Rane MPE14 or Rocktron Pro Q ?

[highgainer]

Hello brothers in tone ! Looking to get one of these ! Any pros and cons ? Do they add any hum or extra noise ? Do they color the sound in an unpleasant way ? It's for a Rocktron Piranha/Mesa fifty-fifty rig which is mainly for highgain applications.

 

[Dave L]

Those are some pretty different units you got there, what are you looking to get done?

 

[highgainer]

Those are some pretty different units you got there, what are you looking to get done?

Would love to add more body to the overall tone, cut any excessive boominess and further shape the high gain rythm and lead sounds.

 

[highgainer]

Any one ?

 

[paulyc]

I’d use both, one before the preamp and one after.

 

[highgainer]

I’d use both, one before the preamp and one after.

Would love to, but I can only get one of these !

 

[JTyson]

Id go with the Rocktron, its made for guitar, the Rane is more for PA use. Ive tried different sound reinforcement EQ's in guitar rigs several times and was never really as impressed as I was hoping I was gonna be with the results. I know its just cutting or boosting frequencies, seems like it should actually work better, but it was not what I had hoped for

 

[highgainer]

Id go with the Rocktron, its made for guitar, the Rane is more for PA use. Ive tried different sound reinforcement EQ's in guitar rigs several times and was never really as impressed as I was hoping I was gonna be with the results. I know its just cutting or boosting frequencies, seems like it should actually work better, but it was not what I had hoped for

Indeed the Pro Q is intended primarily for guitars but I wonder if it's noisy or not. As for the rane mpe14 it seems that it's a rehoused ADA MQ1. I'm kinda lost.
Have ever tried the Pro Q ?

 

[JTyson]

Id go with the Rocktron, its made for guitar, the Rane is more for PA use. Ive tried different sound reinforcement EQ's in guitar rigs several times and was never really as impressed as I was hoping I was gonna be with the results. I know its just cutting or boosting frequencies, seems like it should actually work better, but it was not what I had hoped for

Indeed the Pro Q is intended primarily for guitars but I wonder if it's noisy or not. As for the rane mpe14 it seems that it's a rehoused ADA MQ1. I'm kinda lost.
Have ever tried the Pro Q ?

No I have not tried one. I tried a Yamaha, a Peavey Autograph II, which was cool because I could do midi EQ changes with channel changes, and a dbx that was killer in a FOH context, but there was something about trying to get the levels matched that I could never get where I wanted it. Even with input level/output controls, which all of them had, they had more hiss than the signal without them. I actually was hoping they would be quieter than the guitar specific counterparts but it turned out the opposite. The Pro Q probably has the advantage of being more near the sweet spot as far as levels go, that was my primary logic for thinking it would be better. This was all a long time ago, there are really killer options that are guitar specific now that we did not have then. The newest BOSS programmable pedal (EQ200) looks absolutely fantastic and is not too pricey, I think around 250. Its 32bit/92KHZ so it should be as quiet or quieter than anything out there. Ive not tried one yet, but I will land one of these soon. It has a ton of studio applications beyond guitar and everything Ive seen so far looks stellar

 

[rottingcorpse]

I had a rocktron pro q I'm my first ridiculous guitar rack around 93 or so. Super cool unit for tone sculpting. it was my first rack unit where I had to wade thru parameters instead of just having a knob for everything. Here is my take on it...

The pro Q was my first experience with my guitar sound becoming "proccesed". Before that,I always had a more organic tone running a couple of different rack preamps thru expensive early digital effects processors like the REV7,eventide harmonizer and a 2290 into rack poweramps. Even when I added a cheaper compressor/limiter/gate to smooth everything out and silence the high gain hiss,it was still an organic tone. Once I added the pro Q my rack sounded like the tones I heard coming out of the studio monitors after mixdown instead of the tone that normally came out of my guitar cab.

I really dug that kinda sound for a long time. So perfect. Others that played my rig would freak out by the super dialed in sounds and easy playability and such. So smooth and consistent. Everything just jumped off the guitar and came thru with effortless ease.

Around 98 or so I quit playing and dumped all the rack stuff. When I came back to playing again in 2004 I simplified with just a head, cab and a noise gate...and have never looked back since. Now I refuse to spend hours super-tweeking parameters on a tiny little screen. But that's because I am old now and just want to play when I plug in. I have a Kemper I refuse to "figure out",but am lucky enough to have someone I trust who digs doing that stuff and knows good tone.

I now love the simple tones I can get out of modern high gain amps like VHT,Diezel,KSR and such. A simple 10 band in the loop with small adjustments are rarely used sometimes,but for me the days of over-the-top equalization and digital tweaking are over. The pro-Q is a great tone sculpting tool,but if I needed that kinda extreme ability to get the tone needed to make me happy I would just let that amp go. Too many others in the stable I can plug into and go.

But sometimes I look at the old pictures of my ridiculous rack and smile thinking of how it sounded...and the pro-Q was a big part of that sound.

 

[stanz]

I don't have any use for it today, but back when I was into high-gain "metal" tones, the Pro-Q was my go-to device. A devastatingly effective device.

 

[thegame]

+1 to what rotting corpse said. The ProQ is very powerful but leaves you with a VERY processed tone. It takes away rawness and grit. A big no no for me.

 

[JTyson]

I had a rocktron pro q I'm my first ridiculous guitar rack around 93 or so. Super cool unit for tone sculpting. it was my first rack unit where I had to wade thru parameters instead of just having a knob for everything. Here is my take on it...

The pro Q was my first experience with my guitar sound becoming "proccesed". Before that,I always had a more organic tone running a couple of different rack preamps thru expensive early digital effects processors like the REV7,eventide harmonizer and a 2290 into rack poweramps. Even when I added a cheaper compressor/limiter/gate to smooth everything out and silence the high gain hiss,it was still an organic tone. Once I added the pro Q my rack sounded like the tones I heard coming out of the studio monitors after mixdown instead of the tone that normally came out of my guitar cab.

I really dug that kinda sound for a long time. So perfect. Others that played my rig would freak out by the super dialed in sounds and easy playability and such. So smooth and consistent. Everything just jumped off the guitar and came thru with effortless ease.

Around 98 or so I quit playing and dumped all the rack stuff. When I came back to playing again in 2004 I simplified with just a head, cab and a noise gate...and have never looked back since. Now I refuse to spend hours super-tweeking parameters on a tiny little screen. But that's because I am old now and just want to play when I plug in. I have a Kemper I refuse to "figure out",but am lucky enough to have someone I trust who digs doing that stuff and knows good tone.

I now love the simple tones I can get out of modern high gain amps like VHT,Diezel,KSR and such. A simple 10 band in the loop with small adjustments are rarely used sometimes,but for me the days of over-the-top equalization and digital tweaking are over. The pro-Q is a great tone sculpting tool,but if I needed that kinda extreme ability to get the tone needed to make me happy I would just let that amp go. Too many others in the stable I can plug into and go.

But sometimes I look at the old pictures of my ridiculous rack and smile thinking of how it sounded...and the pro-Q was a big part of that sound.

Those REV7's were the most complicated beast's of all time
I still have 2 of them in a rack. That "live reference" patch at around 28-30% on the mix knob was really cool! Made it huge sounding without really sounding like there was a reverb on at all till you bypassed it

 

[rottingcorpse]

Right,JTyson?! Those were the first of the super complicated digital effects processors. I still have a REV7 too. That's when studio grade gear started becoming guitar gear too. In all honesty that's when we all lost our collective minds with big rack syndrome.

But sometimes I get wistful for another big rack of crap. But now it would be the Kemper,an axefx and a rack mounted jp2c and racktifier and strategy poweramp. And my boy Mike to set it up and dial it in. I ain't gots no time to dat shit no mo.

 

[highgainer]

Id go with the Rocktron, its made for guitar, the Rane is more for PA use. Ive tried different sound reinforcement EQ's in guitar rigs several times and was never really as impressed as I was hoping I was gonna be with the results. I know its just cutting or boosting frequencies, seems like it should actually work better, but it was not what I had hoped for

Indeed the Pro Q is intended primarily for guitars but I wonder if it's noisy or not. As for the rane mpe14 it seems that it's a rehoused ADA MQ1. I'm kinda lost.
Have ever tried the Pro Q ?

No I have not tried one. I tried a Yamaha, a Peavey Autograph II, which was cool because I could do midi EQ changes with channel changes, and a dbx that was killer in a FOH context, but there was something about trying to get the levels matched that I could never get where I wanted it. Even with input level/output controls, which all of them had, they had more hiss than the signal without them. I actually was hoping they would be quieter than the guitar specific counterparts but it turned out the opposite. The Pro Q probably has the advantage of being more near the sweet spot as far as levels go, that was my primary logic for thinking it would be better. This was all a long time ago, there are really killer options that are guitar specific now that we did not have then. The newest BOSS programmable pedal (EQ200) looks absolutely fantastic and is not too pricey, I think around 250. Its 32bit/92KHZ so it should be as quiet or quieter than anything out there. Ive not tried one yet, but I will land one of these soon. It has a ton of studio applications beyond guitar and everything Ive seen so far looks stellar

Thank you for your time man The BOSS EQ 200 is indeed very interesting, the youtube reviews sound awesome, yet it's out of my budget for now, and since I have a rack rig I would prefer to get something in rack form. Still curious though about the DBX eqs as although they are mainly used for studio and FOH applications, they seem to do fine in guitar rigs, but I don't know if they are hissy and noisy or not.

 

[highgainer]

I had a rocktron pro q I'm my first ridiculous guitar rack around 93 or so. Super cool unit for tone sculpting. it was my first rack unit where I had to wade thru parameters instead of just having a knob for everything. Here is my take on it...

The pro Q was my first experience with my guitar sound becoming "proccesed". Before that,I always had a more organic tone running a couple of different rack preamps thru expensive early digital effects processors like the REV7,eventide harmonizer and a 2290 into rack poweramps. Even when I added a cheaper compressor/limiter/gate to smooth everything out and silence the high gain hiss,it was still an organic tone. Once I added the pro Q my rack sounded like the tones I heard coming out of the studio monitors after mixdown instead of the tone that normally came out of my guitar cab.

I really dug that kinda sound for a long time. So perfect. Others that played my rig would freak out by the super dialed in sounds and easy playability and such. So smooth and consistent. Everything just jumped off the guitar and came thru with effortless ease.

Around 98 or so I quit playing and dumped all the rack stuff. When I came back to playing again in 2004 I simplified with just a head, cab and a noise gate...and have never looked back since. Now I refuse to spend hours super-tweeking parameters on a tiny little screen. But that's because I am old now and just want to play when I plug in. I have a Kemper I refuse to "figure out",but am lucky enough to have someone I trust who digs doing that stuff and knows good tone.

I now love the simple tones I can get out of modern high gain amps like VHT,Diezel,KSR and such. A simple 10 band in the loop with small adjustments are rarely used sometimes,but for me the days of over-the-top equalization and digital tweaking are over. The pro-Q is a great tone sculpting tool,but if I needed that kinda extreme ability to get the tone needed to make me happy I would just let that amp go. Too many others in the stable I can plug into and go.

But sometimes I look at the old pictures of my ridiculous rack and smile thinking of how it sounded...and the pro-Q was a big part of that sound.

Hi dude ! Thanks a million for chiming in. I see completely what you mean, actually for my "organic" kind of tone needs I'm well covered as I have a Marshall KK 2203. The Piranha/Mesa Fifty-Fifty rig is devastating and as organic as any quality tube head, yet since it's a rack rig I thought why not play with extra devices to have further control, but I admit that the preamp and poweramp are more than enough by themselves, but you know how it's difficult for a toneaddicted gearoholic to settle down
I was considering the Maxon GE601, then suddenly I came across Rane mp14 and Rocktron Pro q, and according to what you say, I guess I will go for Rocktron. The thing is, it will be a sight unseen deal, will not be able to test the units.

 

[highgainer]

+1 to what rotting corpse said. The ProQ is very powerful but leaves you with a VERY processed tone. It takes away rawness and grit. A big no no for me.

Thank you man ! Both of you and Rotting Corpse mentioned how the pro Q is processed, but I guess the unit is true bypass ? Thus with the help of the Midimate I can program presets with or without the Pro Q, and have extra tonal flexibility and options ?