Experimenting with a VB101 and need some guidence

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opiante

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Hi Guys,

I recently got a chance to borrow my friend's VB101 and I'm trying to see what its capable of. I also want to decide which Torpedo will be right for me, based on my experiences withe the 101.

Let me start off by saying that I'm not the world's greatest player, but I do appreciate and chase great tone. There are certain things I love to hear when playing, and certain things I need to 'feel' in order to be inspired to play my best. Usually this means going for very warm, analog and often vintage gear.... so I'm naturally skeptical about any degree of modeling. Still, the convenience of being able to work silently, and eliminate the hassles of mic placement in my small project studio were enough to make me want to love the Torpedo.

My initial impressions have been very positive. This is a well maDe and designed unit, and a lot of thought has gone into making it as practical as possible. I appreciate that. The very first weekend I had it in my studio, I was involved in a demanding session recording some heavy guitar tracks and used the VB-101 in conjunction with a well mic'd cab... It provided me with a very FAT tone in the mix, with the live mics providing extra punch and definition. Now that I've had the 101 with me for an extra week I realized I could have tweaked it even better, but in any case I'm impressed.

Now here are a few things I need some advice on:

-How can I get the best dynamics out of this unit? My playing demands a lot of touch sensitivity. I play a Mad Professor CS-40 as my main amp mostly cause its extremely touch responsive. I select my guitars accordingly as well (especially my beloved D'Pergo Bakersfieldd which is the ultimate touch-sensitive instrument IMHO). However I feel that when used as a speaker load, the VB101 loses some dynamics. There is usually a terrible loss of dynamics when dealing with attanuatores (and thats why I avoid them)... The VB101 does a very good job, but not as much as I'd like it to... and I have a feeling it may be my fault for lacking experience with it. I want to capture a tone where there is just light breakup when I play light, and an explosion of power when I dig in... there should be a difference in both gain and volume... I getthis thru my cab normally, but when using the 101 as a load I feel some of the dynamics are lost (even with the effects section and on board compressor bypassed). Any advice?

-Are there user presets I could download? It would be nice to play with settings that more knowledgeable users have worked out using similar amps to mine. In addition to te Mad Professor I also occasionally use a Bogner Ecstasy Classic, and I'm sure someone has some great patches for that amp.


-One thing that is missing when using the VB101 as a load is that interaction between the sound coming out of my speaker cab and the strings... some sweet, harmonic feedback comes to mind. This alters my playing a bit and doesn't let me sound like myself... Blasting the 101 thru my studio monitors doesn't give me quite the right response. Ultimately I'd love it if the 101 had a built in attenuator but I understand why it doesn't.. I also understand that there is the Torpedo Reload coming out but that lacks many of the cab emulation features.
Ultimately I'd be OK with taking the signal out of the VB101 and sending it to another guitar amp or power amp, then adjusting it so that its at a comfortable volume... That way I'd hae my favorite amp cranking with plenty power tube saturation, then the VB101 doing its magic with one part of the signal going to my DAW and the other to a different guitar amp running at a reasonable volume to provide me with that real amp feel in the room. Hope I'm explaining this adequately.
Is this simply a matter of running the SPDIF to the DAW and taling an SLR to 1/4 cable out of the VB101 and into another amp or am I missing something? Would there be ground loop issues? I don't care if the tone coming out of the second amp isn't quite perfect or has a bit too much noise, cause the DAW would be capturing the 'pre second amp' tone.

In any case, sorry for a long and rambling post. I really like this unit a lot more then I thought I could like any piece of modeling gear, I think that if I could overcome some of the issues mentioned above, I'd become a Two Notes user for life,

Any feedback (pun intended) would be appreciated.

Ian
 
I can offer a couple of suggestions,

1) for the mad professor, you may like the results with some of the open back 1x12 and 2 x12 cabs like Prime A/B, Ferret, Feline, R2D2, Voice 30 etc.

2) I'd also recommend starting buy using just the A side ie set the mix to "0" and then introduce the second cab/mic combination into the mix as you've gained a certain mastery of the process.

3) the VB-101 does have a direct out, pre simulation which can be used to re-inject the signal back into an amplifier for monitoring, just get an XLR F to 1/4 unbalanced cable. In an ideal situation, you would run this back to your second amp's effect return (in serial mode if selectable) to bypass the pre. You may also need to plug a dummy jack into the send to activate the return path. If you have a ground loop, lifting the audio ground at the xlr would be preferable over lifting any ac grounds.

4) you may also want to check out the Sustainiac system which adds a vibrating transducer to the headstock so even when playing in the studio, the guitar vibrates lie it was in front of a stack of stacks. Best known example of this in use is "Mr Scary", George Lynch's guitar instrumental while still with Dokken :rock:

Andy
 
Hi Ian,

thank you for this feedback and I'll do my best to answer your questions, as I think what you experienced is quite common for the VB-101 users.

I just see Andy sent you some good advices, I'll try to give you another point of view.

-How can I get the best dynamics out of this unit? My playing demands a lot of touch sensitivity. I play a Mad Professor CS-40 as my main amp mostly cause its extremely touch responsive. I select my guitars accordingly as well (especially my beloved D'Pergo Bakersfieldd which is the ultimate touch-sensitive instrument IMHO). However I feel that when used as a speaker load, the VB101 loses some dynamics. There is usually a terrible loss of dynamics when dealing with attanuatores (and thats why I avoid them)... The VB101 does a very good job, but not as much as I'd like it to... and I have a feeling it may be my fault for lacking experience with it. I want to capture a tone where there is just light breakup when I play light, and an explosion of power when I dig in... there should be a difference in both gain and volume... I getthis thru my cab normally, but when using the 101 as a load I feel some of the dynamics are lost (even with the effects section and on board compressor bypassed). Any advice?
Click to expand...

It is hard to compare the feeling you have next to your cabinet, and the one you get with in-ears or studio monitors.

Most of the feeling is gone as soon as there is a miking process involved, and that's one major problem for people using in-ear systems.

When you compare traditional miking and VB-101, depending on many parameters, you can find in the worst case a difference in dynamics of approximatively 3-4dBs.

So I won't say it doesn't exist, I just say that it is not that easy to understand where the loss you hear actually is.

Assuming you're in the best hearing conditions (huge monitors in a studio for example), I would recommend:

- having the strongest input signal and output volume, before saturation of course

- playing a little with the overload parameter : from 0 to 20 it will add a little something that could fill the gap

- always switch off the Post FX and work on 1 cabinet at a time, then you can add the extra stuff that you need.

-Are there user presets I could download? It would be nice to play with settings that more knowledgeable users have worked out using similar amps to mine. In addition to te Mad Professor I also occasionally use a Bogner Ecstasy Classic, and I'm sure someone has some great patches for that amp.
Click to expand...

We have an impulse responses exchange website, but no preset database so far. Actually you pointed out the tricky part: the overall tone depends a lot on the amp you want to record. As I design the factory presets, I find it quite impossible to have presets that works for everybody.

http://www.two-notes.com/torpedo-exchange/login.php

Blasting the 101 thru my studio monitors doesn't give me quite the right response. Ultimately I'd love it if the 101 had a built in attenuator but I understand why it doesn't.. I also understand that there is the Torpedo Reload coming out but that lacks many of the cab emulation features.
Click to expand...

Reload + WoS III is another good option that could work, but had to bring on stage. But I perfectly understand you issue here.

What I often see in studio is a little combo, for example a Pignose, and it is used only for feedback effect. Simple add the amount of distortion needed to get the effect.

With a real "big" amp, you can feed the other amp with the pre-sim output to the return of the amp. I don't see any issues, maybe some level adjustment would be needed (using a mixer or your DAW for example).
 
Hi Guys,

First off I have to tell you how great it is that the staff at Two Notes takes the time to give such detailed and constructive advice to the individual users. I can't even begin to tell you how likeable that makes you guys. Even if I don't end up buying a Torpedo of my own this time around, I will definitely support Two Notes any way I can. Thank You for that, you really make your users feel like we are all part of one team.

Back to the topic at hand... I've taken your advice and I kept experimenting with the 101... I feel I'm getting closer and closer to capturing the sounds I want, and by now I definitely feel that the sounds I really need are 'in there'. This is a great piece of gear!

You are very much correct when it comes to the difference feel between the sounds in the room, and the recorded sound. At this point I will admit to the fact that I've always hated mic-ing electric guitars.. I am a guitar tone freak and am so incredibly aware of the fact that the sound I strive for is one that won't really translate in the recording. As a result I usually tune out o the process and let my audio engineer friends do all the work, placing mics and playing with all the parameters... trusting that they will have the skills to pull off a good working tone in the end... So for methe VB101 was sort of a magic solution, and a part of me was hopin to hear that incredible, huge, tone right from the first preset. This wasn't the case. BUT once I read the manual and started playing with all the parameters once by one, I was pretty amazed at just how good a job this thing could do. I don't doubt that if I had more time with it I couldget to a point where I could have presets I'm 100-percent happy with for every situation and every guitar / amp / pedal situation.

This week I've played around with using the VB-101 with a speaker out (and therefore bypassing the internal load)... With the Mad Professor set at medium level volumes I could get some great heavy tones, and I felt the VB-101 was capturing the very well... The feel here was great since I could interract with the speaker and I felt the dynamics issue was improved... However here is something that I found very interesting. I recorded a quick riff this way.. It felt huge in the room, just the way you'd expect a good Les Paul to sound and feel thru a great high gain amp... it also sounded very good when recorded n Pro Tools. Then I went ahead and immediately played the same thing with the 101 acting as aload and monitoring only thru studio speakers... It didn't feel nearly as good but upon playing back the two quick recordings they sounded nearly identical. This made me realize how big a part psychology plays in perceiving the Torpedos.

So here is my question when it comes to selecting the right Torpedo product to get for myself will really depend on the folowing criteria:
-I want the best tone and the most natural response. I know there is a natural reduction of dynamics here (and yes this can definitely be reduced once you get to know the unit), but I'd go with the Torpedo which does this the best by design.
-Quiet playing is a must (for those late-night brainstorming sessions), the abilty to attenuate would be nice but not a must.
-I don't need this unit for playing live on stage at this point (as I'm quite OK with my live sound right now).
-I don't see myself using the post-FX built into the 101,, They are nice, but I never found muself using them.
-It would be nice to be able to record a wet and dry sound, using the wet to monitor and then using a Torpedo DAW plug-in to shape the dry sound later in the mix. I only played a little bit with layering guitars with the VB101 but immediately found myself wanting to tweak the sound when mixing 2-3 guitars. And being able to do this with cab / mic emulation is so much cooler then using EQ, compressor etc. How well does the WOS plug-in compare to the VB-101?
-I want to use the Torpedo Remote software... My eyesight isn't that great and I hate using on-board LED screens.

So what do you think is the right Torpedo or me?
I see the Reload doen't have USB control (so no Torpedo Remote) and there are no digital outs. It has no headphones either (so I'm guessing I'd use my studio interface instead), and I'm not sure if there is a balanced line out.... I don't see a PDF manual for it yet so I'm not sure if the Reload + WOS would do he trick for me or not.
Now when it comes to the VB-101 vs. Live, what would I really be losing in practical terms by going with the live. I think that from my posts you get a good sense of my priorities, so I'm wondering if the Live would be something that would fit my needs or do I need to get a VB-101

THANKS FOR EVERYTHING! You guys are the best.

Ian
 
Just wanted to add my final verdict now that I gave the VB-101 back to its owner....

There is a definite learning curve to this unit, BUT it is a worthwhile experience. When I first used the unit 3 weeks ago I thought most presets sounded adequate, but wasn't blown away. However as I started learning a bit more about it and experimenting with the different parameters, I got to like it more and more. On my first session with it I felt I couldn't adequately capture the true tone of my amp in my studio, but by my last session I'd say I had it pretty much nailed.... I can't even begin to tell you how impressive I find that.

One of my last experiences with the VB-101 involved me cranking my Mad Professor at full power using the speaker outs (no load). The tone that the VB-101 captured was better then any I was ever able to achieve using any mic combination I tried... also the signal to noise ratio was incredible for such a cranked amp...I walked away feeling that the guys at Two Notes are definitely geniuses. I have never felt that way about any piece of digital guitar gear.

Needless to say I'll certainly be getting a Torpedo of my own. I plan on doing it so soon that I won't even uninstall the Torpedo Remote application in the meantime :)

I'd really appreciate a little help from the guys at Two Notes in regards to choosing the right Torpedo for me (please see my last post). I think it may come down to the VB-101 vs. the Live... I'm looking forward to your feedback.

Ian
 
Hey Ian, what a review!!

Thank you for taking the time to write all of this!

I check on your other thread. ;)
 
No problem, I have been so impressed by your product that I'm pretty sure I'll be tlking about Torpedos or a long time to come :)

In any case, I don't think I expressed myself right... There is no other thread. I just meant that based on everything I wrote about in my posts on this thread, I was wondering which Torpedo setup do you think is right for me? VB-101, Live or Reload+WOS? My primary concern is the quality of the tone and the natural response of the unit when used with my amps. Price sn't a huge concern... When gear is in question I always try to get the right tool for the job.. if it costs more, well that just means I'll be paying it off longer :)

o let me know what you think... Would the Live do as good a job for me as the 101 did?

Thanx
Ian
 
In any case, I don't think I expressed myself right... There is no other thread. I just meant that based on everything I wrote about in my posts on this thread, I was wondering which Torpedo setup do you think is right for me?
Click to expand...

My bad, what you said is crystal clear, I must have mixed things up. Multitasking...

The Live and VB-101 are quite different, and I still say that the VB-101 is the best. I know some people will tell the contrary, by saying there is a reactive load in the Live and assuming it's better, but if you follow what you hear, there are good chances you prefer the VB-101.

Of course, there are a lot more option on the VB-101, and you will find a comparison chart on the website for the objective differences:

http://www.two-notes.com/en/hardware/torpedo-vb-101/#compare
 
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