Modeling rigs versus traditional SS or tube amps?? Oh no!!!

[jgcable]

I love the convenience and ease-of-recording associated with modelers. I've been GASing for an Axe-Fx/Bose array rig, but...

...I hate programming the damn things. My Stiletto and MkIII with a simple pedalboard are really easy to be musical with.

I had a modded Stiletto. That amp ROCKED. I also owned a few MKIII's and they rocked too.
You pretty much have it covered with those 2 amps!

[Hamner1]

#1. Do you spend more time tweaking your modeling rig (Axe FX for example) than actually practicing?

I used to, now if I feel the need to tweek or set something up I just go for 1 patch/sound to "mutilate" otherwise I could spend hours messing with controls. This is similar to multieffects units compared to stomp boxes. The MF give you so much more control & that can be dangerous if you do not really know what you are doing, whereas stomp boxes are pretty strait forward.

#2. How many useable presets do you have saved into your modeling rig after the countless hours of tweaking compared to a traditional SS or tube amp that may have 2 or 3 channels?

I have about 8 that I really like, the others are mutations or a preset that may seem "interesting" to me on a particular day. The tones I try to nail are; George Lynch Rythm & Lead tone. a Van Halen or RR type Rythm & Lead tone, A couple of clean tones, & a Thrashmetal/Megadeth type rythm tone. I do the same thing with my rack. The preamp is pretty simple to dial in, then use the MF to get me the tones I hear on the albums.
The MF is the pain in the ass. It has just way to much user editing capability. Do I really need to be able to adjust the bandwith & Frequency of the bass, mids, & treble. It's cool as hell, but time consuming & frustrating unless you know these values from the amp you are trying to mimick.

Long answer short I spend very little time tweaking amps, Modellers & MF units I spend more time messing with.

[VitaminG]

since I got my JamVox, I'm thinking of ditching all the rest of my gear. I could spend all day dragging those pretty pictures around the computer screen to see if it sounds better if I put a tremolo & harmonizer in front of or behind an octave pedal into an octave fuzz into a boutique high gain amp with heavy reverb. Or do I want the reverb out front?

#1 I have had times where I spent more than necessary tweaking the modelling gear than playing it. But these days I'll get a sound that's 'close enough' and just have fun with it. None of my modelling stuff is high end or authentic-sounding enough that I would ever consider using it on stage over my tube amps, but it's great for jamming over backing tracks or even just making mindless noodling sound cool.

#2 When I have used my Korg AX1500G as an emergency backup, it's as a fairly basic clean, crunch, lead setup. With the JamVox, I have set up nothing. Not even saved a patch. The presets are usually good enough for my needs. There are a couple I know will immediately be where I want them by dragging the reverb (or delay or treble booster, etc) out of the chain, and away we go!

[rjohnstone]

I have a GT-8 running through two Carvin SX-300 combos.
#1 I initially spent many hours perfecting patches, but I have a complete set that does what I need now. So now I just plug in, set the patch I want and go.
#2 I have 12 patches I use a lot. 4 of them are my "bread and butter" patches.

[nateb]

I currently have about 5 presets that I use for practice. I still tweek them them here and there. But, I did the same thing with tube amps that I owned.

Would you prefer the digitially processed sounds from a modeller over a organic analog sound from a tube amp?

If I was a gigging musician at this point in time, I would take my Axe-FX for the following reasons ::

[roodyrocker]

I have both, tube amps and an Axe-Fx. One doesn't make me want to get rid of the other. The tube amps are relatively straight forward to dial in but to make the tweaking time a fair comparison I think you'd have to throw in an effects unit. Now things get a bit more complicated because you not only have to program the effects unit but also have to make sure it doesn't alter your tone. Something that is much harder to do than it would first appear. This holds true even for "simple" pedals. A prime example is my Bogner Uberschall. I tried a TC Electronic G-Major through the loop, pedals in front of the amp, pedals in the loop with and without an Ebtech Line Level Shifter. Didn't matter which way I did it, affected my distortion tone negatively. Now I just run pedals through the front as its the least of all evils with this particular amp. So how much time did I spend on this? I hate to think about it! OTOH, with something like an Axe-Fx everything is built in. I get good sounds dry or drenched in effects. Other amps like my Randall RM100 are much more forgiving than my Uber with effects. On the Randall I run some effects through the front and others in the loop. It still took some time to figure out what goes where. On my Marshall there is no loop so everything has to go through the front. Get the picture, it changes with each amp setup even though they're all tube amps.
Another factor is volume. My Mesa Dual Recto sounds good at loud volumes. Not practical for some people at that volume. My Axe Fx can sound like that Dual Recto but at extremely low volume. Tweaking multiple amp setups is even more work. If you've tried it, it sounds incredible! Just not too practical for gigging local small clubs though. For example, I've tried my Randall RM100 on clean using the Blackface module and simultaneously running an SWR California Blonde Acoustic amp with my EBMM Petrucci guitar with Piezo pickup. Clean electric sound with clean acoustic sound at the same time. Sounds unbelievable! I guess what I'm saying is that you end up tweaking either setup unless you're a guitar straight into amp type guy in which case it gets simple.
The thing I've wasted more time on than tweaking is hunting all this stuff down on the internet and E-Bay! That takes time! And I still wouldn't mind trying out more amps
Presets on my Axe-Fx are about 4 different distortion and 2 different clean sounds plus although realistically I use a total of about 3 presets most of the time. I need to get in there and cook up some more patches one of these days. What I do lack is the ability that some Axe-Fx users have to get great EVH tones or Rhoads tones, or Alex Lifeson tones, etc... I wouldn't know where to start with that but some clips people have done with the Axe-Fx sound unbelievably authentic. My only other experience with modelers was years ago I had a Line 6 Pod Pro. It sounded o.k. at home but I wasn't very pleased with it live. It got sold off on E-Bay eventually.

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

I'm the opposite. I have a little modeling thing, a Korg. I use two or three presets on it, exactly as they came, with the tone knobs however I have them (don't remember) and have once fiddled around with adjusting one of the presets (but canceled it and used the factory preset, it's good enough.)

When I use my amp (Mark V) I tweak and play a lot. Also, when I record, I'm listening to the Slave Out into a software cabinet simulator and then through headphones, so the amp will end up adjusted to sound good through that, and when I take the headphones off, it's not so great, so if I'm just goofing around listening to the amp off the internal speaker I will have to completely re-adjust everything.

Actually that right there is kind of why I want an AxeFX, so I have a PRESET I can dial up and I know that it's going to match what I've already done.

[Dreamland_Rebel]

I spend more time tweaking modeling rigs than tube rigs. It's just so much easier for me to get a sound I like out of a tube rig. And I don't mean a "this will do" sound. There is just something that is always missing in all the modeling rigs I have tried. So I always spend so much time trying get rid of the annoying aspects and trying to find the "specialness" that always seems to be missing. They sound fine, but they just don't feel as good to play. When I dig into a chord on a tube amp... man, it just feels right! I've never gotten that feeling from a modeler.

[Jack Napalm]

Well, I just picked up an AxeFx last week and it is the first modeling device that I didn't have to spend a lot of time with to get usable tones out of. I replicated my RM100 setup quickly and easily, in some cases better tones came out of the Axe than the RM100. I just had a total meltdown of my RM100 in-between soundcheck and showtime. Damn thing went dead. Ended up using a spare Twin Reverb Saturday night by reconfiguring my M13 to give me one dirty tone and a delay. I had about 5 minutes to dial something in.

I am working on configuring the AxeFx to use Direct and with an FRFR setup, QSC K12's. So far its been very easy to recreate everything what I had setup with an RM100m13 combo. I even have more at my disposal that sounds better already. The RM100 won't go away but I'll be using this setup for the next few gigs at least. The AxeFx is incredibly easy to use and dial in what you want.

[Hellbat]

The voices in my head keep telling me to press the buy button...

[emperor_black]

I hate the weather in San jose now. Its already getting cold! Just yesterday, I was showing the wifey the PG&E bill and was saying...oh!

... answer the damn questions!...

right...
1) I spend more time playing than tweaking. Honestly! I have owned a POD , POD 2.0/XT and still have the pocket POD. I had the Boss GT-8 for over a year and a half. With the AXE, everything (to my ears) sounds great! That is, once you have a good patch. I selected 'Copy Left to Right' and went Mono. To my ears Mono sounds more realistic than stereo. I got my FBT 12ma and now when I hold a power chord, the windows rattle and the floor shakes just like a 4x12 closed back does.

2) I have 1 Clean, 2 Rhythm and 1 Lead preset. To be honest, I'm still not happy with my Lead preset (after 5 months of owning the AXE) but that's fine. I'm now concentrating on writing songs, improving speed and precision than hours of tweaking and all that.
I agree, the Uberschall and Mark IV sounds more 3D, much more realistic and all that, but with the AXE, I dont have to worry about the weight when carrying it up and down the stairs, what with the Uber's badly distributed weight and not to mention throwing my back out if i tried to carry a 4x12 up the stairs. And like I mentioned above, the FBT does everything the 4x12 does and offers much better. And the reason I went FRFR, whatever tube amps you might get, you can never escape the cabs' flavor. With FRFR I literally have 100's of cabs at my disposal. You're right, I only use the Redwirez UberKab and ENGL, but like Einstein once said 'I now know which cabs I don't like'.

[Robert Burns]

Sure the first 3 months i tweaked my ass of with the Ultra (axefx)...but now it "Inspires" me to play, so i end up playing more, because my tone is so
insanely great at bedroom volume! I finally have Nuno, and George coming out of my speakers! (tone...not their fretboard skills)..Over the top gain, but smooth and controlable.
Like Satch's Ice 9!

[Shawn Lutz]

only modeller I have is a Johnson J-Station.

I tweaked it until I found ''my tone" so it wasn't very long at all, about the same as my tube amps.

I prefer the tone of my real amps but the axe-fx clips I've heard are outstanding. I want to play through one to check player response and volume knob dynamics.

I can see where tweaking could be a nightmare...you have a billion amps, billion effects and cabs/speakers. I'd have no intention in running through every feature on that device but I bet I could get a good tone in a matter of minutes and save it ans just use a handful of presets...basically like changing channels on a muti channel amp