Thinking Change

[Tim O'Sullivan]

Go digital! Do it! Its the future. No more expensive re-valves, no more bias adjustments and good and bad moody valve amps. It sounds the same every time, gives you a great sounding DI for your sound engineer, and often lighter to carry.

My Line 6 Duoverb sounds great!

 

[Jonny Dubai]

And my vox is killer 2.....Digi all the way?

 

[Pundix]

Agrees with groovetuber on digital emulators being a far cry from a good tube rig.

But, also agree with MusicMan that the VOX Tone Lab is the best digital system currently out there. Their vibro settings sound amazing, imo.

Also agree with Mike, that digital emulation continues to get better. Whether or not they’ll ever capture the “feel” of playing through a good tube amp or not, is another matter.

I purchased a Line6 2x12 Flextone combo as a no hassle back up to my juiced up Laney, and wound up selling it that same week. Not my cup-o-soup.

I may have to give that Vox a try. I agree that there is nothing that really sounds like a good tube amp, and it may be that I leave the MKIV in the chain for a lot of things. I guess what I'm really looking for is a bit more flexability. I don't use pedals because by the time you get a combination plugged in you're generally humming and degrading your signal. I've tried a couple of the multi-effects boards, but found none so far that I liked.

 

[Pundix]

is there a mesa combo that doesnt sound so metal? the ones i've tried are so lacking in a warm clean sound, they only sound good with heaps of gain up real loud with a humbucker. I've read some reviews of one of the new ones out and apparently its more versatile.

The MKIV's have a very good clean sound. I agree that the recto's are pretty much metal amps - though they are great at what they do. There are several Mesa's other than the MKIV's that do really good cleans. The old Blue Angel comes to mind...

 

[Larry]

For some reason I can't find anything to replace my Marshall.

 

[beej]

Well, everybody's got a fave. For me, it's the Guytron. Unbelievable cleans to tons of gain and sounds like the best of a lot of amps, though it really has it's own sound. Cured my amp GAS, that's for sure.

 

[francric]

timmons sure is a fine fine player, he could plug his guitar into my dogs ear and get good tone. monster player really, his sound is great, if it is a lone star he is using i'm mighty impressed, i have the cd-rom of that lesson in the link you gave, tremendous stuff.

That looked to me like a Lonestar head into a 2x12..............

 

[Pundix]

Go digital! Do it! Its the future. No more expensive re-valves, no more bias adjustments and good and bad moody valve amps. It sounds the same every time, gives you a great sounding DI for your sound engineer, and often lighter to carry.

My Line 6 Duoverb sounds great!

I went down to a local GC this morning and tried out a Vox Tonelab and a Pod XT live. To me the Vox seemed to sound better, but I played with it for about an hour and setting up patches didn't really seem intuative. The XT Live seemed easy to set up, but the sounds kind of reminded me of some old Digitech pedals that I think are still laying around here in a closet somewhere. It did sound better than them, but still retained that top end that sounds cheap to me. I'm not sure what to try next. I may be stuck effectless; I guess that's the problem with being pickey.

 

[slukather]

lonestar special looks nice, anyone heard the stilletto ace combo?

I tried a Stilletto head a while back, when they first came out, it's an alright sounding amp, much better than the Dual Rec. l haven't tried a lonestar as of yet.

Scott.