Tone X Pedal

[Greg Cutshaw]

After all this time, I still think the ToneX pedal outperforms my Fractal Axe 3 in terms of useful tones and reverb effects. The big bonus is the lower price, smaller footprint, ease of adjustment and the now availability of steel amp IR's.

Note that the Fractal actually "models" a given amp's power supply, tone stack, power amp circuits and adds IR's for the speaker and cabs captured via a mic.

The ToneX does not actually model an amp but captures an amp's sound at only one setting of it's controls. So it doesn't model and allow you to adjust for example the Peavey mid shift controls. However you can still greatly adjust the tone of the captured amp with the ToneX pedal's powerful EQ controls.

https://www.gregcutshaw.com/ToneX%20Ped ... Pedal.html

https://www.gregcutshaw.com/AXE%20FX%20 ... X%203.html

[memphislim]

Greg, is there a way to assign stomps to the toe buttons or are they dedicated strictly to bank operation?

[Greg Cutshaw]

Not sure about the stomps. There is an external control input. It's not an extensive effects box beyond compression, gate and reverb.

[Brian Spratt]

Each preset on the TONEX (there are 3 per bank) only activates the tonex model preset in that bank. It's either on or off, meaning the model is on or the TONEX pedal is bypassed. It's not designed to, for example, run a Fender Twin model and toggle a tube screamer off and on within the same bank. You can certainly achieve that functionality, but you would do it by having two presets loaded in adjacent preset slots - one would be your Twin with no tube screamer and the other would be your Twin with the tube screamer and you'd switch between the two presets.

[Alan Murphy]

The TONEX looks a good unit, but are there any high quality modern amplifier profiles which can be purchased ?

I am thinking the likes of Milkman, Little Walter 89, Quilter etc, not vintage amps like fender twin reverb.

It would seem that making your own high quality profiles is not that easy, and this came from a guy on YouTube who was sitting in a big studio. He said you will eventually just have to purchase high quality profiles !

[David Mason]

Play through hundreds of amps, cabs, pedals and full rigs!

I'd love to! Meanwhile, I'll play through this little black thing...

Ahem. There have been some really fine tonalistically-zippy boxes out for 20 years at least. I used to gonzo out on specs, which is a very good time-consumer for those of us desirous of imitating 47,287 rigs with nothing better to do (NOT meant to be snotty; i'm allergic to television and/or romance, I'd much rather beam a whackadoo aural missive to the mothership than "get real.")

One good question is: What do you want?
Another good'un: How hard is it to make this, that n'the other DO what you want?
For actual gigs and the like, it's ESSENTIAL that you can assign the important stuff to a KNOB, or at least a "mental knob." You can also save up three good models side by side, identical except for... OD, reverb, whatever's the point of the family. You DO NOT want to be typing, twirling, trying to read miniscule letters (numeric values!) on a light-blasted screen = bandmates: "mutter. mutter...."

How many different sounds do you really need? (Hint: three.)
Clean, raunchy, and experimental/weirdo, with overdrive, reverb and brightness ACCESSIBLE. I know I'm kinda pissing on the sales blurbs, but if it's more work to make one sound not-awful than it is to make it sound good, well. A while back, there was a period where me and the Digitech gnomes more-or-less agreed on what sounds good, and I have been settled-in with an old, stoopud, surely-obsolete RP250 for some years now (creak-grumble-thud-etc.) So, three sets of three models, with what matters on a knob. LEARN YER BOX, is THE most important thing.

I still play with the madman/genius/bold-new-worlds stuff at home. I'm also quite sure that you can learn a good deal about harmony by layering up tones on yourself, and any kind of rhythmic delay can get constructively-nifty. You can actually set GOALS for that kinda thing if "getting better" counts. But at gigs, things like "knowing the song" and "playing in tune" can just kinda suck all the joy out of being the madman.
Please - don't SCARE the singer.... (heh, heh, heh...)

[Andy Vance]

The TONEX looks a good unit, but are there any high quality modern amplifier profiles which can be purchased ?

I am thinking the likes of Milkman, Little Walter 89, Quilter etc, not vintage amps like fender twin reverb.

It would seem that making your own high quality profiles is not that easy, and this came from a guy on YouTube who was sitting in a big studio. He said you will eventually just have to purchase high quality profiles !

Alan,
As of yet, I haven't seen any of those steel amps modeled on tone.net, although I could have missed them I suppose with the search filter. I found a Milkman 1 pint and a Quilter Pro Block 200, not their steel amps. I haven't done any model captures yet so I can't state what the quality of those will be yet but I do hope to capture some at some point. I recently started gigging with mine for my in-ear monitor gigs where the casino or club prefers no amps/wedges.

[Andy Vance]

I am now quite a few gigs into using the Tonex on most of my gigs and I have to say, I am very happy with it. I have some amp models/profiles from Joe Rogers, he is a forum member, that really work for me. If any of you are looking for steel amp models, you may want to hit Joe up and see what he can do for you. He is a great guy and was very helpful to me getting models that worked for my specific needs.

[Johnny Cox]

I'm just now getting into the modeling thing. Joe Rogers has enlightened me. He has both the Tonex and the Quad Cortex. Other than the obvious price difference, Tonex $399 and QC at $1,849 they do pretty much the same thing except the QC has tons of great effects built in whereas the Tonex has none. I'm looking for a "One Box" solution. The QC is ideal for that. Joe has some great profiles and is adding more all the time. The real key is to profile amps with your instrument and settings. We profiled my Quilter 202 with my MSA Tour Pro and a couple more amps with the same guitar and my settings this week. The QC sounds exactly like what I set the amps to sound like. We used a Telonics power amp and a TT15 speaker to play the QC through. Sounded just like my rig. I'm hooked, I'm saving my pennys for a QC first and will use the power amp section of my 202 to power it for now. I'm also looking at power amps. There are some great ones, Freyette makes a 100W tube power amp and Seymour Duncan makes a stereo 700 watt per side power amp that guitar players love for $699.00. Imagine being able to carry all of the best steel guitar amps with you all the time. Standel, Fender, Webb, Sho-Bud, Peavey, Evans etc. Talk about versatility.

[Greg Cutshaw]

One small correction, the ToneX does have reverb and a compressor. The QC is definitely more powerful and it can create speaker, amp and cab IR's much faster.

[Johnny Cox]

Greg, is there a way to assign stomps to the toe buttons or are they dedicated strictly to bank operation?

That's the beauty of the QC. It can be configured to use the buttons as stomp box on/off switches. Or it can be configured for set list and many other applications.

[Johnny Cox]

The TONEX looks a good unit, but are there any high quality modern amplifier profiles which can be purchased ?

I am thinking the likes of Milkman, Little Walter 89, Quilter etc, not vintage amps like fender twin reverb.

It would seem that making your own high quality profiles is not that easy, and this came from a guy on YouTube who was sitting in a big studio. He said you will eventually just have to purchase high quality profiles !

My friend Joe Rogers has profiled some of the good steel amps and is doing more and more.

[Joost de Nijs]

Hi there,
I just bought a Tonex pedal a few days ago and try to make some beautiful steelguitar sounds. There are so much options on the pedal, and the software, that it will take some time to figure it out.
Note; If you want to make a profile of your own amp, you also need a Tonex Capture unit (about 300 Euro's) and a couple of good microphones (like a Neumann U87 and a Shure SM57).
My goal is to capture the sound of my old Emmons Lashley LeGrande 600 but it will take a while.
I'm very interested in people who are also active on the Tonex pedal.
Kindly regards from the Netherlands.

[Andy Vance]

I've seen a lot of chatter recently on the forum with folks using Kemper's. Just wondering if any others that haven't chimed in here are using Tonex now? How is it working for them? What profiles are they using for steel? Etc...

[Greg Cutshaw]

If you want to do your own captures and require more effects, you are better off with the Quad Cortex. Of course that's a lot more money as is the Kemper and the Fractal gear.