Will real amps devalue more if the 'next generation' of modelling gear sounds closer?

EdGrip

frankus said:

if I love all of those things around the guitar (which to be honest get in the way of playing the guitar) ... do I really love playing guitar? 

I have this fear too. I mean, if we are going to try and tell ourselves that it's just about the muuuuuuusic, maaaaan, we should all just buy an AxeFX or something. A great melody is not dependent on valves or germanium. But enjoying machines, and what they do and how they do it, and appreciating their aesthetics and history - geeking out, in short - is totally okay. It's basically a separate hobby to musicianship, and the cognitive dissonance comes because we think they should both be the same hobby but we see that they are not.

You can appreciate a vintage fuzz pedal for the unique and clever machine that it is, and you can appreciate an AxeFX for exactly the same reasons.

I always seem to have trouble owning things that are the same but different. A Telecaster and a Les Paul are the same but different, and it always seems to hurt my brain that I can only play one at a time - especially that on any given day, I can strongly prefer one to the other.

chrispy108

I think Behringer's apporach is better than motorised knobs, which seem like too much to go wrong.

http://www.behringer.com/assets/V-AMP2_P0153_Front_XXL.jpg

The price of screens like the AxeFXs make this a bit of a non-issue now anyway, certainly in a few years.

monquixote

I can't lie, one of the reasons I bought my NAD hifi is the motorised volume knob

PolarityMan

frankus said:

PolarityMan said:

Isn't what you are complaining about the user interface rather than the technology.

Wasn't aware I was complaining - actually I wasn't I was saying what I loved about the things I love.

 I can see loads of ways round this, a head unit that had say 12 knowbs, when you switch models a digital "label" on each knob tells you what it is and they behave like normal tone, gain controls etc would be perfectly possible.

I don't think that'd work for me either... I rather like simpler than that - a volume knob (set to half-way) and a tone knob on the neck pickup (bridge should be scritchy in my books, neck can be either)

If you think of most successful things you see conventions: Clutch, Break, Accelerator, stearing wheel on the side furthest fro mthe curb, tuners on the headstock

and in the best products the idea of "affordance" - how fucking annoying are handles on doors you simply push open?

With clarity of purpose you get simplicity of form and it's ever been the case that generic breeds complexity... or loss of functionality for the sake of uniformity.

The key thing is though the digital model brings the amrginal cost of changing amplifiers down so significantly I can't see how that could be anything other than a good thing.

there's no such thing as a free lunch. There's latency, conversion artefacts - and just the fact that there's a lack of presence that inspires...

I think the visceral nature of amps and pedals is a big big factor for me - it might not be for some.

I'd love an axefx personally but I think its only a matter of time before line6 or roland get their act in gear and make something at a price point I can jsutify more easily so I'm trying to hold out...plus i want a new electric drum kit first so.....

I could flog my pedals and amps and buy an AxeFx and monitor -- I'm not interested in it for what I get from playing guitar.

I'm kind of taking for granted that at some point you could get the tech to a level where there is no discernible difference. At that point you could put your little computer inside a JCM800 chassis and have an identical user experience. 

I also don't think its beyond the realms of possibility to create an amp like experience with generic models (kemper's route?). What I don't see is why the insides of the amp matter at all. You could equally complain that because resisters are analogue you could spend hundreds of years finding the right value for a particular component  in your TS-9 but the vast majority of people don't feel the need to.

The perceived "complexity" in modelers is the equivalent (in some cases directly) of this sort of tweaking and I think the fact that more of the complexity leaks through than you'd like is only indicative of the relative immaturity of the field. Once companies can't differentiate on sound they'll be forced to differentiate on experience anyway.

My point is that I think the "things you like" are largely not a function of the technology which generates the sound but a function of the user interface.

Clarky

interesting stuff regarding GAS, collecting / restoring bits and pieces and that this essentially being a spin-off hobby in it's own right..

I don't often get the GAS itches to scratch.. being a leftie I'm devoid of much guitar choice.. and running through multi-FX preamps for that last 20 years means I've never really found stomps interesting.. I guess that's cos all my fx needs are catered for in the box.. I just carve my own tones and then crack on..

something has just occured to me.. I wonder how much I've spent on my rig over the last 10 or 20 years compared to someone with a traditional rig? I know my rig right now is quite expensive [looking at it as a whole], but over the longer term, not adding / swapping out amps and cabs, collecting stomps etc.. maybe it's not quite so costly.. possibly it's roughly the same or maybe even less.. cos it just is what it is and don't need adding to.. and at least in my case, it kills of the GAS urges..

another thing that's quite interesting is that once I've dialling in my tones, I don't touch them again.. the job's done.. and although one of the biggest criticisms of rack units is all the fiddling about.. in the long term, having a rack system most likely means less fiddling about because most folks with stomps that I've seen don't ever leave them alone.. even during a gig.. so it's becoming clear to me that the "I hate all that fiddling about" has less to do with setting up tones and general tweakery and more to do with navigating the user interface ["all them menu's and buttons and dials and stuff"].. thing is... with a dozen stomps, you'll have 30 or 40 [or more] tone controlling knobs / switches etc.. the only difference is that they're all laid out in front of you.. so the sheer number of controls can't be the scary bit or you'd be even more daunted at the sight of your own pedalboard..

one thing that is nice with the modern rack units are the PC / Mac based editors.. they are real nice and friendly.. personally I particularly liked the VG-99 editor.. it's super intuitive to use and brilliantly designed..

the whole point of rack effects is being able to store presets that contain all your tonal / behavioural requirements.. single stomp to change tone.. consistent.. and never having to fiddle on the fly or river-dance over your pedalboard..

so the "don't like all that fiddling and pfaff", is actually completely untrue once your fx unit has been completely set up and is ready for gigs..

EDIT: I'm not saying my way is the best / only way at all. I'm just saying that the arguments stating that it's a bad way are not making sense to me.

Clarky

EdGrip said:

frankus said:

if I love all of those things around the guitar (which to be honest get in the way of playing the guitar) ... do I really love playing guitar? 

I have this fear too. I mean, if we are going to try and tell ourselves that it's just about the muuuuuuusic, maaaaan, we should all just buy an AxeFX or something. A great melody is not dependent on valves or germanium. But enjoying machines, and what they do and how they do it, and appreciating their aesthetics and history - geeking out, in short - is totally okay. It's basically a separate hobby to musicianship, and the cognitive dissonance comes because we think they should both be the same hobby but we see that they are not.

You can appreciate a vintage fuzz pedal for the unique and clever machine that it is, and you can appreciate an AxeFX for exactly the same reasons.

I always seem to have trouble owning things that are the same but different. A Telecaster and a Les Paul are the same but different, and it always seems to hurt my brain that I can only play one at a time - especially that on any given day, I can strongly prefer one to the other.

there are two completely seperate passtimes going on here.. lol..

seriously, this has never occured to me before..

PolarityMan

Clarky said:

interesting stuff regarding GAS, collecting / restoring bits and pieces and that this essentially being a spin-off hobby in it's own right..

I don't often get the GAS itches to scratch.. being a leftie I'm devoid of much guitar choice.. and running through multi-FX preamps for that last 20 years means I've never really found stomps interesting.. I guess that's cos all my fx needs are catered for in the box.. I just carve my own tones and then crack on..

something has just occured to me.. I wonder how much I've spent on my rig over the last 10 or 20 years compared to someone with a traditional rig? I know my rig right now is quite expensive [looking at it as a whole], but over the longer term, not adding / swapping out amps and cabs, collecting stomps etc.. maybe it's not quite so costly.. possibly it's roughly the same or maybe even less.. cos it just is what it is and don't need adding to.. and at least in my case, it kills of the GAS urges..

another thing that's quite interestnig is that once I've dialling in my tones, I don't touch them again.. the job's done.. and although one of the biggest criticisms of rack units is all the fiddling about.. in the long term, having a rack system most likely means less fiddling about because most folks with stomps that I've seen don't ever leave them alone.. even during a gig.. so it's becoming clear to me that the "I have all that fiddling about" has less to do with setting up tones and general tweakery and more to do with navigating the user interface ["all them menu's and buttons and dials and stuff".. thing is... with a dozen stomps, you'll have 30 or 40 [or more] tone controlling knobs / switches etc.. the only difference is that they're all laid out in front of you.. so the sheer number of controls can't be the scary bit or you'd be even more daunted at the sight of your own pedalboard..

one thing that is nice with the modern rack units are the PC / Mac based editors.. they are real nice and friendly.. personally I particularly liked the VG-99 editor.. it's super intuitive to use and brilliantly designed..

the whole point of rack effects is being able to store presets that contain all your tonal / behavioural requirements.. single stomp to change tone.. consistent.. and never having to fiddle on the fly or river-dance over your pedalboard..

so the "don't like all that fiddling and pfaff", is actually completely untrue once your fx unit has been completely set up and is ready for gigs..

I think early multi-fx have soured some peoples experience, tweak, save, hear, tweak, save, hear is a horrible loop but thankfully even at the cheap end you get immediate feedback.

I'd actually look to stuff like amplitube as an example of the sort of interface you could have, ok it doesnt have hardware controls but im sure that could be sorted out if you were buildign a head sized box.

Clarky

and I'll also concede that my initial transition from amp / stomps to a rack unit [Roland GP-16 back then] was a bumpy one

but I saw the potential and so stuck with it.. eventually the user interface becomes 2nd nature and you don't even think about it..

from that point on I stayed with rack units.. and I only ever changed them because something newer, better sounding, more capable came out.. so since 1992, I've had just 4 different units [GP-16, 2120, VG-99, Axe-FX II] and each was a major improvement over the last

Fusionista

See that's a bit of a giveaway - none of my amps are 'better' than the last - just they suit different gigs and guitars.

frankus

I remember being sold on the idea of the AxeFx when talking to Guthrie who's always having stuff stolen when he's on tour - the major incentive for him was to replace it he'd buy another one and put in a USB or download a copy from dropbox.. he'd got tired of losing individual pedals.

I think I said much earlier - buying an AxeFx would reduce the faff to a level - I'd be forced to address the content of my playing - if you're a musician playing gigs that step probably passed unremarkably.

The problem at this stage with making the step is I'd have to sell everything to justify buying an AxeFX which is a hell of a gamble... about 3-4 items on my posh board are no longer in production .. at some level the pedals are currently holding their value (and I suspect will for a decade or so longer) so selling the pedals to buy and AxeFx and then returning to the pedals would be a bit of a financial loss and a time-consuming job tracking down replacements.

Because there will be hardware updates that devalue it.. which, I'll be honest, worries me more than "will real amps devalue more if the next generation of modelling gear sounds closer?" ... "will this generation of modelling gear devalue more if the next generation of modelling gear sounds closer?" - that's a given... at least the amps intrinsically are the perfection trying to be achieved.

I don't see this as affecting Clarky too much as he's using the platform to it's fullest and exploring the performance possibilities outside of reproduction ... it'll be people like him and Drew who create new patches that people buy the modeller for in years to come... because it intrinsically is the same thing they used.

Drew_TNBD

guitarfishbay

I have some similar thoughts to Frankus and am in a similar position. My rig could be liquidated to fund an Axe rig. I'd have some change left if I went Kemper but I'm not totally convinced with them being the right horse to back... still no official footswitch or Mac edit software is a concern for me. Not because it would prevent me using it rather that I don't feel those things should still be missing at this point. One interesting phenomenon is the Axe FX 2/Kemper units are holding value equally well if not better than some high end amps. This has never really been my observation with cheaper modelling gear. Yes they will likely drop in value when the next units come out but original Axe FX units are still quite expensive. Much of this is probably due to short supply and increasing demand but I don't see the demand decreasing. If those two are head and shoulders above the rest the most likely valve amps to be affected in terms of resale are expensive ones in the same price bracket. As mentioned earlier people might well bypass a Mark V for an Axe rig that does more. The technological tipping point therefore may come when mass produced mid priced (e.g. Line 6/Boss) units are able to produce similar results. At that point it becomes a workflow decision as much as a financial one. As I stated in the OP I don't know if that is likely to be the next generation but it may well be achievable within two. At that point supply/demand may lead to a decrease in the value of all valve amps which would be a big shift in the guitar market. Heavy PA and bass gear is relatively cheap these days because of the modern lightweight gear now available. It isn't inconceivable that the same could happen to guitars.

guitarfishbay

Damn phone paragraph bug.

mellowsun

All that's needed is a digital amp head or combo that has exactly the same knobs as a standard valve amp, responds to pedals in the same way, has extension speaker outs, cab-emulated DI for recording, and maybe USB.

No need for tweakable params and menus. Just a digital amp that indistinguishable in looks and sounds from a valve amp. Only then will valve amps be obsolete.

Clarky

Fusionista said:

See that's a bit of a giveaway - none of my amps are 'better' than the last - just they suit different gigs and guitars.

with all due respect, I think you're coming to the wrong conclusion for all the wrong reasons

Clarky

frankus said:

I remember being sold on the idea of the AxeFx when talking to Guthrie who's always having stuff stolen when he's on tour - the major incentive for him was to replace it he'd buy another one and put in a USB or download a copy from dropbox.. he'd got tired of losing individual pedals.

I think I said much earlier - buying an AxeFx would reduce the faff to a level - I'd be forced to address the content of my playing - if you're a musician playing gigs that step probably passed unremarkably.

The problem at this stage with making the step is I'd have to sell everything to justify buying an AxeFX which is a hell of a gamble... about 3-4 items on my posh board are no longer in production .. at some level the pedals are currently holding their value (and I suspect will for a decade or so longer) so selling the pedals to buy and AxeFx and then returning to the pedals would be a bit of a financial loss and a time-consuming job tracking down replacements.

Because there will be hardware updates that devalue it.. which, I'll be honest, worries me more than "will real amps devalue more if the next generation of modelling gear sounds closer?" ... "will this generation of modelling gear devalue more if the next generation of modelling gear sounds closer?" - that's a given... at least the amps intrinsically are the perfection trying to be achieved.

I don't see this as affecting Clarky too much as he's using the platform to it's fullest and exploring the performance possibilities outside of reproduction ... it'll be people like him and Drew who create new patches that people buy the modeller for in years to come... because it intrinsically is the same thing they used.

totally…

and for me.. I don't actually care if the VH4 actually sounds like one or not…

the fact that the modelling is so accurate and detailed matters to some folk.. but not really to me at all..

for me it's just a side detail.. and it just happens to be quite cool..

all I care about is that I sound great… 

and also that I'm in a feature / control rich environment that enhances my performance capabilities live..

PolarityMan

frankus said:

Because there will be hardware updates that devalue it.. which, I'll be honest, worries me more than "will real amps devalue more if the next generation of modelling gear sounds closer?" ... "will this generation of modelling gear devalue more if the next generation of modelling gear sounds closer?" - that's a given... at least the amps intrinsically are the perfection trying to be achieved.

Yup, in fact im counting on it I'm waiting for that level of tech to become commoditized  But that's an argument about the axefx specifically not modelling generally.

Lew

@Clarky thanks

Yep, I appreciate the difficulties of judging something from youtube. However, this video is a good example of what I hear and I've purposely chosen a video that I think gives the best props to the axefx as possible. 

It's so close, but the detail and dynamic on the high freqs just aren't there like the amp. I hear it in varying degrees (down to set-up I guess) and it really is nit picking (and a bit of devils advocate) but there ya go. 

You'll get no arguments from me that for 90% of situations and genres the axes practicality overshadows the 15% (?) of dynamics you might be losing. 

But for my simple and ugly needs and tastes I have zero desire and that's fine Maybe that will change with the axefx3, who knows.

(those needs are stoner/sludge/doom btw - not rock/blues )

HAL9000

Clarky said:

CD's are actually far superior to vinyl..

they have deeper lows, higher highs and a much much bigger dynamic range..

the audio capabilities of vinyl sits well within what CD can do..

and all this "yeah but vinyl is analogue and CD is digital" argument is just complete shite.. especially when you find out how all this stuff works...

I remember when I replaced my vinyl 'Layla and Assorted Love Songs' with CD and thinking how, for want of a better word, 'thin' it sounded, and blaming CD quality. I've since heard the remastered 'Tommy' and am amazed how much better it is than the vinyl, and especially the dynamic range aspect.

Clarky

the Axe is not perfect… it's amazingly close but not perfect 100% exactly the same.. 

all Axe users will [or at least should] tell you that.. even the designer himself..

I've seen that video several times in the past.. cos as well as being a nice demo, his playing is just so entertaining.. wonderful player..

I think that vid was shot pre firmware 10. Cliff [the Axe designer ] had a major brainwave in FW10 and another in 12  and 13.

Just when we all think that the Axe has got as close as it's possible to get, he somehow manages to find some refinement..

we're now up on FW14.. and it's jaw dropping

to be honest.. I don't know how he does it.. 

and just when you think the unit is really singing, somehow he manages to raise the bar a little higher each time..

one of the things that convinced me to invest in the Axe is that it never stands still..

you're buying into something that will in some way [some modelling detail, cab IR method, fx, control etc] just continues to move forwards.. even better tone [even though it was superb way back in FW5 when I first got it], more capability, more flexibility..

the relentless tide of development just keeps marching on..

and.. the updates are free.. and often..