The Steel Guitar Forum

I see a lot of mention of effects units on the forum, such as Profex. I assume these units provide reverb,sustain or whatever.
Is anyone using the Modeling effects units such as the Digitech RP2000. According to the literature these units will give you the warm tube amp sounds or any combination imaginable along with reverb, vibrato, rotating speaker,etc. Yamaha also makes modeling amps with the same claims. Any comments?

The Boss and Roland stuff has amp modeling called COSM. It's nice to have all those choices but often I don't use the amp models.

I have it from inside sources that all the major amp builders are coming out with digital modeling built into their amps. One amp can sound like any amp ever made. There was a big article in Electronic Engineering Times magazine by one of the biggest musical amp makers ,about digital modeling recently. I don't want to mention company names, because I have friends who are going to surprise the industry at the next NAM SHOW. Take my word for it, this is the next big thing in amplifiers.

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I've been using Line Six's "Pod", also known as the red box for a couple of months. It's designed for guitars, so the learning curve for steel guitar is pretty steep. I've had mixed success with it

Susan
Are you running the pod just from its panel controls, or are you getting deeper into it by editing from the computer?

Been using the Boss GT-5 primarily with guitar and lapsteel. It has a pretty good Leslie effect, decent monophonic synth effects as well as a whole host of other effects. When I use the acoustic guitar COSM effect with the lap steel, it imparts a very nice tonal quality - sweeter than a lapsteel, maybe more similar to a Weissenborn.

So far I do not find the sound of the digital modeling amps acceptable.I have been rather obsessed with amps for a while now and in my experience the "modelers" only reproduce an aproximation of the the final result. They do not respond like a real amp does. This means that I lose too many levels of dynamic expression. Its like those great drum samples with 128 levels of dynamic articulation. A great drummer has unlimited levels of expression available.
I checked out a POD 6 a while back and it did nothing for me. I plugged into a beat up old Alembic(front end of a Fender Showman copy) bass pre amp sitting next to it and and that thing can sing any sound I want.

I gotta admit that I get pretty tired of hauling around big piles of gear. I'm going to check out the POD and its evil friends again soon for when I'm feeling lazy and it doesn't matter.

Bob


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Franklin D-10

Bob what was the alembic plugged into for power

Jim,
I use a VHT 2/90/2. It uses 4 KT88 power tubes and sounds so good that I am spoiled forever. There are some old threads about it.
b0b.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007558.html
b0b.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/008333.html

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Franklin D-10

I have to agree with Bob, I have tried most
of them, I think there a long way from the real thing , having said that there really
convenient and provide effects and amp
modelling all in one.
I 'm sorry I don't believe they will ever
quite duplicate hand- wired tube amps.They
will probably get better though. Greg

Check out the Rocktron Prophesy preamp/effects unit.It only has 4 models but they sound really good as do the effects.It also has a tube in the buffer stage.

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Olli Haavisto
Polar steeler
Finland

I have a question. If I use a "modeling amp" to emulate whatever amp and then run it to a power amp with speakers, which has it's own charateristic doesn't that nullify the amp emulation?

If the modeling amp device is going directly to a mixing board it's one thing but seems to me going to another amp cancels it out???

I'm with Bob (Hoffnar) on this. The modeling amps (and I have tried them all) sound great, except when you compare them to the real thing.

The great thing about the pod is for direct use (into a recording board or PA). It sounds realistic in that scenario (almost as good as the real thing). It's less impressive as a preamp.

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www.tyacktunes.com

Jack,
You have pointed out one of the main weaknesses of the modeling amps. Its like when steel players use there "live hall" reverb preset when they are actually playing in a live hall. By the time the sound of the steel gets to the back of the room you got nothing but mud.
Now the strong point of a POD or whatever is if you are playing in a live concert or TV type situation where you go direct and a soundman deals with your tone. Those little modeling boxes look great for that.

The modeling amps look like a marketing invention. They are priced at exactly what the target market can afford. All the extra features and gizmos are aimed at helping a salesman do his job. They are for the its easyer to buy gear than practice crowd.

Bob

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Franklin D-10

I'm using a POD for performance and like it very much (I'm using it with a Gibson 335, not a steel). I run the POD as a preamp directly into the power amp of a Boogie Mark I (4 6L6s, 100 watts) which drive the Boogie's 200 watt 12" EV speaker.

The POD sounds way better than the Boogie's preamp. The trick is to use the Sounddiver software and turn off the cabinet emulation on the patches you use live with an amp and speakers.

I have also tried the POD through a Roland KC-300 keyboard amp (1x12" and horn) and prefer the sound of my Boogie). The KC-300 is a transistor amp.

There are a few downsides to the POD, the worst being that it imparts a hiss (not a problem in a mix though) especially on Fender models at low gain settings (which is pretty much where you'd want to be with a steel). So it can be a bit annoying when practicing by yourself. However, I use the POD at home with my Stringmaster and am able to get some very nice sounds with it. Again, way better to my ears than using the Stringmaster straight in to the Boogie.

My band has a little demo on mp3 at
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/108/melanie_redman_.html

I'm using the POD on the slide guitar and lead guitar on most of those tunes, straight to the mixing board (I used the cabinet emulations in that setting). There is a lot of rhythm guitar on these tracks that are not using POD (they were played by Melanie).

The POD is not going to replace your Matchless, VHT or vintage Fender amp, but with the right tweaks you can get a wide array of very nice sounds from it and for the price is an incredible value.

Jack you raised a good point about those
"amp wanna be devices", if you are going to use one be careful what you put it in.
I agree with you Dan, in that they sound
okay with headphones or in a lush stereo rig
at the store selling it, I have tested them
and for example their Marshall Setting is
no where near as brown and in your face as
the real thing, even if both were at the same
volumn, its a big diffrence. Heck the Re-isue
amps are no where near the old ones except
maybe the Bassman .
A Matchless DC30 is going to be next to impossible to "emulate", its not just about
EQ , its about tube power amp,preamp, speaker
combinations that just click. The old
Marshall Amps were a big fat accident, and
put Cream and Van Halen at the top of the brown sound.
Bob I would love to hear your Rig, must be
huge sounding! Greg