I'm James: I'm a Tube-a-holic.... recently, i've been heavily considering going digital. thoughts?

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JimAnsell

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So here is my situation. i am going through a divorce, and i'm not 100% sure where i'm going to be living when this is all over. I might get a house, i might rent an apartment, i just have to see how money looks when this is over. I'm living with my 65 year old mother and then my 3 kids half the week, and i can't really play loud here. So my beloved mark IVa combo that i've had for like 10 years is getting neglected. i don't even have an extention cabinet anymore, so i'm relying on intensive eq'ing (para in the loop always being fiddled with), to get a decent tone when i do play.
When i get the urge and or time to play, it is generally in the extreme early morning hours, or after everyone else is in bed.
I also want to start recording more and producing stuff, rather than just aimlessly noodling for the rest of my life. i'm not in a band anymore, even though the opportunity is for cover band gigs is always a phone call away. Most cover bands are doing the digital thing with in ears

I've had a kemper 3 different times. i love the way they sound and i already have a ton of great profiles if i decide to go back. If i sell my mark IV i can probably get enough for a used Kemper stage, and some type of monitoring solution whether it be a powered speaker, or some decent studio monitors. I'm leaning towards the monitors part because again, i'm mostly playing guitar in one room, sitting in front of a computer anyway, and if it take it to a gig, just going to go through their pa. Kemper would make recording a breeze, and i wouldn't have to invest in mics that are going to sound only so good because of the room i'm in. I also feel like i would actually sit and play more if i had one because i know they sound great with the headphones i have, and every other time i had a kemper, i found myself playing more guitar. so thats another thing kind of pointing me in that direction.

So really all signs seem to be pointing me to going back to digital. I think i'm not in the position in life anymore to have the luxury of owning multiple tube amps and cabinets. money is going to be tight for a while with child support and paying my cost of living. It feels like i'm "giving up" in some weird way, by going digital, but it seems like it would be the smart thing to do right now.

Thoughts? who else went totally digital because they kinda "had to"?
 
If your MarkIV is beloved, don’t sell it. You’d regret it down the line.

I tried going digital and it sounded fine with headphones but it never had what I was looking for in any of the modeling. Effects are another story.

Could always get an attenuator/load box for the Mark.
 
I could never go totally digital but tbh my little Yamaha THR10X gets 95% of my playtime. Love that little fucker; sounds good even at mousefart volume and can be used as an audio interface for direct to pc recording (with the ability to simultaneously record a DI track along with the "amp" track for virtual re-amping thru plugins)

They're cheap too
 
dude. kind of similar, with house/ex wife, etc..., but i bought a fractal fm3, and im on the fence. still have my recto just in case. i like the way the axe sounds through my monitors at home volume, but i cant get it dialed in next to my recto at rehearsal... my ears get fatigued, and programming scenes and patches on the fly just suckkkk. i just got frustrated yesterday at the jam room, and plugged a boost into my recto and just played.
i wish i had gotten a captorx instead so i can just use a head at home lol.
 
ive made a couple threads asking this same question recently as i fight the "is it time for digital" battle in my head all day :LOL: for me its just ive spent 20+ years building a sweet amp collection and now the last number of years building my studio and learning to record, not sure im ready to basically give up on all that even if it makes sense in so many ways.
 
Just thought I’d share a clip of my super not nearly as good as a tube amp axe fx 3. Man. This thing TOTALLY comes up short… and with stock cabs on this no doubt too! Wow, this sucks. I’m sure the real Amp in the room of your apartment would be MUCH better and WAY more useful than something like this….said no one ever.


This argument kills me….waiting for someone to tell me why this sounds digital compared to a real tube amp… or maybe I’m fucking with everyone and it IS a real amp?


https://on.soundcloud.com/Fkx36FrVfMVhkw2B9
 
If you have a piece of equipment that you like, or is beloved, don't get rid of it you'll never get over it.

Do something like a Universal Audio OX maybe?
 
VESmedic said:
Just thought I’d share a clip of my super not nearly as good as a tube amp axe fx 3. Man. This thing TOTALLY comes up short… and with stock cabs on this no doubt too! Wow, this sucks. I’m sure the real Amp in the room of your apartment would be MUCH better and WAY more useful than something like this….said no one ever.


This argument kills me….waiting for someone to tell me why this sounds digital compared to a real tube amp… or maybe I’m fucking with everyone and it IS a real amp?


https://on.soundcloud.com/Fkx36FrVfMVhkw2B9
Click to expand...
That does sound killer! I love mine through ir’s in my monitors but through a poweramp and cab its a little flat I guess.
 
You can always sell the Kemper if you like that route. Seems like it will make things a lot more convenient for you at this point in your life and if that allows you to play more, record, etc. then so be it.

You can always get another amp.

I moved back to digital since June as I finally found the right FRFR solution for me for monitoring and playing. Took quite some time but I have never been happier. I also want to carry a lot less to gigs as we are playing every 2nd week as a house band and our other gigs in between those as well as some rehearsals. It's a bit busy and thus, I don't want to be hauling a larger pedalboard, head, cabinet and load box to gigs anymore.

Good luck with the divorce. Those things are never easy as I have had many friends and colleagues go through those.
 
I keep trying to do it. Closest I've come is the ToneX pedal. I loved the FM3 and sold two amps because it nailed their tone for me... But I just didn't find it fun to play with. Even though I had a bunch of cool patches setup, I still always went for an actual amp when I had a few minutes to play. The Fractal just sat there unused.

I had the Kemper too, thought it sounded good but I could never get anyone else's profiles to sound as good as my own. It was a cool studio tool but it still required me to have my own amps, or at least profile them and then sell them off.

The ToneX sounds great but the UI on the computer is terrible. It also has the same issue as the Kemper in that the best captures I've found are my own. That said, the price is way cheaper, so not nearly as big of a deal as it was with the Kemper.

I might try a Helix next. I've used Native several times and thought it sounded great, the main problem with it being that it doesn't have nearly as many models as the Fractals do and I ended up only using like 2 of them that clearly just sounded better than the rest. That said, when I've used the Helix LT at the store, I found it WAY more fun to work with than the FM3 was.

The Quad Cortex seems like it'd be the best of both worlds, except that it's been out for quite a while and has received pretty minimal updates to the point where they still haven't even delivered on the things they promised at launch. If it had all the things they said it would, it'd be the clear winner as it has the best UI of all of them, captures, plus modeling... But I can't bring myself to spend that much money on an incomplete product that doesn't seem like the developers care as much about as their plugins 🤷‍♂️

The main issue for me is playback device, though. I think modelers sound great through headphones and even studio monitors, but the only way I've been able to get them to sound "right" when playing loud is through a power amp and guitar cab, which kind of defeats the purpose of having one. Sure, you save on weight of a head, but you still have to lug around the cab and potentially a heavy power amp, still.
 
I look at digital as giving me a competitive advantage. Many stages are getting smaller and quieter, transport costs more, etc. I've got more agility when it comes to taking gigs, and I'm able to give the FOH engineer a consistent product every time. Plus the flexibility it gives me with recording. I still have tube amps and pedals too, but I don't consider it either/or.

I have no doubt some people can't dial in digital to their liking. If they want to believe it's the technology's fault, then let them ;-)
 
If I was still playing live, digital would be the only thing I'd even remotely consider. Lugging around a tube head and 4x12 was never fun. Even if I went with a cab, it'd be a small 1x12 and a Duncan PowerStage. I could carry the whole thing in one trip without breaking my back :LOL:
 
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