Yesterday I plugged into my AC15c1 after about a year of exclusively playing my Helix through studio monitors, and all I can say is wow. I feel like I just sat down at an acoustic drum set after playing v-drums for a year. One thing I forgot is how dynamic and touch sensitive the real amp is. I was also surprised that I could get a great tone at a pretty low volume. The AC15 is so good for the clean to breakup range that I live in and the master volume works really well, I could get a great overdrive tone with my strat at a pretty reasonable bedroom volume, roll the volume back to clean it up, this is one amp that I really don’t even need any pedals for. The clean tone is warm and rich. The tremolo sounds great and the reverb is fine. It really made me rethink modeling. I know if I did helix > power amp > guitar speaker it would close the gap, but I almost can’t convince myself it’s worth the trouble when the amp sounds so good. If anything I may just use the helix for effects into the vox. I am a home player for the time being, if I were playing live there really would be no question about it, I’d play with an amp. But I’m starting to wonder if I need to practice with an amp more so that I can master and take advantage of the touch sensitivity. I feel like I am missing a lot of that with modeling.
