but on their own, things sound pretty much lackluster.
Given that the Stomp version comes in at €499 already, I expect this to be at least 150 more - and as such, it's too expensive for what it seems to be capable of.

 

[GTR37]

Coincidentally, I've seen this half an hour ago already. Raw amp tones defenitely nothing to write home about IMO. The electric tones seem to have a sort of honky signature mid bumb - might be just what you need live, but on their own, things sound pretty much lackluster.
Given that the Stomp version comes in at €499 already, I expect this to be at least 150 more - and as such, it's too expensive for what it seems to be capable of.

But those Jazz tones are like perfect for that guy on the Fractal forum he needs this

 

[Sascha Franck]

But those Jazz tones are like perfect for that guy on the Fractal forum he needs this

Too bad I have no idea who that guy is. But I'd take any bet that each and every FAS device would be able to deliver a most excellent jazz tone (which is a lot more about the used guitar anyway).

 

[jellodog]

Too bad I have no idea who that guy is.

Oh, he's the REAL Jazz guy.

You may find him fascinating:

FM3 for REAL Jazz

Good morning to all users, I just got my FM3 and I'm ready to work on it to get a jazz guitar sound. First of all, I want to apologize if this is not the right part of the Forum, I posted here and in the Presets sections, in case tell me where is better to post it and feel free as...

forum.fractalaudio.com

 

[Sascha Franck]

You may find him fascinating:

I do. My-oh-my...

Seriously though: I wouldn't mind a properly modeled Polytone Minibrute or maybe a LAB series amp myself, either.
Thing is, you can get excellent jazz tones out of pretty much any modeler, but it's usually not exactly plug and play. For instance, the clean amps in the L6 HX series pretty much all default to way too much gain (I obviously know you can change the defaults, have favourites and presets, but still...). the cabs usually need adjustment, too.
However, before getting all up in arms (even if he seems to be doing it rather well mannered), I'd very likely just grab a Princeton or a Bassman, turn the gain all the way down (master possibly as well, even if the originals don't have that option), grab a proper cab (or IR) and simply call it a day.
After all, the players he's mentioning sound pretty different from recording to recording, guys using the same amps sound very different from each other, etc. Also, there's a whole lot of them who would've just plugged into anything as long as it's staying reasonably clean (which, even on some famous recordings, it even isn't).

 

[JCW308]

biggest issue I still have with modellers in 2023 , there should be no hold 2 buttons down crap , dear lord spring for a separate tuner or looper button .
What kind of designer thinks that I am successfully going to land a size 12 shoe on the top two buttons that are level with everything else and not have the back on my foot hit something else .

You need to be in ballet shoes to hit some of the buttons without anything else .

Right now you do a press just these buttons simultaneously , that's an epic fail , end of rant

Can't be serious.