FRFR - Tube Amps!......Food for thought from 30 years modeling experience!

[leisure491]

I shouldn't have bothered!

[Old-Rocker]

Hi,can i just clarify something for myself,i just read your post,are you saying you are using Pod XT direct into the "amp in" of  2 x L6 spider tube amps,for your on stage sounds?is that Power Amp in or effects return(i'm not familiar with Spider Valve),but i will be in a bit.

Can i ask,in your opinion,is it the way that the Amp/speaker is designed or is that it is a Valve power amp that,gets you your feel?

I've just bought a 500X,that i'm using into an Orange Rocker "Natural channel",i keep reading that to get the best out of 500X,i should be looking at FRFR.

So i'm starting to try & get into using FRFR(for want of a better description),to eventually use on my Gigs(smallish pubs),but so far i'm not "feeling it",but i'll keep at it & we'll see(i have a thread going on this).

Thanks for posting i'm reading all i can & i appreciate all the things i'm reading/learning from the Forum(& a bit from others).

Oh,and you don't qualify for OLD :) .

Cheers.

[Smashcraaft]

What are you talking about if you use SS?

I only find this as a abbreviation for 'seven string'.

[jandrio]

solid state

[Old-Rocker]

What are you talking about if you use SS?

I only find this as a abbreviation for 'seven string'.

Hi,Smashcraaft,i think he's talking about Solid State or (old speak )Transistor circuit topology.

By the way did you check out KS digital?top stuff(if you can afford it)

[DunedinDragon]

I'm not a whole lot different than you in that out of the 50 years I've been playing probably close to half of that has been involved with modeling in the picture.  My first encounters were in the studio, but eventually I felt comfortable bringing it onstage.

 

Unlike you I haven't felt the need to go through the wide variety of equipment you've gone through in my quest for a presentable tone.  My primary limitations have come from the constraints of available processing power and modeling algorithms used over the years.  Most of these limitations were things that could be worked around in the earlier days, but I certainly feel that the available computing power has allowed us to make significant headway in modeling, particularly over the last 10 years at least and there's not as much need, if any, to have to work around limitations.

 

Like you, my goal for onstage modeling was to ultimately limit the amount of gear and complexity in my guitar rig.  Late last year I finally felt comfortable enough with the state of progress in both modeling and live sound reproduction technologies to make that final leap.  Having initially come from a studio environment I always felt the primary limitation in live modeling was the ability to duplicate the precision and flexibility of the studio environment onto the stage.  The POD HD series made a significant step in that regard by providing more options in terms of amps, cabinets, mics, and (to some degree) mic placement.  But the big advance was in the flexibility they provided in construction of the signal chain, including multiple, flexible signal chains.

 

However the surprising factor that I hadn't predicted was the advancement of very effective live sound reproduction technology in packages that were affordable to common everyday people.  Most of this came from the incorporation of DSR driver technology into live speaker arrangements which initially resulted in affordable, smaller line array systems capable of being used in clubs.  In the last few years these same DSR driver technologies have begun to show up in the powered monitor/speaker systems market.  The result of that advance was the ability to truly mimic the precision and clarity of studio monitors.

 

It was both of those advancement that finally lead me to make the decision to go to a stage rig that uses a HD500X routed to a Yamaha DXR12 stage monitor with a line direct to the mixer.  Taming that level of clarity and articulation for onstage use was at first a bit of a challenge.  But I think that's a normal artifict of major shifts in a common paradigm.  At this point I think I've gotten over the hump and I commonly get a lot of positive feedback from my bandmates as well as my audience about the tones I'm able to achieve, and the benefit my rig has in helping the band achieve a polished studio sound in our live performances.

 

The biggest advantage of all of this that I had not realized I would get was the ability to ensure that the sound I had onstage was exactly the sound my audience was hearing.  The biggest challenge I hadn't predicted was how much harder I needed to focus on my technique...because EVERYTHING comes through...both good stuff and not-so-good stuff.

[cruisinon2]

Sorry, to have to post this way!

 

But I couldn't figure out how to copy and paste in to my new topic post, and had to attach as a standard text file.

Could someone please enlighten me as to why I can't copy and paste to new topic box out of Word or Text either one.

Do you have to type everything in box ???

Doesn't seem right ???

 

It's extremely long (I was bored) and I don't want to have to re-type here....As now I'm busy!

I have it formatted in Word, but it won't let me import to post.

I could only attach it as plain text ???

I think it's a pretty good read.

 

May take me a day or two to get back here - Got busy schedule!

 

Thanks!

Admittedly, I only scanned through that post, but what jumped out at me right away was the ADA MP-1 being referred to as a "modeler", when it was really nothing of the sort. It was/is a 2 channel tube preamp, with no onboard FX. It's MIDI controllable, and you could save individual presets, but all you were "saving" was clean or dirty channel, and bass/mids/treble/presence settings. That's about all it had in common with today's modelers. I had one for years, and was quite satisfied with the tones I got from it for a long while. But it's no more a modeler than the isolated preamp section of any head or combo amp.

[joel_brown]

Semantics, sort of.

[cruisinon2]

Semantics, sort of.

Golf carts and Formula 1 race cars both have 4 wheels, but they're hardly the same thing.

[joel_brown]

He was trying to piece together enough items to model the sound he wanted instead of lugging around a big heavy amp/cab.  Is the ADA MP-1 a modeler in of itself ?  No.  But at the time it was doing the same thing for him as the digital pre-amps in the PODHD.

 

So yes, semantics...

[DunedinDragon]

I personally don't think of that as modeling, but to each their own I suppose.  In my personal experience I only use the term modeling to apply to algorithmic transformations of the sound wave to simulate the behaviors of a specific amp or effect.  However in the truest sense that's probably not accurate.  The 3d model of the universe a child makes for a science project is still a model, even though it doesn't compete with the accuracy of a model generated on a Cray supercomputer.

 

On the other hand I'm not sure the ADA MP-1 was actually trying to simulate, or "model" so to speak any other specific amp.  Rather it just provided a variety of sound options.

[cruisinon2]

He was trying to piece together enough items to model the sound he wanted instead of lugging around a big heavy amp/cab. Is the ADA MP-1 a modeler in of itself ? No. But at the time it was doing the same thing for him as the digital pre-amps in the PODHD.

 

So yes, semantics...

I once witnessed a Swiss Army Knife used to perform an emergency tracheotomy, but no one in their right mind would consider it a surgical tool.

 

He could accomplish the goal of dragging around less gear by micing up a Pignose...doesn't make the Pignose a modeler.

[Old-Rocker]

For once on this Forum.i can speak about a piece of equipment with a bit of knowledge,with the proviso that i forget fast. ;)

The MP-1 was a Valve Pre-Amp(3 x 12AX7's if i remember correctly)which has 128 programmable presets(selectable via Midi footswitch) & you could set those with any combination of S.S or Valve Clean,it has 4 eq selectors,2 gain stages,which could provide as much gain you could stand,it also had a built in Chorus(or at least mine did),i used mine for a few years with a Mesa 295,sounded great,got fed up with carting the whole rack around(that had a pile of stuff that i had no idea about),but i did keep One unit a Digitech Dual Band midi eq,that i've still got somewhere.

Just in case anyone's interested :)

[cruisinon2]

For once on this Forum.i can speak about a piece of equipment with a bit of knowledge,with the proviso that i forget fast. ;)

The MP-1 was a Valve Pre-Amp(3 x 12AX7's if i remember correctly)which has 128 programmable presets(selectable via Midi footswitch) & you could set those with any combination of S.S or Valve Clean,it has 4 eq selectors,2 gain stages,which could provide as much gain you could stand,it also had a built in Chorus(or at least mine did),i used mine for a few years with a Mesa 295,sounded great,got fed up with carting the whole rack around(that had a pile of stuff that i had no idea about),but i did keep One unit a Digitech Dual Band midi eq,that i've still got somewhere.

Just in case anyone's interested :)

You are correct, sir...it did have a chorus, lol. I had forgotten that, as its been many years since I've had the thing.

 

And you're right about racks too. There's really hardly any weight savings at all, if any. Along with the MP-1, I had a rack mount tuner, one of several different multi-fx units, and a power amp. By the time you add all that up, it ends up weighing just as much, if not more than a tube head by itself.

[Smashcraaft]

Hi,Smashcraaft,i think he's talking about Solid State or (old speak )Transistor circuit topology.

By the way did you check out KS digital?top stuff(if you can afford it)

Hi. I took a very short look at the pricing and lost interest immediately. I'm not into such expensive high-end equipment because I'm sure I would not even hear the difference compared to gear that costs a fraction of. For me it is important that I can handle my gear and there is no booming and rattle in my speakers. So I'm happy with my Yamaha DBR12 which offers me a wide range of frequencies without product based evil spots. Hope you can understand my grammar.

 

By the way; I was playing a EXEF 6 Shooter Preamp for a decade and was very pleased with its sound of Marshall, Mesa Boogie and Fender. Very good work of Jochen Koeckler of EXEF but now it sells on eBay and seems to get away for something around 200 bucks. Do anybody still know the Six Shooter?

[Old-Rocker]

Hi. I took a very short look at the pricing and lost interest immediately. I'm not into such expensive high-end equipment because I'm sure I would not even hear the difference compared to gear that costs a fraction of. For me it is important that I can handle my gear and there is no booming and rattle in my speakers. So I'm happy with my Yamaha DBR12 which offers me a wide range of frequencies without product based evil spots. Hope you can understand my grammar.

 

By the way; I was playing a EXEF 6 Shooter Preamp for a decade and was very pleased with its sound of Marshall, Mesa Boogie and Fender. Very good work of Jochen Koeckler of EXEF but now it sells on eBay and seems to get away for something around 200 bucks. Do anybody still know the Six Shooter?

Not heard of EXEF,i'll check it out,if you don't mind me saying,if something is better you will hear the difference :) ,so don't go & listen to one of the CPA's.

In a former life i was in the Hi-Fi industry & came to learn that everybody(even old & deaf people like me)can hear the difference.

Your grammar is perfect,compared to mine.

[spaceatl]

I still have my MP-1....still works and sounds great. It will be 30 years old next year.

[cruisinon2]

I still have my MP-1....still works and sounds great. It will be 30 years old next year.

It's actually one of only a few pieces of gear that I'm sorry I parted with...simple, but sounded great. In 30 years, I seriously doubt that I'll have any of the gear that I've got now. Of course, someone will be changing my diapers for me, and I probably won't care...;)

[joel_brown]

Hehe, a lot of posts here go off on tangents. 

 

btw - I don't how to paste text into a reply either.

[jandrio]

paste text into a reply,
either:
1. copy selected text
2. put the cursor in the "Reply to this topic" window.
3. press "CONTROL+V"

alternatively:
1. copy selected text
2.press the "paste" icon on top right of the "Reply to this topic" window.
3. put the cursor in the "Reply to this topic" window.
4. right-click mouse & select paste

[DunedinDragon]

Liesure491,

 

As far as eliminating tube amps from my rig, I did that close to 7 years ago.  But whether you can do that really depends more on your personal preferences than any specific objective criterea.

 

As you mentioned in an earlier post you tend to be a heavy effects-laden player using ambient leads. Certainly many people have achieved such a thing through modeling without tube amps, but subjectively what appeals to them may be very different from you.  For myself this transition was easy.  I don't classify myself in any specific category of guitar playing.  I'm just a guitar player pure and simple.  I play whatever style the song calls for whether it be rock, jazz, country, blues, R&B, funk, finger-picked, etc.  In my case the amp isn't the predominant factor in determining sound I'm after, the guitar is.  That's why modeling worked well for me and why a pure FRFR setup was the perfect choice.

 

I have a different patch customized to every song we play, but each patch is based on which guitar and playing style I'll be using on it.  I could play a traditional rock song using my strat, but it won't have the same punch and body as my Les Paul.  Likewise a funk song or Hendrix style won't feel or sound authentic played through anything but a strat.  And certainly a Chet Atkins or Jerry Reed style fingerpicked song, or a Stray Cats rockabilly song wouldn't sound right through anything but my Gretsch regardless of the amp.  That's not to say the amp doesn't play into the palette of sound I'm looking for in these different styles, but that's why modeling is far more important to me than SS or tube configurations.

 

In my case the struggle is more about when will I be ready to move from the 3 or 4 guitars I need for a typical gig to a variax?  I just recently felt comfortable enough to move from a traditional modeled amp to a HD500X and FRFR speaker arrangement, it may take a while for me to make the variax leap.  And although I was challenged initially with finding the right settings to make me comfortable with getting the various sounds I need, within a month or so I was ready to take it live and haven't looked back.  But my patches tend to be relatively simple.  In my case stereo patches aren't an issue because we always route everything through the PA.  And because of variations in room layout and the dispersion of the audience, a stereo effect will only be heard appropriately by a small number of people in the audience who are in the perfect position to hear it correctly.  Beyond that I can achieve the sound I'm looking for through a simple configuration of the correct amp/cabinet/mic and a very limited number of effects applied sparingly such as compressor, distortion, booster, chorus, reverb, delay, and eq.

 

In terms of your initial question, I'm not sure you're going to find a satisfying answer to when you can move to a tube-less rig until you first find someone who characterizes themselves as the same type of guitar player.  Then they might have some specific ideas and guidelines about how they use the technology to make you feel comfortable making the leap.

[cruisinon2]

Cruisinon2

 

I noticed you've done a very nice job on clarifying all the benefits of FRFR on the FRFR post.

But one thing you mentioned caught me, (As soon as I get this thing down, tube amps are history) And someone asked you how close you were to that. You replied very close!

Has this changed for you?.............Have you completely dumped the amps?

 

I still own a tube amp (well, a power amp anyway), but it sits in a rack case unused. For a while I had been sitting on a few tube preamp/multi-fx units (Rocktron, Digitech, and the aforementioned ADA ;)). But they were all collecting dust too, so I sold them off, one by one. I have no plans to go back to a tube rig. The tones I get from the POD are so damn close to the real thing that whatever subtle nuances might still be missing, just don't bother me. And the audience wouldn't know the difference if their lives depended on it. I also need acoustic tones live. It took a while, but I finally managed to get a patch that works well with my JTV. Yeah, I could run one straight to the PA,but frankly, I'm a miserable acoustic player. Never had a feel for them, and this way, it's one less guitar to bring. Being able to get convincing acoustic tones from a solid body guitar is a godsend for me, and you absolutely cannot get that from anything but an FRFR set-up. Guitar cabinets just don't give you the frequency range you need.

[joel_brown]

I'm close to dumping my Marshalls for FRFR.  Still needs a little more tweaking but it's getting there.  The tube amps sound better but the difference isn't much.

[Smashcraaft]

I´m on FRFR. My Ex-gear (EXEF 6 Shooter with Rocktron Velocity 100 SS-Amplifier) had about 5 % more warmth in tone but HD500x + FRFR has big advantages in transparency and sound within the band.

[DunedinDragon]

Chances are if you were REALLY obsessed about that 5% warmth factor you could probably use a preamp like an ART TUBE/MP for about $35 to get it back.  Personally I don't hear it, so I don't miss it.

[cruisinon2]

Chances are if you were REALLY obsessed about that 5% warmth factor you could probably use a preamp like an ART TUBE/MP for about $35 to get it back. Personally I don't hear it, so I don't miss it.

I gambled $40 on one of those, more out of curiosity than anything else, not because I was unhappy with my sound. For what it's worth, there is a subtle difference with it in the chain. Certainly not night and day, but I can tell when it's on. Also makes a HUGE difference where you put it. At the suggestion of someone here on the forums (I forget whom at the moment...my apologies if you're reading this ;)), I stuck in the FX loop as the first thing in the chain, before even the noise gate. Was the only place I hadn't tried...almost anywhere else you place it, it sounds like a maxed-out compressor. Not pleasant at all, at least not for me. I was ready to toss it, until that was suggested to me...now I kinda like it. But I could live without it if I had to.

[spaceatl]

I was hoping Spaceatl might chime in on this one.

As he will probably remember me electrically scheming with him on how to control those two Spyder Valve Amps with one controller, in a post I started about 8 years ago when I first bought them, in which he was a great help. I just reposted the original pictures he sent me long a go. - LOL!

Knowing he has followed the modeling path for a long time, and plays live a lot, I'd really be interested to hear what he and other long time forum members rigs have developed in to these days, with the advent of more processing power and improved effects etc.

 

Did it let you cut down your rig any?

 

I'd would also like to hear more from those who have updated to the newer units, and how it affected their gear choices. I'm still trying to get away from the bulk, and wondering how much gear I might eliminate by having effects, distortions, better modeling, etc. that I consider good enough to use right in the modeler.

As right now I mainly use mine for amp emulation only, as I just don't find the distortions and effects good enough to satisfy me in the old Pod-XT I have right now. I'm really hoping they're improved enough in the newer units to satisfy me and let me eliminate gear.

Hi there, my rig has changed quite a bit since HD came out. Basically, the Spider Valve was the first modeler that actually had the right feel. I really think a modeling preamp with a tube power amp is a proven combination in terms of a player like me that prefers to hear the amp instead of hearing a mic on a cab rendering that FRFR guys prefer. Nothing right or wrong with either, just that everybody has different preferences.

 

While the SV rig was pretty darn cool, I still had to carry my BOSS pedalboard to supplement FX that just were not possible in the SV....When HD came out and DT amplifiers, the modeling made a pretty big jump in quality and feel. The HD pod is the first POD that I could play on cans or in a FRFR rig where I actually could get enough feel off of it that I did not miss the tube power amp quite as much. As good as that is, I ended up using an HD Desktop into the power amp in of a DT50, DT25 and even the SVs also. I really like a simul-class vibe, so when space allows I generally will use the DT50 with the DT25 and run the DT50 class A and the DT25 AB...DT50 sits on top of a 212 cab and the DT25 runs the 212...Basically, with an HD there are enough FX that I don't really need outboard stuff...But now that Helix is out, I am starting to think seriously about that unit...It's a bit more than what I need, but it does sound fantastic. I have played thru one and I am really impressed with it.

[napynap]

For once on this Forum.i can speak about a piece of equipment with a bit of knowledge,with the proviso that i forget fast. ;)

The MP-1 was a Valve Pre-Amp(3 x 12AX7's if i remember correctly)which has 128 programmable presets(selectable via Midi footswitch) & you could set those with any combination of S.S or Valve Clean,it has 4 eq selectors,2 gain stages,which could provide as much gain you could stand,it also had a built in Chorus(or at least mine did),i used mine for a few years with a Mesa 295,sounded great,got fed up with carting the whole rack around(that had a pile of stuff that i had no idea about),but i did keep One unit a Digitech Dual Band midi eq,that i've still got somewhere.

Just in case anyone's interested :)

 

Yes, I'm interested, and trying to resurrect my original ADA MP1. Although I currently gig through POD HD Desktop direct to PA or FRFR, I'm always looking to improve tones...

[Old-Rocker]

I know i'm off topic(again),but i sold mine last year,i bought it new sometime in the 80's,but got fed up with the whole rack use for gigging,hadn't used it for over 10 yrs,so it's gone,along with a Bixonic Expandora pedal,i never used,only mentioned that,because i think it's the best name for a piece of gear ever :) ,oh,& also because Billy Gibbons used 6 of them,allegedly still does.

[JTSC777]

As time goes on I pretty much gig with PODs/ GP10/ GR55 etc... All through FRFR.Much of that is because in the good old days we had house gigs 3-5 night s a week.No moving of gear.Tube amps were great for that.All the gigs are one nighters now so FRFR and a modeler or two direct rules . I know one guy in my are still shlepping a huge pedal board/ Mesa Lone Star/ keyboard rig and a bunch of other crap to each one nighter he does. Those days are over for me forever.I have 5 or 6 really nice tube amps for jams and to enjoy at home.For the gigging needs of today's working pro modeling and FRFR are much more practical.And a lot of fun too!