What is your next amp going to be?

[dave74]

That Kemper has a medical/Jetsons hybrid look going.

 

[solspirit]

Damn, you had to go on Dialysis?

God Speed on your recovery sir

Lmmfao

 

[NegativeEase]

I think we had some of those in the EE labs.

Nah, even Tektronix knows better than to put the stupid like plastic bubble piezo electric control buttons usually reserved for channel changing for old people in the hospital.



disclaimer: Bogner, we are making jokes.. we know the Kemper is a sick sound making dream!

 

[NegativeEase]

That Kemper has a medical/Jetsons hybrid look going.

Thats cause it's sounds "sick as f*ck"

it totally does though.

 

[NegativeEase]

Thats cause it's sounds "sick as f*ck"

it totally does though.

..... look like something that going to clean my blood or drill out the crust in my colon I mean.

 

[Bogner]

I think we had some of those in the EE labs.

Ahhh.....the original rack prototype from 12 years ago. That is where it all began folks.

 

[Erlend_G]

Prolly gonna mount my Boss 10-band eq, and a better digital reverb to my Blackstar and call it "Frankenstein" lol . Maybe even a speaker change in the year to come; (hemp cone alnico)



With the EHX Allied Overdrive it does about everything I want it to. . Also very nice with analog delay, chorus for leads,- curious about the old vintage boss eq in the effects loop!

 

[Erlend_G]

Dude, there are some killer digital reverbs. Catalinbread Topanga and the Boss FRV-1 come to mind.

I want the "Hall of Fame" reverb . Try to find a used one.

 

[Erlend_G]

Its a lot of fun, especially if you connect it via USB to your computer and use the deep editing software.

yeah I tried one once, at a schools music room. Got some really nice reverbs from it, trough a Fender hot rod amp .

The onboard reverb of the blackstar is at best /ok" to my ears, real boring and bland too . I want to try an outboard reverb once before I give up! \m/

-E

 

[Erlend_G]

I will be doing more ambient/church stuff; so anything that brings me further that direction is awesome lol

So a new reverb and a compressor pedal. yeah. Aswell as trying out my old Boss 10band graphic EQ in the effets loop.

-E

 

[Mr. 80's]

A small solid state non-modeler head. Thinking of one of the new Friedman BE Mini's and hooking my HX Stomp in the loop for modulations (chorus,delay,verb etc.). I'd use one of my 1x12 Greenback loaded cabs for it. Should make a great 80's hard rock/metal rig for at home to give the tubes a rest every once in a while.

 

[Mr. 80's]

I'd never give up tube amps and not a fan of moddlers/profilers at all. I did make the change to lower wattage tube amps and self biasing. Lower wattage is far more practical for my needs and fewer tubes to replace and no need to bias anymore. I'm not into expensive VOS/NOS tubes either or tube rolling. IMHO it's just a waste of money, time and unnecessary wear and tear on an amp. Give me a new set of JJ's and I'm good.

 

[Bogner]

Lol, I might be giving the tubes a rest permanently. Sick of the drama and the weird noises and spending more time agonizing over tube selection and biasing than playing. Maybe it would be worthwhile to have one really good tube amp that I would rather spend lavishly maintaining than replacing.

High End amps and Kempers are where its at for me. Mesa is self biasing

 

[Bogner]

Really? Even the Duel Recto-Friar?

lol...yes

 

[Bogner]

When it comes to Mesa, I would use whatever tubes they recommended, and I would drink whatever Kool-Aid they are selling. Is that the thing to do with their amps, or do people just do whatever, like they would with a Marshall or Blackstar?

Just buy the amp and play it. All this tube swapping and messing around with things doesn't always give the juice the squeeze puts in. I have done all of that stuff and sometimes you get a positive result and sometimes not. I learned long ago that the higher end stuff is made a certain way and designed a certain way for a reason. Go with it, play it and have fun. We can easily get so caught up in this other stuff that we don't even play anymore because we are looking for something more or better when it may not exist or we may already own it.

 

[Cynical]

Rectos aren't self biasing. Rather, they have a fixed bias that's set fairly cold that will work with tubes within a certain spec.

 

[chadd]

If you get a good capture of the amp (many times people don't) you actually have more parameters to tweak than you would on the amp itself. If you have a bad capture, it is virtually impossible to polish a turd. Don't be fooled, the Kemper can sound out of this world great. It can also sound bad if you have a bad capture and dial poorly. No different than a nice amp sounding bad because it is not dialed in correctly.

The tools in the Kemper are incredibly powerful and you can polish the hell out of a turd with them. I profiled an old Mesa Mark I (SN 2xx) and on one of them the mic got bumped and was on the very edge of the speaker frame. I was in the same room when refining the profile and didn't put the combo on standby because I was in a rush to get it back to the shop that loaned me the amp. I never heard the profile alone until returning home. When I got home, the profile sounded awful. A little additional EQ, some messing with the amp parameters and it sounds amazing now. I also have a handful of profiles of my old Mesa Road King that I have altered to sound radically different for different projects.

Also, as mentioned, Mesa amps are fixed bias. That's a very different thing.

 

[chadd]

Done!!

I've resisted the urge to go too far down the rabbit hole so far. The nice thing is that you can set them up simply or go crazy and take advantage of all the options and be happy with either outcome. They're really added some nice stuff over the last couple years with the upgraded fuzz, OD and effects. The editor is a life saver, I don't know how to do half of the stuff via the front panel anymore.

 

[Bogner]

Tough crowd. The word police got me.

 

[dave74]

With the Mesa fixed-bias system you can also mix tube models within the same family. Like a pair of 440(ruby) and a pair of 445(jj).
This is especially cool in the multi-watts because people often use the 50w setting for hi-gain and the 100/150 setting for cleans.
In the multi-watt triple it's those "tweener" positions that are being used in the 50w mode. Looking from the back it's positions 2 and 5 going left to right.