On Being So Dazzled By Modelling, You Consider Selling Your Amps

[northernguitar]

I’ve seen it in many ads for gear on the used market. ‘I switched over to Kemper or Line 6 or AXE or whatever. Selling all my gear.’

I am pretty dang impressed by the tech, having recently joined the club. Thoughts have run through my head about selling my amps. I haven’t thought about them since getting the Boss IR-200. But I can’t do it, not yet. I keep feeling that I will want to plug in to a tube amp, even though I won’t need to.

Who got rid of everything, shortly after going digital?

 

[radtz]

I like having both options. Pedals and a non-modelers are nice for quickly adding and subtracting effects for noodling. Modelers are great once you locked in some sounds. I find I use the pedalbaord and amp and then I use Bias/Guitar Rig to recreate the pedals in my laptop for recording.

 

[Whatizitman]

All gear acquisitions have a honeymoon period. There are no exceptions. If you don't need to get rid of anything right away, see how you feel 6 months to a year down the road. If the old tech is just gathering dust, then make some decisions. No need to hurry.

 

[chris m.]

I'm very happy with my Boss GX-100, and also super happy my BluGuitar Amp1 (solid state analog guitar amp, voiced to sound like a vintage Plexi). With those two together, going into a guitar cabinet, I can get fantastic sounds. But I still can't part with most of my tube amps. I have one, though, that I'm contemplating letting go. Part of the problem is that selling amps, especially heavier tube amps, is a bit of a pain. I could list it locally and wait probably months to get a decent bite, or I could just trade it in at GC and get less than half its value. Listing it nationwide doesn't make sense to me given how heavy it is, potential for damage in transit, the huge hassle if the buyer is unhappy, etc.

Besides, all these people dumping their tube amps for modelers has created a glut on the market and tube amps are going for cheaper than ever.

I'll also say that "modelers" is a big category and there's a wide variety of sound quality. For example, with the GX-100 I don't really think it sounds quite as good when I run it straight into a P.A. using its speaker emulation. It's OK, perfectly serviceable, (but only after I worked quite a while on tweaking my own presets- the factory presets were awful). But when I run my patches into an actual guitar cabinet with the cab sims turned off, man does it sound really good. Just more punchy, immediate, real sounding. As some people say, the sound coming out of the P.A. is more like the sound of a miked amp, while the sound coming out of a guitar cabinet is the actual sound of a guitar amp. To the audience it doesn't really matter, since they're mostly hearing the sound out of the P.A., but to me on stage it sure makes a difference to my ears. If we ever go to in-ear monitors then at that point it probably wouldn't matter to me anymore.

If you have a floor modeling unit like a Helix, GX-100, or Quad Cortex, it's definitely worth seeing if you prefer the sounds you can get going directly through an FRFR monitor with cab sims vs. running it through the effects return of a good guitar amp without the cab sims. I think running through the effects return of a good tube amp warms the sound up a bit by running through the tube power stage, and good guitar speakers really help the sound, too. If you have a good SM57 or Sennheiser 609 guitar cabinet mike it's just as easy to mike the cabinet the old fashioned way and run an XLR cable over to the PA as it is to run a cable from the modeling unit over to the P.A. JMHO.

 

[The Angle]

There are few bigger wastes of money than selling something only to replace it 6 to 12 months later. If you think you're going to get the itch to play those traditional amps again and you don't need the money or the space right now, keep at least a few of them around. I really dig my modeling amps but I still plug into traditional tubed and SS amps frequently. You might not want that option today, but if you're like everyone else on this forum, YOU WILL.

 

[D_Malone]

I don’t think of the digital/modeling/profiling options as replacements, just alternatives. There are pros and cons with both.

I find a good amp with pedals much easier to work with, honestly. No menus to drill through, no secondary/hidden functions to remember, etc. what you see is what you get.

 

[TomBrokaw]

I only play in my office and record, so when I discovered Reaper a few years back and all the plugins that are available, I thought I'd never need an amp again. The plugins worked and my computer was beefy enough for realtime monitoring, but I would get lost in sound sculpting, and if I wanted to play along with a backing track on youtube or something, it was a hassle to match volume and sometimes the sound device would only allow one app at a time.

Then I thought I might need an amp to get a legit mic'd up sound and for getting feedback, so I got a Vox modeler. That had the controls on the top/back, which doesn't work for me since I'm usually sitting and it's at ear level, plus I only really used one or two of the models.

So I sold that and got a Peavey modeler. I liked the models and implementation a lot more, but I still had issues. Every single factory preset had the pregain maxed out, and I also convinced myself that the 8" speaker wasn't as good as a 12".

So I sold that and got a 90s silver stripe Bandit, with the transtube knob that goes from 10% to 100%. That was a lot better, and while its clean and breakup sounds are really nice, it didn't have the gain I wanted for metal, and of course no built in effects. I got a couple of pedals to rectify that, and realized that I was just using it as a pedal platform, so I got a bass amp (I also have a bass) and am selling the Bandit.

I plan to stick with SS, though, as I don't foresee myself ever getting another tube amp. A: I can't crank it, so there's no power tube saturation or feel to be had. B: I've read a few threads about dwindling tube supply and/or quality. C: I can't hear the difference. I've felt the difference, once, at a rehearsal where the amp was cranked, and it sounded great too, just not an obvious difference that could be attributed to tubes vs SS. I also tend towards metal, and I'm of the opinion that tubes are better for lower gain stuff.

So to recap, I like the immediacy of an amp and pedals. Wrong volume? Turn a knob. Wrong effect setting? Turn a knob or maybe two. Took me a while to realize that, but it's where I am now.

 

[Beachbum]

I've got them both. I like them both. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

 

[THX1123]

Horses for Courses.

 

[StrangerNY]

For some reason, I haven't sold an amplifier in probably 30 years! My storage room has 7 amps in it, and I've got 4 more that I use to gig with. It's just never crossed my mind to try and move any of them out.

- D

 

[Bob Womack]

I've been in modeling since the early 2000s and my latest one is the Helix Floor. Despite the fact that I play virtually all of my session dates on the Helix at this point, I still have my mouldering pile of amps at home and some at the studio, including a pair of rotary cabs, and have actually added amps since I went heavily into modeling. I just haven't gotten up the nerve to part with them.

Bob

 

[Lonn]

I use a relatively cheap Line 6 Floor Pod Plus and 2 8” monitors for everyday playing. Love the sound. Amplifiers come and amplifiers go but the Line 6 always stays. I’ve had it for years now.

 

[USian Pie]

Not modelling but I found solid state amps that sound like I want. I haven't turned on my Peavey Classic 50 in years now.

I also still haven't sold it even though (1) I'm not using it, (2) it's too big to fit in my car, and (3) it takes up a lot of space.

I still feel like I might want it back someday. Plus I would never get what it's worth to me anyway.

 

[generic202]

I sold all my tube amps in 2018 after getting HX Stomp. Well, partly because I moved out of the country so I had to sell literally everything including bunch of guitars and whatnot.

After 5 years, I still do not miss those amps at all. I do miss building and working on tube amps which is another hobby altogether but at the same time, I'm really enjoying having minimum amount of gear.

 

[loudboy]

I've used various modelers over the years, I've currently got an Iridium patched into my recording rig, as it's fast, easy, and sounds very good.

I also get a big smile at every gig, when I play the first chord thru my SFPR. I've used modelers in bands where I need a bunch of different sounds, and found then OK, but they always seemed to be lacking a little something that an amp/pedal combo had.

 

[Jimclarke100]

If I was just starting out I’d almost certainly go solid state or digital - I really think the difference now is insignificant.
Not that I’d sell my valve amps. Actually they’re all home built so no-one would want them anyways….

 

[Alex_C]

I’ve seen it in many ads for gear on the used market. ‘I switched over to Kemper or Line 6 or AXE or whatever. Selling all my gear.’

I am pretty dang impressed by the tech, having recently joined the club. Thoughts have run through my head about selling my amps. I haven’t thought about them since getting the Boss IR-200. But I can’t do it, not yet. I keep feeling that I will want to plug in to a tube amp, even though I won’t need to.

Who got rid of everything, shortly after going digital?

I sold my amps and pedals a few months after getting a Helix LT. Two years later, I missed playing through an amp so I sold the Helix an picked up a Laney L5S. I also picked up a Hotone Ampero II modeler that sounded as good as the Helix. Now I play in faux stereo!

 

[gimmeatele]

Not got rid of everything, but nearly a year since buying the pod go my amps get switched on every couple of weeks for a quick play and run some electric through them.

 

[klasaine]

I've sold several amps and fx in the last 4 years due to the steadily improving quality of modeling/emulation.

I still play 'live' with amps (most of the time) but I've off-loaded most of the rarer boutique and vintage stuff that could command good money. I also got rid of a few utilitarian pieces that never really sounded that great.

*I've even been giving away some pedals and pedalboard accessories to a few young, up-and-coming folks I work with around here. I did a musical theater show throughout March and the 2nd guitarist didn't really have their sounds together for the type of show it was (all 80s L.A. 'Hair Metal' stuff). I hooked 'em up with a more era-appropriate distortion and chorus as well as a delay. When the show was over I just said, "keep it".

 

[Dismalhead]

I went the other way - recently gave my two modelers to my grandkids. Now I've got four tube amps and an '80s Marshall SS.

I did play through a friend's mini-Spark a few weeks ago. Lots of fun, sounded great. I may get one.