Do you think modelers will get there in the next 10 years?
- Thread starter Tone Monster
- Start date
midnightlaundry
Well-known member
I just heard Rock Me live from Great White today. It was a recent recording with Mitch Malloy on vocals.. The original recording on the record was well produced and had great tones on it.. But I could tell he was using a Modelor because his guitar sounded like plastic lifeless shit. It was awful. What a poor attempt the replicate what was achieved on the record.
Rest assured there will still be real Amp makers, otherwise Modelors wouldn't have anything to copy..
Rest assured there will still be real Amp makers, otherwise Modelors wouldn't have anything to copy..
BatmansRigTalk
Active member
Spot on.
They obviously don't know that the entire tube amp industry involves borrowing the designs of others and modding them. In fact, that is where tone comes from. Decades of refining the entire circuit. Vacuum tubes are in them because that is what they had back then. They had the head start. Transistors had to do it all over again. Profilers the same. Eventually, solid-state gear refined itself just like profilers did a decade ago. It all depends on the engineers just putting in the work to get there. It won't happen overnight.
Furthermore, the idea you turn on an amp and just get tone is about as far away from the reality of most electric guitar amps as you can get. The only amp that I played that had the ability to do that was a three-knob Orange Tiny Terror. Gain, Tone, and Volume. Non-Master amps come close to that also but that user just seems completely unaware of how to spend time with an amp to find its sweet spots. Everyone has made their amps sound bad and plenty still do and need to tweak. Then there is finding the speaker you want and then micing up the cab for recording. This idea we fall out of bed into tone because it's a tube amp is just plain silly. However, because they are a tube fanatic the other tube cork sniffers give them a pass, lol.
311splawndude
Well-known member
This topic will probably be debated well past the point we are all too old to care anymore but please, please, carry on
italoop
Active member
Hopeless! Just shouts and NO content. Typical!
BTW I'm not a tube amps snob as I don't even use one. I have all sort of amps... ever heard of magnetic field amps?
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italoop
Active member
Looking at a design and use it adding variations is a way to develop things AND still keeping each amp very personal in sound.
Modelling is stealing, right away, in full.
Do you think these thieves really have a collection of dozens of tube amps, cabinets, speakers, mics in their basement AND actually do the modelling for each one? You live in Barbie's world!
There are tons of corean kids models online one can download, tweak a bit and put in their next software update and be done with it.
The stories I could tell you!
About tweaking amps... well talk about yourself; others may be faster or happier with far less tweaking than you. My old Twin, Marshall, Boogie Preamp and Triaxis? Never had to spend more than a few minutes to get what I want.
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BatmansRigTalk
Active member
No wonder you had a bad experience with profilers if you are using some kid's profile done in their basement. There is your problem right there.
Instead, I use profiles that come from professionals especially studios who own and have the gear. You can learn the background of those profiles in lots of cases and guess what, no matter how much you spend on trying to get a rig to sound the same, you won't, because of variations in amps and cabs that are naturally there. They went through scores of gear of the same models to find these special ones, which you can't have, without a profiler.
No valve amp manufacturer guarantees you 100% replication. They guarantee you a 'voice'. Voiced like a JCM800 or Voiced like a Plexi for example. They don't promise exact duplicates because you're in an analog world. Hello!
If profilers were doing anything illegal then they would have been sued by now.
Rock Bodom
Active member
So...Batman.
What amps were you using before you came to the conclusion 10 years ago modeling was there in every sense. How long were you playing and gigging and recording before that. What modeler did you purchase 10 years ago that convinced you from hands on experience that there was no longer any difference. What tubes amps did you compare side by side, at gigs and in recording, to come to that conclusion.
You seem to have taken a journey that has not only convinced you, but are taking a very strongly worded position at times against people with a LOT of experience with the big amps and modelers, and many of whom are quite established in their playing abilities and gigging/recording experience (even though most are not disputing how advanced the tech is these days). I am genuinely interested in the specific equipment and steps you have taken along the way. I am making the assumption you have significant experience in this space, including many years with numerous high end tube amps and certainly Kempers and Fractals and all that in addition to your Helix.
What amps were you using before you came to the conclusion 10 years ago modeling was there in every sense. How long were you playing and gigging and recording before that. What modeler did you purchase 10 years ago that convinced you from hands on experience that there was no longer any difference. What tubes amps did you compare side by side, at gigs and in recording, to come to that conclusion.
You seem to have taken a journey that has not only convinced you, but are taking a very strongly worded position at times against people with a LOT of experience with the big amps and modelers, and many of whom are quite established in their playing abilities and gigging/recording experience (even though most are not disputing how advanced the tech is these days). I am genuinely interested in the specific equipment and steps you have taken along the way. I am making the assumption you have significant experience in this space, including many years with numerous high end tube amps and certainly Kempers and Fractals and all that in addition to your Helix.
@Rock Bodom
40 yrs. ago my old band did an extended version of Rock Bottom in our set.
(was using a Lab Series L5 combo with a couple of 12" EVs back then)
How's that for mucking up the tube vs digital debate?
40 yrs. ago my old band did an extended version of Rock Bottom in our set.(was using a Lab Series L5 combo with a couple of 12" EVs back then)
How's that for mucking up the tube vs digital debate?
311splawndude
Well-known member
I think he was trying to say that thieves have stolen our precious tube tones and corean kids make open software we can tweak and edit. I think.
BatmansRigTalk
Active member
Plenty. Even Sunn O. I bias my own amps. Replace tubes when I buy a new amp. Right now I am considering a SC20h which would be my second Marshall in less than six months. For speakers I find Eminence takes on Celestion models. You are sounding very much like you are forwarding the no true Scotman fallacy. Even if I never played an amp in my life it doesn't help valve purists out of their lack of ability to have any objective facts to support what is clearly a subjective taste issue. So when they try to dismiss profilers as physically lacking in capability they are perpetuating a myth. They are simply wrong. So I chimed in.
My position they are the same is supported by the tube purist failing the Pepsi challenge and their inability to support their claims with any science. Yet they want a free pass on that.
Oh and not to question their claims and leave them alone to have their opinions but no one else can have one if it's contradicts them.
Leave us alone!Moral of the story is how delicate tube purists can be and not be able to take it when presented with the hard facts. Dismissing the problems of comparison challenges, sending back profilers, magical tube components, spurious claims about hardware issues, snobby opinions about the sound of pros using profiling gear. No science.
It's one chicken short of voodoo.
Which is why it's so easy to call out.
thegame
Well-known member
Serious question: how does Axe/Kemper perform for a variety of rolled back volume tones? As some may or may not know, with a sufficiently dynamic tube amp you can get a myriad of tones in real time by simply manipulating the guitar's volume knob and altering one's touch on the strings. Do the modelers translate this somewhat, or at all? Not to mention being able to generate different pitches of harmonic feedback by changing one's position to the cabinet. Do the modelers allow one to interact within the amp's feedback loop in this way?
Rock Bodom
Active member
Lab Series, that's a blast from the past!@Rock Bodom
(was using a Lab Series L5 combo with a couple of 12" EVs back then)
How's that for mucking up the tube vs digital debate?
There was digital stuff that stood on its own back in the day...I loved my old Randall RG80 and had fun with the Rockman stuff back then.
Rock Bodom
Active member
You need credentials to support an argument...again, please list your actual and specific experience points if you are serious about supporting your suppositions.
glpg80
Well-known member
I buy and play tube amps because that’s what gets the juices flowing. The point is to play music, isn’t it?
I agree with the plethora of others - I dislike the thin character of modelers that has the feeling under your fingers like a line 6 practice amp. It’s not my thing.
Regarding convenience, until I’m playing stages and bars so small that I can’t even fit one of my amps and a 1x12 on stage, or I’m so big that I’m flying gear to play different cities, I’m hauling my tube, rack, and cabs around with my hand trucks the same way I’ve been doing it for almost 20 years.
The only advantage that modelers will ever give is weight and size versus what you get out of them sonically. What you trade however is quality for complexity. I’m not a setting tweaker, I’m a player. I want nothing to do with setting impedance curves to get X to sound like Y. Again, end goal, music.
The next comment I will make is regarding investment. Guarantee my tube amps are making money sitting as-is just due to demand and inflation alone. Digital anything has, and will always, continue to degrade in value the second it’s released. From an investment standpoint anything purely ASIC and digital is outdated the second something else comes along with a new protocol, feature, or GUI promising an improvement that quite possibly couldn’t even exist today because they’re oh so close now that it’s impossible.
My last comment is that you’ll always have the crack addicts wanting whatever’s new. I find it hilarious that modeler groups take such offense copying the real deal so closely. I’d rather just have the real deal and go lift some weights.
I agree with the plethora of others - I dislike the thin character of modelers that has the feeling under your fingers like a line 6 practice amp. It’s not my thing.
Regarding convenience, until I’m playing stages and bars so small that I can’t even fit one of my amps and a 1x12 on stage, or I’m so big that I’m flying gear to play different cities, I’m hauling my tube, rack, and cabs around with my hand trucks the same way I’ve been doing it for almost 20 years.
The only advantage that modelers will ever give is weight and size versus what you get out of them sonically. What you trade however is quality for complexity. I’m not a setting tweaker, I’m a player. I want nothing to do with setting impedance curves to get X to sound like Y. Again, end goal, music.
The next comment I will make is regarding investment. Guarantee my tube amps are making money sitting as-is just due to demand and inflation alone. Digital anything has, and will always, continue to degrade in value the second it’s released. From an investment standpoint anything purely ASIC and digital is outdated the second something else comes along with a new protocol, feature, or GUI promising an improvement that quite possibly couldn’t even exist today because they’re oh so close now that it’s impossible.
My last comment is that you’ll always have the crack addicts wanting whatever’s new. I find it hilarious that modeler groups take such offense copying the real deal so closely. I’d rather just have the real deal and go lift some weights.
BatmansRigTalk
Active member
Do you want an argument from authority?
https://www.kemper-amps.com/artist-gallery
https://www.kemper-amps.com/hall-of-fame
Paul Gilbert, Racer X, Mr. Big
Paul Gilbert is an American guitarist, best known for being the co-founder of the band Mr. Big.Hey, I guess I mustn't be serious about supporting my supposition unless I compare who has the bigger dad right?
Valve purists really are a funny bunch when they get called out on it.
The idea I haven't had enough experience with valves means I am wrong about it being subjective and not objective is just as fallacious as any argument can be.
Look forward to who in this group has more experience than that list.
italoop
Active member
Did I ever say I used kid's profiles?
There's a strong legal debate among amp builders about this issue. You will probably see something.
italoop
Active member
Not entirely exact but definitely closer to reality to what Batman tried hard to understand but never got!
Thanks.
BatmansRigTalk
Active member
It's ten years later and we have seen nothing. They can have a debate all they want but you actually need to support claims of theft with legal arguments. Not to mention if the day came they did successfully sue profilers then whatever law they used could probably be applied to each other also as they are all copying each other's circuits and modding them.
Hence why you can get a DIY circuit and go ahead and build a clone of those amps. Can they sue you for DIY kits also?
Same thing with pedals... and guitars... and pickups. Copies and mods.
My memories of the AX is vague but it works excellent with the Kemper. Very amp like.
The other great thing with the Kemper is it takes analog or digital stomp boxes like an
amp too (fuzz related stuff can be tricky).