Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

[Gtrjunior]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

Because time will never change the Golden Age. There will always be people who long for the good ole days. Got to youtube and see how many young people there are jammin still. And when they get older, they will still Rhodes and Lynch. Even tho their friends could care less

That’s true....let’s take today for example.
A big part of the guitar gear market today is aimed at “vintage” tones and relic-ed guitars emulating a past era in time.

40 years from now people will still be nostalgic for things from the past.

 

[Red_Label]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

I'm a happy Kemper. I also love tube amps. I think lumping the Kemper in with other modelers is a mistake, although the best ones each have their strengths.

Had a Kemper lunchbox for a couple of weeks. Hated it! But that doesn't mean it wasn't great. It just didn't work for me. I had the Helix dialed-in with some great tones almost immediately. Just works better for me.

 

[Kiwiguitar]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

Had a Kemper lunchbox for a couple of weeks. Hated it! But that doesn't mean it wasn't great. It just didn't work for me. I had the Helix dialed-in with some great tones almost immediately. Just works better for me.

I still haven't met anyone in person that didn't rave about the sound of the Kemper. They're used to hearing me through my Bogner.

I know of a few metal players that say it doesn't eq match or multiple gain stages or something. It does everything I could want.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

That’s true....let’s take today for example.
A big part of the guitar gear market today is aimed at “vintage” tones and relic-ed guitars emulating a past era in time.

40 years from now people will still be nostalgic for things from the past.

But new, vintage style tube amps, won’t be available. Not 40 years from now.

Heck, if things continue the way they’ve been going, HUMANS might not be avaialable!

 

[TD9]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

I picked up a very slightly used Boss Katana 100 1x12 last week at my local GC.. This thing is a really very good amp. While I guess it could be considered by some to be a modeler, it is actually it's own amp.. The simplicity of the amp is a HUGE plus.. Right out of the box there are very good sounds available via the channel switch.. This amp is not trying to be some holy grail vintage amp. It is just a good amp and it can be used like any other amp.. It also just happens to have a lot of other features as well.
These amps are a steal for what they are going for even new.. My first question to the GC guy was.. whats wrong with it.. Nothing, they were actually using it to demo pedals in the store.. I was somewhat shocked at how low the price they were asking.. I took it on the spot.. It is flawless..
These things absolutely rock..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=0h7kLjl4lTM

 

[zionstrat]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

Tubes are great and modelers are great... They're all tools that do something better than their brothers and just depends on what needs to be done.

Mustang 2 is perfect for little gigs. Small, flexible and sounds perfect in the mix. For a big gig, my MM hd130 more than covers the cleans and classic 50 provides the crunch.

In the mix, the mustang covers a lot more territory than the tubes and obviously easier to load... But by themselves, the tubes have 15% more umph... But then the sound guy thins it back to get them to sit in the mix and we're back to about the same as the mustang...

Now at home, tubes win... unless I have to go on to headphones:-\

Bottom line... they're all good and happy to have flexibility.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

 

[Kiwiguitar]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

We live in the golden age of guitar gear that's for sure.

 

[darth_tar]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

Yup! Blackstar ID series, the 60 and 100. That's all I use now, gigs and rehearsals.

 

[Jacew]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

This is not my experience at all with my Fractal. It reacts to pickup swaps just like the tube amp I have.

So does my Mustang III.

No issues whatsoever.

I play through my tube amps more often than I do my Mustang at the moment, but that’s mostly because I just picked up another ‘56 Gibson GA20.

Love those little suckers!

Weird. I have my Mustang I modded as head and have played it through many different cabs. Only bad things I've found about it have been dynamics: It doesn't clean up with volume if more than slight grit and pickups have little effect on tone.

I have one guitar with two neck singlecoils: Ceramic peavey stock and SSL-1. I can differentiate them when playing normally throught it, but I wouldn't bet on it in a blind test.

 

[Jacew]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

…and there you have it. The guitar is finding its niche of enthusiasts, like the shawm, the bagpipe and the concertina. Recruitment to these niches will stagnate, as the instrument feels increasingly alien to the youth culture that brought it to the forefront, and the general tenor of players is going to be less on innovation and more on preservation of a legacy. It is a story seen time and time again for instruments and musical traditions, and one I doubt the guitar and the rock culture (jazz is closer) will be the sole exception.

Guitar is not comparable to concertina or bagpipe by sheer numbers: players, sold instruments, songs and everything. Not to mention the huge cultures (all the the different ones) around it.

To see what position guitar has in 50-100 years, we should be comparing it to violin/fiddle or piano. If there's still music, it's not disappearing, not even going underground...

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

Guitar is not comparable to concertina or bagpipe by sheer numbers: players, sold instruments, songs and everything. Not to mention the huge cultures (all the the different ones) around it.

To see what position guitar has in 50-100 years, we should be comparing it to violin/fiddle or piano. If there's still music, it's not disappearing, not even going underground...

I don’t think the guitar is going to disappear anytime soon. Acoustic guitar is like a little piano in terms of chordal possibilities ...unlike the ukulele, mandolin and banjo which are more limited. Altho virtuosos like Bela Fleck can make a lot of music on a banjo.

Electric guitar will probably be around for a good long time too.

But glass tubes? They’re going to be gone within most of your lifetimes.

Not mine probably. I’ll be lucky to last another 10 years!

 

[Red_Label]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

I still haven't met anyone in person that didn't rave about the sound of the Kemper. They're used to hearing me through my Bogner.

I know of a few metal players that say it doesn't eq match or multiple gain stages or something. It does everything I could want.

I had the Kemper in the man cave at the same time as a Bogner XTC 101B. I wasn't mad about either one. That fact might blow some minds! LOL! But I like what I like. I much preferred my Shiva and XTC Classic to either of those. And I much prefer my current Friedmans and Helix to all of my previous amps/modelers/profilers.

 

[Red_Label]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

I don’t think the guitar is going to disappear anytime soon. Acoustic guitar is like a little piano in terms of chordal possibilities ...unlike the ukulele, mandolin and banjo which are more limited. Altho virtuosos like Bela Fleck can make a lot of music on a banjo.

Electric guitar will probably be around for a good long time too.

But glass tubes? They’re going to be gone within most of your lifetimes.

Not mine probably. I’ll be lucky to last another 10 years!

You may or may not be right about the extinction of glowing tubes before the next generation gets to be my age. I just turned 50 last month and considering that I only have 20-30 more years (if I'm lucky) on this planet... I don't sweat it too much. Modelers are getting better all the time (hence my actual non-hatred for my Helix). And today's "kids" probably won't know what to do with anything that doesn't process 1s and 0s at some point anyways.

 

[Red_Label]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

Because time will never change the Golden Age. There will always be people who long for the good ole days. Got to youtube and see how many young people there are jammin still. And when they get older, they will still Rhodes and Lynch. Even tho their friends could care less

It's true. Kids with taste will gravitate towards the golden age. Kids who just do trendy things and who only enjoy music as casual listeners seem to be into all of the here-today, gone-tomorrow artists. Every once in a while I rant to a willing listener about the fact that you can hear Journey's "Don't Stop Believin" or Boston's "More Than A Feeling" on the radio and still want to sing along (if you're not totally sick of them after 40 years). But who the hell is going to listen to Lady Gaga, Eric Menendez, etc 40 years from now? NO ONE!!! Even though they have talent... they're not putting-out material that will stand the test of time. It just won't. Classic rock is like classical music. It has lasting power. Will classic rock be around 200 years from now like Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven? I sort of doubt it. But Boston, Journey, etc will have a better chance of that than any of today's artists will.

Some of today's artists I really like (Foo Fighters comes to mind). But I still question how many people will be grooving to "Times Like These" (my favorite FF tune) 40 years from now.

 

[Sirion]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

Guitar is not comparable to concertina or bagpipe by sheer numbers: players, sold instruments, songs and everything. Not to mention the huge cultures (all the the different ones) around it.

To see what position guitar has in 50-100 years, we should be comparing it to violin/fiddle or piano. If there's still music, it's not disappearing, not even going underground...

All five instruments are the same in that they are largely irrelevant in modern popular music. They might be brought in for a particular colour, but their relevance for the creation of new music is close to nil. As cultural forces they have also been vastly devaluated.

I am actually not convinced that the guitar (and certainly not the electric guitar!) is featured in as much music that will have any sort of staying power as the violin and the piano. It certainly exists as a primary instrument in a narrower scope of genres, and ones that seem to be fairly well established by now.

 

[Jacew]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

All five instruments are the same in that they are largely irrelevant in modern popular music. They might be brought in for a particular colour, but their relevance for the creation of new music is close to nil. As cultural forces they have also been vastly devaluated.

I am actually not convinced that the guitar (and certainly not the electric guitar!) is featured in as much music that will have any sort of staying power as the violin and the piano. It certainly exists as a primary instrument in a narrower scope of genres, and ones that seem to be fairly well established by now.

Really? Maybe it's cultural thing, but there's a piano or two in every school here. It is standard instrument to accompany singing starting from elementary school to pop shows in tv to clubs featuring softer music. It's the standard in music in general that everything else is compared to.

There's also a lot of fiddle/violins present in modern music. Almost as much as guitar. It's just rarely in the forefront as an instrument.

Scope of genres guitars are present is only second to piano.

There's no reason why electric guitar couldn't have the same staying power than those instruments with +300 years of history behind them. Of course it's never going to be as big as it was in 80's, but that kind of music "explosion" is unprecented in history anyway, and is not in relation to anything else.

 

[Sirion]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

Really? Maybe it's cultural thing, but there's a piano or two in every school here. It is standard instrument to accompany singing starting from elementary school to pop shows in tv to clubs featuring softer music. It's the standard in music in general that everything else is compared to.

There's also a lot of fiddle/violins present in modern music. Almost as much as guitar. It's just rarely in the forefront as an instrument.

Scope of genres guitars are present is only second to piano.

There's no reason why electric guitar couldn't have the same staying power than those instruments with +300 years of history behind them. Of course it's never going to be as big as it was in 80's, but that kind of music "explosion" is unprecented in history anyway, and is not in relation to anything else.

There might be a piano in every school, but try giving one away on the private market! I would add that we go back 100 years, before the radio truly made itself known, the piano was far more ubiquitous in circles that could afford them than the guitar has ever been later, since it was a basic tool for entertaining guests at home. Beyond that, you are basically confirming what I am saying: it survives as a practical tool (as an arrangement tool it is far more practical than the guitar, hence the adoption of the keyboard in digital instruments), a tiny slither of the music that was written for it still survives as a cultural force, and it is trotted out when somebody wants to emulate this – like the bagpipe and the concertina. But the number who know how to play it, and the amount of music written for it is nowhere near what it was, and how often is what we are hearing in newer music not really a piano, but a synthesizer vaguely resembling it?

But I don't think the guitar will have the same staying power. The main selling point of the piano is its practicality, and here it indeed eclipses the guitar. It will remain a pedagogical tool, an arrangement tool etc. for this reason (at at least the modern keyboard layout will). The main selling point of the guitar from a practical point of view, that it is easy to learn for hormonal teenagers, is unlikely to be as much of a selling point in a digital future.

Beyond that, I think don't think we are in that much of a disagreement. I do not think it is going to go away, either, I just don't think that it is going to be anywhere near as popular as it has been between the 50s and the early 00s, or be that much relevance as a force in popular music. Producers might slap it on a song now and then, and everybody here will be allowed to enjoy their guitars and guitar music just as much as they want to.

 

[Jacew]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

Beyond that, I think don't think we are in that much of a disagreement. I do not think it is going to go away, either, I just don't think that it is going to be anywhere near as popular as it has been between the 50s and the early 00s, or be that much relevance as a force in popular music. Producers might slap it on a song now and then, and everybody here will be allowed to enjoy their guitars and guitar music just as much as they want to.

Indeed. If you think popular music as in terms of Billboard lists or music tv, it's something I don't really see to have much relevance. It just shows current trend in music business.

There's no common youth culture anymore. Kids are have divided into hundred of different cultural vibes. There's audience of all ages for everything from 70's punk to rockabilly to metal etc...

... But glass tubes? They’re going to be gone within most of your lifetimes.

Not mine probably. I’ll be lucky to last another 10 years!

Interestingly, LP sales have been on the rise for past 10 years. I do believe tubes have as much lasting charm.

 

[some_dude]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

I'm interested to see how Tubes vs Modelling vs Nutube is going to play out.

For now, tubes are still king but these other ideas are getting close.

Modellers keep getting better but seem to still be missing something. Especially the modellers that are priced at the low and mid price ranges. When they make stuff comparable to current Axe FX and Kemper modellers and price it in the mid range, you might see things starting to shift more. The fact so many pros who can afford Kemper and Axe FX have gone that route tells me there will be a point where modellers will be perfected and even the lower end will be hard to tell in an AB comparison. It's not so much how they sound, but how they feel. Even the low end sounds very close but they don't quite react like a tube amp does.... yet. Haven't tried a high end modeller, but can only assume they are getting closer and one day will nail it.

Sometime last year I ran across a thread where the owner of Carol Ann amps discussed this. Apparently, he uses a special version of the Axe editing software to breadboard and prototype new amplifiers, which saves him a fortune in time and money.

According to him, the limitation in the Axe is the AD and DA converters. Being analogue, they aren't totally transparent. They filter the signal and impart their own sound/feel/response in the process. Regardless of what you do in the digital realm the DA converter will always sound/respond the same, and there's only so much you can do to compensate for it since it comes after the modelling section. It produces an inherent "sameness" to all the models and is one of the reasons models can't/won't be dead on accurate using current technology.

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: Dr. Z says modeling amps are going to be the next wave...

That’s surprising. I wonder what it would sound like if you could run it through a full DCS stack.