Joe Bonamassa takes digital amp on tour; Paul Gilbert switches to digital amp...

[mentoneman]

reminds me of when the cybertwin came out and fender were shouting from the rooftops how it was the cat’s meow, all fender amps perfectly reproduced in one box, yadayada….
i played one and said it stunk and thus got booted from the fender forum.

i’ve played the super, twin and deluxe tone master combos and takeaway is no tubes, no thanks.

 

[JimAnsell2]

Vintage '70 SF Twin=$1200

Tech Fee+BF mod+routine maintenance=$500

Not being a digital douchebag=priceless

they're so easy to work on too in comparison to most other tube amps, and no one is teching their own digital gear. Buying a cheap, 70's twin is a great amp to teach yourself amp repair on.

 

[thegame]

Paul’s had severe hearing damage for a long time and more recently, Joe has had something similar happen to him as well. No wonder they’re satisfied with this digital shit.

 

[VonBonfire]

Paul’s had severe hearing damage for a long time and more recently, Joe has had something similar happen to him as well. No wonder they’re satisfied with this digital shit.

Joe ruptured his eardrum in Houston maybe five or six months ago. I'm sure he has dumbles permanently ringing in his ears so he probably thinks the TM sounds amazing.

 

[Jascoduende]

I totally get the migration to digital modelers for grinding out the tour. SO much can go SO wrong with valuable - if not arguably irreplaceable - tube amps (at least pretty damned hard to replace regardless of budget).

If I played for a living - and I don't - and if I could get 90+% there with any of the modelers, I would go that route for simplicity and consistency: exact same signal to front of house night after night after night.

You hear a lot about tube amps being more subject to breaking or needing more maintenance, but here's my experience.
I did 12 years on the road, 225+ days per year, with tube amps, and there were only maybe a half dozen times in that period I had to take an amp to a tech. And only 1 time I remember a dramatic amp failure onstage (but I always ran two amps so it didn't stop the show.)
The exception was the spring reverb pans. It seems like the springs would break from road vibrations about every 3 months. After replacing a few reverb pans, I just decided to play without any reverb, which I do to this day.

 

[PDC]

You hear a lot about tube amps being more subject to breaking or needing more maintenance, but here's my experience.
I did 12 years on the road, 225+ days per year, with tube amps, and there were only maybe a half dozen times in that period I had to take an amp to a tech. And only 1 time I remember a dramatic amp failure onstage (but I always ran two amps so it didn't stop the show.)
The exception was the spring reverb pans. It seems like the springs would break from road vibrations about every 3 months. After replacing a few reverb pans, I just decided to play without any reverb, which I do to this day.

I survived about 3 years of 150ish nights a year and had a pair of Mesa Mark-IIIs at the time. One main and one backup. I rotated them every week to distribute tube wear - but other than a fuse replacement here and there, those beasts were rock solid. I did have road cases for both. I really wish I would have kept those amps! As long as you have the budget and payload in today's era of largely 'fly-gigs' with house backline - I certainly can see bringing whatever puts you in the happiest headspace to play your very best.

 

[spawn802]

... you have to put in a lot of effort with post EQ to get it to sound remotely good.

I think this is the name of the game with the modelers I have tried. Every way I tried the Helix sucked until I put a couple eq's in the chain and tweaked them for a couple days. That got me 85% of what my Mesa Mark III was giving me at the time.

 

[TheGreatGreen]

I mean these are two people whos tone I think fucking sucks, so that's not a big endorsement for digital

But digital definitely has its place if you're playing big enough gigs to where you have excellent monitoring and a killer sound system

How dare you.

Do you have any idea how expensive Bonamassa's rig is?

 

[dooredge]

The world is surely coming to an end very soon!

All Hail the Tonemaster Pro! All Hail the Tonemaster Pro!

 

[DanTravis62]

How dare you.

Do you have any idea how expensive Bonamassa's rig is?

Don't like his tone man

Its fine, but he would be fine with just one of the tube amps

Just dumble, just jube, just fender, whatever - he plays with enough gain to where he doesnt need the blend of amps. He's just being a fuckin diva and pretending he needs all of them

 

[TheGreatGreen]

Don't like his tone man

Its fine, but he would be fine with just one of the tube amps

Just dumble, just jube, just fender, whatever - he plays with enough gain to where he doesnt need the blend of amps. He's just being a fuckin diva and pretending he needs all of them

Yeah dude I was just messing with you, doing my best impression of a TGP boomer, hah.

I'll go on record and say Bonamassa's playing is pretty good. He doesn't have the vocabulary of, well, almost literally any pro who isn't a professional SRV or [insert generic bluesman here] clone, but it's fair to say he's good at executing the things he does play. But the fact that his douche persona is so massive as to have its own gravity field does outweigh anything good about his playing though. But besides that, I'm also a not fan of his tone either. All that money and it's not appreciably better than any other pro doing the same thing without a stage rig worth a million or so just in guitar gear.

Gilbert is one of my favorite people who play guitar. He's not necessarily the most inspiring shredder even though he's awesome at it, but it's more because his musical knowledge goes way deeper than that. He's kind of an encyclopedia of guitar music, actually just music full stop, who can transpose all of it into guitar music, and an awesome teacher. But yeah his tone has always been pretty bad.

 

[DanTravis62]

Yeah dude I was just messing with you, doing my best impression of a TGP boomer, hah.

Bonamassa's playing is pretty good. He doesn't have the vocabulary of, well, almost literally any pro who isn't a professional SRV or [insert generic bluesman here] clone, but it's fair to say he's good at executing the things he does play. But the fact that his douche persona is so massive as to have its own gravity field does outweigh anything good about his playing though. But besides that, I'm also a not fan of his tone either. All that money and it's not appreciably better than any other pro doing the same thing without a rig worth a million or so just in guitar gear.

Gilbert is one of my favorite people who play guitar. He's not necessarily the most inspiring shredder even though he's awesome at it, but it's more because his musical knowledge goes way deeper than that. He's kind of an encyclopedia of guitar music, actually just music full stop, who can transpose all of it into guitar music, and an awesome teacher. But yeah his tone has always been pretty bad.

Yep completely agree with all of this. I think gilbert inspires people because he's kind of a "normal guy." He's an insane shredder, great teacher, and has a great ear. But definitely mortal at writing music, and even more mortal with his tone. He's a great talent. Just bad tone.

Bonermaster honestly could do everything he's doing now with an SLO or just one of the 4 amps he uses. He's just an overrated douche.

He becomes especially overrated when you learn 2NPS pentatonics ala zakk wylde, and realize that's literally all of the "fast shred" stuff Bonermaster does. And he's not especially creative with it, either

His tone is certainly better than Pauls though which isnt saying much

 

[rsm]

wait until you guys find out Metallica uses Fractal Axe-FX III live.

/S

 

[CarlF]

Let me know when they can make it sound as good as Johnny's wall of Twins.

 

[rsm]

Let me know when they can make it sound as good as Johnny's wall of Twins.

A wall of Marshall plexis > a wall of Fender Super Twins > a wall Fender Twins.

IMO. I have a plexi and two Super Twins (non-reverb)

 

[chumbucket]

Don't like his tone man

Its fine, but he would be fine with just one of the tube amps

Just dumble, just jube, just fender, whatever - he plays with enough gain to where he doesnt need the blend of amps. He's just being a fuckin diva and pretending he needs all of them

I think it's a tax write off thing. He buys Dumbles and bursts and than he can depreciate them because he plays them on stage.

 

[DanTravis62]

I think it's a tax write off thing. He buys Dumbles and bursts and than he can depreciate them because he plays them on stage.

Honestly that makes a lot more sense than he "needs them for his tone"

Because most of what you hear live he could easily do with the dumble/fender and a pedal, or just the jube, etc

The bonermaster drives me insane because he's playing a trick on people who aren't very good at guitar

The ONLY technically advanced thing he does is play the Fischer Price© My First 2NPS Pentatonic Lick at moderate speeds, and intermediate and beginner guitar players make the "shocked pikachu" face

It's infuriating

 

[VonBonfire]

The ONLY technically advanced thing he does is play the Fischer Price© My First 2NPS Pentatonic Lick at moderate speeds, and intermediate and beginner guitar players make the "shocked pikachu" face

I think your dislike of his public persona is clouding your judgement. Most people cannot play a slow blues at his level. I would not want to cut heads with him.

 

[DanTravis62]

I think your dislike of his public persona is clouding your judgement. Most people cannot play a slow blues at his level. I would not want to cut heads with him.

If he's some super amazing slow blues player i'm the wrong person to make that judgement

But all of his fans all post the same ridiculous zakk wylde lick videos saying "SEE LOOK BONERMASTER SHREDZ BRO" and it's the equivalent of posting a fox body mustang with the 2.3L lima engine to brag about your quarter mile

 

[VonBonfire]

If he's some super amazing slow blues player i'm the wrong person to make that judgement

I don't know that I'd classify him as super amazing at slow blues but he does possess a fairly high grasp of pentatonic playing vs the usual blues player and 12/8 blues solos can be trickier than they seem IME. I guess a lot of it would boil down to the listeners preferences and expectations.