Day 1 (last night) - get home from an exhausting 12 hour day at work and in the 15 minutes when wife is putting the boy to bed think I’d like to play a bit of bass. Plug my apogee Jam into iPad and fire up ToneStack app. Haven’t got a bass amp so go to the in App Store to buy one. For some reason the store won’t load, after a few attempts it does load but won’t now let me process a purchase. Give up. Then remember that GarageBand has built in bass amps so fire it up, Apogee Jam that worked fine with with ToneStack a minute ago, just can’t get a signal out of GarageBand. Faff around for a bit. No joy. 15 minutes up, bass hung back on the wall, back to real life. No play.
Day 2 (tonight) - get home from an exhausting 12 hour day at work, want to play guitar for 15 minutes. Unpack the UA OX that was waiting for me, plug one cable in the back, one in the front plus headphones, and away within 2 minutes with some stunning sounds. Inspired bit of quick play time.
Moral of story, I don’t hate digital, I hate the faff factor that comes with digital. All user error in Day 1 I’m sure, and I’m not stupid, but once my brain capacity is up for the day, just want an easy a ride. I think me and the OX will get along just fine. Rather extravagant headphone rig though......
https://i.imgur.com/6UuZ2hu.jpg
Comments
I get that some of these load boxes and stuff aren't cheap, but they make it possible to use amps in a way that just couldn't be done at home without them...expensive but worth it IMHO.
And yes indeed, I sold two guitars to pay for the OX, but two guitars I didn’t play because I didn’t have the “loud” time, if this thing gets me playing another few hours a week through being a decent silence option then it’s worth every penny.
Just had a very sweet half hour with this rig and my Jaguar.
To the OP. I feel exactly the same when it comes to digital. It’s too much like work. For practice I now use a Joyo American Sound (plus a Broadcast) into a Zoom R8, with headphones or monitors depending on time of day.
It sounds amazing, it never crashes, everything has real knobs to play with, and I never get an email alert thundering through my cranked speakers
On the other hand, I like digital amp sims for recording. I record direct into GarageBand and then tweak amp sounds afterwards. Recording is 90% futzing anyway, so it feels right here.
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
I use digital. I just switch my setup on and I’ve got all my home patches ready to use (guitar and bass), and I’ve got a DAW project set up so I can use a bunch of plug-ins and practice against the backing tracks of my band stuff. It’s way more efficient for me and didn’t even take long to set up.
I find the opposite.
If there are physical dials in front of me I'm likely to keep fiddling with my tone.
If I close an edit window on a computer I tend to leave it alone.
When I was using my home studio to earn money I could be up and running with a track armed to record less than three minutes after walking into the house. I was never stalled by untimely updates either, my studio Mac is never connected to the outside world unless I want it to be.
Nowadays I have less time for recording, so I have to clear boxes and a stepladder out of the studio and a load of broken amps out of the vocal booth before I can even think about finding my mics.
I do like the look of the OX, but I share your digital frustration at times...
The BIG problem with all digital/modelling IMHO is that
i.) I have to learn a completely new language, which I cant understand, but everyone else seems to understand. They then speak to me ( a newbie) in this language, and the frustration continues...
after months of learning and understanding more, I then start to use this weird language too !!!
ii.) The costs/ rabbit hole begins to increase. Ive just bought a passive £600 speaker to use with my Kemper. Both brilliant and matched, but...
This morning I simply plugged my Strat into the Rambler. Job done.
Yep, I'm having a bad digital day !!!!!