All digital modelling awful? Just me?

Cirrus

Teetonetal said:

I made a whole album where we redid all the guitars using a POD as it sounded better than the amp the studio had ( a Marshall 30th) - sounded ace.

I suppose it just depends on whether the sound works for you.

At the time I had a Line 6 Flextone 3 and I was happy with that, even used to direct record with it. So when we tried to do the same thing with the Pod, I was surprised it was such a struggle tonally - there was just something very flat about it, the midrange was boxy, some strange sound that couldn't be dialed out.

Of course, that was just for my needs and my taste, I don't doubt you got sounds that worked for your project!

gearaddict

Since I am soon to be an owner of a HD500x, I have been looking around for guidance on setting them up. This guy seems to get pretty good tones out of it. The stuff he says about the parametric EQ is interesting (part 2 I think). Makes a huge difference to the useability of the tones.



He also has a set of vids on the Helix.

kjdowd

gearaddict said:

But if a tree falls on a valve amp in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does is sound better than a Helix?

If it's Rosewood you're going to jail...

professorben

kjdowd said:

gearaddict said:

But if a tree falls on a valve amp in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does is sound better than a Helix?

If it's Rosewood you're going to jail...

Only if you move it. 

gearaddict

Well, had a bit of a play with the HD500x and it took a bit of fiddling and reference to various YT guides to get it set up in 4CM but now I have it so that the pre-amp of my amp in the chain of the Pod is pretty much identical to the amp by itself and I've started experimenting with the digital pre-amps.

Perhaps it's because the older modelling units are being pretty much written off in the face of the next gen Helix, Fractal, Kemper etc...I wasn't expecting much but I've been very pleasantly surprised. Once you get the EQ right, the digital pre-amps actually sound very good. Certainly more than useable for my purposes. A/B-ing between the Pod pre-amps and my actual amp pre-amp makes me wonder if I even need to bother with 4CM.

DavusPG

John_A said:

I have a Helix and the first thing I did when I got it was build one pre-set that covered my existing rig and sounded like me, I've tweaked that for the past few months, and I'm tweaking less and less, it sounds fantastic!  I know another guitarist that bought one and downloaded pre-sets for every song in the set he could find and it sounded shit!

No-one buys an amp and pedals and sets the controls just like player X (or do they?) the more common approach is you use your ears and set it so it sounds good, the same applies to complex devices like the Helix, only there's a load more things to tweak so it's easier to make it sound awful.  That doesn't make it bad just because it can sound awful, set up with a bit of LC it sounds amazing.

I see people say 3rd party IR's, use a valve power amp, use the global EQ, etc, and that isn't the answer, the answer is use what you have and use your ears.

This is reassuring to hear. I've recently sold my FX8 for an AX8 with a view to replacing my valve rig and this is exactly the way I'm going about it. Taking the time to find the cab i like the sound of and then choosing and tweaking my basic clean, crunch & lead tones til they sound right to my ears - just as I did with my valve rig.

The only thing on top of that will be the effects which I had dialled in and have saved from when I had the FX8 so they are added and removed with scenes as and when I need them. In terms of modelled effects, the FX8 replaced my entire board so I know that they are good enough. (for my ears)

My plan is to go direct FOH but I still have my H&K Grandmeister so have the option of recreating all my old presets by running the AX8 in 4CM if I can't ever get the right tones.

My first impressions though are that I won't need to. My clean sounds are already better than I ever achieved with the Grandmeister and there are so many great sounding crunch and high gain amps that the biggest challenge will be choosing one.

I'm no tweaker so am sticking to the basic controls and so far it's getting me results, by as others have said, using my ears.

I'm sure some can, but I doubt I could tell the difference between a good modeller and a real amp in a Pepsi challenge, but in a band mix and a crowded pub I honestly think it's a moot point.

Will be interesting over the next few weeks as so far I've only used the AX8 in isolation at home, but I'm hopeful that it will work for me. Only other consideration is monitoring at gigs, but I'm not so worried about that. It's what's being pumped out through the PA that's most important. 

John_A

gearaddict said:

Well, had a bit of a play with the HD500x and it took a bit of fiddling and reference to various YT guides to get it set up in 4CM but now I have it so that the pre-amp of my amp in the chain of the Pod is pretty much identical to the amp by itself and I've started experimenting with the digital pre-amps.

Perhaps it's because the older modelling units are being pretty much written off in the face of the next gen Helix, Fractal, Kemper etc...I wasn't expecting much but I've been very pleasantly surprised. Once you get the EQ right, the digital pre-amps actually sound very good. Certainly more than useable for my purposes. A/B-ing between the Pod pre-amps and my actual amp pre-amp makes me wonder if I even need to bother with 4CM.

What amp are you using?  A pod HD in to a valve power amp is pretty much the same as a Line 6 DT amp, which sound great, well done you for proving you don't need a Helix or AX8 to sound good

ICBM

I thought the Line6 DT amps sounded dreadful. They're the ones which had different valve power amp modes and the like to give different sounds, rather than a straight modeller/power amp arrangement.

The Spider Valve is much closer to a Pod into a valve power amp, and sounds much better to me - although it does have that problem of losing dynamics when pushed hard, so it oddly sounds quieter when you really dig in.

John_A

Well I have a DT25 and it certainly doesn't sound awful

ICBM

Each to their own I suppose . I've tried both the 25 and the 50 and struggled to get anything I could stand out of either.

On the other hand that's been true of some very expensive boutique valve amps too...

Voxman

ICBM said:

Each to their own I suppose . I've tried both the 25 and the 50 and struggled to get anything I could stand out of either.

On the other hand that's been true of some very expensive boutique valve amps too...

That's odd - I've played a DT50 in store (not live) and I thought it was pretty good - very respectable tones and feel. Not quite like a valve amp of course, but very usable.  But (2x12 combo) it was stupidly heavy - even heavier than an AC30 with Alnico's.  Instant hernia kit! 

ICBM

Voxman said:

That's odd - I've played a DT50 in store (not live) and I thought it was pretty good - very respectable tones and feel. Not quite like a valve amp of course, but very usable.

Both the ones I tried had that overpronounced strident clangy midrange I really hate. I'd far rather use a Spider - even a standard non-valve one.

Voxman

ICBM said:

Voxman said:

That's odd - I've played a DT50 in store (not live) and I thought it was pretty good - very respectable tones and feel. Not quite like a valve amp of course, but very usable.

Both the ones I tried had that overpronounced strident clangy midrange I really hate. I'd far rather use a Spider - even a standard non-valve one.

That's so weird because that's not what I heard at all - in fact, I was pleasantly surprised at how warm and usable it sounded.  I wonder if there might have been some changes made to these by Line 6 or even if the speakers might have been different?