It is currently Mon Mar 16, 2020 6:17 pm

All times are UTC - 7 hours



Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 122 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9  Next
Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9  Next
Author Message
Post subject:
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 3:16 pm
Offline
Professional Musician
Professional Musician
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 3:17 pm
Posts: 1986
You have to understand that there has been a stream of rude posters lately and people are a little hyper-sensitive right now.Seriously , some politeness and courtesy should be the order of the day when posting.I make it a habit of not ribbing someone who i havent built a report with.That being said, I am new to digitals stuff myself, but I do have a pod for a backup.The pod to my ears sounds too sterile and compressed, not warm at all.I prefer tube ams because thats what I am used to and until i find something better and as convenient, i will probably stick to amps.Also , its something you can touch.But thats just me.


Top
Profile
Fender Play Winter Sale 2020
Post subject:
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 4:42 pm
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:53 pm
Posts: 483
Location: usa
can't say i have much sympathy for a rather contrived (IMO) issue that went well beyond the attention it deserved. so let's let it evaporate as it should have a while ago.

cheers,
johnny.


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 6:52 pm
Offline
Professional Musician
Professional Musician
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 3:17 pm
Posts: 1986
With that being said we should put this thread out of its misery.


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 5:32 am
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:53 pm
Posts: 483
Location: usa
nothing wrong with discussing how laptops, MIDI, software, solid state, PAs, and other tools-of-the-trade, could provide personal creativity options and expand our knowledge base.

cheers,
johnny.


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 10:35 am
Offline
Hobbyist
Hobbyist

Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 10:17 am
Posts: 11
Budglo, plug your guitar straight into the input of the pod, then from the output of the pod go direct into the effects return of your valve amp. Or any other amp for that matter. I got fantastic sounds doing that out of a pod V2. If you plug the pod into the regular input of a amp the amps gain and eq colour the sound and make it sound worse. Kind of like overdrive and mid scoop in the effects loop of an amp.

I got round loads of bad sounds with the pod by doing that.


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 11:00 am
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:25 am
Posts: 356
Some of my thoughts about the topic:

(I'll be nice and not complain about the pro, tube expert "bullys")
(Yeah ... That's the way it looks to someone just reading the posts.)


Progress continues on, whether a person, or persons, likes it or not. If you will look at history, you can see that for yourself.

And history does repeat itself. Especially if people don't learn from it and allow it to happen. (I was thinking of something that happened in WW II to some good people) But that's another topic.

The solid state, computers, laptops, emulating software, etc - is the future - without a doubt. Technology keeps marching right along.

The Cyber-Twin SE I have is several years old now and can duplicate the "sound", and/or "tone", of my Twin Reverb, which is an all tube amp. I have done that myself. So how much better has the technology gotten in the time since then?

Progress continues, and doesn't stand still. And there is a demand for certain sounds to be produced by smaller, lighter, more portable equipment. As an example - the CT SE is some smaller and lighter than my Twin Reverb - and the CT SE's technology is several years old. But - at this point, after all this time, it has gotten to be, - a proven technology.

The Line 6 POD was mentioned by someone. Yep ... good - for it's day. But things become "old" very quickly in the electronics world. What about some of Line 6s new offerings? Have they stood still - or have they further developed their product.

Although not mentioned yet in this thread - what about Peavey? I was looking around for a Delta Blues amp for someone. I found out they discontinued that amp - and others. Now they have a line called Vyper - I think it's called. Peavey has been known, for years, for having a great sound - at an affordable price. Many churches used Peavey equipment because it was the best bang for the buck. Is that still the case?

What other new electronics, besides guitar (or bass) amps, use tubes these days? Can you name some? I can't. If you can - how many is it? (different brands, or configurations, of amps don't count - they're still just amps)

Is it profitable to produce high quality tubes for such a small market.
And further, is it profitable to produce even low quality tubes (so that more will be sold for replacement) for a SHRINKING market? We may be at this last one now.

Then, in light of that last paragraph, how much will tubes cost before they are not made anymore? (priced any NOS RCA black plates lately?)

How many posts, after posts, after posts, deal with some issue related to some problems with tubes and tube amps?

If you want and like tube amps - fine. Use them to your hearts content. But you had better have some deep, deep pockets if you want to keep that up for any length of time. Just take a look at, not only the going price of the amps these days, - but then look at the going price of the tubes it will be "eating" - on a regular basis. (and I'm not talking about what some '60s or '70s amp did with tubes of that day) Not to mention the components that could be 'taken out' when one of those tubes goes out. If you are lucky - you may get by with just replacing a tube ever so often. But some day - look out!
Again - this is about present day tubes - not some old RCA black plates that haven't been made for many years. The two just don't compare.

Track down an amp repair shop, or tech. Ask him what his going rate is on repairing an amp. The ones I know of have a really steep minimum, and it just goes up from there - with no top cap, or limit. It's like taking the amp in and writing them a blank check. That's why many of the tube amps are not repaired.

And yes - my CT SE has tubes. It has two 12AX7 tubes. And, IMHO, that is the worst part of an otherwise great amp. Those two tubes are the "weak link" in that amp IMO.

Maybe some day a good electronic replacement for the tubes will be made. Maybe a little device that has settings on it you can change it to - like Mullard, RCA, Westinghouse, etc. - for your flavor-of-the-day - for all the tone freaks and tube amp junkies. Then everybody could have the best of all worlds.

Until then - look to the latest technology offered.

And last - IMO, I think this could go even further - to no more instruments. With just kids setting around with computers making computer generated "music" (or noise) and no one knowing how to really compose and play music any more. I have already seen some of this from some of the very young crowd from church. (15, 16, 17 year olds)


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 7:55 pm
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:53 pm
Posts: 483
Location: usa
say, anybody try out amplitube software,
see http://www.fender.com/news/index.php?di ... rticle=343
maybe on a laptop?

ciao,
johnny.


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 11:26 pm
Offline
Professional Musician
Professional Musician
User avatar

Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 11:49 am
Posts: 1153
Location: South Bay, CA
Powdered Toast Man wrote:
Using a laptop is pretty much an equivalent to showing up with just a POD and plugging it into the PA.

There's a few things wrong with this approach:

1. You're relying entirely on the club/promoter/whatever to provide a reliable and decent sounding system for you to plug in to. I've played certain pubs where you even need to bring your own vocal PA.
2. You piss off the sound man. I played this one gig where one of the kids in the opening band showed up with just a POD. Sound guy was irritated. I have no idea why he was, but trust me, you don't want to piss of the man who's doing your front of house mix.
3. Further to #1, you're then relying on the stage monitors to hear your guitar. It's my experience that you want as little as possible other than vocals in the floor wedges because it starts getting "cluttered" sounding real quick and if you put too much in you start having trouble making out the important things like the vocals.
4. I could see if you're using a laptop or POD for processing and then putting that into a simple solid state amp with a speaker but just showing up with the digital processor and no way to amplify it is like showing up with half an instrument. If you're going to play an electric instrument then you need to have a way for people to hear it. Simple as that.
5. Reliability. So if you forget to turn off the screen saver or the power save options what if your laptop decided to go to "sleep" mid-song? How about software errors? Blue screen of death anyone? How about your anti-virus decides mid-set is a good time to do it's scheduled scan? Or any other pop-ups for that matter? Having a windows "bing!" noise in the middle of your song sounds and looks amateurish.

This kind of processing is fine for the studio where it's a controlled environment. On stage, that a different environment altogether. You need to keep things as simple as possible because if something does go wrong there's nothing worse than having a million things that could be it.


Part of the issue with people showing up with PODs/floorboards/laptops/ Cybertwins that drive sound people mad:

the patches that you rock out to on headphones and studio monitors sound stellar, but yet sound like sonic mud on a PA system and actually don't sound like anything in the mix - way too much effects and distortion, counts on stereo when many PAs are run in mono

the patches are all over the place volume wise between each other. Nothing is worse on a guitar player, keyboard player, than when someone changes patches and the volume jumps up and down crazy levels.

Your laptop or POD is unbalanced, and you don't have the right interface cables for a good DI (hint - if you're going to go with a POD or laptop, buy a good DI that you go with).

Generally, PODs and their ilk have been inferior to a reasonable Deluxe Reverb, Twin Reverb or JC120 in a lot of backlines. So there's probably distrust. As these get better (and they're getting better) this will go away.

A lot of these same issues can apply to a tube/SS guitar who has a pedalboard of doom that exhibits the same problems. Or the clown who brings a 4x12 stack or a Dual Showman to a 50 person club...

I have at home Eleven, Amplitube, Izotope Trash and some others as well as a rackmount ADA MP1 pre and a Mesa v-twin Pre (both running through a ADA MicroCab II). All of them do passable clean (the Mesa reins king here) and killer Recto distorted. For real clean, a '57 and a large condenser on one of my Princetons or my Bandmaster into a tube preamp/tube compressor into Pro Tools and it can't be beat.

Use them both, but learn to use laptops/PODs for live if you're going to and save a separate bank of patches. Your soundman, band and fans will thank you.

_________________
Image
'59? Bogen Challenger CHA-33, '65 Bandmaster, '65 Tremolux, 65 Showman;
'74 SF Princeton; '77 SF Princeton Reverb; Dr. Z Mini Z

Our band: http://www.facebook.com/thetoysband


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 11:28 pm
Offline
Professional Musician
Professional Musician
User avatar

Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 11:49 am
Posts: 1153
Location: South Bay, CA
Powdered Toast Man wrote:
Using a laptop is pretty much an equivalent to showing up with just a POD and plugging it into the PA.

There's a few things wrong with this approach:

1. You're relying entirely on the club/promoter/whatever to provide a reliable and decent sounding system for you to plug in to. I've played certain pubs where you even need to bring your own vocal PA.
2. You piss off the sound man. I played this one gig where one of the kids in the opening band showed up with just a POD. Sound guy was irritated. I have no idea why he was, but trust me, you don't want to piss of the man who's doing your front of house mix.
3. Further to #1, you're then relying on the stage monitors to hear your guitar. It's my experience that you want as little as possible other than vocals in the floor wedges because it starts getting "cluttered" sounding real quick and if you put too much in you start having trouble making out the important things like the vocals.
4. I could see if you're using a laptop or POD for processing and then putting that into a simple solid state amp with a speaker but just showing up with the digital processor and no way to amplify it is like showing up with half an instrument. If you're going to play an electric instrument then you need to have a way for people to hear it. Simple as that.
5. Reliability. So if you forget to turn off the screen saver or the power save options what if your laptop decided to go to "sleep" mid-song? How about software errors? Blue screen of death anyone? How about your anti-virus decides mid-set is a good time to do it's scheduled scan? Or any other pop-ups for that matter? Having a windows "bing!" noise in the middle of your song sounds and looks amateurish.

This kind of processing is fine for the studio where it's a controlled environment. On stage, that a different environment altogether. You need to keep things as simple as possible because if something does go wrong there's nothing worse than having a million things that could be it.


Part of the issue with people showing up with PODs/floorboards/laptops/ Cybertwins that drive sound people mad:

the patches that you rock out to on headphones and studio monitors sound stellar, but yet sound like sonic mud on a PA system and actually don't sound like anything in the mix - way too much effects and distortion, counts on stereo when many PAs are run in mono

the patches are all over the place volume wise between each other. Nothing is worse on a guitar player, keyboard player, than when someone changes patches and the volume jumps up and down crazy levels.

Your laptop or POD is unbalanced, and you don't have the right interface cables for a good DI (hint - if you're going to go with a POD or laptop, buy a good DI that you go with).

Generally, PODs and their ilk have been inferior to a reasonable Deluxe Reverb, Twin Reverb or JC120 in a lot of backlines. So there's probably distrust. As these get better (and they're getting better) this will go away.

FYI - I played in a band for 2 years with a rack setup of an ADA-MP1, SPX90 and a ADA MicroCab straight into the PA - guitar was in the monitors along with 4 voices and keyboards. Not a lot, but enough to be heard. If your sounds are EQ'd right, they shouldn't be fighting the other parts of the mix.

A lot of these same issues can apply to a tube/SS guitar who has a pedalboard of doom that exhibits the same problems. Or the clown who brings a 4x12 stack or a Dual Showman to a 50 person club...

I have at home Eleven, Amplitube, Izotope Trash and some others as well as a rackmount ADA MP1 pre and a Mesa v-twin Pre (both running through a ADA MicroCab II). All of them do passable clean (the Mesa reins king here) and killer Recto distorted. For real clean, a '57 and a large condenser on one of my Princetons or my Bandmaster into a tube preamp/tube compressor into Pro Tools and it can't be beat.

Use them both, but learn to use laptops/PODs for live if you're going to and save a separate bank of patches. Your soundman, band and fans will thank you.

_________________
Image
'59? Bogen Challenger CHA-33, '65 Bandmaster, '65 Tremolux, 65 Showman;
'74 SF Princeton; '77 SF Princeton Reverb; Dr. Z Mini Z

Our band: http://www.facebook.com/thetoysband


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:41 am
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:25 am
Posts: 356
johnny stecchino wrote:
say, anybody try out amplitube software,
see http://www.fender.com/news/index.php?di ... rticle=343
maybe on a laptop?

ciao,
johnny.


Hi Johnny,

I have tried the demos of two or three different amp sim software programs.

I couldn't get to the site you linked to - it said the site was down for maintenance. However Ampltube has been around for a few years and I did try demos of a couple of their first releases. It was either still beta or v 1.0 at that time - and I don't remember which.

My thinking was - it was pretty good. Still not quite "there" - but pretty good, at that time. Also pretty high priced for a program that could be wiped out at any time by viruses, hard drive crashes, etc.. And especially in view of what the games go for that my son buys regularly, and plus his games are on CDs or DVDs, and not just some downloaded file that is easily lost or destroyed or corrupted.

The later demos of amp sims I tried were much better, sound wise. Still too high priced a program though.

The last demo of an amp sim program I tried was a month or two ago. It was marketed by Peavey - and I don't know who actually made the software. However, It was the best I have tried so far. It sounded really good - when you consider that it was coming through computer speakers. I think even the pros and tube experts might have liked it. (of course they would never admit it :wink: ) But, IMHO, still too much money for a computer program, so I didn't try putting it through an amp, or a speaker cabinet. But, it still remains, that the software has improved exponentially in a relatively short time frame.

On a personal note:
I don't know if I thanked you and your support people for your help.
So ... I would like to say ... Thank You! to you and your support people for helping to keep the Cyber Commander SE program running on my system. Especially when the problems have been things not related to the software. Examples: computer not recognizing midi device, midi driver problems, etc.

And Thanks for your kind words and encouragement about the recordings of my songs. I do appreciate that.

Some days are still different from others, in that some days are OK - like now - and some days are pure hell. So, sometimes, I forget to express my THANKS sometimes when I should. I hope you understand. And, my apologizes if I have offended you in some way.


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 1:59 pm
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star
User avatar

Joined: Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:56 pm
Posts: 3941
Location: Great White North, EH!
On Amplifiers versus Laptops, i say Amps, because i dropped my laptop onto my Deluxe reverb and nothing happened, but when i dropped my Deluxe onto my laptop, it really was no contest!

_________________
I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Image


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 2:28 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:08 am
Posts: 9034
Location: Louisiana
Twelvebar wrote:
On Amplifiers versus Laptops, i say Amps, because i dropped my laptop onto my Deluxe reverb and nothing happened, but when i dropped my Deluxe onto my laptop, it really was no contest!

:lol: I think I'll keep my amps too no matter how much tubes will cost in the coming decades. I won't be here anyway. :wink:


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:06 pm
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:53 pm
Posts: 483
Location: usa
Hi Ramone!!!

Always a pleasure to hear from you & great to hear you are in good spirits. And many thanks for the great feedback, will pass it onto Claude (a very dedicated soul & the backbone of customer support).

Warmest,
Johnny.


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 10:08 am
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:25 am
Posts: 356
johnny stecchino wrote:
say, anybody try out amplitube software,
see http://www.fender.com/news/index.php?di ... rticle=343
maybe on a laptop?

ciao,
johnny.


I'll try to keep this brief. Today isn't going so well.

I did get to the site and followed the link at the bottom to the main software site.

I doubt that I will try it. It costs $229.99 and the demo is a 10 day demo.
With my health the way it is - I might get a few minutes use from the demo before I'm down again for days. And even if I liked it - it's too steep for me - so it's best for me to not even try it.

My Cyber-Twin SE still keeps me satisfied, during the periods that I play.
I'm glad I got it when I did. And that Cyber Commander SE program sure does help still yet. The program should have come with the amp - but since it did not - it's nice that it's available now.

God Bless and good luck,
Ramon


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 2:02 am
Offline
Hobbyist
Hobbyist

Joined: Tue Dec 01, 2009 1:55 am
Posts: 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEbc5YG4X3E

Click that.

You will never ever get that sound with a laptop, and you will never be able to play like that with a laptop.

That said, I LOVE revalver and amplitube, and they are a lot better then many tube and solid state amps, but they simply cannot contend with high quality amps miced or unmiced.


Top
Profile
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 122 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9  Next
Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9  Next

All times are UTC - 7 hours

Fender Play Winter Sale 2020

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: