Digital vs Digital

Deijavoo

http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/review-round-up-advanced-guitar-amp-modellers-645851

Deijavoo

Whoever "Music Radar" is and all that...

Si_

I put ZERO faith in corporate reviews like this, there almost always paid for and totally pointless.

ICBM

The usual badly-researched waffle too, right from the start - modelling didn't start with the POD. There were other Line 6, Roland and I think Yamaha products before it - I think Roland were actually the first (GP100).

The only benefit I can see in a review like that is a brief run-down of the features all in one place so you don't have to Google them all.

On that basis the Helix looks the most interesting to me.

CHrisP86

A bit odd that they each won a category of award!

I would have liked them to through in the atomic amplifire as well.

I keep going between a small 1x12 combo and a modeller of some sort. I think the helix would be the one I'd go for as well. Probably just because it's easier to get hold of than the AX8...

hywelg

Lightweight 

guitarfishbay

Still loving my Axe FX 2.  

The MR site is such a pain to navigate with all the ads on mobile.

monquixote

CHrisP86 said:

A bit odd that they each won a category of award!

I would have liked them to through in the atomic amplifire as well.

I keep going between a small 1x12 combo and a modeller of some sort. I think the helix would be the one I'd go for as well. Probably just because it's easier to get hold of than the AX8...

Yes the totally unexpected conclusion of "Everyone's a winner!"

guitarfishbay

Thing is, at least between the Fractal, Line 6, and Kemper I reckon any of them could work (for me), and they definitely do have different strengths and weaknesses.

So it's not entirely a cop-out to highlight they're all good, even if the categories look a bit rigged (home recording, and studio work are fairly blurred categories IMO).

octatonic

ICBM said:

The usual badly-researched waffle too, right from the start - modelling didn't start with the POD. There were other Line 6, Roland and I think Yamaha products before it - I think Roland were actually the first (GP100).

The only benefit I can see in a review like that is a brief run-down of the features all in one place so you don't have to Google them all.

On that basis the Helix looks the most interesting to me.

Yup, this predated the Pod:



I think this was out in 96/97.
I reviewed the first Pod for Australian Guitar in 1998- I remember that distinctly.

ICBM

octatonic said:

Yup, this predated the Pod:

[AxSys 212]

I think this was out in 96/97.
I reviewed the first Pod for Australian Guitar in 1998- I remember that distinctly.

That's the one I was thinking of - I couldn't remember the name of it.

Roland's first digital modellers - which were the VG-8 and the GP-100 - came out in 1995… http://www.soundonsound.com/music-business/history-roland-part-4 . Line 6 wasn't even started until 1996.

Historical pedantry I know, but getting stuff like this wrong when it can be checked fairly easily really isn't very good journalism.

monquixote

ICBM said:

octatonic said:

Yup, this predated the Pod:

[AxSys 212]

I think this was out in 96/97.
I reviewed the first Pod for Australian Guitar in 1998- I remember that distinctly.

That's the one I was thinking of - I couldn't remember the name of it.

Roland's first digital modellers - which were the VG-8 and the GP-100 - came out in 1995… http://www.soundonsound.com/music-business/history-roland-part-4 . Line 6 wasn't even started until 1996.

Historical pedantry I know, but getting stuff like this wrong when it can be checked fairly easily really isn't very good journalism.

Their quote isn't incorrect 

"The biggest revolution has been digital amp modelling, which took off in 1998 with the introduction of the Line 6 POD."

Notice they didn't say "started". No one gave a toss about digital modelling until the Pod so I think it's fair to say that's when it "took off" (in the sense rapidly gained in popularity)

You could say Rock and Roll took off with Elvis etc. 

CHrisP86

That review has inspired me to watch a few comparison videos of the modelers listed.

In the real world, how easy are they to set up and get sounds from?  I normally get confused on a valve amp if it has more than just Treble, Middle and Bass controls...

Can it be as simple as just finding a good preset and away you go?

Ideally I just want to be able to select an amp model, cab model and just play.  Not bothered about effects and really not sure I want to get in to worrying about microphone placement and things like that, although I suppose it is a good opportunity to understand how that affects the sound.

Subject to the above, it seems a no brainer in some ways as they sound great.

ICBM

monquixote said:

No one gave a toss about digital modelling until the Pod so I think it's fair to say that's when it "took off" (in the sense rapidly gained in popularity)

Hardly. The Roland gear was already selling well - the reason I always remember it and it annoys me when people go on about Line 6 is that I was working for a Roland dealer at the time.

octatonic

Without being a fence sitter (oooh, splinters!) I think you are both making valid points.

Roland definitely did it before Line 6 but Line 6 have concentrated their attention on modelling.
For a long time it was all they did, before they branched out into interfaces, controllers etc.

I am trying to think if anyone did it before Roland- I think someone did, can't remember who.
Maybe Korg?

Tech 21 has their (analog?) modelling thing way before but not sure this counts.

monquixote

ICBM said:

monquixote said:

No one gave a toss about digital modelling until the Pod so I think it's fair to say that's when it "took off" (in the sense rapidly gained in popularity)

Hardly. The Roland gear was already selling well - the reason I always remember it and it annoys me when people go on about Line 6 is that I was working for a Roland dealer at the time.

From my perspective as a punter I knew about the Roland stuff, but it was niche geek stuff I wasn't interested in. Once the Pod came out pretty much every guitarist I knew gigged one. I was in a band where both guitarists were using Pods into the PA.

ICBM

monquixote said:

From my perspective as a punter I knew about the Roland stuff, but it was niche geek stuff I wasn't interested in. Once the Pod came out pretty much every guitarist I knew gigged one. I was in a band where both guitarists were using Pods into the PA.

That must have been interesting - a sort of reverse volume war .

To be serious, how well did it work? I never heard anyone doing that, although I did hear a lot of players try to use Pods and find that they just became inaudible against another player with an analogue set-up. Maybe all-Pod works better…

That said I still blame the GP-100 for putting me off digital modelling almost for life - it didn't suffer from being inaudible, it just sounded terrible.

impmann

monquixote said:

ICBM said:

monquixote said:

No one gave a toss about digital modelling until the Pod so I think it's fair to say that's when it "took off" (in the sense rapidly gained in popularity)

Hardly. The Roland gear was already selling well - the reason I always remember it and it annoys me when people go on about Line 6 is that I was working for a Roland dealer at the time.

From my perspective as a punter I knew about the Roland stuff, but it was niche geek stuff I wasn't interested in. Once the Pod came out pretty much every guitarist I knew gigged one. I was in a band where both guitarists were using Pods into the PA.

This.

Point is, until the POD came along, the Roland might have been a good product but it wasn't appealling to the mass market. The POD became the best selling digital modelling pre-amp - and I think Line6 still hold the record for sales of them.

TBH, listen back to them... the POD still sounds better and is on more recordings (more than you may think, too...)

But I agree with the pedantry, though - it is a badly researched piece.

paul_c2

I think we all know, the bar has recently been raised on digital modelling amp reviews.....


(Of course, when I say bar, I might mean sledgehammer)

octatonic

I did most of my session work with various iterations of the POD until I bought an Axe FX.

POD's required a lot more fiddling with to get them to blend/sit in the track like a mic'ed amp but had the advantage of being able to be done at any hour of the day or night.
The original and Pod 2.0 were particularly tricky- I was still using a VG8 at the time and would often go for that.
They became better over time- the last one I used was the PRO XT which was pretty decent.

monquixote

ICBM said:

monquixote said:

From my perspective as a punter I knew about the Roland stuff, but it was niche geek stuff I wasn't interested in. Once the Pod came out pretty much every guitarist I knew gigged one. I was in a band where both guitarists were using Pods into the PA.

That must have been interesting - a sort of reverse volume war .

To be serious, how well did it work? I never heard anyone doing that, although I did hear a lot of players try to use Pods and find that they just became inaudible against another player with an analogue set-up. Maybe all-Pod works better…

That said I still blame the GP-100 for putting me off digital modelling almost for life - it didn't suffer from being inaudible, it just sounded terrible.

It was fine and we didn't really know better as previously we had cheap solid state amps.

We were doing indie stuff which was probably a better fit than trying to do metal or something.

One day the other guy got an HRD and the dynamics were just blowing our minds so we changed over to proper amps.