Solid State and Digital Technology Progression

[andrenighthound]

Originally Posted by popthree

modeling and solid state shouldn't be clumped together like they are one in the same.

yeh but the lunchbox has digital and ss

[popthree]

Originally Posted by andrenighthound

yeh but the lunchbox has digital and ss

there are many amps that marry modeling to SS design..

there are some amps that marry modeling to tube circuits as well..

there are SS designs that are purely analog..


there seems to be a tendency to use the terms "modeling" & "solid state" interchangeably... i take exception to this tendency

[StephaninMelb]

Kemper Profiling Amplifier


Kemper Profiling Amplifier, by Kemper GmH, “learns” the sonic behaviour of any tube guitar amplifier. In theory you can profile all your favorite boutique amps and carry them around in this lunchbox size amp.

To capture a profile, the Kemper is connected to the input of the amplifier undergoing profiling. When the Profile capture mode is launched the Kemper outputs a complicated sequence of sonic test tones. These signals pass through the amp being profiled and the Kempler captures the speaker output through a microphone placed in front of the speaker cabinet. The Kemper then builds within 20-30 seconds sonic capability profile, including: tone dynamics, frequency response, distortion characteristics and speaker cabinet sound image. When the profiling process is completed it is possible to switch between the two amplifiers for an A/B comparison.

Professional guitarists who have used the Kemper say it comes extremely close to matching the sound and playing characteristics of any amplifier and it is difficult to discern between the two amplifiers.

Once a profile is captured the user can creatively change the sonic behaviour. The Kemper can be used to add features that the other amplifier is incapable of sonically producing by itself, such as distortion, rectifier sag, increases in sustain, and string attack dynamics.

Review:

http://www.tonymckenzie.com/kemper-amps-review.htm


Review results:

THE RESULTS WERE ASTOUNDING AND INCONCEIVEABLE.

Yes really. I had Dan play for a while and then did a 'blind test' between the two amplifiers. Actually I chose firstly the kemper twice and Dan thought that the first one was the Kemper and the second one was the original. He did get some right, but when questioned, he did admit that he really could not tell the difference and was not at all sure which was which.

You would NEVER believe that the Kemper amp can actually do what this one did in the studio and I can tell you it was about 99% there right from the profile without any messing about with any of 500 parameters like some kit has to.

There it was, in all it's glory - this thing really did deliver the goods - and at this price (£1170.00 in the UK) it is an awesome thing to behold. I cannot really express in words exactly how good this Kemper Amplifier really is. Yes its THAT good.

And if we had spent another couple of minutes on this profile it would have been exact - and I mean EXACT, not similar.

KEMPER AMP SCORE
As most regular readers will know, I often rate the equipment from 1 to 10 - 1 being exceptionally bad and 10 being perfect.

It's not often that I see any piece of kit rise above an 8 out of 10 because of this, or because of that, or even sometimes simply the overall price.

But this Kemper Amplifier I rate at 10 out of 10.

There's just a small number of musical equipment that falls in that elite sector of greatness, and the Kemper amp is one of those products.

[andrenighthound]

Originally Posted by StephaninMelb

Kempler Profiling Amplifier


Kemlper Profiling Amplifier, by Kempler GmH, “learns” the sonic behaviour of any tube guitar amplifier. In theory you can profile all your favorite boutique amps and carry them around in this lunchbox size amp.

This sounds interesting! How much?

[StephaninMelb]

Kemper Profile Modeling Amp price is £1170.00 in the UK. You will have to check for USA price...

[Carvalho Diablo]

Originally Posted by StephaninMelb

Kemper Profile Modeling Amp price is £1170.00 in the UK. You will have to check for USA price...

But does it go up to 11 ?

[classicplayer]

The Kemper sounds like it might be the coming technology, or at least something like it.

I have two Roland Cubes. I have the Micro Cube and a Cube 20X and both feature Roland's COSM amp modeling. What I'd like to ask is, just how are these models designed? Is it software written to produce the alogrithm for a particular amp? Are the COSM models actually designed by a computer?

Classicplayer

[ricks1950]

There are several different ways to model the performance and sound of a particular amp.

Most of the tube amps have similar part sets, tubes and controls. Modeling the individual stages and combining them in sequence and adding EQ and effects gives the software designer pretty good control over the basic sound.

The quality of the software driving the DSP's will vary somewhat, and will require more or less processing power to deliver the goods. Generally, the more accurate models will require more memory and more processing power. Whether you are using the method described by the Kemper system, or using a component by component analysis of the signal progress through the amplifier, your results will be no better than the processing and software.

Look up Moore's Law on the Internet and see how fast the progress in digital technology, and note that in the next two years or so, there will be as much progress as there was in the last 50 ...

The last thing to remember with these devices is this: in the final analysis much of the sound quality comes down to the speaker, cabinet, and sufficient output power to make the sound you expect.

[classicplayer]

[QUOTE The last thing to remember with these devices is this: in the final analysis much of the sound quality comes down to the speaker, cabinet, and sufficient output power to make the sound you expect.[/QUOTE]

Does that mean the quality of all three components, or size of the components, or both? If these three components have a fourth one added, the software, would the software become the most important of them all?


Classicplayer

[Joe-Bob]

Originally Posted by ricks1950

Look up Moore's Law on the Internet and see how fast the progress in digital technology, and note that in the next two years or so, there will be as much progress as there was in the last 50 ...

Sure, but this development is not going to be in the area of guitar amplifiers.

The amp designers are still going to be limited to whatever is being produced, and adapting it to use on a guitar amp. That means compromise and lack of ability to do what would be best for our purpose. The advances will be in laptops, phones, and ipads, not audio amplification.

[TxTeleMan]

I have a DigiTech RP-150 that I use for recording on to my PC and for practicing. It gets lots of good sounds, lots of cool sounds, and has plenty of effects. It's great for what I use it for.

I took a song to use for my father/daughter dance at my oldest daughter's wedding and edited it. Then I used the RP-150 to add some tremolo guitar to it, which it sorely needed, and then I saved it as a file to play for the dance. It worked great.

As an experiment, I tried three different things through my tube amp live.

1. Tele -> RP-150 - best tremolo sound -> 12W/12" tube amp.
2. Tele -> tremolo pedal (3 transistors) -> 12W/12" tube amp.
3. Tele -> 12W/12" tube amp - built-in tube tremolo.

Results?

The RP-150 tremolo came in last place for sound and realism. The three transistor tremolo pedal sounds pretty nice. But nothing, nothing at all, beats the real tube tremolo. With just one guitar and one amp, there's no comparison.

By the time a radio or computer song gets to your ears, it's been processed and compressed ad nauseum, so you may not be able to tell the difference. At a honky-tonk or bar or coffeehouse or church you may or may not be able to tell the difference, depending upon other things. Chances are, only guitar players or amp afficianados will know or care.

But I'll know... and I'll care.

Digital music technology has it's place, and I use it every day, but it is not the same as a real good tube amp. I wouldn't use it on stage at a small church of coffeehouse or bar. I could tell the difference, even if no one else did.

[StephaninMelb]

The Programable Amp Modeling Approach

The Peavey ReValver tube amp modeling software is highly regarded. It is available as a software product and is also used to program their modeling amps.

As seen in the screen below in Peavey's ReValver amp modeling software you can adjust parameters like bias level and plate voltage. Essentially you build an amplifier section-by-section... You can also load in models from the external world.

If some of these modeling companies sat down with some tube amp designers the technology would grow by leaps & bounds.

“ReValver brings a unique approach to modeling software because it essentially lets players design their own amplifiers,” says Hartley Peavey, founder and CEO of Peavey Electronics, which acquired Alien Connections and ReValver in 2007. “In that sense, ReValver complements the vision of the groundbreaking online Peavey Custom Shop. The implications this technology will have on the future of the music-products industry are vast.”

The software GUI has an easy to use, drag-and-drop interface for adding/subtracting individual components and devices such as amplifiers, preamps, power amps, stomp boxes and effects. Operating the amp models can be as simple as clicking through presets or as in-depth tweakoid as the user desires. To give you an idea, beyond selecting different combinations of tubes, users can get very deep, including adjusting parameters such as plate voltage, cathode/grid resistor values, transformer impedances, bias voltages, the effect of a sagging power supply and more. Users can program more than 15 features on each tube stage, with as many as 17 preamp and power tube types to choose from.

ReValver Mk III also features a robust stomp-box and effects section, including various types of chorus, distortion, wah, tremolo, compression, limiter, delay, octaver and much more. A new FFT-based convolution reverb allows for very complex and smooth reverbs, including sampled spring reverb, and allows users to import their own WAV samples.

http://mixonline.com/mixline/peavey_...er_mkiii_2201/

[jazztele]

Solid State is already light years ahead--I can turn up my Henriksen all the way and not hear any distortion!

Being a smart aleck, yes, but I do think that the idea of a tube amp being the "best" tone is too subjective. It assumes we all think the same thing is good...

[Eric71]

Originally Posted by Asphalt Cowboy

Won't it be great when the day comes where a single multi-effects pedal and a light weight solid state amp can sound as good as a heavy boutique tube head and a dozen boutique pedals?

Do you guys think it'll happen any time soon? Within 5 years? 10 years? Never?

In terms of sound quality, I'd say we're there already. The tricky thing is that it can take a lot of time and knowledge to be able to squeeze the right sounds out of the modeling and software. Much easier to just get a bunch of pedals that are all individual units -- there's something about how that's processed in the brain and how the pedals and amp are separate from each other with obvious controls that makes it easier for me.

So really, I think the innovations in the coming years will be on the interface end -- making it easier to get great sounds out of the technology without spending hours/days/weeks/months twiddling knobs. I think a shift in demographics as the guitar-playing population ages will also hasten the transition.

I'm not sure what the whole thing will look like, but right now if you get things set up right on your modern-day rig (modeling, SS, whatever), I don't think hardly anybody could tell that it's not tube. And quite frankly, I find that encouraging -- good tone for all.

[StephaninMelb]

Kemper

[Bartholomew3]

Tube amps have the best "feel" and mostly thicker tone but when I don't want to carry my twin I use a Cube 60...cheap, clean power and it doesn't weigh much.

[ricks1950]

Originally Posted by Joe-Bob

Sure, but this development is not going to be in the area of guitar amplifiers.

The amp designers are still going to be limited to whatever is being produced, and adapting it to use on a guitar amp. That means compromise and lack of ability to do what would be best for our purpose. The advances will be in laptops, phones, and ipads, not audio amplification.

Guitar amps are neither that complex nor that different from other audio applications. In actual terms of complexity, a tube type guitar amp is quite simple, has limited bandwidth, and even the "high power" ones don't put out that much wattage or sound, in the great scheme of things. In fact, there has not been much in the way of actual advancement in tube design or circuit design since the 1960's.

I had a tour of a professional hockey arena where they use 100,000 watts of audio for the PA system, in banks of 10,000 watt, solid state amps. These are full range, high fidelity amps that produce face melting audio levels in a 21,000 seat arena. And yes, the signal path to these things is completely digital.

From a technical perspective, it is really interesting that so many devices and applications use the same, general purpose DSP's today, with the actual function determined by the software that drives them.

In short, there is no need for specialized "guitar amp" parts. 20 years ago, absolutely, every application needed its own special part, and they were expensive. Digital technology moves forward at an incredible pace.

This is how Fender and Peavey and Roland can produce digital, modeling amps for a hundred or two, and pretty good ones for a bit more, and others some pretty incredible ones for the price of a high end tube amp.

[tele12]

Originally Posted by ricks1950

Guitar amps are neither that complex nor that different from other audio applications. In actual terms of complexity, a tube type guitar amp is quite simple, ........................

This is how Fender and Peavey and Roland can produce digital, modeling amps for a hundred or two, and pretty good ones for a bit more, and others some pretty incredible ones for the price of a high end tube amp.

Exactly, price is what compromises the quality of modelers.

A tube amp is simple , limited in features and somewhat expensive.
When you try to make a complex, multi-featured Solid-state amp cheaply there is where the problems come in.

If you want your modeler to sound as good as a tube amp, have MORE features and MORE versatility than a tube amp you will have to pay MORE money than a tube amp.

[Stewart Ward]

Originally Posted by ricks1950

Snip... The last thing to remember with these devices is this: in the final analysis much of the sound quality comes down to the speaker, cabinet, and sufficient output power to make the sound you expect.

This is about it really! It won't matter whatever you put in front of the speakers and cabinet... the speakers and cab have the last word! And, there is not a computer or software package which can emulate the very complexed electromechanical frequency and cone velocity dependent phenonina that is creating 'THE sound' we all like to hear.

Even Line6 resorted to 'current feedback' and 6dB HF roll off at 2500Hz to simulate a valve output stage in their SS power amps. They can't do it in software!! Period! Otherwise would they have bothered with the Bognor valve power amp tie up?

Just look at the classic 60's Fender amps. Seems like hundreds of variations of a basic design theme. None of them are 'that much' different from each other. Yes, different powers, bigger/smaller cabs, more/less controls and all with various speaker configurations. And the latter is the secret to why they all sound slightly different. The range evolved in response to customer feedback, so they made different models that look slightly different BUT with different speakers, which the designers knew would radically alter their tone!

It's the speakers and cabinets that's the REAL DEAL with amplifiers that have an output transformer! (Note I did not say valve amp) Not even the KEMPER can simulate these constantly varying dynamic parameters with frequency and volume intensity. Only at one volume level. You just have to have a guitar speaker and output transformer or active 'current feedback' to create the expected guitar sound!

And then we get into, room acoustics and the fact that everyone's hearing responds differently to volume and frequency changes... NO ONE CAN WIN THIS CONVERSATION. But it is getting closer!

And for the vast majority perhaps, the difference is not worth the inconvenience and cost of valves. The die-hards will be dead anyway in 20 years and we have to design for the future customers who may never own a valve amp (or want to)... not the elderly! This includes me too!

Will guitar still be THE weapon of choice for music... it nearly died in the nineties with boy/girl bands and has taken a major back seat in youth culture and their music! Will there be enough customers to keep valve production viable. It's all stacking up against valves now. But anyhow, what will happen with guitar as an instrument in time? You can't build a secure industry based on such wildly changing 'fashions.' And music is all about fashion!!

[GigsbyBoyUK]

Personally I love my amps and love having a big old 12inch speaker or two behind me.

But lately I have seen several bands play with no backline - modern modelling equipment into the PA all the way - and they sounded great. I never would have believed it until I saw it but that's how good the technology is nowadays.

It could be that amp manufacturers in part continue to make 'real' amps not because the alternatives aren't good enough but because guitarists are a very conservative bunch who hate to change. Well we know that's true because we are all still playing 1950s guitars!

Like I say, I'll stick to my combos for now. But modelling is going to get more and more common in live settings of all types. The attraction of great sound with less gear to haul around will be too tempting in the end, for most people anyway.