What's your "litmus test" for a modeler?

[Bob Zaod]

It's not even that. There was a little more immediacy of the FM9 vs. the FM3. Again; could be my FOMO mind playing tricks on me.

 

[jellodog]

It's not even that. There was a little more immediacy of the FM9 vs. the FM3. Again; could be my FOMO mind playing tricks on me.

There is definitely a difference between the two. Might have more to do with the A/D input sensitivity (not available in the FM3), which I dialled up for my low output single coils with the FM9... but whatever is different, I immediately noticed that I had greater headroom in the amp block (dynamic range?) for the same presets that I imported from the FM3. Previously I had to be careful not to max out the amp headroom with too much input signal from drive or compressors in the FM3 signal chain. Not a problem in the FM9.

I have no idea what's going on under the hood, but I prefer whatever the FM9 is doing

 

[ejecta]

There is definitely a difference between the two. Might have more to do with the A/D input sensitivity (not available in the FM3), which I dialled up for my low output single coils with the FM9... but whatever is different, I immediately noticed that I had greater headroom in the amp block (dynamic range?) for the same presets that I imported from the FM3. Previously I had to be careful not to max out the amp headroom with too much imput signal from drive or compressors in the FM3 signal chain. Not a problem in the FM9.

I have no idea what's going on under the hood, but I prefer whatever the FM9 is doing

I thought I noticed something too when I had my FM3 and FM9 side by side but like Jive thought I was probably fooling myself. Anyway I was using either for mainly effects so the amps sounding different wasn’t a huge deciding factor for me.

 

[laxu]

The more gear I have used, the more I have noticed that I don't give a damn about things like "classic" amps or powertube distortion. My favorite real world amps are mostly master volume amps that are modernized designs of those old classics. Give me a Friedman or Bogner over a Marshall, a Victory Copper over a Vox, a Mesa Lonestar over a Fender and so on.

For testing a modeler my first thing to do is probably dialing in a good Marshall-based mid gain overdrive with a bit of reverb. But in reality I find that I care quite little about the actual amp models themselves. You could call them A, B and C for all I care.

So I guess the real test is "can I get the sound/feel I like out of this". How exactly that is achieved matters less. I've done it with pedals into clean amp, an amp cranked through an attenuator, various digital modelers...whatever keeps me playing that device and forgetting about everything else is probably pretty good.

 

[Eagle]

Do I like playing through it, end ?
All modellers sound good enough for the audience in context so it's about is it inspiring to me.

 

[Stratzrus]

My litmus test is can it get the tones I use most often?

1. A full and clean Super Reverb Jazz tone with a little reverb on the trailing end of notes.
2. A Vibrolux Reverb slightly overdriven Blues tone.
3. A JCM 800 volume at 2:00 Rock crunch tone
4. A Modern Metal high gain tone

Does it have excellent effects including reverb, delay, chorus, rotary, and wah.

Good recording tone, good heaphone tone, and good tone when plugged into an amp and cab that's suited for amplifying a modeler.

Anything more than that is icing on the cake.

The FM9 does all of that for me. I'm good...at least for now.

 

[mk5]

I’d have to have the modeler in the room with my Plexi and see how close I can get it, (1) all knobs right at full-tilt and (2) with guitar volume on 2-3.

 

[andergtr]

anything can get that over the top chugga chugga modern metal thing, so i don't even care about that.

the big test for any piece of gear is how well it does the mid-gain thing and how responsive it is to dynamics when you play lighter vs. harder and when you change the volume on your guitar.

 

[GuitarDave]

Do I still own it and use it years later! So far only the Helix has passed that test. It lasted more than 5 years but it's gone too... replaced with the Catalyst 100 so maybe it still counts!!