I would say that every wine taste different... but after drinking too much.. they all will taste the same !All wines taste essentially the same too, right?
You either love the choices or you don't. I will say, amp and cab pairings are really what you need to be exploring, not just amp models. There are pairings that just work better than others, especially if you're after a specific sound for a certain style.
I'm not sure why this would be something that would cause depression.
I have found through experimentation that most of the amps sound very similar. I found that you can usually group the amps in to two categories low/mid gain, and high gain. The amps in each category honestly sound very similar to each other. Yeah, some amps may have some emphasis on certain frequencies, but its really not night and day. Nothing that an EQ pedal couldn't help with.
This theory is further confirmed by the following videos.
even the video where he uses each amp's actual cab/speakers. Yeah it's slightly different, but not by much to be brutally honest.
And if you were to sit there and play each amp, after about 5 minutes your ears would get used to the sound and you don't even think about it.
I also realized that no matter what amp block I use, I tend to try to go for the same type of tone anyways.
It's a depressing feeling because it makes me wonder why I need all of this stuff. I know that at the end of the day, I'd be happy with 1 amp that can do clean, mid gain, and high gain, and allow me to add various effects as I see fit, and i'd be perfectly happy.
Especially for someone who doesn't really record, and just noodles around or plays to backing tracks.
Which one from the 80's? The one with 6550 or EL34 tubes? The one with 6 filter caps or 3?Jcm800 is still the best, the pinnacle of amp design.
For example: try the "evil" Deluxe. That's a Deluxe model with the BMT all set to 6 (6-6-6, get it? evil. like the fruits of the devil. ). Pair it with the appropriate 1x12 Deluxe Verb Mix IR and you get a Deluxe archetype sound that's pretty uniquely Deluxe Reverb, very easily. Yea, sure you might be able to coax something similar out of the CA3+ Clean model as well, but not with the straight-forward simplicity you can if you just use the right pairing for the job here.
Back in the early days of the Ultra I did some A/B clips of Jmp into Axe cab sim/model into same cab sim as well as Axe into power amp cab mic of the JMp vs. JMP cab mic...the difference was neglegable.Trying hard to talk about this subject and not discussing why everyone's so hyped up about IR's these days. This is exactly why. IR's have more control over your sound than the amp.
IMO the amp has a lot to do with feel and how it works with your playing and all that. However I think it's more like the muscle or lungs of your guitar sound and the mouth/throat/vocal cords that actually produce the sound will be the speaker = IR's.
On topic: If you're honestly thinking about going back to tube amps (which is something I've done twice and always come back to Fractal) just think about this for a while: how much did you understand about guitar tone prior to owning an Axe-Fx? Did you appreciate cabs much? Did you appreciate mic choice and placement much?
Sure we all have different use cases for the Axe-Fx. I personally record a lot of stuff at my home studio room and it would be completely impossible without the Axe-Fx.
For you, fellow Canuckistanian, of course!Mind sharing this preset? love this amp model and I like playing with the loaded presets that people build out.
That all-amps-sounding-the-same thing is also an artifact of low-volume monitoring. When playing loud, you can hear clear differences that are inaudible when playing softly.That's an artifact of low-volume playing. If you're playing at volume and dime the MV on most high-gain amps, the flub will be immediately obvious.
except that's less the difference in amps but rather interaction between amp sound out if the cab and guitar, plus room compression.That all-amps-sounding-the-same thing is also an artifact of low-volume monitoring. When playing loud, you can hear clear differences that are inaudible when playing softly.