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Does Anyone Else Have To Be "in The Mood" To Tweak Patches?


smrybacki
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I have a Variax and an HD500 I play through a pair of Tech21 Power Engine 60s.  There's no doubt that I can create a whole lot of great sounds using this setup.  I also have a pair of, and soon a third Fender tube amps (DRRI, Vibro Champ and a PRRI soon), a bunch of high quality analog stomps and an MIA Strat and Tele that I simply love the sound of, often just guitar into amp truth be known.

 

So after a year fairly involved with my POD, I realize that I kind of have to be in the mood to go to all the effort to create a patch because let's face it, it is an involved process.  Just getting the amp "just so" takes long enough, and then you diddle about with effects and finally the guitar choice just to play one song in a semblance of a perfect tone for it.  Now understand, I'm not complaining about having this kind of power at my disposal.  It's very cool and when I AM in the mood, I often go "wow" at the end of that process.

But there are other times I just want to PLAY, you know?  Minimum of fuss and maximum of being in the moment of playing.

 

Anyone else experience similar?  My friends that I play with are all tube amp, stomp box traditional guitar types so they can't relate really, or maybe they can and just realized long ago to just play.  Want say ye Line 6 Commune?

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There is some wisdom in that reasoning for sure. We all get better at things the longer we do them. But then to, our digital gear will soon be obsolete as advances occur. So unless we are willing to "hold fast" to what we have, our investment in learning these devices is all too soon for naught.

 

By contrast, my analog gear is largely unchanged in the last 50 years lol... And it is what the digital modeling gear is trying to replicate.

 

Ironic, no?

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I've been both old school and digital, and do a little of both now.  Old school, I swapped tubes, tried differant bias settings, fiddled with knobs on stomp pedals and fought noise and hum.  I prefer digital through tube power amps.  I get my old school tones with a lot less noise and hum plus it's easier for me to press a few buttons than re-cable stuff.  The icing on the cake is playing live in stereo.  I finally had a chance to do stereo through a 48,000 watt PA system the other night.  That was cool...

 

As far as digital gear becoming obsolete, I typically get 4 or 5 years out of it before upgrading.  Most people don't keep cell phones that long. 

 

To each their own.  We can all learn from each other and it's great we have a forum like this to share ideas.

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I have a Variax and an HD500 I play through a pair of Tech21 Power Engine 60s.  There's no doubt that I can create a whole lot of great sounds using this setup.  I also have a pair of, and soon a third Fender tube amps (DRRI, Vibro Champ and a PRRI soon), a bunch of high quality analog stomps and an MIA Strat and Tele that I simply love the sound of, often just guitar into amp truth be known.

 

So after a year fairly involved with my POD, I realize that I kind of have to be in the mood to go to all the effort to create a patch because let's face it, it is an involved process.  Just getting the amp "just so" takes long enough, and then you diddle about with effects and finally the guitar choice just to play one song in a semblance of a perfect tone for it.  Now understand, I'm not complaining about having this kind of power at my disposal.  It's very cool and when I AM in the mood, I often go "wow" at the end of that process.

But there are other times I just want to PLAY, you know?  Minimum of fuss and maximum of being in the moment of playing.

 

Anyone else experience similar?  My friends that I play with are all tube amp, stomp box traditional guitar types so they can't relate really, or maybe they can and just realized long ago to just play.  Want say ye Line 6 Commune?

 

Because you have so many amps, so many fx, etc. Sure, it's much easier to tweak running a tele into a TS pedal into fender princeton. Option anxiety. We're lucky to have that :)

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Yeah I kind of agree. You can go in tweak cycles.

You change something like install new guitar pickup and away you go on a tweak fest.

 

I find being able to lift the HD500 up to desk level really helps tweak on the fly.

If I have to bend down for any period of time, forget it!  That might be all it is to being in the mood. LOLOL

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I do not agree with the sentence above ..I have had to deal with other modelers in the past, and I include also analog and digital synthesizers, hardware and software ..I learned really a lot using all that stuff, and that set of experiences is still very useful today when I decide to build any sound ..in the same way all that I have learned and I am learning using the POD I'm sure It will come back very useful when I'll go on to something else in the future .. even if it were only real things and non-digital..

The concepts transfer no doubt, but even between firmware releases in a single unit the sounds produced with songs do change the way you set things at times. I know for instance that some people are keeping version 1.9 of the Variax firmware because they don't like a few models in the 2.0.

 

But to be fair, tube swaps and bias adjustments can cause the same things in vintage tube amps.

 

After a stated this thread, I plugged a Tele into my pedal board and into a DRRI and played a solid hour with a looper without adjusting a thing and that made me smile.... But afterwards I began thinking about setting up a digital patch to do that to so I could record it....

 

I guess hooked on both :-)

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no doubt that the quality real things sound very good, that's why the POD emulate them.. and it does it quite well I would say..

the point to use a POD is to have several quality emulations of those good real things at disposal at a fraction of the cost and very handy..

 

to be honest If I plug my Variax 700 Tele model into any POD Fender amp model and I engage the looper; like you I could play smiling with satisfation, having only maybe to set for my needs a little the drive, the amp eq controls and maybe the mic, 1 minute tweaking.. that's all

Yes sir you are correct with that, and I have such patches setup already too... Not quite equal, but equally fun.

 

Lately I have tried with the idea of completing the "Dream Rig" by purchasing a DT25 combo. I would miss the stereo I have now, but the tube tone added to the POD preamp is enticing... I'm wondering if there were a way to use ALL of what I have though - Variax, HD500, DT25 and the Tech21 Power Engines? Any thoughts on that? I mean, if I'm going to tweak, why not have the grand experience right?

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I've heard the acoustic Variax models don't do well through the DT25...that is what holds me back.

 

The PE60s do sound pretty good most times. I have the original models that use a "Special Design" Tech21 speaker and I have toyed with replacing those with Celestion Seventy 80s.

 

By tonight I'll be back at it, creating new sounds and textures. I think I'll always reach points when I just want to play with zero fuss but as I get to know my digital rig even better that should be possible.

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