Where do you think "sound" is going? Are we going back to basics or going digital?

[Ovibos]

There's a whole generation growing up on having easy access to nearly infinite sounds. The 'ideal sound' or the sound of the band that you want to copy/expand will change over time as those bands become the thing to chase.

 

[rpoce24]

Just to mess with things further. Many bands that play at somewhat larger venues just pump everything through the house PA system and only use a small amount of cabs on stage for themselves to hear. Not like the wall of sound years ago with a guitar player bringing 8 plus of their own cabs hooked to 2 to 4 amps. So regardless of digital vs tube, they are hooking one amp to the PA.

Not saying all bands will switch, but watched a YouTube video about what Metallica brings one the road and why they switched to modelers and things like Axe effects. They response was the tube stuff was just too heavy and delicate, and when you are doing 50 plus shows per year all around the world they need to do it the cheapest way with the most reliable gear. So the solid state staff fit that bill and the sound was close enough that most people can’t hear a difference.

 

[Ovibos]

Not like the wall of sound years ago with a guitar player bringing 8 plus of their own cabs hooked to 2 to 4 amps.

Most of those cabs were empty shells.

 

[CandidPicker]

Most of those cabs were empty shells.

LOL. Having a lot of cabs on stage does nothing for volume unless they're connected and active. Mostly for show, sadly. Not for practical use.

 

[Herr Squid]

Not saying all bands will switch, but watched a YouTube video about what Metallica brings one the road and why they switched to modelers and things like Axe effects. They response was the tube stuff was just too heavy and delicate, and when you are doing 50 plus shows per year all around the world they need to do it the cheapest way with the most reliable gear. So the solid state staff fit that bill and the sound was close enough that most people can’t hear a difference.

IIRC, when they were touring the States and playing tube amps, they had something like 5 or 6 complete sets being shipped around at any given time. One set of amps would be on stage any given night, all the others were in transit to land the the venues at the right times for the upcoming gigs. How would you like to be the person coordinating (and paying for) all that shipping?

 

[CandidPicker]

IIRC, when they were touring the States and playing tube amps, they had something like 5 or 6 complete sets being shipped around at any given time. One set of amps would be on stage any given night, all the others were in transit to land the the venues at the right times for the upcoming gigs. How would you like to be the person coordinating (and paying for) all that shipping?

If I were doing the job right, it might not be as difficult. How difficult can it be to pay a bill? How difficult is it to play a guitar?

 

[Herr Squid]

If I were doing the job right, it might not be as difficult. How difficult can it be to pay a bill? How difficult is it to play a guitar?

Paying a bill just requires a little organizational skill, provided you've got the money. But consider those bills are probably tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even if you're a giant enterprise like Metallica, you probably still want to cut that cost.

The real challenge is the responsibility for getting every truckload of amps to the venue on time, every time. Because that's the job (mind you, I'm assuming that's the whole job of the hypothetical person I'm thinking of, and that's probably not true!).

So consider. Assume the people you hire do the right thing 80% of the time. You hire a shipping company, who pays a driver to deliver a to a person at the venue. That's at least 3 people who have to do everything right for that stack of amplifiers to be there when Jaymez, KRK, Larz, and Robert hit the stage. Do you want to disappoint those dudes?

I didn't really think through this until now, but if there's an 80% chance all those people do it right, there's a 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 = 51.2% chance that the delivery goes OK. In other words, half the time it's messed up in some way, and those messed up deliveries are your problem if you're responsible for them. If you're hired clever, motivated people, they'll find a way to make it right. But can you count on that?

So if one delivery has a 50% chance of getting messed up, and you've got 6 deliveries a week, you've got a mess to clean up most days of the week, spending hours on the phone waiting, yelling, cajoling, trying to get those amps on the stage to keep Jaymez and Larz off your back.

Do you want that job? I sure don't!

 

[Alnus Rubra]

I remember a documentary, I want to say it was about Metallica, from the mid 90’s.

I believe it was a UK date on their tour. Either whilst they were playing the set, or at the end of the gig, accountants were sat with desk calculators (the type with the till roll) counting up the income. They were working out who got paid what and what the band would end with. It wasn’t as much as you would think.

Tours apparently usually lose money, once the bills are paid.

 

[rpoce24]

The ultimate point about Metallica was going to modelers and solid state amps lowered their costs and increased reliability, with little or no meaningful sacrifice in sound in quality. The fact is tube amps are heavy and temperamental (higher maintenance costs) which increased costs especially at that scale.

Granted, I own 3 amps all tubes. So their reasoning does not effect what I like sitting at home making noise.

 

[markd21]

I have both. Daily, I play the Helix. I enjoy playing my tubes, but they are too loud. So, I use a Suhr Reactive Load to send the amps to the Helix for cab simulation. It works great.

Personally, I have reached a place where the modeler gives me what I need. I gigged with my Helix and an EV powered wedge. It sounded killer. I never felt I was losing out on anything. All I experienced was better FOH sound, reasonable stage volume, and faster set-up and tear-down times.

When I went back and bought tube amps again, I was equally as pleased with the tone - and I will admit there is a harmonic juiciness that a burning Class A amp provides that a model of that amp just doesn't provide - but the volume to juiciness ratio is ridiculous.

 

[CandidPicker]

Paying a bill just requires a little organizational skill, provided you've got the money. But consider those bills are probably tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even if you're a giant enterprise like Metallica, you probably still want to cut that cost.

The real challenge is the responsibility for getting every truckload of amps to the venue on time, every time. Because that's the job (mind you, I'm assuming that's the whole job of the hypothetical person I'm thinking of, and that's probably not true!).

So consider. Assume the people you hire do the right thing 80% of the time. You hire a shipping company, who pays a driver to deliver a to a person at the venue. That's at least 3 people who have to do everything right for that stack of amplifiers to be there when Jaymez, KRK, Larz, and Robert hit the stage. Do you want to disappoint those dudes?

I didn't really think through this until now, but if there's an 80% chance all those people do it right, there's a 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 = 51.2% chance that the delivery goes OK. In other words, half the time it's messed up in some way, and those messed up deliveries are your problem if you're responsible for them. If you're hired clever, motivated people, they'll find a way to make it right. But can you count on that?

So if one delivery has a 50% chance of getting messed up, and you've got 6 deliveries a week, you've got a mess to clean up most days of the week, spending hours on the phone waiting, yelling, cajoling, trying to get those amps on the stage to keep Jaymez and Larz off your back.

Do you want that job? I sure don't!

Thanks for the offer; I don't need the extra stress.

I think this makes the case for modelers; or at least rackmount gear with foot controllers and in-house PA. Most bands nowadays can't afford to own AND ship gear to their destinations, so they make do with rented gear and in-house PA systems that are sound engineer's responsibilities.

If I were the band, I'd be sure to hire a quality sound engineer who knows his stuff across a variety of soundboard platforms. Or, own a decent soundboard that can make the trip with the tour and be set up with the in-house speakers.

I'm just glad I'm not a band manager who needs to account for gear, musicians, transportation, etc, etc. Or the sound engineer who is required to learn the I/Os of a rented soundboard.

I think I'd have more success being a NASA mission control tech than a band manager. At least I wouldn't need take my gig on the road every time Elon Musk gets an urge to put something into space.

 

[Mozzi]

I remember a documentary, I want to say it was about Metallica, from the mid 90’s.

I believe it was a UK date on their tour. Either whilst they were playing the set, or at the end of the gig, accountants were sat with desk calculators (the type with the till roll) counting up the income. They were working out who got paid what and what the band would end with. It wasn’t as much as you would think.

Tours apparently usually lose money, once the bills are paid.

Tours used to lose money by the time you factored in all the costs of a single gig. The venues cut, all the tour crew who set-up and tear down, ensure all the equipment is ready, all the vehicles, drivers, fuel, food/drink, sleeping arrangements etc etc etc. The only thing that made them profitable was tour merchandise sales.

If you can cut down the amount of gear you need, you cut down the size of crew you need, number of vehicles and fuel bills etc. Valve amps are big, heavy, not 'reliable' on the road so need back ups to back ups and lots of spare valves which can be replaced by a small rack mount AxeFX with a single back up just in case. You don't need cabs and mics as venues tend to have their own PA and use in-ear monitors and don't need stage monitors. Don't need an Iso Booth to stop the Mic on the cabs picking up Background or trying to set it up the same, the mic in the exact right spot. If you don't have an iso booth, you may get a different sound due to the cab being in a different room with different acoustics. More variables, more things that can affect the sound from one gig to the next.

You can literally but your entire rig in a back pack these days - your pedal board, Amp, Cab, Mic and all the cabling linking all those replaced with a single Helix (or similar) just need a cable for your guitar and Helix to FoH and that 'sound' is ALWAYS the same. You can back up all your presets too so even if your equipment fails, you can easily load in your presets to a replacement. It can be small, light, reliable and consistent, Therefore significantly reduce the amount of gear you need to carry to a gig, reduce the amount of crew, drivers, vehicles etc and reduce the 'cost' for doing a gig making it more viable for profitability.

Not saying one is 'better' or 'worse' - they are just tools to enable a musician to use to suit their needs/situation. What maybe the right tool for one in a certain situation may not be the right one for another - but at least there are viable tools for all...

 

[markd21]

Tours used to lose money by the time you factored in all the costs of a single gig. The venues cut, all the tour crew who set-up and tear down, ensure all the equipment is ready, all the vehicles, drivers, fuel, food/drink, sleeping arrangements etc etc etc. The only thing that made them profitable was tour merchandise sales.

If you can cut down the amount of gear you need, you cut down the size of crew you need, number of vehicles and fuel bills etc. Valve amps are big, heavy, not 'reliable' on the road so need back ups to back ups and lots of spare valves which can be replaced by a small rack mount AxeFX with a single back up just in case. You don't need cabs and mics as venues tend to have their own PA and use in-ear monitors and don't need stage monitors. Don't need an Iso Booth to stop the Mic on the cabs picking up Background or trying to set it up the same, the mic in the exact right spot. If you don't have an iso booth, you may get a different sound due to the cab being in a different room with different acoustics. More variables, more things that can affect the sound from one gig to the next.

You can literally but your entire rig in a back pack these days - your pedal board, Amp, Cab, Mic and all the cabling linking all those replaced with a single Helix (or similar) just need a cable for your guitar and Helix to FoH and that 'sound' is ALWAYS the same. You can back up all your presets too so even if your equipment fails, you can easily load in your presets to a replacement. It can be small, light, reliable and consistent, Therefore significantly reduce the amount of gear you need to carry to a gig, reduce the amount of crew, drivers, vehicles etc and reduce the 'cost' for doing a gig making it more viable for profitability.

Not saying one is 'better' or 'worse' - they are just tools to enable a musician to use to suit their needs/situation. What maybe the right tool for one in a certain situation may not be the right one for another - but at least there are viable tools for all...

Exactly.

I did out-of-town shows and brought my Helix. I have the HX Rack so I also had to bring the foot controller, and my monitor. It easily fit in the trunk and my sound was always exactly the same every night.

 

[rpoce24]

Tours used to lose money by the time you factored in all the costs of a single gig. The venues cut, all the tour crew who set-up and tear down, ensure all the equipment is ready, all the vehicles, drivers, fuel, food/drink, sleeping arrangements etc etc etc. The only thing that made them profitable was tour merchandise sales.

If you can cut down the amount of gear you need, you cut down the size of crew you need, number of vehicles and fuel bills etc. Valve amps are big, heavy, not 'reliable' on the road so need back ups to back ups and lots of spare valves which can be replaced by a small rack mount AxeFX with a single back up just in case. You don't need cabs and mics as venues tend to have their own PA and use in-ear monitors and don't need stage monitors. Don't need an Iso Booth to stop the Mic on the cabs picking up Background or trying to set it up the same, the mic in the exact right spot. If you don't have an iso booth, you may get a different sound due to the cab being in a different room with different acoustics. More variables, more things that can affect the sound from one gig to the next.

You can literally but your entire rig in a back pack these days - your pedal board, Amp, Cab, Mic and all the cabling linking all those replaced with a single Helix (or similar) just need a cable for your guitar and Helix to FoH and that 'sound' is ALWAYS the same. You can back up all your presets too so even if your equipment fails, you can easily load in your presets to a replacement. It can be small, light, reliable and consistent, Therefore significantly reduce the amount of gear you need to carry to a gig, reduce the amount of crew, drivers, vehicles etc and reduce the 'cost' for doing a gig making it more viable for profitability.

Not saying one is 'better' or 'worse' - they are just tools to enable a musician to use to suit their needs/situation. What maybe the right tool for one in a certain situation may not be the right one for another - but at least there are viable tools for all...

Basically, in the past even a mid tier band would need 1 or 2 eighteen wheelers to carry all their gear. They can now do the same with a 24 foot box truck or even smaller.

 

[Jason Penn]

Personally, I think the fatal flaw of tube amps is that you can't get them to sound great unless they're really damn loud, and there are precious few situations where any of us get to do that. Have you felt what a 100 watt Marshall Plexi does to the human body when it's opened up enough to sound glorious? It is punishing!

If you have a truly good way to amplify it, a modern high quality modeler sounds great, because it lets you 1.) dial in the amp simulation to where it sounds the best and 2.) set the volume (i.e. SPL) exactly where you want it. Yes, there's Fletcher-Munson effects, but that's what those knobs are for!

Seriously, I made a convert just last week when I told him "just get a couple of Headrush cabinets, plug that Helix into them, and turn them up really f******g loud!" His reply: "It. Sounded. Legendary! I should have listened to you before."

Most of the time I play an Axe-FX III plugged into a pair of Friedman ASM-12 powered monitors, and it makes me so happy. I still have a half ton of good tube amps in the same room (Mesa, Rivera, THD, Budda, PRS to name a few), and they get about 5% of the play time, because they're just too hard to tame in the real world.

i agree, getting the volume up a bit removes a lot of the "it doesn't sound like an amp in the room" argument. also put it behind you like you always did with an amp.

most people have really never heard what the rig really sounds like. if you've never tilted an amp up at your face...you have no idea how bright it really is!

 

[László]

When a purist like Mark Knopfler starts touring with a digital rig, you can safely say that the debate is over.

Lots of name artists use modelers to tour with because it saves a heck of a lot of money (sometimes over six figures on big tours) in cartage and freight compared to big cabs, and road cases, etc.All of that is weight-related.

However, the debate is meaningless in a sense, because people have their own preferences, and what matters to each person differs.

Perhaps it shouldn't really be a debate, just a discussion of preferences.

"But Les, you're the head debater on this topic."

"And I have I changed even one single person's mind? No. Because I'm the only one with my personal priorities. So I'm not debating it further."

 

[Alnus Rubra]

Perhaps a mass debate is in order?

 

[Dirty_Boogie]

Lots of name artists use modelers to tour with because it saves a heck of a lot of money (sometimes over six figures on big tours) in cartage and freight compared to big cabs, and road cases, etc.All of that is weight-related.

However, the debate is meaningless in a sense, because people have their own preferences, and what matters to each person differs.

Perhaps it shouldn't really be a debate, just a discussion of preferences.

"But Les, you're the head debater on this topic."

"And I have I changed even one single person's mind? No. Because I'm the only one with my personal priorities. So I'm not debating it further."

Yes, as debated/discussed in several posts up on this page. But my point was that if a digital rig did not cut the mustard for a an absolute perfectionist like Knopfler, he wouldn't be touring with a Kemper, regardless how much smaller it is than a tube amp/cab setup to haul from venue to venue. And let's face it, he's not Yngwie (thank god!!) hauling around 20 Marshall heads and full stacks - he has had a modest amp setup the times I've seen him.

 

[László]

Yes, as debated/discussed in several posts up on this page. But my point was that if a digital rig did not cut the mustard for a an absolute perfectionist like Knopfler, he wouldn't be touring with a Kemper, regardless how much smaller it is than a tube amp/cab setup to haul from venue to venue. And let's face it, he's not Yngwie (thank god!!) hauling around 20 Marshall heads and full stacks - he has had a modest amp setup the times I've seen him.

It's hard to know whether any artist who's not filling stadiums would find the expense worth it. Remember that a tour has lots of stuff to accommodate besides guitar amps. The idea is to reduce the burden.

Whatever Knopfler's motivation might be is a guess that I suppose anyone could make, based on the assumption that 'so-and-so is a perfectionist, and therefore....' Might be right, might not.

Sorry, I didn't read the other posts above about the travel costs. I have my own reliable sources of information as to the actual cost involved. They can make or break the profitability of a tour.

 

[László]

Part II of my response, because I forgot to mention something and couldn't edit the above post due to a server error.

Knopfler made his record with real tube amps. If the Kemper really was a perfect replacement, one might think he'd have used it for the record. But that didn't happen. Maybe he'll use it on the next record.