Kickstarter: Klonz Labs "Full Tube Analog Modelling" Amplifi

[Ferrao10]

Another KS that needs mouth to mouth imo:
Italian made modelling amp with pure analogue signalpath
Tube- based analogue modelling amplification with a pure analogue signalpath... what else do you want?

I am not related or befriended to the Kickstarter- founders.

[plained]

i wonder why they seem to be against digital modeling amps so much?

many many happy people with thier tradidtional digital modeling amps like the fender mustang for ex.

if they think they are being tube snobish or elitist about it , man they are failing imo.

i actually have what i would call an old school modeling amp, a 1966 gibson ga30rvt.

it can emulate alot of the old time tones like blackface fender, magnatone , and lots of old time crunch and overdrive tones

[mrd]

Just get an AxeFX II. It fucking owns the shit out of everything else by miles. It's like 500 amps in one and it's only $2,500, plus it has probably 30 or 40 built in effects. The whole thing is programmable too.

[plained]

do you have one mrd?

those things can take a fair amount of time to dail in so i hear?

im a plug and go kind of player so i dont really need 1000's of sounds just one that i'm happy with.

[mrd]

Don't have one but a few of my buddies have one. One guy I know has a fleet of boutique tube amps (several Mesa, Bogner, and BadCat) and he said the AxeFX II is about 99% as good as a real tube amp. Plus you can program it to anything you want, MIDI triggered, tons of effects, and record direct out with cabinet simulators. It's more geared toward recording/touring musicians because it only takes up 2 rack spots and you can always have your exact tone with you on the road, vs. depending on whatever back-line the venue has. I don't have one but I will likely buy one sometime soon, purely for ease of recording. I have a bunch of Mesa amps and an Orange. Already too many options! I probably have over $1,000 in glass just for all the fuckin' tubes here

[mrd]

Although I can definitely sympathize with the plug-n-play mentality I never use any FX pedals. Just guitar amp, always has been. I have 9 or 10 guitars and my few amps but I like it more for having guitars with different tunings available at my finger tips, and each amp has a different voice so depending on what I want that day, I have options.

[Eraser]

AxeFX is sick shit, but it's a damn lot of money.

mrd, you never care to dabble with a little bit of delay, wah or other effects? I've got a pedal board with a few pedals on there and I love playing around with them.

[mrd]

$2,500 is really nothing for what the AxeFX can do. You're essentially getting a fleet of all tube amps, top notch effects, full programmability... it is unbeatable. Anytime I've ever seen anyone talking about it they've been over the moon about it. I have a Mesa RKII head which was something like $3,500 new, and that's just one amp, and that was 10 years ago. Granted it can probably knock your house over with sound waves I don't mind effects. I used to have a wah pedal and loaned it to a friend, it disappeared. Never bought another one. Very rarely I will play with chorus, and I do like playing with delay as well. Just never really bother to do it that often. *shrug* I have nothing against them though.

[plained]

for the sounds i like nothing ive heard comes close to the classics

magnatones
fender twin
60's 50w marshal
and for modern sounds mesa of course

i bet the ax sound ok plugged into one of those tho !

[Ferrao10]

Never heard about the Axe FX before. From having watched one YT video it definitely looks like a beast, very much being capable of doing everything at once. Which sounds very good at first.
Can you program that thing via a touchscreen/app/RS-232+GUI or only manually through its' knobs? Cause the latter would render it pretty slow to handle.

I'm not really a fan of these All-In-One-Packages, especially if they are slow to handle. Because that will hinder your creativity. I rather prefer bying, time after time, new blocks to add to my signal chain and getting comfortable with them. That takes time, you'll know what I mean. The Axe could be an overkill I would think.

Anyhow, the Klonz-Kickstarter will probalby not make it anyway, so that saves me money for my next guitar .

Edit: mrd, why would you prefer a 2500€ thing that has one of its' two DSPs reserved for effects, compared to a 750€ analog amp-only-unit. If you don't use effects? Please explain this, it doesn't really make sense to me. I don't want to cater for or against the Axe/Klonz with this question, it's just hard to understand.

Edit2: @Plained: The Mustang, like the Jazzmaster or the Jaguar, can be liked in much more ways than just in combination with an amp/cabinet. Not sure what you wanted to express with your post? They are guitars with a distinctive sound, that some musicians may like, regardless of the amp/speaker. I own a Mustang and like to play it through a Marshall but also through the AC15. Same with the Strat. Jaguar sounds better with AC15. Just for me, it all depends on personell preference.

[plained]

yea i'm not into button and menu type setups at all.

and yea no i was referring to the cheap fender modeling mustang amps Ferrao

http://intl.fender.com/en-CA/series/mustang/

i'm a clean tone mild overdrive type guy so i just use anything that works.

and yea i am a huge fan of the vox ac amp of course .

[mrd]

Edit: mrd, why would you prefer a 2500€ thing that has one of its' two DSPs reserved for effects, compared to a 750€ analog amp-only-unit. If you don't use effects? Please explain this, it doesn't really make sense to me. I don't want to cater for or against the Axe/Klonz with this question, it's just hard to understand.

I don't use FX because I don't care for a bunch of shit on the floor that I have to step on. I'm not against FX in principle - I like the sounds you can get, and often when I record I will play with them using a software FX patch in the DAW. But speaking of physical gear, I am a bare-bones guy. I want my guitar, my sound box (amp, pre-amp, whatever), and my speaker cab, that's it. The AxeFX appears to have just one large foot pedal that controls everything in the amp. Also, having all of your sounds inside a single pre-amp is much more desirable than having a bunch of amps, then a bunch of out-board gear to run your FX. Plus the more gear you get, the more wiring you have to run, and the more opportunities there are for things to fail and fuck you over.

I don't own an AxeFX so I can't speak to its programming abilities but I have to imagine it is fairly easy, considering how popular they are and how many top-tier touring and recording musicians use them now. As far as I can see, you just load a patch (patch meaning pair of amp/cab simulation), then there are digital pots that control every aspect of the amp patch. If you get a sound you like, then store it in the sound bank, then recall it at any time. Then you can have probably 15-20 customized patches at your beckon call from the foot pedal (or perhaps more), using myriad different amp/cab sims, running through any FX you want. This means you can go from Fender cleans, to Soldano leads, to Mesa crunch rhythm tones, to Bogner, or whatever.

I fully sympathize with those who don't want them because they just want their Fender and their Strat until they die or whatever, but to say that AxeFX squelches creativity is ridiculous.

[plained]

hey hey i dont play guitars i play telecasters!

and any tele is good if the neck is right and the body is under 3 lbs and the electronics are right HEH

[Eraser]

hey hey i dont play guitars i play telecasters!

lol?

[plained]

a good one makes a sound diff than any other guitar type!

[Eraser]

Yeah but everyone claims that about their guitar

[plained]

ah yea but no

tele has a very very distinct sound , countryish ey

[mrd]

Any good guitar makes a sound different from any other guitar, that's generally the point of buying a high quality instrument, no? I've never been a huge fan of Fender stuff. I have a MIM Strat that I don't mind but I generally play my Gibsons.

[Ferrao10]

And I don't like Gibsons and play my Fenders .
It's very true, the most distinct sound comes from the instrument first, then the rest of the chain kicks in.

[plained]

really ey mrd are any of your gibbys twangy?

[mrd]

Not really, they are all humbuckers. I can get some convincing stuff if I dial the amp appropriately but they will never have that jangle to them that Fenders have. I have a Yamaha Pacifica as well (essentially a Strat-copy) that is actually a pretty nice guitar even though it's dirt cheap. I don't think I've ever played a guitar made by Yamaha that I haven't been impressed by. But that one has single coils on it as well. I really like that one for chord strumming stuff, whereas on the Gibbys its more rock/hi-gain stuff or jazz stuff (insofar as my ability to actually stumble through anything jazzy)

[Eraser]

I love the sound (and look) of a classic Les Paul model, it's just a shame that they weigh a fucking ton and play like a brick.

[Ferrao10]

Since we already rolled off topic pretty much I can just as well ask right in this.
You guys heard of (or actually have heard) Curtis Novak Pickups?
I was told they sound fantastic.

[mrd]

I love the sound (and look) of a classic Les Paul model, it's just a shame that they weigh a fucking ton and play like a brick.

The older ones are pretty heavy, but the newer stuff has the guts routed out so the weight is not bad. I think mine weighs maybe 8lbs. Doesn't play like a brick either, I am not really sure what that is supposed to mean though. My LP is in the top 3 the smoothest guitars I've ever played in my life, including some top-end PRS. Although those are pretty effin' nice too... I'll probably get one someday.

[mrd]

Since we already rolled off topic pretty much I can just as well ask right in this.
You guys heard of (or actually have heard) Curtis Novak Pickups?
I was told they sound fantastic.

Never heard of this guy. The idea seems interesting. Not sure I agree with his notion of pickups being an input device and not an output device -- pickups are transducers so they inherently do both. Although I think his point was mainly to illustrate that selling pickups solely based on the strength of the output signal is misguided. Especially considering the entire purpose of the amp is to do the amplification work for you.

His sound samples are useless because they are recorded with a fucking video camera.