Stompbox anyone?

[Dave Vader]

[quote name='brensabre79' timestamp='1347984512' post='1807688']
IF you monitor it through speakers cranked up loud enough you can. But if you monitor through headphones so the guitar cannot pickup the sound coming from the speakers then No you can't. But as good as these modelling boxes are, there is no substitute for a good old fashioned valve amp in my opinion! It's the same with plug-in synths et al - close, some very close, but not the same.
[/quote]

Thought so
(keeps vox)

[Ed_S]

Perhaps a bit late to the party, but as I don't think it's been mentioned yet, I can thoroughly recommend the Digitech 'GSP 1101' for rock and metal tones. Our lead guitarist uses his with the matching 'Control 2' foot controller, and whilst he'd be the first to admit that the factory default patches are fairly rough and it took him a while to learn how to program it and get the patches sounding right, they're now very believable in isolation and to all intents and purposes indistinguishable from a real amp in a mix.

[LukeFRC]

[quote name='ChrisG' timestamp='1347975430' post='1807464']
Glad to be of assistance. I only know all this because I almost bought one but ended up buying a Thumb NT of the For Sale on here instead.
[/quote] early thumb that too!

[ChrisG]

It's absolutely fantastic - I must learn how to play it. Warwick tell me it's one of the earliest five strings they ever made. Not sure if that's just Thumbs or in general. I do know it's quite a weighty item.

I'm currently looking at getting the couple of dings in the headstock fixed. I'm trying to decide whether or not to go with a complete refinish (possibly Ferrari Red or White again) or just repairs. Aged white is tought to match. Either way I'll get it done by a professional.

The other issue I've found is that I don't find the 8T cab on my Genz Benz is very Low-B friendly so I'm looking at getting a bigger cab. I should have bought the 10T. Oh well, hindsight and all...

Anyway back to the guitarist and his quest for audience-crushing tone...

[mcgraham]

There are a host of options:

1) To replace your amp, try a Tech 21 Sansamp Character series pedal. loads of different flavours of amps available, very tweakable, also with defeatable speaker emulation now.

2) To replace your whole pedal board, the HD series from Line6 is hard to beat for an all in one budget solution

3) To perhaps just go for your amp sound but more controlled, an isobox or a well-placed shield can help.

4) Powerscaling - if your guitarists wants true control over his sound AND needs reasonable breakup, check out London Power Scaling - can be added to almost any amp and allows you to get full power tube saturation at most any level. It's not a load or anything like that. It scales the power output of the power amp. Also, once you reduce it down to less than about 1-3W, you don't need a load - I just use a Palmer Speaker Sim DI box (PDI-09). I contacted London themselves to confirm this works before trying it, and he ran me through the mathematics of it. So with a small head/combo and this you don't need a speaker... but the DI also has a speaker out, so you could have that as well.

[Matt P]

sorry if i missed this information but what is he currently playing through? does he need loads of presets and different amp sounds or just a good valve preamp (like the engl above)?

if he's trying to replace his entire fx/amp/cab setup with a single box then there have been some good suggestions made already (a friend uses the line 6 stuff in his rock covers band and it sounds great). if it's just an amp that he wants to replace then a good preamp will do it, maybe a sansamp which would integrate nicely into a pedalboard?

i've had loads of dicussions with guitarist friends (and am a guitarist myself) and the younger ones all seem to think they need the latest digital modelling amps with hundreds of presets, i usually lend them my tiny terror for a week and they change their minds!

Mat

[charic]

Currently some combo that we think is from the 70s or 80s I think its called pro audio. Can't find it anywhere on the net lol.

I think currently its a case of either / or could work.

[Matt P]

does the band have a rack already? or is it something you are planning on getting? if not then i'd be looking at a pedal option, probably one of the Tech 21 Character pedals that Mcgraham suggested.

if there is a rack that has a space then i'd be looking for a tube guitar preamp, plenty of options available, personally i'm a marshall fan so would be looking for a jmp-1 or a 9004/9001.

another option that i found was the Randall mts system, it's got swappable preamps (valve) the RM4 is a 4 bay rack that you simply fit 4 preamps into and it gives you switching options, they have a good range of different preamps that you can fit, fender, marshall mesa boogie etc, and they look great.

matt

[charic]

And after all this... he goes and buys a Hughes and Kettner Switchblade

[Matt P]

typical, mind you having looked at the spec it seems to be a great amp!

Matt

[BigRedX]

Good choice. IIRC they've got MIDI built in so if your using it with MIDI effects you can change channels automatically to match your effects choices.

[charic]

Good to hear it gets a seal of approval, not gonna be quiet though!

[BigRedX]

I have a H&K Tube 50 combo. I doubt I'll never need another guitar amp.

Just had a look at the H&K website and it appears that the MIDI spec is far more comprehensive than my amp which simply does channel and effects loop switching. However it doesn't appear to have the Red Box DI built in which IMO is a surprising ommision.

[Ancient Mariner]

I really liked the H&K tones that I've heard - a great choice instead of some crappy/expensive modeller. At musiclive a few years back they were one of the best sounding amps stands in the whole show with Thomas Blug demoing - enormously better sounding than Cornford who had Guthrie Goven.

[charic]

Yep, now he just has to find/fund a cab to go with it Although I have a feeling this is going to be a bit overpowered too

[BigRedX]

Unless he needs that speaker breaking up distortion for his sound I would recommend getting a Power Brake or similar to go between the amp and cab. After all there's little point in getting all that valve-y goodness if you're not going to make use of it. The only thing to watch is that you are essentially running the amp at full output volume all the time so you will ware out the power valves more quickly.

[charic]

I've been looking for stuff like that for him. You couldn't link anything could you? I'm struggling to find stuff and generally not having much luck

[BigRedX]

The Marshall Power Brake seems to be discontinued, but you can still get the [url=http://www.thdelectronics.com/product_page_hotplate.html]THD Hot Plate[/url] or the [url=http://www.tedweber.com/atten.htm]Weber MASS[/url].

[charic]

Cheers, I'll make him read through them

[xilddx]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1348054740' post='1808522']
I'd beware of anything more than 15 years old, because IME the patch switching technology simply wasn't very good, with noticeable delays between pressing the button/footswitch to change patches and the change actually happening and in the worst cases with the output being muted while the patch change occurs.
[/quote]
I used to get that problem with my SPX-50D DSP. Rendered it useless except for recording.

[xilddx]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1348482538' post='1814014']
The Marshall Power Brake seems to be discontinued, but you can still get the [url="http://www.thdelectronics.com/product_page_hotplate.html"]THD Hot Plate[/url] or the [url="http://www.tedweber.com/atten.htm"]Weber MASS[/url].
[/quote]
The Hot Plate is wonderful. I used to run one with my Fender twin, they work brilliantly.

[BigRedX]

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1348494536' post='1814280']
The Hot Plate is wonderful. I used to run one with my Fender twin, they work brilliantly.
[/quote]

I have the Marshall Power Brake, which seems to do the job perfectly although it is very heavy over twice what the Hot Plate weighs and the fan has an alarming tendency to go mad on sounds with a lot of high-resonance phase and flange effects.

If I was in the market for one now, I'd probably be looking at one of the Weber designs with the speaker motor.

[xilddx]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1348495783' post='1814302']
I have the Marshall Power Brake, which seems to do the job perfectly although it is very heavy over twice what the Hot Plate weighs and the fan has an alarming tendency to go mad on sounds with a lot of high-resonance phase and flange effects.

If I was in the market for one now, I'd probably be looking at one of the Weber designs with the speaker motor.
[/quote]

I read a lot of things that put me off the Power Brake, the THD seemed the best after my research.

[BigRedX]

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1348496827' post='1814320']
I read a lot of things that put me off the Power Brake, the THD seemed the best after my research.
[/quote]

I've had mine for about 15 years without any problems. The guitarist before me in the band had the rack-mount version with the built-in speaker simulator.

At the time I bought mine the marshall one was cheap and easy to get hold of.

[skankdelvar]

I too had a powerbrake (flogged it here on BC a couple of years ago). Chunky item.

Thing I found was that it was good at the top two or three notches for shaving a [i]bit[/i] of volume off. But the quieter one went after that, the tizzier it seemed to get. In the end, I went out and bought a 15 watter and put the Marshall at the back of the cupboard.