MarcusGHedwig
Member
I'd go for a sliding shelf personally, but yeah, that seems like the best bet
What should I get? Blackstar Series One 6L6, Kemper, or Axe-FX II??
- Thread starter drew_drummer
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I'd go for a sliding shelf personally, but yeah, that seems like the best bet
Typically speaking, the kinds of places we play, we rarely mic up the guitars! They're quite small venues, where the PA needs to be dedicated to vocals, keys, and kick drum. Every now and then we get to play a real venue though, like when we supported Pelican back in April, and yes... direct to board would be awesome for those kinds of shows.
I am the kind of guitarist who likes to feel the amp thumping away behind him, which is why I'm not so keen on FRFR for on-stage monitoring. So I'm thinking of my on stage sound as being pretty much THE sound that people hear... in rooms with a capacity of 100 people, typically this is the case.
You may be thinking "why the hell is he even considering these options if he's only playing small shitty clubs like this?" ... well... Axe-FX plus power amp... going to be lighter than a full tube amp. Reliability can sometimes be an issue too, and being able to have the sound of four amps without actually having four amps... really appeals to me. I'm not the kind of guitarist who just buys a 100-watt beast for the sake of it... clean tones for me require a lot of headroom, as I like a pristine clean. But I also like a really tight thumping rhythm tone, and everything in between the two.
I am the kind of guitarist who likes to feel the amp thumping away behind him, which is why I'm not so keen on FRFR for on-stage monitoring. So I'm thinking of my on stage sound as being pretty much THE sound that people hear... in rooms with a capacity of 100 people, typically this is the case.
You may be thinking "why the hell is he even considering these options if he's only playing small shitty clubs like this?" ... well... Axe-FX plus power amp... going to be lighter than a full tube amp. Reliability can sometimes be an issue too, and being able to have the sound of four amps without actually having four amps... really appeals to me. I'm not the kind of guitarist who just buys a 100-watt beast for the sake of it... clean tones for me require a lot of headroom, as I like a pristine clean. But I also like a really tight thumping rhythm tone, and everything in between the two.
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
Shelf+truck tie-downs for the KPA is how I'd do it. We used them to keep cabinets stacked together on Warped; these kinds of things:
Sounds to me like you need to save your money and go Axe FX.
That Kemper is going to be wonky as well in a racked live rig. Not to mention bigger and heavier just from the extra case size. It is an odd size.. I would say 6U probably. Add a power-amp, power conditioner, etc. Plus while the tone "may" be better, it doesn't offer the flexibility of FX and such.
As far as tone, you said yourself you aren't sure you could tell the difference between the real VH4 and the Axe VH4. Which is a pretty good endorsement to yourself.
Your hesitation is the quick programming, complexity, and expense. Expense is easy, just need more patience and save. I paid for my speaker cabs by donating plasma.
I am sure it can't be that bad, single wheel programming is pretty intuitive, especially with practice. Or bring a laptop to practice for quick dialing. I usually carry mine to practice anyway so I can burn CD's of rehearsal recordings, update shit with the whole band there, type up set lists, lyrics, song arrangements, etc. Very useful to have anyway.
Other than that, go tube rig and man up. Digital rigs it is like starting with something meh and you tweak and tweak till you get something usable. Tube rigs is like instant gratification and just a joy to play. Even with the Kemper, it doesn't provide the same gut moving rush a tube rig does.
That Kemper is going to be wonky as well in a racked live rig. Not to mention bigger and heavier just from the extra case size. It is an odd size.. I would say 6U probably. Add a power-amp, power conditioner, etc. Plus while the tone "may" be better, it doesn't offer the flexibility of FX and such.
As far as tone, you said yourself you aren't sure you could tell the difference between the real VH4 and the Axe VH4. Which is a pretty good endorsement to yourself.
Your hesitation is the quick programming, complexity, and expense. Expense is easy, just need more patience and save. I paid for my speaker cabs by donating plasma.
I am sure it can't be that bad, single wheel programming is pretty intuitive, especially with practice. Or bring a laptop to practice for quick dialing. I usually carry mine to practice anyway so I can burn CD's of rehearsal recordings, update shit with the whole band there, type up set lists, lyrics, song arrangements, etc. Very useful to have anyway.
Other than that, go tube rig and man up. Digital rigs it is like starting with something meh and you tweak and tweak till you get something usable. Tube rigs is like instant gratification and just a joy to play. Even with the Kemper, it doesn't provide the same gut moving rush a tube rig does.
Yeah man, I totally feel what you're saying. That's why the Blackstar was in my list of things to consider. I've played tube amps my entire guitar playing life, so I'm well used to them. They're heavy and bulky, but fuck they sound amazing!!
A quick recap: my first proper valve amp was a Mesa Boogie Rectoverb. It was the 2x12 combo, and it was heavy as shit. I liked the clean tones, but found it really hard to dial in my high-gain tones - typical Mesa user story there!
I then sold that, and I got a Laney VH100R. That was back in 2008, it was one of the newer models with the metal handles either side of the enclosure - very very heavy amp. I got some amazing sounds out of it, but at a certain point in 2010, I was getting bored. So I sold it to the other TNBD guitarist - he loves it, and still uses it to this day.
So after that I bought a Fryette Sig X. At first I thought it was amazing, but pretty quickly I started to realise that the clean tone wasn't really giving me what I wanted. It sounded a bit lifeless and distorted really easily. When I compared it to a Marshall DSL100, there just wasn't any contest. The Marshall cleans killed it. However I still preferred the high-gain sounds of the Sig X. I eventually swapped the Sig X for an Orange Rockerverb 100, as that was one of those amps I'd wanted ever since starting guitar.
Whilst jumping from amp to amp, I bought another VH100R as a backup, because I really missed having the flexibility of a 4 channel amp. (Technically it's two channels with a additional boost on each of them..)
I've used the Rockerverb for a few months now, and whilst the cleans are absolutely stunning, and the high-gain is really nice too, the high-gain doesn't quite work with our music. It's not American sounding enough. So I'm currently back to square one... using the VH100R and digging it.
But now that the other guitarist uses a VH100R too, I kind of feel like if I am gonna stay tube then I should checkout a Blackstar Series One - it has the same sort of configuration... two channels with an additional boost on each... but it has a more Marshallesque sound.
Given that I like American high-gain tones, British mid-gain crunch, and Marshally cleans, with the occasional Fender clean thrown in there... it seemed like digital could be the way also. I'm keeping an open mind, but it's not like I have to make a decision right now or anything... just weighing up the options.
A quick recap: my first proper valve amp was a Mesa Boogie Rectoverb. It was the 2x12 combo, and it was heavy as shit. I liked the clean tones, but found it really hard to dial in my high-gain tones - typical Mesa user story there!
I then sold that, and I got a Laney VH100R. That was back in 2008, it was one of the newer models with the metal handles either side of the enclosure - very very heavy amp. I got some amazing sounds out of it, but at a certain point in 2010, I was getting bored. So I sold it to the other TNBD guitarist - he loves it, and still uses it to this day.
So after that I bought a Fryette Sig X. At first I thought it was amazing, but pretty quickly I started to realise that the clean tone wasn't really giving me what I wanted. It sounded a bit lifeless and distorted really easily. When I compared it to a Marshall DSL100, there just wasn't any contest. The Marshall cleans killed it. However I still preferred the high-gain sounds of the Sig X. I eventually swapped the Sig X for an Orange Rockerverb 100, as that was one of those amps I'd wanted ever since starting guitar.
Whilst jumping from amp to amp, I bought another VH100R as a backup, because I really missed having the flexibility of a 4 channel amp. (Technically it's two channels with a additional boost on each of them..)
I've used the Rockerverb for a few months now, and whilst the cleans are absolutely stunning, and the high-gain is really nice too, the high-gain doesn't quite work with our music. It's not American sounding enough. So I'm currently back to square one... using the VH100R and digging it.
But now that the other guitarist uses a VH100R too, I kind of feel like if I am gonna stay tube then I should checkout a Blackstar Series One - it has the same sort of configuration... two channels with an additional boost on each... but it has a more Marshallesque sound.
Given that I like American high-gain tones, British mid-gain crunch, and Marshally cleans, with the occasional Fender clean thrown in there... it seemed like digital could be the way also. I'm keeping an open mind, but it's not like I have to make a decision right now or anything... just weighing up the options.
MarcusGHedwig
Member
hsnyder
Harris Snyder
Well this is a fairly out-there answer, but had you considered getting someone who knows what they're doing to build you something? It could be as simple as just putting your preferred clean and gain tones in one box... It might be harder to sell later if you wanted to flip it, but having built amps myself and poked around inside at least a dozen commercial models, I can say that usually a well made clone of any of the cheaper amps will sound better than the off the shelf model. And on the plus side, they can put whatever clean tone you like in it..
Hmm, so tried a Kemper today. Have to say, I wasn't massively blown away by it. It was okay.
I first used it into the effects return of a Peavey Classic, with the cab part turned off. It didn't sound bad by any means, but everything seemed to have the same basic character - figured it was the power amp colouring the sound.
I then tried it through some really basic 5" monitors they had - Yamaha ones. Again, it didn't sound bad... but everything had the same basic character. I was only using the stock profiles though, so maybe that is where I went wrong.
Dunno - wasn't blown away as I said, but it certainly had promise. The unit doesn't seem all that flexible though... not sure it's worth investigating any more until they develop the unit a little bit.
I first used it into the effects return of a Peavey Classic, with the cab part turned off. It didn't sound bad by any means, but everything seemed to have the same basic character - figured it was the power amp colouring the sound.
I then tried it through some really basic 5" monitors they had - Yamaha ones. Again, it didn't sound bad... but everything had the same basic character. I was only using the stock profiles though, so maybe that is where I went wrong.
Dunno - wasn't blown away as I said, but it certainly had promise. The unit doesn't seem all that flexible though... not sure it's worth investigating any more until they develop the unit a little bit.
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
Not sure why you don't think it's flexible, but the quality of the tones is solely determined by the profiles themselves. I don't like the stock profiles; I've deleted them all, actually.
yep, i was disappointed after trying the stock profiles as well. the high gain stock ones are especially shitty. there are a lot of high quality free and commercial higain profiles out there that will probably make you change your mind about it
Yeah dudes, that does seem to be the general consensus. I might get one from Thomann on a 30-day money back thing, and if it doesn't work out, get the Axe FX.
