Drew's EVH5150III 50watt thread (aka Incoming...)

Drew_TNBD

First practice with the 5150III and the GSP1101 combo tonight. It went rather well. Things of note:

I ended up using the GSP1101's Twin Reverb amp model, with the cabinet disabled, going into the power section of my amp. It is sounding pretty good. When I A/B the clean tone of the amp with this, I find myself preferring the Twin Reverb amp model! It's just a little bit cleaner, doesn't distort, and is nice and compressed - the way I like it. The amp sounded a little livelier initially, but I compensated for this by adding a touch of gain to the amp model, and it came alive.

In a solo context in my bedroom, I noticed the tiniest bit of latency when switching the amp channels. In a band context, I just don't notice it at all. It's certainly not on the level of the original JVM arsehattery!

We're working on a new tune where we wanted something atmospheric at the start of it, with an instant cut into something high-gain and chuggy. Before the GSP, I would've had to rewrite the idea and split up the guitar part across two people in order to manage it. With the GSP, I could get delay and reverb post-amp distortion, giving me the huge atmospheric sound I wanted, and then jump across to my 'high gain with no fx' preset and get the instant cut across that we were looking for. So it has already made a pretty compelling argument for itself in the space of one rehearsal! I quite dig it.

The Rolls Midibuddy that I am using to control the GSP+AMP is... eh... it basically does the job. But the switches feel a bit crap, and because of its length, anytime I use my wah, I kept hitting one of the presets... so I need to sort out my midi footswitch pedal.

I'm not at the point where I can get rid of all my pedals. I still need my volume pedal, wah pedal, my two delay pedals, and my reverb pedal. I could probably do away with the phaser pedal, since the phaser effects on the GSP can go before the amp and they actually sound very good and very close to the sounds I've used on Exegesis the album.

So I need some sort of midi controller than can offer me banks, nice switches, and be small enough so that I don't accidentally hit one of the switches when turning my wah on. To replace the Rolls Midibuddy on this board:

drwiddly

A Tech 21 Midi Moose might fit.

ThePrettyDamned

That's pretty neat. I like the use of the twin pre model into the power amp for a nice clean.

I know nothing about midi really, but you sound like you're pretty close to ideal now. Are you looking to lose most pedals? I suppose the delays could be replaced by a single modeller, but it wouldn't knock it off your board...

Drew_TNBD

Ideally what I wanted to do was have it all in a single 1U rack that sat on top of the EVH, and just have a controller on the floor. I didn't realise the GSP1101 doesn't let you put the reverb and delay before the amp block. So this is the best I've come up with so far. It's pretty neat actually.

This weekend I am going to open up the Midibuddy and see I can replace the switches with proper SPST switches; I am assuming those plastic pads just activate an internal actuator on the PCB, which are pretty easy to replace with switches (did it in my DL-4 back in the day!)

The other option is to get a Pod HD Pro, add it to my GSP... so the GSP would stay as it is, and the Pod would be a set of FX. Then use a midi controller to send a bunch of CC's into the Pod at the same time as sending PC's into the GSP and my amp... giving me total control out front, and having volume+wah+phaser+two delays+reverb in front of the amp.

But that seems a bit complex.

octatonic

Drew_fx said:

But that seems a bit complex.

...

guitarfishbay

octatonic said:

Drew_fx said:

But that seems a bit complex.

...

Lol.

I'm considering moving to a digital solution in the next few months (live only).  We tried some new material last night at rehearsal and it sounded great but the switching is a pain.

The change sheet is: 

Clean Channel + Delay 1 ON -> SD1 ON -> Crunch Channel + 808 (SD1 OFF, Delay 1 OFF) -> Volume pedal 50% + Delay 1 ON (808 OFF) -> Volume pedal full + 808 ON (Delay OFF) -> Delay 1 ON -> Lead channel + Delay 2 ON -> Crunch Channel (Delay OFF).

Delay 1 is ambient, Delay 2 is loud & modulated , 808 is set as boost for gain channels, SD1 set to overdrive clean channel.  Volume pedal is needed as I can't do the changes effectively from the volume pot due to use of a noise gate early in the chain.

Probably not complex for some, but annoying enough for me to want a patch system as some of the changes are 3 things at once and I don't have 3 feet. )

Neither of my amps do midi without buying extra stuff.  I figure why not be pragmatic and buy an all in one solution (Kemper, or if I go cheaper, Pod), for the time being just go straight in to my Ironheart FX return.  Formatting of text has gone weird!

Drew_TNBD

Welcome to my world Max!

guitarfishbay

Drew_fx said:

Welcome to my world Max!

octatonic

Fresh meat for the grinder.

Drew_TNBD

)

octatonic

You're both mad.

Drew_TNBD

You're the maddd.

octatonic

Drew_fx said:

You're the maddd.

I was mad to have your mum.

She had a dirty clunger.

Rockhopper

Drew_fx said:

So I need some sort of midi controller than can offer me banks, nice switches, and be small enough so that I don't accidentally hit one of the switches when turning my wah on.

Hi Drew I am Selling a OC10 which would do the job nicely and you can control the entire pedal via midi remotely too. I just noticed you have been mentioned on the thread too.

Drew_TNBD

Aye dude, I saw that! Bit overkill for my needs though I'm afraid!

guitarfishbay

octatonic said:

You're both mad.

For looking Kemper/Pod over Axe FX2?  I'd be going totally digital when I do it, not using any amp preamps at all.  The only reason I'd keep the Ironheart is to use as a power amp short term for rehearsals through the cab I have, as a cost thing.

Long term I'd consider the poweramp + cab route or even look into FRFR when I can afford to make those choices.  If I decided to use poweramp + cab for personal monitoring I'd just buy a flightcase for my Mesa 2x12 and use that to keep the rig smaller, putting the Mesa on top of the flightcase to hear it better.

I'm very picky about sounds for personal pleasure but for live I feel that once you've done your best to create a good signal to send to desk the rest is up to the soundman.  So long as I can hear myself at rehearsals or for personal monitoring and it doesn't sound rubbish or have poor feel I think I could adapt and give a good performance.  It isn't like what you hear onstage is what people hear out front anyway.

I've heard enough Kemper A/B tests to feel like if I came up with a workable tone and profiled it that would be close enough for my needs live for a tone, providing all the switching options work out for what I want.  I have pretty simple FX needs on the grand scale of things.  

I've yet to actually try a Kemper though as nobody stocks them here (Manchester) and I'm still put off by the lack of official footswitch but would compromise if it could be achieved with no bodges using a 3rd party controller for the time being.  I've not researched it enough to know yet.

Drew_TNBD

Basically, I still feel that for high-gain, valves sound better than modelling. For cleans I couldn't give a stuff - I usually drench it in reverb and delay anyway!! For mid-gain tones, a pedal, amp, or modelling would cover it for me.

The Kemper is great, but the thing that would bother me is the cab not being disabled 100% yet - they're working on it though. I don't like FRFR, so going direct and monitoring through the kickback monitors isn't my preference. I even hate using them when I use a real amp - so fucking top-heavy and painful to have one of those in front of you, I can still hear high frequencies Mr. Soundman!!

I always ask the FOH guy (politely) to kill my sound in any monitors that are near me; it's fine for the rest of the guys if that's what they want. Bear in mind we usually play small pubs and clubs; when we opened for Pelican at The Garage it was fine, the monitoring was good, and far enough away from me that I wasn't being blasted with white noise. Likewise when we played the Willow Festival this year. In a small pub, I really do feel that a lot of sound problems are caused by FOH guys being over-zealous with the monitors. Just put kick and vocals through them, and we're fine.

So yeah... I'm not ready to jump ship to digital fully yet. It took me a while to get a good clean tone from the GSP1101, and last practice I tried some of the high-gain tones and it sounded terrible. Probably needed to dial them in a bit better, but the EVH creams it.

I realise now though that going with a modeller for cleans has complicated my list of needs, and reduced the number of products I could use to an even smaller number! lol. There are good and bad results from that.

If Digitech do a GSP11010000000 unit at NAMM, which is capable of midi switching, 4-cable method, amp modelling, pre and post amp effects, everything re-routable, and has just as quick or quicker patch changes as the GSP1101, I am sold.... and for once I can say I would actually prefer a rack unit.

What the fuck is happening to me. )

keithf

Drew,those midi buddy's will work forever,the switches are good for a 1000000 operations apparantly,i know that i've had mine for about 12 years and its had some serious abuse ,it still works like new.

Drew_TNBD

keithf said:

Drew,those midi buddy's will work forever,the switches are good for a 1000000 operations apparantly,i know that i've had mine for about 12 years and its had some serious abuse ,it still works like new.

Oh sure, no problem with the actual action of the switches, just find them a bit tricky to operate and the proximity of the switches to my wah is causing me problems too. I'd just like the reassurance of a nice 'click' when I change preset

I think if I mod it, I'll also make a new cable for my tap-tempo and swap the positioning of the Midibuddy and the Boss switch.

PolarityMan

Drew_fx said:

Basically, I still feel that for high-gain, valves sound better than modelling. For cleans I couldn't give a stuff - I usually drench it in reverb and delay anyway!! For mid-gain tones, a pedal, amp, or modelling would cover it for me.

It's funny I'd totally agree with you but guys who play nothing but classic rock say the high gain tones for modellers are fine and the edge of break up tones on a valve amp are awesome. I'm pretty sure that actually all tones are better on real amps but people just have a morse developed sense of taste for the tones that they are most familiar with if you see what I mean.

Plus there's the masking you metnioed of putting effects on cleans of course. I'm a bit like you there, I pretty much always have chorus and delay on my cleans.