Real amps vs modelling and plugin amps

[Naillerz78]

I’ve been playing through my solid state amp more and more the last few weeks now… hardly touched the laptop or sims. It’s SO much nicer and stress free to play the amp. It’s an old Hughes &Kettner edition blue 30R. The O/D channel is very bad but the clean with reverb is fine and musical. It appears to have an fx loop so I’ll be busting out the old bag of pedals soon .. got a Joyo Tauren, plus a few more cheap ODs, fuzzes, some modulations and a Dunlop wah wah. I also have a Joyo British Sound and the Vox style emulator pedals. Will be interesting what they sound like through the FX loop,

Very happy to be off the laptop and back to just relaxing and playing guitar the proper way

turn on the amp, plug in the guitar and play. one only one ‘click’ involved!

A bit more time to forget them and hoping to delete all the sims off the laptop tbh.

[Uncle E]

Nah, I’m good with it as is. I really don’t use the high gain channel anyway. Plus it seems like that guy was optimizing it to use one of those awful ADA cab emulators direct to a PA, so that would take a major overhaul. I just thought it might be a concern for you or anyone else that might be considering purchasing a QTR-1.

Thanks! Yeah, no reason to change. The clips I heard of the lead channel sound exceptional.

Good to know about the Dumble channel. Are you planning any mods there?

Probably not, although I could imagine adding the Dumble Bright, Mid, and Deep switches.

Can the QTR-1 supply power for the LEDs or would that be more of a DIY thing on the pedal to add external power? I think something like the Roland GP-8 has the ability to handle channel switching with MIDI control, but a simple foot switch that has the two LEDs would be nice to have.

It seems like it would be pretty easy to wire these up to 9 batteries:

[guitarzan]

Yep, that’s the type of pedal right there. It could be modified to be powered by battery or external power for the LED’s just like a lot of the ABY pedals, but I can’t find the site with the specific instructions anymore.

Depending on how it’s wired, no LED lit would be Clean, the left LED only would be Crunch, right LED only would be Lead, and both LEDs would be Hot.

It’s just another thing you should be aware of — I said the QTR-1 didn’t require a special pedal like the Kitty Hawk, but really a regular Marshall style channel/reverb switch with no LEDs or non-functioning LED indicator lights would be impractical, though it works. I forgot about the LED thing altogether.

I never got used to channel switching amps anyway, so I’m much more likely to pick my favorite and set up everything else like it’s a one channel amp, though I would give the onboard MIDI amp switching a try if I get something that does that (pretty sure the GP-8 does that, probably all of those Boss rackmount multiple-fx? I’m not sure if they can do tip/ring TRS switching though—probably not).

EDIT: while trying to find the old site about switching the QTR-1 I keep running into info about Dumble amps, so I suspect the original foot switch was supposed to power the LED’s with power from the relay (like a Dumble). Here’s an example:

https://ampgarage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22673

Maybe one of those Marshall footswitches with the LED’s would just work, the one I had on hand didn’t have LED’s, or maybe just tweak the resistor values.

https://ampgarage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=384540

[Uncle E]

[YnJ]

I don’t know about $600 - $800, where are you? Maybe you’d be better off with a Kitty Hawk Quattro if those are more available to you locally (I think they were built in Germany)

I'm in Norway. They are way more expensive in Germany, and shipping is almost much as from the US. I might just as well get a brand new Engl if I want a tube preamp I guess, they are about $600 over here

[YnJ]

I’ve been playing through my solid state amp more and more the last few weeks now… hardly touched the laptop or sims. It’s SO much nicer and stress free to play the amp. It’s an old Hughes &Kettner edition blue 30R. The O/D channel is very bad but the clean with reverb is fine and musical. It appears to have an fx loop so I’ll be busting out the old bag of pedals soon .. got a Joyo Tauren, plus a few more cheap ODs, fuzzes, some modulations and a Dunlop wah wah. I also have a Joyo British Sound and the Vox style emulator pedals. Will be interesting what they sound like through the FX loop,

Very happy to be off the laptop and back to just relaxing and playing guitar the proper way

turn on the amp, plug in the guitar and play. one only one ‘click’ involved!

A bit more time to forget them and hoping to delete all the sims off the laptop tbh.

I had exactly the same experience when going back to real amps. Tube amps, solid state amps, doesn't matter just as long as it is not modelling amps, playing them just feels better and I have been playing a lot more since I started using real amps than I did when using plugins. I may have less options, it's so much more fun though

If you're looking for cheap overdrive, fuzz and distortion pedals, you should check out TC Electronic. They have some really nice, very affordable pedals

[guitarzan]

I don’t know about $600 - $800, where are you? Maybe you’d be better off with a Kitty Hawk Quattro if those are more available to you locally (I think they were built in Germany)

I'm in Norway. They are way more expensive in Germany, and shipping is almost much as from the US. I might just as well get a brand new Engl if I want a tube preamp I guess, they are about $600 over here

Yeah, I bought this QTR-1 in the late ‘90s when everyone was first jumping on the digital modeling bandwagon — $75 with free shipping on eBay!

I couldn’t be happier at that price, but I’d have to compare it against a lot of stuff in person before I would pay $600-$800 to replace it if I had to.

[YnJ]

GX-700 + Soho QTR-1 may be in my future (but no Valverb, thank you very much)

I might have overselled it to you, contrary to what I thought at first the pedals are not circutry directly from the pedals, they are actually analogue models of the pedals and the tone and level controls are digital. Not all of the models might be based on real pedals, as I thought at first as well. Only the OD-2, DS-1 and DS-2 are presented as models of real pedals. The Vintage OD does sound quite like the OD-1 as far as I can tell, it's not presented as such though

On the other hand, the OD-2, DS-1 and DS-2 seems to be pretty much on spot. As I see it, if the rest aren't based on any particular pedal, at least you get something just as good qualitywise. I got the GX-700 for half of what an original OD-1 is listed for, less than a new OD-1X and about the same as a new OD-3. I'd say the Vintage OD model was worth the price alone, it sounds great and I use it a lot

[Naillerz78]

I’ve been playing through my solid state amp more and more the last few weeks now… hardly touched the laptop or sims. It’s SO much nicer and stress free to play the amp. It’s an old Hughes &Kettner edition blue 30R. The O/D channel is very bad but the clean with reverb is fine and musical. It appears to have an fx loop so I’ll be busting out the old bag of pedals soon .. got a Joyo Tauren, plus a few more cheap ODs, fuzzes, some modulations and a Dunlop wah wah. I also have a Joyo British Sound and the Vox style emulator pedals. Will be interesting what they sound like through the FX loop,

Very happy to be off the laptop and back to just relaxing and playing guitar the proper way

turn on the amp, plug in the guitar and play. one only one ‘click’ involved!

A bit more time to forget them and hoping to delete all the sims off the laptop tbh.

I had exactly the same experience when going back to real amps. Tube amps, solid state amps, doesn't matter just as long as it is not modelling amps, playing them just feels better and I have been playing a lot more since I started using real amps than I did when using plugins. I may have less options, it's so much more fun though

If you're looking for cheap overdrive, fuzz and distortion pedals, you should check out TC Electronic. They have some really nice, very affordable pedals

110% I’m playing way more and more relaxed also since the switch.
Those sims were giving me anxiety lol.

I had a TC SkySurfer reverb at one point. Will check out a few more cheers.

[guitarzan]

FWIW, from the schematics I found, the Soho is more accurate to a Dumble than the Kitty Hawk is.

Can you tell which Dumble model the QTR-1 Clean/Crunch preamp circuit most resembles? What would the power amp be like in a Dumble with a similar preamp?

I’m not planning to buy another power amp (probably stick to using the H&K Bass Master in the role of power amp), but I am now on the wait list for an AXiom PAE-2 analog power amp emulator and it would be nice to dial up as close to the Dumble experience as I will probably ever get.

[Uncle E]

From what I can tell (the schematic is difficult to read), it’s most similar to a second generation ODS, with a wider range on the mid pot to simulate the mid boost switch. Try it with some Bassman power amps.

[glokraw]

Very happy to be off the laptop and back to just relaxing and playing guitar the proper way

It's very satisfying to play with enough skill to enjoy our personal 'performance', and the unique discoveries we succeed with, or desire to work at. We get to create our own language of melody, timbre, rhythm, and tone.

[zerocrossing]

Very happy to be off the laptop and back to just relaxing and playing guitar the proper way

It's very satisfying to play with enough skill to enjoy our personal 'performance', and the unique discoveries we succeed with, or desire to work at. We get to create our own language of melody, timbre, rhythm, and tone.

The weird thing about being preached to that there is some "proper way" to play the guitar, is that regardless to whatever amp or amp modeling technology I'm using, there is absolutely no effect on how I am interacting with the guitar itself. I wonder if Naillerz78 believes that when they close their eyes, we all stop existing. Blow-hardiness at it's highest level.

[Uncle E]

I bowed out of that part of the discussion when I realized that people who fingerpick or two hand tap might not be experiencing the same things that pick players experience.

[stoopicus]

At my noob level of guitar expression amp sims do just fine

For bass (where I am much more experienced) for a long time I was a preamp junkie though, landing on a stellar tube preamp eventually. I am fully ITB now but I get it.

I am about 90% a pick player on bass and 100% on guitar fwiw.