The future of rock guitar rigs...

[ejecta]

Given how accurate modern amp modelling is nowadays, if you're a touring musician or care about laying down quality guitar tracks without waking the neighbors, modelers are really a no-brainer. The cost, maintenance, consistence & logistical benefits are undeniable.

I don't run a home studio nowadays & I'm not performing anymore, so I can't justify purchasing an AxeFX or Kemper at this stage. Additionally, I can't utilize any way near the limitless spectrum of sounds contained within them.
Guitar tone does matter to me though & I am a purist. I prefer the sound, feel, power & assurance I get from a quality tube amp & pedals.

The valve amplifier should stand the test of time, so long as people care about the origins of electric guitar tone and why that sound, the sound of tube amp distortion, is the definitive sound of the electric guitar.
I only hope that we don't completely digitize every creative medium in our lives. There is a next generation of players, many of which don't appear to appreciate the evolution of guitar tone or understand why anyone might want a 59 LP & plug it into a marshall.

I watch videos about Mike Soldano & Paul Gilbert etc (eg) & all the amazing people that have really contributed to the evolution of the electric guitar. The pioneering electric guitar & shred players all have traditional roots like blues at the heart of their playing & they are all really well seasoned & tasteful players as a result.
Now there appears to be a paradigm shift towards digital equipment & no real appreciation of why it sounds like it does. There aren't many next generation electronics majors in workshops evolving electric guitar tone. It's a computer now, & that's it. Who cares how it works or how many decades of electronics experts have tinkered with circuit boards & valves to create these unique sounds? Now you just twist a couple of knobs on a synthesizer.

Modern & unconventional tech metal is becoming more focal to the next generation of guitar players. Not that change & pushing the envelope is ever a bad thing, but the musical & technical skill set acquired by the great players was founded on musical convention.
The sound of modern metal production is now so massively over produced & digitally reliant that it couldn't, arguably, be recorded & mixed conventionally to anywhere near that level of precision. The standard of electric guitar playing & general musical appreciation might take a turn for the worse in the same way that no notable modern orchestral composers are writing works anywhere near as creatively wonderful as composers from literally hundreds of years ago.
Written on manuscript, by hand with a quill I might add.

Mediums that haven't been earned or undergone any sort of organic journey tend to sound sterile. I think we need to keep hold of the founding musical & technological roots of the electric guitar. This includes the tube amplifier.

True. You don't know where you are going until you know where you have been.

 

[anomaly]

Also, I wanted to point out that we as guitar players are a small microcosm of people that play....meaning the guys like us that jones after tones.

Most of the guys I know that are in gigging bands rock no name gear, SS heads and cheap cabs, or a 6505 head. I've talked to guys who have no idea what a Diezel or a Bogner or AxeFx or Kemper even IS. It's easy to think that everybody knows all the shit we know, but they don't, and it's US that worries about it, not the audience. Random people in clubs don't know the difference between all the minutiae that we obsess over.

Exactly. There's guys in the New Orleans metal scene that rock 80's SS heads. Crowbar's Kirk Windstein usually just runs a Randall rg100es head into two v30 loaded cabs, and boosts with a metal zone pedal. That's it. He gets a great tone outta that simple old rig. Jimmy bower uses a similar rig in his band Eyehategod, and the other guy uses a Ampeg SS150, another old solid state head. They sound huge! Kerry King from Slayer and Zakk Wylde (plus many others) have used the same jcm800's since the 80's when they first started their music career. Guys that work on their craft and are content with tried and true rigs. They have no need to change their gear. Why fix what ain't broken??

Now look at a band like Metallica, they are currently using the Axe FX, and their tone has never been worse. Just a thin, dry sound... it's almost like those modellers create too much separation between the instruments and it loses it's heaviness because of that... it's cohesiveness... It's that lack of stage volume that has something to do with it, I think? Same with megadeth... f'in terrible tone, and they use Axe FX rigs. Fuck that shit.

 

[JimmyBlind]

That was very beautifully worded and well said

Thanks! It's my first novel!

 

[anomaly]

Fact is, every band that has switched to the Axe or Kemper... their tone has gotten worse because of it. Just an observation.

 

[stephen sawall]

Modelers are going to become popular when you can get a good one free on your phone. Till then it is going to be a very small groups of people that use them. Most people just want a cheap rig..... Free is the right price.

Very few young people are learning to play any instrument. In a decade or two guitar is going to be as popular as Sax is now. It's a dead language.....like Latin.

 

[billsbigego]

They can't. The days of running 100w tube amps in clubs are over. Everybody I know that uses one is a bedroom guitarist.

Guys I know that are gigging consistently are using modelers or lower wattage amps, for both FOH ease of use and home recording. There just isn't any place that a 100w amp is even feasible for use anymore. How many of us are actually playing stadiums? I know I'm not, and I don't know anyone who does. There are clubs here that won't even let you in the door with one. Sound guys just say no.

For home recording use, modelers and lower wattage amps are just easier to use...I can't even hit 1 on a tube amp here. Cops get called lol.

I know there are guys that will always use them, but guitarists that are coming up now will have grown up using modelers and that's where they're gonna be the most comfortable.

100 watt heads with good PPIMVs can be used anywhere and sound different and better than low watt amps for certain kinds of music.

Steve

^^Absolutely^^

Lugging shit sucks. When I was playing out on a semi-regular basis. I would have 5 guitars. Foot pedal bass cajon, Mesa Mk5 combo, Line6 L3T, pedal board. Bag of strings and shit. Mic stand with microphone, chair. That's about 15 trips from the basement to the car, car to the gig, gig to the car and back to the basement. Now I don't bring the MKV. I just use a damn boss blues driver pedal into the L3T PA and the listeners could care less. One less thing to lug.

 

[rocknrolla]

Now look at a band like Metallica, they are currently using the Axe FX, and their tone has never been worse. Just a thin, dry sound... it's almost like those modellers create too much separation between the instruments and it loses it's heaviness because of that... it's cohesiveness... It's that lack of stage volume that has something to do with it, I think? Same with megadeth... f'in terrible tone, and they use Axe FX rigs. Fuck that shit.

Have you been at one of their shows in person or just listened to a video?
In person their tone is just as massive and crushing as ever. The recordings on youtube and such have been mixed and processed (poorly imo) which results in a sterile, crappy tone. And they do have plenty of stage volume. Those cabs on stage are all being fed the guitars.

 

[BackCrack]

I really dig the mic'd sound of a two differently voiced Celestions getting punished by a 60's Bassman head. This is why I built a couple homebrew iso cabs last year. The band uses in-ear monitors for gigs, so there's no point in being loud on stage anymore. The iso's work out great for everybody (band, soundguy, club owner, the drunks in the front of the band).

 

[Anonymous]

They can't. The days of running 100w tube amps in clubs are over. Everybody I know that uses one is a bedroom guitarist.

Guys I know that are gigging consistently are using modelers or lower wattage amps, for both FOH ease of use and home recording. There just isn't any place that a 100w amp is even feasible for use anymore. How many of us are actually playing stadiums? I know I'm not, and I don't know anyone who does. There are clubs here that won't even let you in the door with one. Sound guys just say no.

For home recording use, modelers and lower wattage amps are just easier to use...I can't even hit 1 on a tube amp here. Cops get called lol.

I know there are guys that will always use them, but guitarists that are coming up now will have grown up using modelers and that's where they're gonna be the most comfortable.

100 watt heads with good PPIMVs can be used anywhere and sound different and better than low watt amps for certain kinds of music.

Steve

^^Absolutely^^

Lugging shit sucks. When I was playing out on a semi-regular basis. I would have 5 guitars. Foot pedal bass cajon, Mesa Mk5 combo, Line6 L3T, pedal board. Bag of strings and shit. Mic stand with microphone, chair. That's about 15 trips from the basement to the car, car to the gig, gig to the car and back to the basement. Now I don't bring the MKV. I just use a damn boss blues driver pedal into the L3T PA and the listeners could care less. One less thing to lug.

Oh c'mon now... Try lugging this rig around:

Jose Arredondo Modded JCM 800 100 W Head
Two Seymour Duncan Convertible Heads
4 space rack with Roctron Hush 2C, Roland SDE-3000, Furman Graphic EQ
4 Seymour Duncan 4x12s (two are mine, two are the other guitar players so I could hear him)
2 Marshall cabs on the other side for the other guitar player to hear me
Two guitars
Bag of strings and tuners, cables and other crap
Bag of gay outfits
Makeup

Total of 8 4x12 cabs for me and the other guitar player

You guys have it easy now! Of course, we actually had high school kids who acted as roadies lugging the gear in/out who hung around for the beer and chicks... Honestly, it probably took me 3 months of gigs to train my dude to set my shit up right!



Steve

 

[jharpersj]

As someone who gigs lots, I'm seeing more low watt, smaller rigs, and axefx. I have always had big tube amps and cabs but mostly use the axefx2 or a custom carol ann 1-12 combo. The PA is pushing most of the sound, by having a 100W head cranked I am causing issues with getting a good band mix out front. I also picked up a ENGL ironball lunchbox that I may try Sat, that thing is a beast, and has the amp about to melt sound at lower volumes.

I feel like in 5 years you will only see things like the axe not only on major tours but in every club band as well.

 

[ejecta]

Oh c'mon now... Try lugging this rig around:

That's a big stack of some very large pickups.

 

[Badronald]

The high end modelers are WAY too expensive to be used by most players. Hell, I'd never spend that much on one.

And I will NEVER trust soundmen enough to run a direct feed to the house unless he's our guy.

I'm not against trying a CabClone for gigging. Run a line to FOH and still have a cab going. Turn the cab toward the back of the stage.

 

[stephen sawall]

I have never seen a local band use a Axe Fx. I would be surprised if I ever did. There has not been that many built. Fender makes 700 amps everyday. Marshall makes 200..... Not to mention Peavy and the others. These companies build more amps in a day than all the small companies do in a year combined.

All this gear most of you are talking about makes up such a small part of the industry it is not even worth mentioning.

 

[ejecta]

I have never seen a local band use a Axe Fx. I would be surprised if I ever did. There has not been that many built. Fender makes 700 amps everyday. Marshall makes 200..... Not to mention Peavy and the others. These companies build more amps in a day than all the small companies do in a year combined.

All this gear most of you are talking about makes up such a small part of the industry it is not even worth mentioning.

A whole lot of truth here.

 

[Kevin11]

Unlike some of you guys, I'm seeing more and more players in my area using AxeFx as tone generators in their live rigs. Not me, I'm old and set in my ways. But, the next generation of players (metal or otherwise) will inevitably embrace digital technology, just like most of us have in almost every other aspect of our lives. Lots of factors pushing things in that direction. Clubs/venue volume issues, FOH techs, logistical convenience (i.e. cartage, setup), cost/quality of tubes, more big-name artists embracing and touring with them, etc. Tones are only going to keep getting better.

Tubes are messy and expensive to produce and we only have couple of companies on the earth still making them. At some point (not tomorrow of course), the balance will shift away from that market.

Just trying to follow this emerging trend out a decade or two. Other than the odd killer sounding SS amp, guitarists haven't had a decent ("decent" being subjective here) alternative to tube amps until very recently on the grand scale of things.

The next batch of young players will create new and exciting sounds with these digital tools and in-turn, influence other players to follow suit. The door is wide-open.

 

[ejecta]

Of course there will be a tipping point to where tube amps become the minority and then all but gone except on the antique market. This end isn't as near as some of you are claiming IMHO.

It's really hard to predict what future guitarists will or will not use using current trends. Shit... future tones may not even be generated digitally. It be could be some new form of tech.

 

[Shask]

I have never seen a local band use a Axe Fx. I would be surprised if I ever did. There has not been that many built. Fender makes 700 amps everyday. Marshall makes 200..... Not to mention Peavy and the others. These companies build more amps in a day than all the small companies do in a year combined.

All this gear most of you are talking about makes up such a small part of the industry it is not even worth mentioning.

They say the Line 6 Spider amps are the most selling amps out there right now.


For this conversation, you also have to include Line 6, Digitech, Boss, Zoom, 11 Rack, Kemper, Fractal, etc..... Plus MANY more. Those are just the big ones off the top of my head.

 

[stephen sawall]

I have never seen a local band use a Axe Fx. I would be surprised if I ever did. There has not been that many built. Fender makes 700 amps everyday. Marshall makes 200..... Not to mention Peavy and the others. These companies build more amps in a day than all the small companies do in a year combined.

All this gear most of you are talking about makes up such a small part of the industry it is not even worth mentioning.

They say the Line 6 Spider amps are the most selling amps out there right now.


For this conversation, you also have to include Line 6, Digitech, Boss, Zoom, 11 Rack, Kemper, Fractal, etc..... Plus MANY more. Those are just the big ones off the top of my head.

I did mention line 6 in my first post in this thread. Half the ones you are mentioning are all owned by the same company.

 

[billsbigego]

Most local bands are the same people still playing Beatles covers. They wouldn't know what an AXE FX was if you hit them in the face with it.

 

[Rdodson]

I sat in with a big corporate party band a while back and brought my Helios to the gig and the leader of the band just looked at me like I was from Mars. He said "no one in the band uses amplification, we are all in-ear for monitoring". He had a dedicated microphone/mixer channel for calling out the changes. I ended up having to use his 11rack or whatever its called (the orange one) and the tone really suffered. It was awful.

The band was really really good though. Super tight, everyone read music (not just charts) and the singers were dead-on pitch without "help" all night.