Real amps vs modelling and plugin amps

[Naillerz78]

Played through Softube Vintage Amp Room. Love the simple GUI on that one and the Marshall has this sustaining roar to it on power chords the others can lack. Instant Slash /GnR tones with a LP style guitar very simple yet dynamic that sim. It’s starting to move up my tier list

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[Uncle E]

The 1176 is my all rounder, and if you don’t want a new interface you could use the native plugin, or if you’re feeling fancy, Warm Audio makes a clone I’ve seen used for $400.

The 1176 pedal often goes on sale for $99-119:

[YnJ]

Try using a computer interface pedal (such as the Orange OMEC) with your tube power amp and speaker

I got the Orange OMEC yesterday. That thing is awesome, I played around with it all night last night. I tried it in front of my poweramp with a few amp plugins where I can turn off the poweramp in the plugin, seems to sound better with the poweramp on though. I haven't tried Trash 2 yet, I know I have it as I use the IRs from it, never thought of using it as a preamp though. Not that I'm looking for particularly unique sounds though, if you mean a tad weird, when it comes to amps I tend to take whatever I have in front of me and think what can I do with this. The OMEC really shines as an effect pedal though, I tried a few Plugin Alliance, Eventide and UA plugins, reverbs, delays and such, and they work really well with the pedal. I had some lag issues with some effects, most worked fine though

[Naillerz78]

Some rough examples of the softtube VAR Marshall straight in with minimal tweaking at all.

The target tones


Just the power chord track to hear the wallop and sustain -nice and full
https://voca.ro/1bRylkyfLVYC

2 tracks with ‘drunk Izzy’
https://voca.ro/1c9WyDILhTb9

It cleans up quite nicely just using picking pressure too (listen to the end bits chord picking after the noodling)

[Naillerz78]

DP

[Naillerz78]

DP2

[Uncle E]

I have both solid state amps, and now with the Yamaha preamp a digital amp, which disagrees with you. Transistors can add even-order harmonics when asymmetrical, and while I don't know how a digital amp works, harsh is about the last thing that comes to mind when playing the Yamaha though

My DG Stomp sounds nothing like this:

[glokraw]

Some rough examples of the softtube VAR Marshall straight in with minimal tweaking at all.

Just the power chord track to hear the wallop and sustain -nice and full
https://voca.ro/1bRylkyfLVYC

2 tracks with ‘drunk Izzy’
https://voca.ro/1c9WyDILhTb9

It cleans up quite nicely just using picking pressure too (listen to the end bits chord picking after the noodling)

I really like those sounds, a lot of layers to each pluck, for lack of a proper description. Would be a good choice for a trio, with just one guitarist, among other scenarios. I could imagine that being fun with some of the Guitar Rig/NI effects, and IK's Mixbox.

[Naillerz78]

I really like those sounds, a lot of layers to each pluck, for lack of a proper description. Would be a good choice for a trio, with just one guitarist, among other scenarios. I could imagine that being fun with some of the Guitar Rig/NI effects, and IK's Mixbox.

That’s a good description the layers yes. it defs has the ‘weight’ and sustain of a Marshall to me. That big slam. It’s interesting it’s a JCM800 was the source amp they modelled…I was just watching a YT video of Justin Hawkins (The Darkness) analysing a GnR song and he guessed the tone was a JCM800. He’s got good ears !

I have a track with the Fender & Vox I’ll pop up also.

[YnJ]

My DG Stomp sounds nothing like this:

I don't know what he's running the preamp through, the lead sounds doesn't sound nearly as good as it does in my setup though. And I think he is missing the point about Yamaha not marking the different channels as models of other amps, they don't sound like other amps anyway and personally I just get disappointed with amp modellers failing to emulate specific amps. The preamp has it's own distinctive sound, it doesn't sound like any other amp and have even ended up being modelled itself for Kemper. The lead sounds, which is where I have spent most of my time with preamp so far, are really awesome. I probably wont use it for riffing or even clean sounds, the lead sounds alone are worth what I gave for it though, the same as about two new dirt pedals

[Uncle E]

Good to hear. They're selling for too much here. Sadly, my DG Stomp just sounds bad, the only reason I kept it for so long is because it's a decent little multi-FX when the preamp is bypassed.

[guitarzan]

I have both solid state amps, and now with the Yamaha preamp a digital amp, which disagrees with you. Transistors can add even-order harmonics when asymmetrical, and while I don't know how a digital amp works, harsh is about the last thing that comes to mind when playing the Yamaha though

My DG Stomp sounds nothing like this:

Hmmm… pretty sure the underlying tech is identical between the DG Stomp and the DG-1000. I think they are still better sounding than most physical amp modeling devices or software (but surpassed by profilers like ToneX, etc), and I’m pretty sure it’s still the tech behind the recent THR amps.

One thing about the DG stuff is the speaker sims are very rudimentary — in that DG-1000 video the guy is running it through his own IRs (link in description) — the DG stuff was really designed to be run through an actual cab at the time.

[Uncle E]

Makes sense. Maybe the huge price disparity is simply because of the motorized knobs in the rack version. I’ve run it with an amp and thought it sounded bad.

[guitarzan]

For running through an amp the DG Stomp should go into the fx loop return or something like that. When the DG Stomp was my main thing I had a solid state 2x12 combo amp that had a preamp section that could be disabled (Quantum, or Q-something amp) and it sounded great through that. The choice of speakers would need to be a good match for the tone dialed up on the DG too.

IRs would be the way to go since 2000 or so, especially now with all the available cheap hardware IR loaders, even the cheap mini pedal ones would be vastly superior to the cab a or b choice on the Stomp (those onboard cab sims seemed to just be very simple EQ settings). Even in the late ‘90s most people commented that the onboard speaker sims on the stomp needed to be helped with further cab emulation for direct recording, RedBox or whatever.

Edit: I remember that there was a simple mod that was almost mandatory on the early run DG Stomps. It was just a matter of rerouting some wires inside the unit to eliminate squealing and other excess noise on the higher gain settings. There was an easy to follow tutorial, but that site has probably been gone for 25 years now.

[stoopicus]

For running through an amp the DG Stomp should go into the fx loop return or something like that.

Yeah this is true of a lot of preamps and especially multieffects. Running a tone-coloring preamp into an amp with any character can sometimes work and sometimes not.