Dr. Vegetable
New member
Re: No love for modeling 'round here, uh?
I don't doubt that this is true. And there's the rub - with a modeler you need to try harder.
I have several tube amps and also a few modelers in either hybrid or pedalboard form. With a modeler, I am always tweaking things, flipping switches and trying to decide whether I want to use the "American 4x12" or the "Brittish 4x12" cabinet. And (maybe because I don't run my modelers through a very loud amp) I have yet to experience the same touch response that I get out of any tube amp.
I could spend a few thousand $$$ to get the best damn modeler on the market, just to hope that it would live up to 1/3 the fun I have plugging into my cheap old Blues Jr. and turning up one knob labeled "Volume." I think it's partly the no-nonsense interface to most tube amps - maybe a half a dozen tone/gain knobs to tweak and you're done, where most modelers make you run through a ton of menu settings, and many do not have a good volume balance between different models. If my tone isn't quite right on a tube amp, I slightly tweak a knob or two and everything gets incrementally better. On a modeler, hit the wrong button and you just switched to a completely different sound that may or may not cut through the band mix.
I am not the kind of player who loses sleep over reproducing the tone of other players. I only aspire to play the right notes with the right feel, and I expect my own sound to contribute to making the song my own. If I were the type to fret over what kind of grill cloth Slash used on his stack in Appetite for Destruction, I might be more into buying what modelers are selling.
I know that I play better without the distraction of a modeler. I think it puts me in a place where I don't expect the magic in the amp to do all the work for me - I have to bring the tone myself and/or work with what I can get out of a few knobs. If that makes me some kind of "Tone Snob" then so be it.
I don't doubt that this is true. And there's the rub - with a modeler you need to try harder.
I have several tube amps and also a few modelers in either hybrid or pedalboard form. With a modeler, I am always tweaking things, flipping switches and trying to decide whether I want to use the "American 4x12" or the "Brittish 4x12" cabinet. And (maybe because I don't run my modelers through a very loud amp) I have yet to experience the same touch response that I get out of any tube amp.
I could spend a few thousand $$$ to get the best damn modeler on the market, just to hope that it would live up to 1/3 the fun I have plugging into my cheap old Blues Jr. and turning up one knob labeled "Volume." I think it's partly the no-nonsense interface to most tube amps - maybe a half a dozen tone/gain knobs to tweak and you're done, where most modelers make you run through a ton of menu settings, and many do not have a good volume balance between different models. If my tone isn't quite right on a tube amp, I slightly tweak a knob or two and everything gets incrementally better. On a modeler, hit the wrong button and you just switched to a completely different sound that may or may not cut through the band mix.
I am not the kind of player who loses sleep over reproducing the tone of other players. I only aspire to play the right notes with the right feel, and I expect my own sound to contribute to making the song my own. If I were the type to fret over what kind of grill cloth Slash used on his stack in Appetite for Destruction, I might be more into buying what modelers are selling.
I know that I play better without the distraction of a modeler. I think it puts me in a place where I don't expect the magic in the amp to do all the work for me - I have to bring the tone myself and/or work with what I can get out of a few knobs. If that makes me some kind of "Tone Snob" then so be it.
