If you like Orange they are releasing The Guitar Butler soon, if not already. Analogue cab modelling 1 only. Clean and a Dirty channels. FX loop. Will need your mixer though.
The bass butler is pretty damn good so I’m hoping the guitar version will grace my floor soon.
I’ve had the “full-size” Helix floor for 4 years now and love it…I recently picked up the POD Go wireless as a potential replacement for the Helix, but while it sounded great (uses the same modeling as the full on Helix units), I let it go due to it only allowing one amp chain at a time. The Helix floor allows me to run two separate amp chains simultaneously, which I love.
How is modeling these days for getting that crunchy, edge of breakup tone?
Depends on how particular you are about edge of breakup tones. Some people prefer how the Vox ACs do it vs. Fender Blues Jr vs. the Marshalls vs. Dr Z vs. Matchless vs. whatever
I’ve no doubt all the competitors to Helix are just as adept at modeling amps. The Kempers will let you make a profile of your favorite tube amp… but they cost a lot, lot more. The modeling technology in general is dramatically improved over when I got that red, bean-shaped Line 6 POD
The Dr. Z model (Interstate Zed) is one of my faves in Helix:
I also like the Matchless models
Some peeps were really excited when Line 6 added the US Princess (Fender Princeton) model - it does sound nice but it’s heavier on the processor than most other models.
Most of the time, however, I have my HX Stomp on a Fender Twin preset for practice since I prefer clean tone for practice.
For electric violin I used to have it set to the acoustic preset with a violin IR loaded. After I got the NS Design NXT-5a though I have it on the Jean Luc Ponty-esque preset.
I’m really impressed with Overloud’s TH-U. It’s even better with your own IRs loaded, but even stock it’s way better than anything from even a few years ago.
For silent playing, I picked up this REVV 20 amp, as I wanted an actual tube amp with no cab needed (or you can use one if you want). It looks big because of the position of the guitar, but it’s actually quite compact and fairly light weight for a tube amp.
How are your impressions so far? I am seriously considering one to have an alternative rig to my modeller based set-up.
I don’t have the ability to test it, so purely relying on other opinions atm…
I would like to buy one too, but I haven’t got any clue which box I should order? Will it sound good with any 1x12 box ?
What gives an electric guitar it’s characteristic sound ?
I found this video interesting and provocative. The video maker, Jim Lill, sets off to find what factors gives a guitar it’s characteristic tone. I’ve cued this video at a spot where he tests his hypothesis at its most extreme, creating an “air guitar”. But go ahead and watch the whole video if you want, it’s 12 minutes long, as he successively strips away various parts of a guitar to see what difference they make.
Awesome video, that puts to bed a lot of snake oil BS
I’m ready for the second part of this when that comes out, to understand the options for changing a guitars tone, and how those factors work.
By the way this guy can play. Here’s a one minute video with him quoting the styles of 15 different country players.
Snap! Was about to post this too. Maybe the most informative video ever on guitars and tone. I hope part two goes deep into pickups as I’ve been thinking of swapping mine out for quite some time.
Emmett Chapman always insisted that customers shopping for a wood Chapman Stick based on which wood they found most attractive, not on “wood tone”, as he felt that for his instrument design, there were no tonal differences between woods - tarara, padauk, maple, etc.
Stick Enterprises also sells the Railboard, which is a Stick with aluminum body. Never tried it, so I can’t say if it sounds much different from the wood ones.
It seems like there are lots of European folks on this forum, so I’d imagine a lot of you are familiar with Harley Benton’s budget guitars that Thomann sells. I just got this Fusion-T in the mail today to be my “experiment” guitar so I don’t futz and mod with my Stratocaster so much, but dang, this thing is really nice for being a $400 guitar.
HX stomp!
How do you like that Henriksen amp/cab? I’ve been flirting with getting a Blu Six for years.
Great effort this video, well appreciated.
There are many “debunking” videos out there, this one has a much more balanced tonality though and the guy does a great job.
That said, the wood a guitar is made of is most certainly not irrelevant, regardless of how close tone tests get (which even here there can be audible differences). But the feel of a guitar, the way the instrument responds to playing it, the way it feels in the hands and on the body…every part, every bit matters in this realm, as the whole will add up to more than the sum of its parts (in a great instrument at least). These things can affect tone just by the way a person engages/relates to a particular instrument and the way they play it therefore. I think that often gets overlooked in these discussions. Probably the luxury marketing and mark ups around “tone woods” are partially to blame for the fairly passionate debunking efforts in that space — after all, hearing people like PRS, you’d think a guitar will resonate in the voices of angles (only!) if your guitar is made of some super rare tropical wood lol.
But on the flip side, I often see these dudes that proclaim “I built an electric guitar made of an amazon delivery box and there’s literally 0% difference to my overpriced Gibson Les Paul Custom” — yes, your Gibson may be overpriced, but I’m pretty sure in terms of an instrument (not just an engineering project), there’s still a huge difference between that LP and a cigar box thing lol 
Oh I love this. I play guitar a lot. I always assumed the sound comes from your fingers…everything else is fx and psychoacoustic. Ofc this is only true for electric. Good wood should be reserved for acoustic players like django back in the day.
Would be nice to hear good players on crappy guitars. I bet they sound great.
I think crappy is too harsh a word for Eastwood Guitars but they do specialize in resurrecting offbeat guitar designs of the past as affordable production guitars RJ Ronquillo is a pro guitarist, based in Nashville. You cannot be a pro guitarist in Nashville unless you’re good. He’s done a lot of demos for Eastwood Guitars
Andy Martin is another really good guitarist
