5 Reasons to switch to Modeling Amps - Yes or No?

[Jimbob]

5 hours ago, tsp17 said:

I wouldn’t dare lift 60lbs.  Good for you for still being able to do it!  Up until recently i was going with head/cab just to split up the weight.  Around 40 lbs each.  I’m very happy to have found a single combo package under 35lbs.   Plenty loud for the venues i play at 35 watts.  

Well, to be honest, I use a small hand truck to get my amp from the car to the stage and back - same within my house to the car - so the only lifting I really need to do is to heave it in and out of my car and perhaps occasionally on an amp stand or on to the stage itself. Thankfully, the lifting is so minimal that it doesn't bother me much. If I know that I'll need to haul an amp up and down a full flight of stairs, though, I'll definitely choose a lighter amp. My primary amp is a Two-Rock TS1 combo, and even though it's a 100-watt beast of sorts, between the loop and the master volume control, I can dial it in for the kind of tone I like at any stage volume without having any issues. I'd be the first to say that I'd go for a modeling amp or a much lighter tube amp if I could produce the same kind of vibe that the TS1 puts out, but since I have yet to find anything that'll do that, I just tolerate the weight.  Funny, but since the TS1 1x12 combo is still relatively small in size, the other guys in the band think I'm just using a small amp. Little do they know that I could run that same amp at the Madison Square Garden and get away with it.......LOL.  

Edited February 27 by Jimbob

[bolero]

Here's 5 reasons in a Haiku

No

No

No

No

No

[rwinking]

I have never used the capture feature on my Quad Cortex until the other day. If you are not familiar with this feature, in a nutshell, you plug the QC (Or Fractal, Kemper, etc) into your amp and it digitally captures the amp and stores it for you. You can then call it up and voila, you can use that amp sound anywhere, anytime. My friend has a Brown Super and a Tweed Deluxe. HIs assistant captured both amps for me and sent it to the QC Cloud and then I was able to download it. It was mind blowing. Matt took several captures for me and I finally get what this is about. Modeling digitally models an amp.....all controls, eq, bright switch volume, gain, etc. Captures capture only one moment. So I have a capture of the Tweed Deluxe at volume 5 and the tone control on 5. Or another capture of the amp with everything dimed. When I call it up, that is what I get. I can turn the volume up and down, but I cannot change the eq, even though the screen has some eq controls. They work like a studio where you record  a guitar through an amp and then you can add treble, bass, etc in the mix but you are not changing the eq of the actual amp.

So if I want a nicely overdriven Super sound for a rhythym part, I call that up. If I want a nasty distorted tweed deluxe sound for the solo, I call that up. This thing can also captrueOD/Distortion pedals, mic preamps and a host of other cool things. Again, I am a tube guy, but damn! This thing is pretty amazing.

Here is the Anderton boys doing the A/B thing with the QC capture feature. They also demo how to do the captures, which takes only a couple of minutes.

 

[bolero]

On 2/26/2025 at 6:26 PM, big bob said:

Warm beer and cold women!

Haha was just listening to "nighthawks at the diner", great reference!

[Steiner]

Wasn’t it @rjsanders who exclaimed “boutique amps for boutique guitars”?
If there are no tubes, I have no time.  There is so much more buried in a tube amp’s sound.

[bolero]

David Gilmour still uses a POS Zoom thing from the 80s to record stuff.

 

[TalismanRich]

13 minutes ago, bolero said:

David Gilmour still uses a POS Zoom thing from the 80s to record stuff.

 

Aw, he's a rank amateur!  Someday maybe he'll be able to afford a REAL guitar and amp. 😁

[bolero]

😂

[big bob]

On 3/10/2025 at 7:34 PM, Steiner said:

Wasn’t it @rjsanders who exclaimed “boutique amps for boutique guitars”?
If there are no tubes, I have no time.  There is so much more buried in a tube amp’s sound.

The Matamp Green would be an exception for me. 

[DetroitBlues]

Glad to see this thread going strong.  Even at a small gig, I really enjoy a tube amp.  Think it sounds just a hair better has a 2x12 instead of a 1x12 cab. Still amazing to hear playing live!

Edited March 22 by DetroitBlues

[bolero]

that is a well hung microphone

[Steiner]

😂

[DetroitBlues]

On 3/21/2025 at 11:09 PM, bolero said:

that is a well hung microphone

I'd wave the banner, but the band asked me to stop.  People thought it was the name of the band...

[ElChoad]

If I had a dollar for every time I saw a tube amp description that said "you can dial in the sound of a Line 6 with this amp"...

[Kuz]

This....  Tone King Ironman II 100-watt Reactive Power Attenuator .... and your volume/tone problems are solved.   PERIOD

[yoslate]

On 2/24/2025 at 11:12 PM, TalismanRich said:

Yeah, but they don't make your beer get hot during the set!   What's worse,  Cold pizza or warm beer?

Yes....

[bolero]

Cold pizza

has got me

on the run

[bolero]

11 hours ago, DetroitBlues said:

I'd wave the banner, but the band asked me to stop.  People thought it was the name of the band...

that's too bad, it was funny!

edit: I think you guys should change your band name. It would be hilarious, especially with a female singer. I bet you'd get more gigs!

Edited April 15 by bolero

[DetroitBlues]

16 hours ago, Kuz said:

This....  Tone King Ironman II 100-watt Reactive Power Attenuator .... and your volume/tone problems are solved.   PERIOD

Is it so much of a volume issue as it is weight?  Those modelers/solid state abominations are significantly lighter.

For some reason the Fender Mustang craze just came to mind.  How many people here and other places raved on the 100w Mustang III combo and the Mustang IV head/cabinet?  I know they were lightweight... but was the tone really there?

[Kuz]

18 hours ago, DetroitBlues said:

Is it so much of a volume issue as it is weight?  Those modelers/solid state abominations are significantly lighter.

Weight is not an issue for me.  All my tube combo amps are around 35lbs (the all tube Headstrong 'Lil King is even much lighter than that).  My pedalboard weighs about the same.  I am 58 years old and the day I can't haul 35lbs in and out of the car is the day I will stop playing.  I don't need 100 watts or a 4x12 cab, they are super cool but unpractical anymore.  Mic the cab and use some monitors.  If you do this you can lower the stage volume (use the above mentioned attenuate to lower the stage & overall volume even more).   

So get in shape, butter cup, LOL 😛 and haul a medium size combo amp, a pedalboard, and one the great new attenuators..... no need to sacrifice tube tone for volume or weight issues.

Just my opinion, others may vary.  

[rockabilly69]

12 hours ago, Kuz said:

Weight is not an issue for me.  All my tube combo amps are around 35lbs (the all tube Headstrong 'Lil King is even much lighter than that).  My pedalboard weighs about the same.  I am 58 years old and the day I can't haul 35lbs in and out of the car is the day I will stop playing.  I don't need 100 watts or a 4x12 cab, they are super cool but unpractical anymore.  Mic the cab and use some monitors.  If you do this you can lower the stage volume (use the above mentioned attenuate to lower the stage & overall volume even more).   

So get in shape, butter cup, LOL 😛 and haul a medium size combo amp, a pedalboard, and one the great new attenuators..... no need to sacrifice tube tone for volume or weight issues.

Just my opinion, others may vary.  

After playing our first few gigs with 50 watters (Marshall Plexi and Mesa Fillmore 50) Ryan, the other guitarist,  and I went down to 22 watters (Deluxe Reverb and TopHat Club Deluxe). Our stage sound is much better. It feels like it does in our rehersal room. It also made it easier for me to get a good acoustic sound on the few songs I'm playing acoustic or resonator. And people in the audience LOVED the sound. And bonus, the vocals came through even louder with less work for the soundman. Tube amps forever, screw modelers! 

[DetroitBlues]

On 4/16/2025 at 6:43 AM, Kuz said:

Weight is not an issue for me.  All my tube combo amps are around 35lbs (the all tube Headstrong 'Lil King is even much lighter than that).  My pedalboard weighs about the same.  I am 58 years old and the day I can't haul 35lbs in and out of the car is the day I will stop playing.  I don't need 100 watts or a 4x12 cab, they are super cool but unpractical anymore.  Mic the cab and use some monitors.  If you do this you can lower the stage volume (use the above mentioned attenuate to lower the stage & overall volume even more).   

So get in shape, butter cup, LOL 😛 and haul a medium size combo amp, a pedalboard, and one the great new attenuators..... no need to sacrifice tube tone for volume or weight issues.

Just my opinion, others may vary.  

Lol, well said Kuz.  I'm lugging around tube amps to this day.  I do have a solid state, pedal amp only as a backup.  

That Metropoulos amp I'm using has power settings from 10/25/50 watts, but unlike most amps that offer such features, the tone doesn't change.  A lot of work went into it from what I understand, but make no mistake, it's a boutique amp and isn't cheap.  

[PunkKitty]

I didn't switch to a modelling amp. I like my amps with very clean settings. I did switch to a Boss GX-10 multi effect unit that has 32 amplifier types and 170 BOSS effects. Short of some guitar synth sounds, I can pretty much get everything I need out of this and a Tele. I bought it because much of the music I'm playing now requires layers of delay, reverb, distortion, etc. And I got tired of tap dancing on my analog pedal board. With this, I line up the presets that I program in the order of the set and hit the up or down button as needed. The presets use different amps as needed. It's just much easier to deal with.