Help Me Go Ampless : Amp Sim Pedals Discussion

[UlricvonCatalyst]

Re the above: seems like they've missed a trick not having either a stereo in or an FX loop (ideally also stereo); obviously they're pitching this as a stand-alone box with no need for other pedals, which is a tad presumptuous in my book.

Also, is USB-B a bit retro at this point? Not sure about this, but it seems USB-C is the current standard where phones are concerned, and in any case I thought it went USB 1.0, USB 2.0, etc. in the computer world.

[UlricvonCatalyst]

I have to say, after watching this video, which is worth the watch if only to learn the correct pronunciation of Nux, the Nu>x Amp Academy is certainly an appealing prospect for home recording (at the very least).

[Embenny]

Looks like there's a brand new (medium budget) kid on the block - TONEX Pedal by IK Multimedia

A bit on the dear side, but plenty will be familiar with their amp models already and can attest to their quality.

I saw that, and their plugin is very well-reputed in terms of tone and feel, but I think the hardware version is extremely poorly thought out and destined for failure.

[fuzzjunkie]

Since there’s been a few posts asking about amplification substitutes I thought this would have some interest:

Tonex pedal

If you like and use Amplitube you might want this. It’s that in pedal form and it’s a USB interface as well. Smaller and cheaper than a Kemper rig. About the same price point as the UA amp sim pedals but with many more tones to play around with. Plus midi control.

[wooderson]

I got one, a lot of the factory captures kind of suck but the community captures are improving and the Kemper/Quad Cortex commercial capture people will start selling DI captures soon.

I like it, sounds good with fuzz and distortion, the screen takes too long to start scrolling if you have a long name of a preset (I loaded 10 "JTM50" presets at the top... I should have renamed them CLEAN 1 CRUNCH 1 etc. instead of the long descriptive name) but that's a minor whine.

[Steadyriot.]

A new player on the market! Nice to see another company dipping their toe into the profiling world.
Kemper still reigns supreme as far as I'm concerned but I'm curious what the Tonex can do at 1/3 of the price of a Kemper Stage (though if you add the Tonex Capture and a midi switcher you're pretty close to just buying a Kemper... But not a lot of people have the want / need to profile their amps).

If it sounds good, I could see this take the place of the Line 6 Helix Stomp on people's pedalboard as dedicated DI "amp".

We really live in the golden age of guitar gear.

[sessylU]

Curious, because for me the point of Amplitube was never to sound like a live guitar amp, but like a recorded guitar amp.

So with this, you have a line to your PA or whatever and it won't sound like you've got a big valve halfstack glowering in the corner of the stage, instead it will be as if you were playing through an amp in a garage somewhere?

I was going to mention that it actually looks pretty good value at $399, given that Amplitube 5 is $299, but they've dropped the price of the software alone down to $50.

Amplitube 6 incoming?

[Embenny]

Curious, because for me the point of Amplitube was never to sound like a live guitar amp, but like a recorded guitar amp.

So with this, you have a line to your PA or whatever and it won't sound like you've got a big valve halfstack glowering in the corner of the stage, instead it will be as if you were playing through an amp in a garage somewhere?

I was going to mention that it actually looks pretty good value at $399, given that Amplitube 5 is $299, but they've dropped the price of the software alone down to $50.

Amplitube 6 incoming?

Amplitube and Tonex are completely different software, and Tonex software/plugins are sold separately (and for much more than Amplitube). The Tonex Max software, which is included with the pedal, is currently on sale for $250 (down from $400). You get the software when you buy the pedal, so you can use the plugin on your computer independent of the hardware (which is cool IMO).

Amplitube is traditional analog modeling, Tonex is more like Kemper's "profiling" since it runs test signals through the amp and analyzes the output in order to generate the model.

Modelers capture the sound of an amp through a particular speaker, recorded by a microphone in a particular position in a particular room. If you play live with a close-miked profile through a PA, the sound through the PA would be equivalent to the sound coming through the PA if you had mic'd the amp in the same manner on stage, but without the bleed/stage volume of the amp itself. A lot of FOH engineers are very happy when they don't have to deal with the directionality and volume of an amp on stage that only points toward part of the audience. I know that when I saw Dinosaur Jr, J's backwards-facing Twin at the front of the stage was drowning out pretty much everything else from where I was standing in the front row.

If you want that "amp in the room" sound, all you have to do is run the modeler into a clean power amp and a guitar cabinet with the cabinet block of the model turned off (or a DI amp profile in the case of Tonex/Kemper).

The more powerful hardware units have multiple outputs and can run separate, appropriate signals to FOH as well as to a power amp and cab. My AxeFX does that effortlessly.

The fundamental misunderstanding of mic'd vs live amp tones is probably the #1 cause of dissatisfaction with modelers. People run profiles with cabs into power amps and find them muddy, or compare a DI tone to an off-axis amp in the room and find it harsh (which it is).

[wooderson]

Modelers capture the sound of an amp through a particular speaker, recorded by a microphone in a particular position in a particular room.

Or through a DI and you add an IR as you would with a modeler - I find that to be a better option than baked in cabs as a rule.

[sessylU]

Ah, completely missed the bit about Tonex. I've used Amplitube for years, but the existence of Tonex had passed me by. In this instance I assumed that Tonex was just the branding that IK were sticking on an "Ampllitube in a box" pedal.

This looks great, then! If only it was stereo in...

[fuzzjunkie]

Ah, completely missed the bit about Tonex. I've used Amplitube for years, but the existence of Tonex had passed me by. In this instance I assumed that Tonex was just the branding that IK were sticking on an "Ampllitube in a box" pedal.

This looks great, then! If only it was stereo in...

Oh, sorry, I included the Amplitube reference because I thought most people here would recognize that brand but might not know IK Multimedia is behind both.

I would prefer stereo in too. Imagine a board that was a tuner, a dirt pedal, an Eventide H90, and a Tonex. That’s the entire rig! Without stereo in for the H90 it looses a lot of potential.

[Larry Mal]

I am moving to a new computer and am installing my IK Multimedia software and see that I have Tonex available to me, but I never bought it, or even heard of it until recently. I wonder what that will do for me.

[cestlamort]

Ah, completely missed the bit about Tonex. I've used Amplitube for years, but the existence of Tonex had passed me by. In this instance I assumed that Tonex was just the branding that IK were sticking on an "Ampllitube in a box" pedal.

This looks great, then! If only it was stereo in...

Oh, sorry, I included the Amplitube reference because I thought most people here would recognize that brand but might not know IK Multimedia is behind both.

I would prefer stereo in too. Imagine a board that was a tuner, a dirt pedal, an Eventide H90, and a Tonex. That’s the entire rig! Without stereo in for the H90 it looses a lot of potential.

Yeah, no stereo in option is puzzling these days. (And stereo is my favorite part of the Iridium).
You could drop the dedicated tuner in this set up and just use the one on the H90: Dirt > H90 > Tonex.

[Telliot]

This seems to be a pretty popular topic lately, so I'm combining it with the other threads that are similar.

[Embenny]

I am moving to a new computer and am installing my IK Multimedia software and see that I have Tonex available to me, but I never bought it, or even heard of it until recently. I wonder what that will do for me.

Is it the CS version? That's the free version, so they might be promoting it by listing it in your account/installer.

Try it for sure. I've not used TONEX yet, but I keep hearing that it's a contender at the high end of modern modeling in terms of playing feel. Worth a shot if the price of entry is just an installation.

I'm already invested in the AxeFX ecosystem, so I need to keep things simple to avoid option paralysis, but if I didn't have a hardware unit I was happy with, I'd be giving TONEX a fair shake.