Modeling Amps... Who really needs all those options?

Incidentally I just discovered the beauty of the Lead channel on my Kat. I now have the power on full 100w and set the amp on the lead channel with the gain to 9:00 with a little reverb... that folks is a really tasty clean tone.

I'm leaving it there.

 

I got a fender40 modeling amp and a marshall 100w half stack, and a fender frontman25r with a large Jensen speaker to eliminate signal spatter.
I probably have all the tones anyone could ever want. Yet, I only use a few favorites as a previous post said.

 

I actually run my monster board into a Mustang 4 2x12 modeling amp - stupid, I know.

I use the amp more to get a base clean tone that works with all my pedals (basically dialed in to sound like my real Fender Twin Reverb from home,) - it has XLR outs and dedicated send level for my sound man and a stereo FX loop so I can run my SCF chorus and TC Mimiq pedals properly. I also have a couple of presets for when I use single coils vs HB's, so I don't have to adjust the controls, so all in all it works for me.

 

After buying my GTX100, I would spend weeks just demoing the presets for an hour or so before I would actually start playing.

I've now disciplined myself to just rely on 5-6 presets, and it is amazing to basically be able to go through the entire history of guitar amplification in just one box.

 

Well for me it’s part of my discipline once I have attained my daily practice goal I spend time tweaking patches till I can nail the tone, mind you it may not be for everyone but I do enjoy configuring patches till I get the tone i want for a particular song I’m learning, in fact I enjoy it so much that I also try help my fellow boss gt100 users

 

You can do that on a Mustang as well.

 

It can be really easy to slag the modelling and profiling amp options out there so having both allows me to present a different side of the "coin".

After having gone through many amps over the years (tube and solid state), I settled on the Mesa Boogie Mark V/35 head and a Mesa 2x12 horizontal cab. This brand allowed me to get "all" that I wanted out of it and I pretty much play it without pedals other than a tuner. Some bad shoulder injuries from the past had started to plague my life and even the 28lb head of the Mark V became painful up until I had surgeries to correct this. In the meantime, I bought my KPA (Kemper Profiling Amp) powerhead and remote, aka "the toaster". The 14lbs weight was a relief, but what really struck me was how my profiled Mark V was hard to distinguish between the tube head and the Kemper.

The bottom line is the the new tech is light years ahead of what the first generation modelers, sounded. The profiling capabilities of the KPA (Kemper Profiling Amp), allows it to sound as good as the real deal without sacrificing on tone or delivery. The only problem that remains is the price. The more advanced and close to prefect you want, the greater it costs.

To quote my wife - "Cost becomes an issue in the absence of perceived value".

 

In answer to the OP, apparently lots of people need them because they sell a bunch of modeling amps.

I'm not one of them though. Too many options leads me to analysis paralysis and I spend more time tweaking and fiddling than actually playing. That's just me though.

I actually play more acoustic guitar than electric (I'd say 90% to 10%) which is as simple and striped down as it gets. I've improved more in the last 5 years of this pattern than the 20 years before when the numbers were reversed in favor of electric play. When when I do play electric now, it's a simple enough time with a compressor, a couple of flavors of dirt and an analog delay into a Princeton Reverb.

For me, an maybe nobody else for all I know simple is the best way forward as a player.

 

I plugged my Nextone into a computer to set preamp types, clean and lead, for each power amp setting - once. I plugged my THR100 into a computer to set the boost and reverb settings - once. I have since connected it again to load some IRs - once.

After that, it's just twist knobs and play until I get the sound I like. And with my Blues Cube Hots, that (and turning the boost and tone switches on or off) is all I do.

 

In retrospect, one googlaphonic superwhamadyne modeling amp would have saved me a great deal of space and money . Don't look back !

 

I run 3 amps Each is a fender to prevent phase Issues. Each is a modeling amp one solid state and the other two digital. The benefit is I can make them all clean or as dirty as I want and get a wide variety of amps out of them. And they are coast less than there Tube counter parts, and dont use as much power to operate.

 

I'm not here to defend modeling vs tube amps or convince anyone that one is better than the other, but having recently acquired one of the new Fender Tone Masters I will agree that modeling has really evolved. I still love tube amps but I also love the TM. It's not an either/or for me.

I think a lot of people are quick to dismiss modeling based on their experience with some $200 Guitar Center modeling amp made for beginners or a pedal/POD thing they tried five years ago. I've heard those too and I don't like them. But the current stuff (TMs, Kemper, Helix) is not in the same universe.

 

My experience is similar. Its amazing, though, how much tonal variation you can get WITHIN a patch. For the past few days I've been just playing the Super Reverb patch. I keep the gain pretty low on the amp and use the tone controls on the guitar and amp. I also experiment with various pedals in front. The only "always on" are compression and reverb. I have never owned a Super but I have certainly played through them. I truly don't think this experience is much different.

 

All I know is I'd gladly trade my Mustang for something with just a volume switch. Good crap,
somebody actually uses all this distorted garbage?

 

I tried two, sent both back. I spent more time pushing buttons, turning knobs and scrolling through laptop interfaces than playing guitar. I went back to simple.

 

That's a nice looking Gibson you have there.

 

You not liking it doesn't make it garbage.

 

It is true that mustangs are not very good at cleans. That’s my one big gripe with them, and when you bring most of their amp models to breakup, it sounds pretty rough. But i managed to get good medium gain sounds from mine with the SuperSonic model, with the gain set relatively low.

 

Makes it garbage, to me...

 

I brought my Katana home, set it next to my tube, turned the knobs until I found my clean and overdrive sound. Next, I set the few effects, that I use. Nothing could be simpler.

The way I see it, you can use your ears or you can ask others on a forum, how to set your amp.