Mako2112

GENERIC AMP TONES: A med-high gain amp is modeled as a freq curve, gain, EQ controls, and an IR. WHAT YOU WANT: EQ --> Amp --> IR --> EQ WHY YOU WANT THIS: The freq curve for high gain is not a lot of lows, a boost from 700-1200 Hz, and a roll off above 5k. This is the meat an potatoes of the tone. The EQ and speaker IR are very important and get more important as gain goes up. When gain gets ridiculous, all of the sound comes from the EQ and IR. So you need to pick an amp that gets you close. Rev Red for example. Then add an EQ before the amp to tweak the tone in. This may mean reducing lows if it is boomy or adding more boost in that 700-1200 range. As gain goes up, you must reduce the lows coming in or you are making a fuzz pedal. The lows will over power the mids/highs. Then make up the reduced bass after the gain stage. If you need more after this then start adding pedals like the LA COMP, Horizon, etc as others have suggested. You can thicken things by adding 400-500 hz boosts before the gain as well. SIDE NOTE I wrote a VST that uses this setup. I am currently trying to find good combinations of freq curve (IRs) and built in amps. So I am running an IR then some flat EQ amp to try and get different amp tones. But any EQ can get you there, you dont have to use an IR.

Download Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 C++ and JUCE. Within 2 weeks you can make your own POD and really play with whats under the hood. Then you can apply what the book is saying in crazy ways no one has expected :)

Thank you! Finally we have the answer!

1) Run a parallel path with your amp. 2) In the path run a 10 band EQ and a chorus. 3) EQ out the mids in this path so the guitar is not so thuddy sounding. 4) Adjust volume until it adds some lively width to the amp sound. You dont want to hear the chorus. Just get it to the point it comes in and adds depth to the amp. The sound should be larger and more dynamic now. Playing an E chord the high B-E should ring line rain in the mountains. Running a Dist, OD, or Compressor before the split can help so the clean/chorus signal does not get too dynamic and loud if your amp tone is very compressed/gainy.

I had a thought on this. Probably way off base. But after watching Jim Lill's YouTube video on tone it seems like the order of gain and EQ stages have a huge effect on tone. Maybe this Sun amp has a gain/EQ order that is not already in the typical Vox, Fender, Marshall amp sections? So it may have its own voice? I sometimes like to play with dual amp setups and maybe it could be something that works well with another amp as well?

To me, IRs have a place. They are amazing if you have a lot of money and free time. To get the best possible sound you will want an IR. Each amp pushes certain frequencies. Each speaker has its own freqs it likes. If the two dont match up, you will not sound as good as it can get. So you either need a lot of really good IRs or some way to make your own. Then you have to try them all out with the amp you want to use to find the "magic" one that works with that amp. This is where the problem is with IRs. Finding the right IR. After you scroll thru about ten IRs they all start to sound bad/weird. At this point most people fall into a rabbit hole and are never happy with the sound. You just cycle thru 100's of "too dark", "too fizzy", "No bass", "WAAHHH", "SKREEESH", "KAAAA" etc. No IR sounds great for every type of playing even on the same amp and settings. One IR may sound great for low note chords but its too fizzy for higher stuff. Most speaker sims have a microphone piece. What if you dont want a mic sound. In your case, using a powercab, you may want it to sound like the speaker. Not a speaker that has been mic'ed. One thing to think about is if you want all of your sounds to have the same tone. You can use the same speaker sim or use the same IR on all of your sounds. You may get a better result if you can find/make an IR that works with that tone across all of your different amp setups. Using the speakers in the Line 6 stuff is the easy button. It will get you 96% there with very little effort. And you may actually learn some things about micing an amp while your doing it. Where using IRs requires some thought about what you want and how to get there. And even then its a roll of the dice finding the perfect IR. EDIT: Another thing to think about is if you have to EQ a speaker sim. If you have the IR as a WAV file, you can edit/EQ the IR and save yourself some DSP usage. This is crucial for low power DSP units. Even if you are using a built in speaker, you could run that speaker thru Room EQ Wizard and create an IR of it. Then EQ it in a sound editor. This gives you a lot of freedom to get the best possible sound. But again, it takes a lot of time. Most people would rather play guitar than spin knobs and tap keys all day.

All discussion is great discussion. The more we talk, the more we learn the subtle things you cant get from a manual. Like, why did you settle on the Stomp instead of the LT/Helix? Size? A lot of traveling musicians really like the smaller sizes so they can carry their equipment on a plane. Or they use a lot of other pedals so the smaller footprint works better on stage? I hope it all works out for you. It is hard to go wrong with any modeling stuff these days. It is all so good. MY JOURNEY I do not play out. Size does not matter. I always use a PC interface so my units are hidden in my computer desk normally. I have always been a Line 6 player. POD XT Live, UX8, and HD. I always felt like the units struggled to make a Stack on 11 type sound. After watching some YouTube stuff I ordered a Kemper. After playing the Kemper for 6 months I was not happy with how "mine" sounds. It does not sound anything like videos I watch. So I purchased the Helix LT and Plug-in. Now I have the best of both worlds. When I want a screaming stack I run the Kemper into the LT/Plug-in. Clean to breakup I run the Helix straight. That is why I leaned more towards a Helix for your use. To me it gets there faster and easier. Under $3000 to get almost any sound I could ask for. Not bad, since a single great tube head would be $3500.

Many people view the Kemper as the better sounding unit for amp sounds and the Helix as the better sounding unit for effects. However, for the sound you are playing in the video the Helix would serve you much better. Even though you do not use a ton of effects, I find the Kemper struggles more to get that cleanish to breakup range of tones. So the Helix will be as good (if not better) for you and you will get more flexible options and effects. With the Helix you can easily run multiple amps. Run one cleanish and one with some gain to get into that singing clean tone you have in the video. And for recording, the Helix will let you do all kinds of stereo paths with multiple cabs, effects, or IRs. So unless you play out live with a lot of external pedals I would point you at the Helix LT. And for $99 you can sometimes get the DAW plugin which makes it like getting two Helixs since you can play at a PC also without the hardware. And the plug-in can do things the Helix cant like show your input/output volumes.

I with PerS, I always use the LA Studio Comp. This before a distortion/OD/Amp can be magical to my ears. The LA adds some character you may not want. In that case I go Red Squeeze, because the MXR Dyna Comp was one of the first pedals I ever owned in RL and it only has basically one knob to adjust :)

I always use HX EDIT or the plug-in. But here is what I do: - On the top line, click and drag a distortion pedal downward and it will create a second path. Then drag the Amp and Cab onto that branch as well. - You will now have 2 parallel paths that are still in MONO. Hover over the NODE at the END the path. Now click and you will get options on how the path is routed. You want to set the A PAN to LEFT 100 and the B PAN to RIGHT 100. NOTE: After you make a stereo branch you will need to use STEREO effects from then on. Unless you make another SPLIT BRANCH. Inside your parallel SPLITS, use MONO effects since they will be panned Left/Right by the router. I normally use one amp and then use two cabs or two IRs. You also get some cool depth by using two different reverbs in each leg. I often will run an EQ in each leg as well to really dial the Cab/IR sound. You could even just use two EQs to get a wider sound and skip the expensive Cab/IR. With the Helix you have limitless options. You can also run a reverb after a Cab/IR and use that as your "ROOM" mic. So you have a branch for the cab sound and one for the room sound. So you can use the EQ to dial out bass/treble and and create a stereo "room" sound with the verb/delay. The trickiest thing is being efficient with when you split and when you need to use Stereo or Mono effects. So you dont run out of processing power/blocks.

Long time Line 6 user here. Currently I am running a Kemper for AMP and a Helix LT for IR/CAB/Effects. The best of all the worlds. The Kemper seems to have the better AMP simulations (though they cant be adjusted like the Helix since they are not models, but captures). And the Helix has the better effects and flexibility. However, the Kemper seems to run some form of compressor at its input so it always sounds compressed and lifeless to me. Not dynamic like a real amp. So your mileage may vary. But as others here have said, I would be happy with either one by itself if I wasn't chasing tone and just playing. In fact after I got the Kemper I started profiling my POD HD, which I never really liked, and now I use it all the time. My POD XT Live and UX8 have always been my goto processors so I never really used the HD. But I now know so much more about creating a great tone that I can finally appreciate what the HD does. It took time and knowledge to creep in to appreciate it.

Thanks guys! I figured out the SAVE TO DISK method after I posted. That will work perfect for me. It definitely acts like there are two presets per preset slot: - Actual saved preset - Current edited state of preset. Export saves the Actual Saved Preset. And the (...) Save to Disk option saves the Current Edited state preset. When I first select a preset page in the DAW, it loads the Edited preset. But the SAVED preset is blank, so when I click the list to load it I get a blank preset loaded :) I have used a lot of Line 6 stuff over the last 14 years or so and have never had to even look at a manual. But this one blew my mind for a little while.

I am running Cakewalk and using the native plug in. I can edit presets/create presets/etc. But the plugin has no real save button. The cakewalk save button sort of works but is very weird and buggy. So I figured I would just import/export and use that method since I can organize things better anyway. - If I start with a preset from the factory and copy it to user, I can edit it end import/export it. - If I make a new preset from scratch, I am unable to import/export it. It will go thru the motions of exporting with no errors, but the resulting files are blank (9 kb). The presets I make from scratch will load into the app but do not really exist. If I double click the preset to reload it, it will blank out the preset. Bewildered.