NucleusX

You misunderstand me. From an objective point, all valve amps and muliti-fx modellers fall prone to faults and manufacturing mishaps and is not representative of a best case scenario of said analogue hardware config, that's completely outside the point. The discussion was intended squarely at the "replication/conversion/modelled" process itself from analogue to digital, and not whatever the sampled tech may be, valve, solid-state, or digital. This subject may very well go down to the core of what every modeller needs, and that's the DSP chip itself, and the software algorithms it runs on. I've even considered this may spawn off a new post-fx category available in your future mfx pedal like psycho-acoustics and room correction technologies that could maybe take place of the cab, and/or mic-sim when required, and call it the environment-sim if you will, hungry DSP demands. You would most likely need to run this via constant FRFR cabs for this to have a chance at working one would think. The kemper profiles surrounding environment I believe. It goes through an audible sequence of test tones to assess it, i imagine that tech can be used solely for the purposes of environment.

The definition of a "modeller" is something that attempts to recreate the full experience of the real-world reference. If your happy with approximations then great, have fun with your approximations, but that doesn't mean a "modeller" doesn't have room for improvement. A modeller will be considered done with when they model flawlessly. Theres your standards, and then theres universal standards the definition must fulfil in the progression of its evolution. So be happy with the current approximations I guess, but don't go saying digital has surpassed analogue when it can't "model" flawlessly, your personal bias means nothing to the intrinsic science of it all. And that's irrespective of what speaker/environment it has to model. The reference has constants in variable environments and so should the digital model of it, if it is considered to be flawless. In recording it will fool some, live, it will fool less, it needs work here.

I know this "feeling" too, something about the warm purring feeling of a full-tilt tube amp, that I can only compare to hearing a ballistic V8 roaring by, its almost primal.

Maybe not now, but later Moore's Law will scale us beyond a certain threshold of computations per/second. Some believe it takes a certain amount of raw processing power to "mimic" a bit-perfect representation. The desire is to have an amp-sim that sounds and feels consistently the same in ALL environments.

Interesting, I like that heat-sink solution. nice. 12ÐÐ¥7's are pre-amp tubes but I can imagine each 6L6 being realistically more like 20watt and sharing the load across a few of them for that size heat-sink, chassis fans too maybe. I wanna hear an amp made of these now lol.

Although the POD HD is good at what it does against simular priced competitors, its safe to say that digital modelling hasn't finished evolving yet. We may have to wait a few more generations before the critics are convinced of a flawless "imitation" of analogue. Be interesting to know the kind of hardware/software specs that is required to do its job when DSP gets to that mark. Until then, the AxeFX and computer based hi-res VSTs is pretty much the best benchmark comparison we have in comparing with the real world, and even they arn't perfect.

http://en-us.sennheiser.com/on-ear-dj-headphones-hd-25-1-ii Reasons ? Can't get much better pro monitoring headphones than sennheiser's, and right on spec with your allocated budget.

12 years ago modellers weren't that fantastic, you must be easily pleased :P

Digital_Igloo "Reader's Digest version: For an "amp in the room" sound? No. For a recorded sound? Yes, it already has." Well I guess your job isn't done yet, better get to it !

baron55 "Also Analog does not mean just tube amps, anything that does not use digital converters is Analog. Sollid State amps are analog." Goes without saying. I placed that in the "all things analogue" definition, I think we all know that the tube is the epitome of analogue definitions. Actually, If you REALLY wanna get technical, a transistor isn't so much analogue or digital as it is both. A basic transistor contains the elements of digital, with 2 diodes (the raw components of digital circuits), but behaves electronically as analogue in amplifiers. Depends on its configuration.

I'm not so sure looking into the future like that would be so easy, cause lets face it, cd players and mp3 players are a dime a dozen and turned into disposable products. If that happened to pro musician gear, it kills the music industry and incentive is lost for studio's to invest in studio gear cause amateur's have access to the same equipment for peanuts. The only reason they make a profit, is cause they have gear that's so expensive its not accessible to the average joe. It's simular to the gap in civilian vs military technology. If everyone had access to it, then theres no gap anymore, which is what companies rely on to make a profit from the average joe.

bjnette "I can envision incorporation like the Kaos x y midi controller pad. a la "MUSE" Funny you mention that, this was just announced. http://www.ibanez.co.jp/eu/news/f_products/2014/KP/index.html It's not something I'd buy, but it shows how much they are trying to innovate something different to the norm.

Just to clarify, I'm not only thinking of this as a musician on a never-ending quest for tone, which seems to run ramped with modellers the most, and the never-ending suggestions and requests from users for features that take things another increment. I'm also looking at this from a business perspective, which only remains relevant if modellers remain deficient in comparison to the analogue benchmark. The current technology has brought us so close to the mark, one has to wonder what happens once we reach it.

Been in thought about this and reflecting back over the years since I begun using digital modellers about 20 odd years ago. As we all know, the holy grail of modellers is conquering the tube and everything analogue. We are seeing a slow and steady progression to this mark as DSP and algorithms improve, but then, what happens when its finally reached ? and is it really in the best interests for companies to surpass analogue (if its even possible) with digital modellers. Lets imagine a world with perfect modellers, what happens to all that's invested in the analogue world, will it be the end of amp and FX companies we all benchmark and compare against ? I have my doubts as to wether digital will be allowed to surpass analogue, but remain to give us the impression that progress is being made, with very slight incremental improvements. This reminds me of the energy industry with oil as the analogy, which holds the monopoly and will fight to stay relevant regardless of better alternatives because of all that's invested in the oil industry, bad analogy I know, but its the best I can think of right now. If the all things analogue are finally conquered, what would be next, and what would the new benchmark be to reach in the digital realm ? Converse.....

.WAV files are only huge in the context of music audio files, but as an cab IR file, they are typically no bigger than 30kb.

Not sure what genre your trying to achieve, but this is my perspective from a high-gain metal point of view. Good distortion is one of the most hardest things to nail in any modeller. 2 things I learnt over the years in the analogue realm, which I stick to in digital modellers as-well is, 1, don't front-end a high-gain amp channel with a distortion pedal, and use an TS or OD instead, with gains well balanced. 2, Don't front-end a clean channel amp with a TS or OD and use a distortion pedals instead with gains well balanced. A compressor and EQ before the OD or Distortion can help as-well, the EQ has a large impact on the Distortion character if placed before gain stages. DEP "ER" always sounds better at %0, one of the most useless parameters in there imo.

Your not exactly stuck, you can bypass cabs on the POD and send it through a variety of other external cab options, at-least we have that.

Heh, you most certainly will, although the POD HD is good at what it does, it takes time and patience to sculpt great tones from them.

Link works fine. As for your undecidedness, I will say this... In this generation cycle for multi-fx pedals offered by all the major players like, Line6, Boss, Digitech and Zoom ect, the POD HD is the best bit of kit in this market sector, Line6 have nailed the rest to the wall. I'm not a brand fanatic, and never will be, I will go where my ears tell me to, and in this generation cycle of multi-fx pedals, the POD HD is king. Next gen offerings might be a different story tho. That's my 2 cents, and that opinion is almost unanimous with most. Buy an Axe-FX if you have doubts, you won't go wrong, but that's in a higher market bracket pricewise. Tesseract are a Djent band as I understand, the POD HD works fine for Djent tones, theres lotta tutorials on youtube. If you don't believe it, spend an entire day in a shop with them all ! we all know what you'll walk out with.

Just recently, I had alotta fun with Amplitube 3 loaded in a DAW, the amps are amazing but the cabs are a bit eh, so I bypassed them on Amplitube and patched it into LeCab2, with RedWirez Impulse's, and damn I was impressed ! I tried Bias once but didn't like it, I shall try it again after reading this.

Geez I'm an idiot LOL, I should've looked a bit harder again at the back panel of the M13, midi it is then, my bad. :D

:lol:

Digital_Igloo "There are zero sonic tradeoffs—this is nothing like data compression. All code can and should be optimized, and POD HD500 was optimized from the outset. Adding a Global EQ would be impossible without optimization because... what happens to all the presets that are at 99% of capacity? So our gurus dug in and figured out a way to further optimize enough of the DSP code in a POD HD500X/Pro X to accommodate an additional 5-band Global EQ. Surprisingly, they were able to optimize enough to also squeeze it into HD500, HD Pro, and HD Bean. Bonus. Please, everyone stop with this 4% nonsense. There is no 4%. If you see a bit more DSP available, cool; it's just as likely that you won't. Not enough to write home about, and certainly not enough for us to talk about in ad copy." I had a hint it might've been efficient coding, so if it was already efficient, good work for squeezing the EQ in at zero sonic/resource cost ! well done. The question was an important one tho, so thanks for clarifying.

If you find yourself wanting to use the amps preamp inline with your chain at any time, then stick to the 4CM, and learn how to use the FX Loop block in the HD500X. But if you'll never find yourself wanting that, and a more simpler setup + shorter learning curve is what your after, then I would ditch the 4CM, it just adds to the complexity of things you could do without. Its a good way to start learning in the shallow end, 4CM immediately puts you into the deep end, up to you really. The biggest decision that usually dictates this approach, is wether you'll want to alternate between amp-sims and your real amp, or wether ampsims will be exclusively used, or vice-versa. 4CM will allow you to alternate. Stick to the 4CM if you want to replicate what you had with the Digitech, and study the FX Loop block options. Note, the FX Loop on the HD500X will not function until you assign the FX Loop to an FX block in your chain.

Your audio file format "analogy" also has a trade-off, your 2mb MP3 also comes at a quality cost due to compression. I appreciate the response, but its not a direct answer to this specific question. Most know trade-offs are inevitable in situations like this, and I think D.I. is the only candidate that can accurately explain what that is in this situation. Personally, I'm VERY interested to know this above all else, I'd like to know the downsides, if any, don't you ?