Help Me Go Ampless : Amp Sim Pedals Discussion

[sal paradise]

I’ve just been floored by the Orange Micro Stamp. Tube preamp with 20w solid state power amp. £125.

1x 8/16 ohm Speaker out & emulated recording/headphone out. Oh, and effects loop.

How’ve I never heard of these before?? It seems like an affordable solution for sure, and with an FX loop for my pedals plus a cab sim for recording straight into my DAW this kinda seems like a no-brainer.

Yeah. I just sold my 2x12. Really annoyed now because I’m absolutely gonna get one of these asap.

[Telliot]

I’m reading about the cab sim output and people are saying it’s noisy and harsh. I’ll try and do more digging.

[sal paradise]

I’m reading about the cab sim output and people are saying it’s noisy and harsh. I’ll try and do more digging.

From 1:30 in this video is the designer of the amp. Who knew he was a walking cliche, Rolling baccy in his shirt pocket & everything

He talks about the emulated out. Sounds like it’s a cheapo headphone jobby or designed for tweaking in post.

GAK comparison video

[Telliot]

Who knew he was a walking cliche, Rolling baccy in his shirt pocket & everything

The picture is completed by the JM with HBs behind him.

I'm disappointed about the emulated out being a cheapo headphone jack. Not really what I'm going for, and this points me back toward the UA stuff as a more discrete and tweakable piece of hardware. I will say I like the FX loop on the Orange. I keep seeing people mention that as a function of the UA pedals, but I haven't seen a specific diagram or demo to show it in use.

[cestlamort]

I’ve been using the Strymon for home demos and headphone noodling. I like the Fender clean and especially that it can do stereo (albeit with only one IR).
I haven’t yet used it live but have brought it as a backup in case of catastrophic failure by my amps.
For recording, I’ve run it through a DI and direct but haven’t noticed a big difference.

[Telliot]

This is a pretty great shootout.

[sal paradise]

This is useful!

Also, any Andertons video that doesn’t feature Chappers automatically makes it better than it might have been.

[jorri]

Vox and AMT spring to mind as alternative brands for this.

[Firecat]

I have no experience with the UA stuff, but I use a Stymon Iridium to record at home and it's been a complete gamechanger for me! I can't really fire up my amps at home and most of the time I get to record is when my daughter is sleeping in the room next to me. I use the Fender setting 90% of the time and think it sounds great. My main amp is a MusicMan and I can get it to sound very similar. With pedals (especially gain pedals) I learned that you just can't expect that it will behave exactly the same as a real amp, but it does take pedals well. You just have to tweak the pedals a bit differently to get good sounds.

If you're interested to hear some sounds, here's a little solo album I released last May. All the electric guitars were recorded with the Iridium: https://youtu.be/C-0ZeVMyxV8

[sal paradise]

My rabbit hole has uncovered the Blackstar Amped 1. Big bigger but does fender/vox/Marshall, sounds good & doesn’t cost loads.

But it’s just made me lust after a Victory amp pedal. They’re a bit pricey though.

[eggwheat]

I'd go Line 6 HX Stomp..way more bang for the buck than these UA 'plug-ins in a metal box'. 300 odd fx, Amps, cabs. And it sounds damn good. They just updated all the cabinet sims in it and they are extremely good.

[Bradley-Jazz]

I’ve not tried the expensive options talked about above, but I have recently got a budget (£150) NUX Amp Academy to dip my toes in the IR/modelling pool.

It did want some twiddling to get the best out of it, but I use it for headphone practice and recording and for the money have been pretty impressed.

Brett Kingman vid

[Embenny]

This is useful!

Also, any Andertons video that doesn’t feature Chappers automatically makes it better than it might have been.

Hasn't he been gone from that channel for multiple years now?

[sal paradise]

This is useful!

Also, any Andertons video that doesn’t feature Chappers automatically makes it better than it might have been.

Hasn't he been gone from that channel for multiple years now?

I’m not a regular gear video watcher. Good to know.

[echoplex]

Neural DSP Quad Cortex is mind-boggling