Musings on amplification...

My amps and other gear are still in Queensland - long story! - so to hear what I'm playing, I paid a paltry sum for a Peavey Rage 108, which I've found very good within its rather obvious limitations; certainly suitable for my purposes and oddly, it sounds absolutely killer through headphones. So, pleased with that.... so feeling the need for some reverb etc. I happened upon a Behringer Mini FX unit for a ridiculous sum, and after reading all of the negatives about Behringer the man, the company and the gear, i bought it. Very pleasantly surprised; lush reverbs and delays, plus flanging, phasing and other modulation effects, all programmable, and - oh, joy! - a wondeful rotary speaker patch; many hours of whooshing around the place!!

Which leads me to this... I've been reading about modelling amps like the Boss Katana et.al. and a Behringer V-ampire LX210 appeared on the local buy/sell/swap and sat there for a fortnight, so I put in a lowball offer through, and to my utter surprise and astonishment, it was accepted!! Anyway, I have it here and am quietly reading through the manual and finding out what it can and can't do; it can do plenty, though I'm not sure that some of the patches are that accurate! Some, however, are absolutely bang-on, so it's a learning curve and I figure for the amount I paid for it, I cannot really go wrong. But, gee... there's some ugliness written by people about the brand, and even if half of what is said is true, it wouldn't be the best business model to follow, though Uli Behringer has obviously done very nicely, thank you!!



I figure that when all of my kit appears up here, this can go straight to the desk via the balanced direct outputs provided - even the tiny Peavey has a direct out! - and thus give me a flexibility I previously lacked!

Has anyone had anything to do with modelling amps of any stripe out there?! I know I'm rather pleased with the kit at the moment, and as a bonus, the LX210 has a broken knob and lacks a footswitch, so I get to piddle around with stuff as well... win/win!

Very nice mate - I have had a Behringer Vampire LX210 for over 10 years now. My son is still currently using it. I have recently replaced it with Line 6 Firehawk 1500 which is quite a Beast. Love my modelling amps - great if you dont have space for lots of Amps and pedals and also so easy to switch between patches

Rightio, then...

.... one of the knobs is missing and the stem has broken off inside the fascia so after a little thought I came up with a 'cheap bastid' fix... herein;
 I took a spare knob I have laying about here that was from a pedal project, sanded down a piece of dowel to an interference fit with the knobs' fixing, then cut a piece from a cheap ballpoint pen barrel to use as a sleeve over the top of the dowel and over the top of the remaining piece of the original stem.
Et voila! Cheap and cheerful! As an aside, these aren't potentiometers but rather rotary encoders, and they would have to be the cheapest Behringer could source with plastic stems, eh!?!

Nice work - theres a broken knob on the LX210 my son is using as well. Cant remember which one but I have the knob so will try gluing with maybe a sleeve inside to strengthen it. Whens hes finished with it I was thinking of selling it but doesnt sound like they are worth much eh ??

Hang onto it, Paul; I picked up mine for $65 for a really nice example - less the knob situation - so they're pretty much worthless!
That said, there are some great tones on offer once you get to grips with the way it operates and figure out that resetting every patch to factory and only then, start dicking around with the parameters.

Yeah John I think I will hang onto it, at $65 not worth selling. I seem to remember having mine connected to my PC via a midi card and cable and being able to download patches from a Behringer forum. There definitely were some great patches I downloaded and pretty sure they are still stored in there, Doubt if that feature is still supported.

Heres a link to a youtube clip for my new amp the Firehawk 1500

This topic has been moved from the Non-Westone Forum to it's new Forum!

Cool!! Nice one, Barry!!
OK, then... amps... as y’all know I have the Behringer and the tiny Peavey but what else do I have?? Well, still in storage is another Behringer head which is in need of a cab, so I’m not sure what it’s like really!
My main working amp has long been retired to Don’s house; it is a Holden Reverb 100 combo and served me well over about 20 years! It was built by Ron Holden Industries in New Brighton, New Zealand in the mid 70s, has 2 6550s and 4x ECC 83s and 2x12 Etone speakers. Sound is something like a Fender Blackface with a Marshall undertone happening - lovely smooth sound that breaks up exquisitely when you load it up!!
Jolly glad I’m not carting it around the country anymore, but.... thing weighed as much as a planet!!

The others in storage momentarily are also small combos; there's a Legacy, which would be about 20W with a single 10" speaker...
... a tiny Kustom, and an 80s Crate, which has a tube pre-amp - I think! - and is phenomenally loud! It must be about 30W and is a fabulous little amp!!
For a while there, I was using an old Peavey PA amp with scratch built cabs for a really sparkling clear sound, but I think this new modelling stuff is going to see that moved on.

All used at low levels, and close-miked for my purposes, which is straight into the mixing desk and thence to Garageband.

My days of playing through a stack, or a half stack, are long gone - humping that stuff around was always a PITA, and I don't miss 'em one bit!!

Looking forward to using the 'new' amps in that situation as they both have line out capability, so I'll be able to DI as well as mike them up and mix the two signals!!

corsair wrote:...an 80s Crate, which has a tube pre-amp - I think! - and is phenomenally loud! It must be about 30W and is a fabulous little amp!!...

My old band buddy lead player used a Fender (Deluxe??) on gigs but for a long time now he's had a Crate which he constantly raves about! Uses it with a Schecter which he also loves more than his Strats.

Just shows to go ya once more that the big labels are not necessarily the best.

My days of playing through a stack, or a half stack, are long gone - humping that stuff around was always a PITA, and I don't miss 'em one bit!!

Amen my brutha!
In my case a Roland Cube 100 which I swear is made of lead! That plus a powered floor monitor, and PA set up.

None of it any fun to be lifting and lugging, especially at the end of the night...when the gig was upstairs...with no elevator!

Barry wrote:None of it any fun to be lifting and lugging, especially at the end of the night...when the gig was upstairs...with no elevator!

I hear that!! Bloody 4x12s and 2x12s... FOH bins... foldback wedges... none of which were any fun to transport up or down narrow stairways!!

I'm possibly in a tiny minority here, but I only want one thing from an amp. Amplification. Everything else is taken care of before it gets to the amp. This is probably because I use the amp for different instruments - various guitars and basses, electric violin, mandolin, tenor ukulele, many keyboards and a bit of flute. The electric guitars go through a Zoom g9.2 tt effects unit with a twin tube preamp, basses through a Behringer BDI21 aka Samsamp clone, everything else clean, usually. Some switchable outboard effects - delay/echo/reverb, Roland loop station, ancient Zoom 1204 FX with an amazing preset that works really well on bass - stereo ping pong echo with flanging and distortion. Not to be used with headphones, it can melt brains. Most go to a Behringer Eurorack Pro 16 channel mixer then a Spirit Folio RacPak mixer for the keyboards and the FX sends and returns then 2 Behringer B212D amps, each can knock out 345W RMS with 550W peaks. Probably loud enough for home use.

Thing is, I think picking an amp for anything other than clean amplification is inherently limiting. What happens if it stops working? Start from scratch, reprogram everything. My way, you change one element, usually cheaply. YMMV

I'm kind of in that same camp too David.

With the exception of my little VOX amp all the other amps are limited to Overdrive and/or Reverb.
I seldom use anything else but an occasional Chorus pedal. Always have.

Boring I guess but makes for a simple life.

tt

Purge wrote:I'm possibly in a tiny minority here, but I only want one thing from an amp. Amplification. Everything else is taken care of before it gets to the amp. This is probably because I use the amp for different instruments - various guitars and basses, electric violin, mandolin, tenor ukulele, many keyboards and a bit of flute. The electric guitars go through a Zoom g9.2 tt effects unit with a twin tube preamp, basses through a Behringer BDI21 aka Samsamp clone, everything else clean, usually. Some switchable outboard effects - delay/echo/reverb, Roland loop station, ancient Zoom 1204 FX with an amazing preset that works really well on bass - stereo ping pong echo with flanging and distortion. Not to be used with headphones, it can melt brains. Most go to a Behringer Eurorack Pro 16 channel mixer then a Spirit Folio RacPak mixer for the keyboards and the FX sends and returns then 2 Behringer B212D amps, each can knock out 345W RMS with 550W peaks. Probably loud enough for home use.

Thing is, I think picking an amp for anything other than clean amplification is inherently limiting. What happens if it stops working? Start from scratch, reprogram everything. My way, you change one element, usually cheaply. YMMV

I hear what you're saying, David, and part of me agrees that all sound modification should be done before amplification where the amp does one job, that of amplifying the signal, and making your pants flap in the breeze thus created!! 

However, playing with a modelling amp has changed my mind somewhat, and this particular amp is old technology now, so newer gear, like the Boss Katana, will be a generation better!

The other thing is that I'm fast heading towards a "silent stage" set-up where everything is listened to on a headset; making full use of modern amplifiers' line out capability straight into the board. The tiny little Peavey Rage I have is less than stellar with its' tiny 8" speaker, but through the headset, and straight into the board, it is a proper belter!

Now, I do use copious FX and a myriad of different instruments so having a modelling amplifier is a positive experience in that once I've found a patch in the amp that would suit, say, a banjo for 'Squeeze box' I can add reverb, echo, delay... all kinds of modulation, note the settings and program it in and it's there until I don't want it anymore!! No shagging around with pedals, or multi-FX - gotta be good!

I have no need for loud amplifiers anymore... a) in a gig situation, everything would be banged straight into the board from the digital amp lines out, and mixed before going to the PA FoH/foldbacks, and b) my tinnitus is bad enough now without belting out loud guitar noises in a small rehearsal room!! :-)

Your last is an interesting point; what happens when your modelling amp quits is a valid observation, but what happens if your Fender Twin quits?! Who takes a reserve amp to a gig?!? In 20 years, I never did!! And if your amp which is going into the board quits, you can always just put your instrument straight into the board and muddle through, unaffected!

John, if your Fender amp quits, use a pedal to emulate it   (That should have been a smiley face but on posting it turned into 'very happy' Barry - that's what I'm missing, love a bit of chorus on bass. Now I'm second guessing myself since I've started using Logic Pro - maybe I should get a multi channel interface and do all processing there? Fine for recording but I think I'll stick to outboard processing for live stuff.

No tinnitus problems, at least since I saw Uriah Heep in 74 and couldn't hear for the next 3 days, haven't had the amps up past 10 percent, if I turned them up full I'd blow the windows out, but it's good to have the power in reserve if I ever need it and at the price (under £300 for over 1000W) it was to me a no brainer - I've just seen a Marshall valve amp for £200. 5W. No contest.

David our smiley face is an animated version. It's the second one in the drop down list =
The base expression is a "smiley face" which is what you see in the icon in the menu bar.

Thanks, I'll get the hang of it one of these years/decades