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My Next Guitar Toy

 
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alexkhan



Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 2783
Location: Chino, CA

PostPosted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 4:45 am    Post subject: My Next Guitar Toy Reply with quote

During NAMM in Jan this year, I hooked up with Tom King at Atomic Amps and got a demo of a new compact modeling device called the Amplifire. I was quite intrigued. It was supposed to ship in April/May but, like Guthrie's Charvel GG Sig guitar, it ran into various delays and I was advised that it should finally start shipping next month. Here's the the lowdown:

http://www.musicradar.com/us/news/guitars/namm-2014-atomic-amps-and-studio-devil-unveil-amplifire-pedal-591837

And a larger photo:



It's not like I need this when I have the Axe-Fx II rig at home and I use the iPad with the Positive Grid apps for my travels, but I sure do want it! Mr. Green It's super compact and will fit nicely in the Strandberg gig-bag or a suitcase for traveling and taking it for whatever little gigs or jam sessions that may pop up instead of trying to lug around the Axe-Fx rig. This and one CLR cab would be plenty good for virtually any situation.

And I also prefer plugging direct into a device instead of having to use the Apogee Jam interface to connect to the iDevices or the Mac. I was interested in the Positive Grid BIAS for the desktop but the pricing was a total turnoff and I wouldn't need it anyway at home since I have the Axe-Fx. But this Amplifire unit is very intriguing. The sounds were very, very good although I didn't get to try it out myself. It'd be a perfect device for pros who have fly gigs and excursions to exotic lands. Wink
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Last edited by alexkhan on Tue Oct 28, 2014 4:22 pm; edited 1 time in total
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terje_t



Joined: 16 Aug 2014
Posts: 37

PostPosted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 9:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cool! Very much looking forward to hearing it.

I've been keeping an eye out for a thing like that - a high quality (presumably in the Axe FX league) amp simulator for people who prefer pedal boards to multi effects.

I guess that's kind of what the Kemper is too but the Atomic will be a part of just the one unit of the pedal board so that's more appealing to me.

That's why I was a bit disappointed to hear about the Axe FX floor unit they announced. As I understand it it has just the effects, not the amp sims?

For now I'm doing ok with my Line6 Pod HD500X, but after the Charvel GG is paid off and my PBAS (a Pedal Board variant of GAS) rears its head I will consider this seriously. Until now the Axe FX was kind of the only option I was considering, but needing to lug a rack (albeit small) and extra pedal board with expression pedals around ot everything has held me back. Aside from the price that is!

If I can get this and get amp models I'm happy with and build a nice pedal board with it I might very well consider that option as I sometimes miss the flexibility of a pedal board.

So I think it's super cool that someone had the same thinking and made this!

Do you know anything about the price?
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terje_t



Joined: 16 Aug 2014
Posts: 37

PostPosted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 10:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

... also, if you got a demo I'd be curious to hear your first impressions of the sound, if you are allowed to say!
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alexkhan



Joined: 10 Sep 2004
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 5:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, this device makes so much sense. I'm absolutely convinced this is the wave of the future for most guitar players - especially the younger generation. I say most, not all. For some, nothing but a tube amp with 12" speaker cabs will do but that number is dwindling by the day. Besides really good sounds, the utility of portability, convenience, simplicity, versatility, and flexibility is becoming more and more important. People just don't like lugging around heavy stuff. It's very much like the trend we see in mobile electronics - make things lighter and thinner while improving performance and quality.

I think Tom and the folks at Atomic/Studio Devil thought this out really well. They're addressing all the issues of a complicated and bulky rig without having to compromise sound quality and flexibility. My understanding is that the price will be in the $500~600 range direct. From the quality of sounds I heard, I think that's reasonable although that's still a good chunk of change. But the fact that the firmware can be updated on a regular basis along with additional features being added should make it a good value over a period of several years.

There's still a lot of processing power "headroom" left in today's most powerful DSP's. Audio uses miniscule amount of processing power compared to video so devices like this won't go obsolete anytime soon. The quality will continue to get better as the software engineers continue to improve the algorithms and we can just connect a USB cable to these devices to get the improvements on a periodic basis. That's the beauty of digital technology. With analog devices, if a manufacturer comes out with a new tweaked device that may be marginally better or just a little different than the existing device, you either have to add the new device or sell the old one and buy the new. Makes very little sense to me in this day and age.

Although I didn't get to play through the Amplifire myself, it sounded really good - very alive and certainly as realistic as I'd need it to be. I'm guessing that they made further tweaks over the past 9 months or so to improve the sound quality as well as adding more features. Being able to edit and store the presets with an editor app on the Mac/PC is a very nice icing on the cake. I hate scrolling through a little display on devices to edit and tweak presets. I always use the Axe-Edit for the Axe-Fx when I want to tweak or create new sounds. Scrolling through pages and pages of parameters on the unit's display window drives me batty. Razz
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terje_t



Joined: 16 Aug 2014
Posts: 37

PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2014 10:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I'm absolutely convinced this is the wave of the future for most guitar players


I have zero doubt most would get a more functional setup, and maybe even better sound, using this type of technology but I also feel there's such a hugely ingrained cargo culty movement in music with regards to equipment. You talked about it when you wrote about getting out of the boutique realm and I couldn't agree more. So while I agree that most would probably be a lot better off I also think that most of those would not even give this setup a serious try for a long while yet. Who knows. Maybe the trend will move towards this and this will be the cool thing for a while..?

To me the many advantages are clear and I'm happy I managed to get out of thinking that only a tube head was good enough, cool enough, versatile enough and got into wanting a modelled setup.

I'm getting a better (maybe mostly in the sense of "more usable") sound from even my HD500X than I managed to from my two last amp heads, an Orange AD30HTC and a Blackstar HT Club 50. The upsides? No unwantedhissing noise, no cabling noise and mess with a pedal board, one light unit to carry around, having my exact sounds everywhere I go, including when I'm home practicing, and so on.

I have occasion to play a Mesa Nomad now and then. Just to try to be a bit critical of the modelled route I'd say that the Mesa maybe feels like it has a kind of immediacy that I don't feel with my Line6 unit. It could be other factors, standing in front of a 4x12 cabinet blasting right at me for example, or it could be that I'm feeling the limitations of the relatively cheap HD500X. Whatever it is, I don't miss it when I use the Pod, but I think there's a little something extra there with the real amp in terms of how much I feel like the sound coming out is directly coupled with my pick.

I'd be curious to try out an Axe FX for a while for exactly that feel.
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alexkhan



Joined: 10 Sep 2004
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 2:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

terje_t wrote:
Quote:
I'm absolutely convinced this is the wave of the future for most guitar players


I have zero doubt most would get a more functional setup, and maybe even better sound, using this type of technology but I also feel there's such a hugely ingrained cargo culty movement in music with regards to equipment. You talked about it when you wrote about getting out of the boutique realm and I couldn't agree more. So while I agree that most would probably be a lot better off I also think that most of those would not even give this setup a serious try for a long while yet. Who knows. Maybe the trend will move towards this and this will be the cool thing for a while..?

To me the many advantages are clear and I'm happy I managed to get out of thinking that only a tube head was good enough, cool enough, versatile enough and got into wanting a modelled setup.

I'm getting a better (maybe mostly in the sense of "more usable") sound from even my HD500X than I managed to from my two last amp heads, an Orange AD30HTC and a Blackstar HT Club 50. The upsides? No unwantedhissing noise, no cabling noise and mess with a pedal board, one light unit to carry around, having my exact sounds everywhere I go, including when I'm home practicing, and so on.

I have occasion to play a Mesa Nomad now and then. Just to try to be a bit critical of the modelled route I'd say that the Mesa maybe feels like it has a kind of immediacy that I don't feel with my Line6 unit. It could be other factors, standing in front of a 4x12 cabinet blasting right at me for example, or it could be that I'm feeling the limitations of the relatively cheap HD500X. Whatever it is, I don't miss it when I use the Pod, but I think there's a little something extra there with the real amp in terms of how much I feel like the sound coming out is directly coupled with my pick.

I'd be curious to try out an Axe FX for a while for exactly that feel.


Well, having been on tours with Guthrie and the Aristocrats, soundguys in general seem to hate loud tube amps. Laughing So many of the younger generation bands and artists (especially in the prog-rock and metal genres) seem perfectly content to go direct with their digital modelers and use IEM's. What matters is the overall sound and the music. Meshuggah has been direct for a long time now and they sound awesome live and they don't need empty 4x12's on stage as a visual prop.

It's many 50~60-year-olds weaned on classic rock of the 60's through the 80's who can't seem to embrace what's going on now. And I get it. Hey, I'm pushing 50 and I've been through all that but the past is the past. I'm still much more interested in now and the future. And I totally get that some people insist on the Fender Strat headstock or a Gibson Les Paul, etc. I've always felt Strat bodies with anything other than a real Strat headstock looked goofy. Ditto for a Tele body with anything else than a Tele headstock. Same with the Les Paul. And that will never change because of the iconic artists who used the real stuff during those eras.

It may take another 5~10 years (most likely less) but the trend is quite clear. Except for certain situations of demanding and established pros insisting on using tube amps - like Guthrie with the Aristocrats - digital modelers will simply prove to be more practical, cost effective, convenient, flexible, versatile and more than up to the challenge of providing superb authentic sounds. And the modelers will just continue to get better and better while the prices keep getting lower and lower. That's just reality. I'm certain tube amps will continue to exist but it will become much more of a very small niche as time goes by.

As I mentioned somewhere else, I'd love to have a small low-wattage tube head (like the Victory V30 Countess head) with a compact 1x12 cab. It'd be nice to have but I'm more than happy with the Axe-Fx rig so I don't see the need for it at home. And if I was going to go play out somewhere, I'd much prefer to take along this Atomic Amplifire unit in the gig-bag and plug into a PA than lugging around an amp head, cabinet, and pedalboard. I've done my share of lugging gear around to gigs - even fairly recently with the Axe-Fx and the Atomic CLR's and I thought, "Why am I still doing this?" Laughing The thought of being able to take a 4-pound Strandberg with just this device and a few cables in a gig-bag to a gig or jam session is very enticing.

And you mention a very good point about getting your exact sounds consistently with modelers although some global tweaking may still be necessary depending on the room acoustics. I didn't realize how much of a difference the acoustics of the various rooms make until I went on tours with the Aristocrats. And what you hear on stage is often not at all like what is being heard by the audience. Every venue is different with its own peculiar acoustic characteristics. In one venue, moving 10 feet to the left or right made so much difference that I walked around for a good while to find where the sweet spot was.

I hear you on the feel factor of tube amps. I've only played tube amps since the 80's and I owned a boutique shop that specialized in selling expensive tube amps so I get it. But as I mentioned elsewhere, all that "magic", "three dimensionality", "sweet highs", "juicy mids", etc. that you hear alone from a boutique tube amp in a quiet room at the store get totally lost in a noisy bar with electrical noises overhead (sometimes through the amps) and a loud drummer thrashing away. Based on what I saw at Tone Merchants, I'm pretty certain that most boutique amps never make it up to a performance stage. They're mostly bedroom amps - even the 100w+ monsters. Hey, I had no issue with that. Wink

I'm so happy with the Axe-Fx/Atomic rig that I don't miss tube amps at all. But it's not something I want to lug around either. The iDevice loaded with Positive Grid apps is really cool for practice and as a writing notepad while traveling but I don't see it as a serious gigging rig at all. And having to use an interface in between can get annoying at times. This Atomic Amplifire can be a game changer if the sound quality and the feel is there and all indications are that the device has it. I showed it to Plini and he was immediately intrigued, saying it looked awesome. He's a 22-year-old virtuoso and it's clear to me he has no interest in even checking out tube amps anymore. I work with many young artists now who are in their 20's and they couldn't care less about the tube vs. digital debate - whatever sounds good and works... I find that quite refreshing when compared to old geezers arguing about or losing sleep over fingerboard woods, magnets in pickups or capacitors in amps, blah-blah-blah... Wink
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Carlo



Joined: 13 Sep 2004
Posts: 408

PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2014 7:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah this looks sweet. This has been on my GAS radar for a while now. From a functional standpoint, it does look really easy to setup and use….which is more important to me above anything else Smile
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alexkhan



Joined: 10 Sep 2004
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 4:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just saw this demo video of the Amplifire by Rob Balducci.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSWKSPzY1LQ

Very nice. Really looking forward to this. Tom at Atomic advised me that it should start shipping by NAMM.
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.strandberg* Guitars USA
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alexkhan



Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 2783
Location: Chino, CA

PostPosted: Wed Jan 28, 2015 5:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So look at what I scored at NAMM:



Haven't had the time to even take it out of the box yet as I'm in the post-NAMM recovery and catchup mode. Should get to it over the next few days and I can't wait. Very Happy

Why two? Well, take a wild guess! Wink
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alexkhan



Joined: 10 Sep 2004
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Location: Chino, CA

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 3:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It had been so insanely busy for me the past two weeks after NAMM that I hadn't had a chance to try out the Atomic Amplifire I picked up at NAMM. I finally got to plug it in today through the Atomic CLR cabs and, although I still have a lot of digging around to do, my initial impression is that this is a very impressive device and could solve a lot of problems for many guitar players looking for the ultimate in portability while not compromising in tone, effects, versatility and flexibility.

The unit still doesn't have the final firmware and Tom King advised me that should happen over the next week or so. It seems the manual is in its final tweaking phases as well although the preliminary version I have seems good enough for my needs at the moment. Here are a few pics of the Amplifire on top of my Axe-Fx II rack with the XLR cables pulled from that unit and plugged into this compact and very lightweight device. I'd say it's in between 2 and 3 pounds. This device in the gig-bag with a .strandberg* 6-string would weigh less than most solid-body guitars. I'd have to say that this is the ultimate mobile rig for the modern mobile musician without any compromises.

Well, all that being said, portability and flexibility wouldn't mean very much if the sound quality and the feel isn't there and I can say straight out that the Amplifire does not disappoint. It sounds and feels really great. I'm not going to compare it to the Axe-Fx until I've had more time with it but my initial impression is that I didn't notice any degradation or lesser quality testing the 10 different amp models. As of now, Atomic and Studio Devil are focusing on quality over quantity, simplicity over mega number of options and parameters. Seriously, I have no interest in swapping out virtual capacitors or even virtual tubes in a digital modeler. Just give me the basic stuff so I can operate it like a real tube amp or analog effects pedals.

The 10 amp models available out of the gate are the following:

US Clean: Like a high-powered Blackface 2x12
D Luxe: Like a 25w Blackface 1x12
'59 B Man: Like the Tweed 4x10
Top Boost: Like the Vox AC30
Plexi: Like a... Plexi... D'oh!
Brit 800: Based on the legendary JCM800 that defined the 80's rock/metal sound
Hot Brit: The hot-rodded UK sound
Recto: The 90's metal sound
5051: A modern metal standard
Kornfield: I'm assuming that it's based on the Cornford MK50

These are more than plenty good to get started with. And the device has plenty of effects: noise gate, compressor, pre-filter/wah-filter, distortion, fuzz, overdrive, parametric EQ, programmable filter, graphic EQ, tremolo/panner, chorus, flanger, phaser, echo modeler, ping-pong delay, and reverb. There are all kinds of routing possibilities (pre-effects like before amp and post-effects like the FX loop in your amp). Also had plenty of cabinet modeling features and the ability to upload your own IR's in the future.

Looking through the manual, you can get pretty deep with the editing and there are many features in it that don't seem obvious from looking at the simple and familiar layout. The switches have multifunctional capabilities. You can save 128 presets that can accessed via MIDI as well. I'm not too interested in these features at the moment. I'm just focused on the sonic quality right now and mainly the amp models. I'll get to the effects and programming the presets (on the device itself and the software editor) later after I've gotten familiar with the amp models and how they react to the knob tweaks and the different guitars and pickups I have.

All I can say for now is that it sounds and feels great and are very realistic. To what degree it's too early to say. I'll need another week or two of some serious tweaking and playing through it to get a better idea. It is very dynamic for one - very responsive to the pick attack and reacts very well to the volume pot tweaks on the guitar. My initial impression is that it sounds great out of the box and will get better and better as I learn to tweak it and with future firmware updates. What I do know is that it has plenty of processing power with dual-DSP's and you can hear and feel the quality. I'm really looking forward to digging in deep into this really cool device. Cool




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