Hey guitarzan,guitarzan wrote:I didn't like the Ampulator at all...it had so much hype about it all over the net that I hung onto it quite a while but it never did anything for me...seemed super mushy most of the time with either a Mesa Boogie Studio pre or a SOHO QTR-1 (basically an improved version of the Kittyhawk Quattro) feeding it. I read somewhere that the Ampulator works best with more strident preamps, like the ADA MP1. Luckily, the hype continued and I nearly doubled my money when I sold it on eBay.susiwong wrote: Could you please post your experience with the Ampulator and the Blues Master ?
Would it be worth hunting one of them down ?
The BluesMaster was my favorite of the H&K line of half-rack rcording amps most of the time I owned all four but at the end I chose to only keep the BATT, which was intended for bass, but it is the only one of the bunch that really did have an all tube tone path. It sounded a lot like the BluesMaster (same tubes, 12ax7 and an el84) but less hyped, more versaitle with pedals and preamps, etc. used the same tubes in both, a military spec Phillips 12ax7 and a vintage Mullard el84. The BATT doesn't have the cabulator or whatever they call the H&K cab emulator, but I never cared for it anyway. With the Mullard installed they both do a chimey "clean" best, and they really don't do the gooey compressed poweramp thing much, but I remember reading of people who found that they could get a lot of poweramp grind with some brand of el84's.If you read through the Nebula Free programs! thread at the guitarampmodeling.com forums you will find links to some Nebula speaker cab files that work with Nebula 3 Free. I think they show up in Nebula as "AE" or something odd like that. I thought they a better feel and more open tone than static IRs, but I think if Nebula can sample compression characteristics (I know it's been planned as a feature for some time) then that technique should be applied to cab sampling to get the feel part totally.monkeymank wrote:I've read about people going nuts over the nebula cab sim, if only it was more available and easier to use. Plus from what I've read nebula is a latency hound so it would be more for mixing, I like the feeling as do many guitar players.
thanks so much, that helps big time.
Your descriptions make perfect sense to me, we seem to share a few quality criteria.
So I finally got the Ampulator off the list.
Looks like I'll have to check Nebula again, reluctantly, as all about it felt so awkward last time. But whatever gets the job done ...
But, more than slightly offtopic
, as some of you guys seem to use hardware too:I've finally found the stomp delay of my dreams, the new TC Nova Repeater (not the older Nova Delay).
It covers all of the standard delay ground gracefully (well, maybe not the ducking), feels really stage proof and the price is right, power adapter included, too.
What makes it special though is the fact that it accepts line level, making it the only stomp delay I know that works in a tube amp FX loop, i.e. post preamp distortion.
And it can do a few neat little tricks, audio tapping and bypass spillover for example.
Check out some vids:
Offtopic off.
Ymmv,
susiwong
) and I still prefer my dirty, fizzy no-name Chinese 1100ms analog delay over everything, including my vintage Ibanez (though that's not hard, the Ibanez is severely overrated).
