Modelers Losing Their Luster

[Alex Kenivel]

I like having options. I played through a gifted (not so great) tube amp and two cabs for 8-9 years and always fought with my tone or just lived with it. Great cleans and just an okay OD - good enough for classic rock and just okay for the punk band I played in for those years.

It wasn't until I joined a shoegazey metal band that I realized I needed a more modern amp sound and to switch between multiple effects seamlessly. I didn't know a Marshall sound from a Vox sound from a Mesa. My pedalboard was growing, I didn't know pedal switchers existed, everything ran into the input and I wore large work boots to be able to hit 4-5 pedals at once.

I was developing ulnar fasciitis in both arms from strenuous labor work that made hauling that 100w amp, 4x12 cab, 2x12 cab, and large pedalboard case a chore.

Up until then I had written off digital modeling as Child's Play. I remember receiving a DigiTech multi-effects for Christmas as a preteen and ran that through my dad's Peavey Bandit for a while. Fast forward to joining that punk band in my early adult years and those toys wouldn't cut it versus a hundred watt Marshall Half Stack.

Fast forward again to the shoegazey metal band and I'm just learning about modern amp modeling in 2014. Not knowing jackshit about amps at all, I dove right in with a Pod HD, then Helix Floor. After that the tube amp got flipped for a SS PA rackmount amp, then that sold off when I got a good full range cab.

To combat my gear and audio ignorance I rapidly gained knowledge by way of self-education and college courses

It was around that point when the metal bands became less appealing to me. I was getting hired on to do some singer-songwriter stuff and eventually function bands and the Helix Floor seemed like overkill especially in these tiny San Francisco venues. Then the Stomp came and I went to using that mostly. IEMs came into play and my guitar rig was just a very small pedalboard with the biggest pieces being an HX Stomp and my wireless receiver. Then we did some gigs with lackluster sound reinforcement and got curious about amps/cabs again, enter the Katana.

Now the function bands have gone away and I'm a home player (for now) that has time to sit and scrutinize. I decided I wanted to buy a tube amp (my first tube amp purchase evar!) and larger cab again and I enjoy playing with my Stomp in 4CM with an OD and Delay. Starting to build pedals, thinking about building an amp or a cab but great Satan does this stuff take up time and space, especially for setup and tear down.

At this point I have a large modeling device, a small modeling device, a tube amp setup and an IEM rig with almost a full PA setup. I like having options. If I join a functions band I have something for that, if a band really wants to see an amp and a cab, I've got that. If I'm joining an epic shoegazey metal band and need to alleviate tap dancing then I've got something for that too.

My back is fine and my arms are doing really good now, I just don't have time to join a band at this point in my family life

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Come at me bro!!!!

You'll never see me comi....

 

[dk_ace]

I had the Axe-Fx 1, their 1st release, and had absolutely NO problem navigating on that. Had it many years and sold it when I got the AX8. Again , zero problem programming all my own patches. So meanwhile, I hadn't used the Ax8 in years, and just this week started getting back to playing with it, and now it's become cumbersome, basically starting from scratch . Anyway, within a few more days it should be 'old hat' again until I set it down for a few more years. lol... When I got the 1st Axe-Fx and everyone was saying how difficult the UI was , I just laughed as I had all the Ensoniq rack gear in my studio and it was way more difficult! Just like anything after someone uses it awhile hopefully they can figure it out. (or not!)

Eric

I didn’t have any “problems” navigating it, that in no way means it was ideal for quickly adjusting something live. Knobs on an amp or pedals were 1000X easier and faster.

It was a great product and I gigged it for years, but the fanboi stuff pretending it’s just as easy to work with live as a traditional rig is ludicrous.

D

 

[unix-guy]

Modelers taught people that amps don't matter as much as we think they do. Modelers taught people to think about writing and recording in a totally different light.

Some people... Definitely not all or even most.

One thing for me is that since I've started using Fractal stuff and being very active on their forum: I've learned much more about how tube amps, speakers, microphones, effects etc work than I ever did when I was actually using the analog equivalents.

 

[unix-guy]

I think there's one thing that they haven't nailed yet. I can't use a modeler like my pedalboard: free-form experimentation with sounds. It doesn't support a "what if I turn this and this, then this and this on another pedal" approach which takes a few seconds on pedals with dedicated knobs to find new sounds, or go from bad ones to better ones. It is a lot of block clicking back-and-forth, virtual knob turning etc to do on any modeler.

But conversely they make it fairly trivial to say, what if we have this before that?

Or what if this is in parallel to that?

Or what if I feedback some of this back before that?

Some of that takes significant effort with a physical pedalboard, assuming it's even possible.

There are different ways to experiment.

I think you're missing the immediate tactile capability, which is definitely understandable.

It would be kind of cool if there was some sort of "pedalboard view" in the editor where you could add maybe 6-8 blocks with the "basic" controls of each all accessible within the same "pane of glass". No block switching, just move the relevant knob.

Not great for a live scenario but it might scratch that itch...

 

[timbuck3]

I prefer playing thru an amp 110% as there is something organic to me about it: cant really put it in words. But modelers give more options and variables for the $ so more versatile for sure. I think companies in general have the whole preamp thing down but some lack on the poweramp modeling and effects so those 2 areas can always be improved as we see from fractals updates recently. I also think gui's can evolve to be more friendly as we have seen with line6/headrush and tmp. Its finding that right balance of these things in one box that many seek. This is why so many of you guys buy 2-4 diff modelers and keep rebuying the same ones(hoping they will have gotten better)

 

[Frodebro]

But conversely they make it fairly trivial to say, what if we have this before that?

Or what if this is in parallel to that?

Or what if I feedback some of this back before that?

Some of that takes significant effort with a physical pedalboard, assuming it's even possible.

There are different ways to experiment.

I think you're missing the immediate tactile capability, which is definitely understandable.

It would be kind of cool if there was some sort of "pedalboard view" in the editor where you could add maybe 6-8 blocks with the "basic" controls of each all accessible within the same "pane of glass". No block switching, just move the relevant knob.

Not great for a live scenario but it might scratch that itch...

What if I put a fender champ tone stack in a triple rectifier?

 

[Tanax]

What part of what I said didn’t you understand?

Your post was talking about how simple the UI is while my post never mentioned anything about their UI. I was talking about how terrible the UX is. They are not the same thing. So I'm confused as to why you quoted me?

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Inspired by Laxu's post.

Are you tired of 1000s of models?
Downsizing to something smaller/simpler?
Going back to amps?
Purging all modelers?
Was it just GAS that passed?
You've grown to hate modelers?
Ain't nobody got time for that?
How's your back?

Discuss

"I'm tired of modelers and their loads of options so I'm going to go to a pedalboard with amp setup and am annoyed at all these pedals that don't have MIDI to allow me to access loads of options within the pedals and ... "

Modelers are great. Pedals are great. Amps are great. Preamps are great. Hybrid rigs are great. And is better than Or.

 

[Sascha Franck]

And is better than Or.

Only if those Ands come in an accessible package.

 

[unix-guy]

I didn’t have any “problems” navigating it, that in no way means it was ideal for quickly adjusting something live. Knobs on an amp or pedals were 1000X easier and faster.

How much tweaking are you needing to do live? I save that for home so I don't need to do it live.

Key parameters can be added easily to the Performance Pages for very fast access if needed.

It was a great product and I gigged it for years, but the fanboi stuff pretending it’s just as easy to work with live as a traditional rig is ludicrous.

The ludicrous part is getting called a fanboi just because you don't have the same experience as someone else.

It's ok if you don't like it... But that's you, not me.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Being recently asked to do so many live sound gigs, which still terrifies me, but now have been placed on the exclusive rider of several of the biggest local bands, I am seeing first hand just how different these worlds can be. The guys who bring their modellers on and only use amps as their personal monitors or just go thru the monitors or in ears sound WORLDS better than the loud stage volume amps mic'd up with the drums leaking thru them and into the vocal mics and all the other crap.

Unless the stage is GIANT, where it seems like we can deal with it better, but again, NONE, not a dB of that stage amp nonsense reaches the audience's ears.

I can see why playing an amp is more immediate, and maybe more fun for some people.

But if you care about the song, the performance, what the audience hears, the modellers thru impulses absolutely murder the dinosaurs. They end up sounding like an album

 

[dk_ace]

How much tweaking are you needing to do live? I save that for home so I don't need to do it live.

Key parameters can be added easily to the Performance Pages for very fast access if needed.


The ludicrous part is getting called a fanboi just because you don't have the same experience as someone else.

It's ok if you don't like it... But that's you, not me.

I don’t need to do much tweaking live. I keep the things that do change regularly on expression pedals or foot switches. That said, sometimes you have an idea you want to try in the moment. With a pedalboard, you bend over and turn a knob or two. With a helix, you do the same but touch the footswitch first to pull up the effect. With a Gen 1 Axe-fx, you just don’t try the thing you wanted to because there’s no quick and easy way to do it.

There were no “performance pages” then, and even now that would require you to predict in advance the sudden bit of inspiration you were gonna get and what you’d want to change which isn’t likely.

I didn’t call you a fanboy, it was someone else unless you’re posting under multiple accounts. Did you gig live extensively for years with a Gen 1 axe-fx?

D

 

[laxu]

But conversely they make it fairly trivial to say, what if we have this before that?

Or what if this is in parallel to that?

Or what if I feedback some of this back before that?

Some of that takes significant effort with a physical pedalboard, assuming it's even possible.

There are different ways to experiment.

I think you're missing the immediate tactile capability, which is definitely understandable.

It would be kind of cool if there was some sort of "pedalboard view" in the editor where you could add maybe 6-8 blocks with the "basic" controls of each all accessible within the same "pane of glass". No block switching, just move the relevant knob.

Not great for a live scenario but it might scratch that itch...

Absolutely. Parallel routing is especially painful with real hardware. If you want stereo with that the number of products that let you do that shrinks to like 2 or 3. Routing and switching things are the stuff that modelers do much better than typical pedalboard rigs.

That said, I find myself messing very little with the order of pedals or virtual fx blocks. I set them up a particular way and that stays the same pretty much all the time.

So for me it's more about being able to quickly adjust fx A and B, which benefits from having physical knobs, which then leads to using the onboard hardware, which then leads to "god damn it's annoying to have to menu around in this thing". Helix's capacitive switches and QC's touchscreen are very helpful for that kind of thing.

Just so people don't misunderstand, I'm not talking about some "I need to go full experimental in the middle of a gig" situation, I'm talking about just messing with effects at home. Less "programming", more "let's see what happens" type of experimentation. That's fun!

 

[unix-guy]

I didn’t call you a fanboy, it was someone else unless you’re posting under multiple accounts.

You comment did not appear to be directed to an individual, but rather the idea of someone disagreeing with your point of view.

 

[Orvillain]

 

[Sascha Franck]

How much tweaking are you needing to do live?

Can't speak for anyone else, but sometimes it's quite a lot. One of the reasons I'm booked is that I'm able to quickly suit a whole variety of musical situations. And one of the parts to accomplish that is to quickly adjust my sounds to accomodate the situation. Most modelers are extremely bad for such tasks, especially once you start switching patches because apart from two (Axe FX and GT-1000), none of them support global blocks (ok, the Kemper has the parameter lock, which seems to be fine for at least some situations).
Usually they also don't offer enough directly exposed controls. Something I'm adjusting at pretty much every gig is the drive/tonestack of my two main "channels" (an Amplifirebox and an Amp Academy). This already get's me there by, say, 70%. But it's 10 parameters already (gain, level, BMT for each). More than any modeler is offering, let alone I have the two channels next to each other. And well, that's just the two core channels, we haven't talked dirt/dynamic/EQ pedals and FX yet. Which are only multiplying the issues.

As said, I can't speak for other folks, but being able to adjust everything quickly for me adds more worth to my setup than whatever last bits of authenticity.

 

[Sascha Franck]

That said, I find myself messing very little with the order of pedals or virtual fx blocks. I set them up a particular way and that stays the same pretty much all the time.

Same here.
I fooled around with things quite a bit years ago - only to find out that I really don't exactly need it (if at all).
I like doing such things in my DAW, but when playing guitar, there's more than enough things to keep me busy and inspired, even when I don't run my cabinet signal into an amp.

 

[Frodebro]

Can't speak for anyone else, but sometimes it's quite a lot. One of the reasons I'm booked is that I'm able to quickly suit a whole variety of musical situations. And one of the parts to accomplish that is to quickly adjust my sounds to accomodate the situation. Most modelers are extremely bad for such tasks, especially once you start switching patches because apart from two (Axe FX and GT-1000), none of them support global blocks (ok, the Kemper has the parameter lock, which seems to be fine for at least some situations).
Usually they also don't offer enough directly exposed controls. Something I'm adjusting at pretty much every gig is the drive/tonestack of my two main "channels" (an Amplifirebox and an Amp Academy). This already get's me there by, say, 70%. But it's 10 parameters already (gain, level, BMT for each). More than any modeler is offering, let alone I have the two channels next to each other. And well, that's just the two core channels, we haven't talked dirt/dynamic/EQ pedals and FX yet. Which are only multiplying the issues.

As said, I can't speak for other folks, but being able to adjust everything quickly for me adds more worth to my setup than whatever last bits of authenticity.

 

[2dor]

Modelers, amps, amp-in-a-box, neural modelling...

I feel like I'm always on a gear->purge->digital->purge->gear etc. cycle