Multi Effect & Modelling Boards

The Behringer V-Amp Pro is a nice inexpensive choice. You can edit the tones either with the controls or via a midi cable and your computer.

The Behringer V-Amp Pro is a nice inexpensive choice. You can edit the tones either with the controls or via a midi cable and your computer.

Is this the one?

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=guitar/s=effects/search/detail/base_pid/480674/

The Behringer V-Amp Pro is a nice inexpensive choice. You can edit the tones either with the controls or via a midi cable and your computer.

Is this the one?

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=guitar/s=effects/search/detail/base_pid/480674/

No that's the V-Amp 2 (the one I have)...it would work too but if you want something to play live I think the Pro would be better...it's a rack mount...

Here:

V-Amp Pro

rparker

I probably view these multi-effects a little different than most. But this is my 2 cents on the matter, your milage may vary.

The thing I actually look for is simplicity and ease of use. I really don't need 300 different presets. I find you only use about 5 or 6 favorite presets in the end that you really use, and I don't know of anyone who uses much more than this. I'm sure some do. But for me this really causes distraction and confusion. Many of the differences are very subtle. So you are constantly scrolling through them looking for that "perfect" tone.

I don't care for the complexity of some pedals. I don't want to have to read a 70 page manual written in engineering jargon to simply lower the gain on a distortion, or save a certain preset to a location on the pedalboard.

I have been a big fan of Zoom products for many years. I have owned Boss, Digitech, DOD and others. I like Zoom for these reasons:

1) Easy to edit. Zoom pedals are far and away the easiest pedals to edit out there. No complicated manual. You can learn how to modify a preset in 10 minutes. Super simple. No thick manual to memorize, no scrolling through menus.....

There is no such thing as a pedal with all "good" presets. It is impossible, because the manufacturer knows that these pedals will be used through many different amps and speaker combinations. A preset that sounds great through a Marshall amp with a closed cab may sound terrible through a Fender amp with an open back.

So, the manufacturer comes up with presets that hopefully sound good through most amps. But you almost always have to tweak a preset to get it to truly sound good with your particular guitar/amp/speakers combination.

So, this is why it is important to have a pedal that is very easy to edit. I don't want to read complicated instructions simply to adjust tone, gain, depth, etc.....

2) Great distortions. Just my 2 cents, but I have always liked Zoom distortions better than Boss, Digitech, DOD and others. Zoom has got distortions down. And their modulation effects are pretty darn good too.

On the downside, you cannot as accurately tweak Zoom pedals as you can with others. For instance, on EQ, most Zoom pedals give you a choice of 50 different EQ settings. But on others you can actually adjust particular frequencies just like an EQ pedal.

3) Quality. Zoom pedals are built well. Maybe not as durable as Boss, but close. And much better than many of the other brands that cost much more.

So, I do not think everybody should have the same gear as me. But I recommend Zoom as a consideration.

Consider the Vox pedals. Owners rave about the amp simulations. They might be the best out there. Consider the Behringer pedals. They also get great reviews.

But don't spend $500 to get 350 presets. You won't use them.

I just picked up the Rocktron Expression Multi-Effect Unit. It has 128 presets that you can edit to your liking. I chose this multi effect unit because I have a Marshall DSL 401 which I like the sound of but with the POD 2.0 but I could not get around the "amp modeling." I understand that with the POD XT you can, but I really didn't look at it.

Now like Wes said, I found some presets that I really like. I edited and saved them and now I use those for what I need without compromising my amp's sound.

BOSS GT-8 :roll: :roll:

I think I mentioned this in another related post...These modelers are great for newbies to experiment with many sounds. It can get pretty expensive if you had to go and by each pedal you want to try on your amp. Plus it gives you a "rough" idea what various amps and cabs sound like.

If you are a veteran guitarist youprobably have already tied into the sound you want. But if it weren't for my V-Amp & Guitar Port I never would have been able to esperiment with all the sounds you can get for your guitar.

Another advantage of modelers is that let's say all you want to do is cover tunes. You really aren't into writing originals yet. If you're like most people you like music in several genres. The modelers allow you to key into the specific sound of a particular song you like without having to by a pedal just for that one song...

My suggestion if you go with the V-Amp or Pod is to get a used one from eBay...I got my V-Amp 2 for $65 which included shipping...Pods are a bit more but honestly for the money Behringer is just as good as Line 6 in this case...

You folks have reminded me about the thing I disliked about my old G-Dec and Line 6. The amp models, and how much a pain they can be to get around.

Dagwood, what do you mean by your post?

Mike, your Behringer has something I really like. Low price. No need for me to play live right now, so the one you have would work fine for me.

Wes, are there a couple of models you'd suggest from the Zoom line?

As always everyone, great input.

Last weekend I got the operatunity to use a rack mounted V AMP Pro which belonged to another guitarist. It ran into a racked Eq then into a racked tube power amp then into a 5150 4x12 cabinet. It had plenty of power and cool sounds, a few to many editing options, almost to many to allow someone to just plug and play. I switched between all the pre-sets looking for the tone I've grow use to with a setup like I regularly use and couldn't find it.

If I could have looked at the manual and been able to experiment with it before hand perhaps I could have found the tone I was looking for. I still played like me and was close in emulating the sound I wanted, but it just wasen't there. I did have fun playing around with it during the show, nobody seemed to mind except the drummer and thats only cause he's one that doesn't like guitarist making adjusts during a song.

They would be a good choice for someone wanting to learn how to use it and have all the options. It will take sometime to get it dialed.

Joe

Mike, your Behringer has something I really like. Low price. No need for me to play live right now, so the one you have would work fine for me.

The only "downside with the V-Amp 2 is the latency when switching amp models. If you are switching from one effect to another it is just as quick as any effects pedal. However, if you want to switch from say a tube amp model to a distortion amp model there is a slight delay. This is why for live shows it might be a problem if you switch amp models in the middle of a song. I believe the Pro eliminated that problem.

There is a way to set up your presets with a bit of organization before hand. Each "channel" has 25 presets with there being 5 channels (125 presets). So let's say you set channel 1 preset 1 to a tube amp with reverb. Channel 2 preset 1 could be the tube amp as well but with phaser as the effect. Switching would go real fast because its still on the tube amp. But if you went from the tube amp to the American Blues amp (one of the amp models) there would be a slight delay...and I do mean slight like 1/2 second to one second...but in the middle of a song that one second makes a HUGE difference...

Sorry, I know I just confused the HECK out of everyone...you have to see the V-Amp to understand what I am trying to say...plus I am still working on my cup of coffee so I am half asleep writing this! :oops: :lol:

Being the digital junk I am I've played through most of the modelers currently around. Having said that:

1) Presets generally blow. They are intendedto show of the device to people who spend thirty seconds testing it. Behringer arguably has the worst presets, insane flanging and ultra-deep reverbs are all over the place. Sounds cool the first seconds, sounds lame afterwards. Don't forget that presets are made with specific gear. A crunch-preset I made with my RG550 with the V-amp into my surround set might sound MUCH different with your guitar through your amp. So forget about presets.

2) Just like with a real amp it takes time to get a proper sound out of it. You can't fire up a tube amp you've never seen before and expect great tone and the same goes for a modeler. With the difference that a modeler has many different models so it can take many months to get the absolute max out of it.

3) The days of scrolling through miniature displays seems quite over and getting an acceptable sound out of these things shouldn't take that long. As you keep using it your sound will get better and better as you'll find out how each model works.

That's the general stuff. Now some specific stuff:

-The V-amp is relatively cheap, and for a reason. While you can get cool sounds out of it it doesnt offer the quality other modelers have. The V-amp works internally at only 33.1khz which they seem to try to counter by using some enhanced presence circuitry. You will notice this in the higher frequencies which doesn't sound as convincing as a real amp or proper modeler. On the plus it is relatively easy to use and doesn't have that many features. Standard volume, gain, bas/mid/treb/presence, some effects with only the absolute basic parameters, a switchable boost and that's about it. With the free software setting some patches up is as easy as it gets.

Switching cab/amp model has an annoying delay but the dynamics are not all that bad and you can get pretty varied sounds out of just one amp model by using the drive and gain features and switching pups on your guitar. In a studio no problem anyway since you'll do each part in a different take anyway. Live it is useless to switch models, the delay is insanely long (.3sec and longer) and the sounds gets totally cut-off while switching. If you're unlucky you'll get some free extra digital noise while switching, I'm sure the audience will love that when pumped through some serious amplifiers. Anyway, it is a great tool and very usefull for it's price, but if you can spend a bit more you might want to take a look at the:

-Vox tonelab. Not really much models or cabsims, and the effect section is also limited to abot five effects simultanously. So it doesn't hold a candle to the Boss GT or Line6 POD XT feature-wise, but tonewise it rocks. AWESOME clean sounds, great bluesy and overdriven sounds. The ultra death-metal sounds aren't that convicning but it isn't really made for it. Check this, it sounds pretty much like this:
http://www.voxamps.co.uk/products/valvetronix/vtoverview_movie.htm

Unless you are way into effects I think the tonelab is still the best out there. Way easy to use (turn know to model you want, use the standard EQ, gain, volume etc knows) and offers truly awesome sound. Quite pissed myself they didn't bother to make a 19" version of it but hey, you can'h have everything.

-Boss GT Pro/8: The latest, and according to Boss, greatest of modelers. It has more features then anything else and it goes insanely deep. You can use two models at the same time, route on to the left and other to the right, mix them, mix them with a variable ratio based on picking dynamics, all effects can be placed everywhere in the loop and feature a billion paramaters, it's crazy. The downside is that it's quite hard to get really what you want and quite easy to mess up your sound real badly. Boss STILL hasn't managed to write a basic program to make patches on your pc so you'll be turning those knobs until your fingers bleed. The potential sound quality is nothing short of excellent though.

-Line6 Pod XT/Live: same as above, in a way. With the option amp packs you have over 75 amp models but I can't see anyone every learning how to use them all properly. Not as ultra-fancy as the Boss nor as warm as the vox it seems to excel at the higher-gain stuff. An extremely popular unit with prog-metalheads and the likes. Haven't been able to find a really convincing blues tone yet nor have I ever heared a proper blues recording made with it. Which is a bit my pet-peeve with most Line6 equipment.

Zoom has a new unit out which technically sounds very interesting (extremely high sample rates etc) but I haven't tried it yet. I have the V-amp and a Vox Valvetronix amp (tonelab dumbed down into an amp) and am seriously contemplating replacing the trusty V-amp with the tonelab. If you have any questions about these units feel free to ask them, will do my best to answer. :D

Personally I cannot justify the price difference between the Pod and the V-Amp...These are the only 2 I have experience with (used the pod in the store) and quite honestly for the money the Behringer is the better bang for the buck. It's like comparing the Agiles to the epiphone LP's for the money the Agile is the better of the 2 (not saying Epiphone is bad...just not worth the extra money)

Dagwood, what do you mean by your post?

Sure.... Sorry I didn't get back sooner.. GN wasn't loading up on my NEWER Version of FireFox 1.5.

Plus I'm having other TECHY issues.

Sorry if I get long winded here.. if you wanna jump to links they're at the bottom :)

Anyhoo... I've been looking at Stomp Boxes, Noise Makers, effeks and all that stuff lately. I've owned the V-Amp2 and a Digitech RP-100 (I got this first). Loved the V-AMP for a lot of reasons, first was the quality of sounds/tone are much better over the Digitech...by far, second cuz I could plop it down on my bed or couch first thing in the morning and use my headphones and rock out at "O-dark thirty" if I wanted. But.. I gave up the V-Amp and RP-100 when I did some "horse-trading" for my American Strat so they're gone now. :(

So, with my HRDlx I've been totally happy with my drive/more drive, but wanted MORE.. (of course). I started to look around at what was available and NON-Boutique in regards to Distortion, Effects, Delays, etc, etc... and I came to my own conclusion that BOSS/Roland is a pretty good company with good, quality products.

So I went into one of my local shops (that have that WALL-o-Pedals by BOSS and Digitech, etc) and looked and Priced the OD, Distortion, EQ and ECHO and BAM.. there's almost $400 right there. Well YIKES!! That's a bit much, but I figured I'd spend that much eventually cuz I want to mess with them at some point in time.

Then my curiosity got to me and I wandered over to the MULTI-boards on display. I saw the Boss GT-6 and other "LIKE" boards and started asking questions. (this was during the Shop's "FENDER" Days and they had a BOSS Rep there)

Both the GT6 and GT8 have "Pretty much" ALL of BOSS's Pedals built in to them. The 8 has more features than the 6, naturally and for the extra $50 or so bucks the GT8 seems like the one to buy.

Additionally the GT-8 has (don't know bout the 6) HAS Amp modeling.. and a lot of them. They also have this thing called COSM.. where you could model a PLEXI in the Right Channel and a Tweed in the Left Channel and run them simultaneously in Stereo.

It also has a "Dynamic" touch where you start out Clean and if you attack a bit harder it auto switches into Dirty.. (what ever dirty/effect you want). Its really cool.

Also you can use it as a "Manual" effects Board without the Modeling.

Now I had this guy plug one into an HRDlx and he took about an hour with me to show me everything he could and how it would work with My AMP. And I'll say it worked great, sounded great and was easy to use.

Anyhoo... needless to say I've got one on order and hoping Santa will put one under the tree this year. I figured for the $430-$450 I'd spend more than that on a DS-1 or 2, an EQ, an OD, a Phaser and Echo. <shrug> Cuz I eventually will at some point and with this, I'd have them all in one package without the extra hookups, the extra chords and power and stuff.

Here's a link with Video to check out if your curious
http://www.rolandus.com/Multimedia/Flash/gt8/index.html

And a GT8 User forum and User Page
http://www.bossgtcentral.com/
http://www.thestompbox.net/Home/Default.aspx

This one is a Muli Comparo with the V-AMP and POD in the line up:
http://www.thestompbox.net/Home/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=21

Now if I could just stop going to the Music Store and playing with it ever other day...... LOL

Oh yeah.. if Santa DOES bring me one :) I'll post a full review. :P

The thing you're talking about isn't really called COSM, although it does have COSM modeling. But that's just me nitpicking :) Anyway, the GT8 is awesome. Super awesome. It doesn't just have all those single pedals build in but can do a truckload more. It's really the latest to come out and it has some tricks other devices don't have. Have fun with it, no way you can be dissapointed with that thing.

Rock on!