A depressing realization (and unpopular opinion): most of the amps sound very similar.

Not a great revelation: amps are... well... just amps!
And i bet you can say the same thing about... all the distortion pedals, all the fuzzes, the whas, the choruses, phasers, delays, reverbs, flangers... those things are... what they are!
The same for cabs and speakers loaded... the same for studio monitors...
Know what?... coz the differences are exactly those nuances, emphasis, "colors", warmness or coldness, grain,
Yep... no night and day... just TONE!
The sound - in music - is the voice of our thoughts!
I can say: "You are right!" ... but there are tons of tones in my voice ... and you'll get the real meaning of my words
 
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iaresee said:
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.
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I would say that every wine taste different... but after drinking too much.. they all will taste the same !
 
Let us not forget, most amps are just variants on a couple of different models.
How many amps do you think are based on the Fender Bassman?
The core of all amps are very similar, each builder then modifies some part of that original design to come up with their own design.
But the reality is, we are all playing a variant of Fender or Marshall..... Hell even Marshall was a variant of a Fender.o_O
 
I have noticed that lately myself on Quantum but I am using a Mesa 2:90 power amp and Mesa cabs too. I like my sounds just fine but when I plugged in my headphones last night, I realized that the cabs and power amps in the Axe make all the difference. I think about going FRFR sometimes but I'm not sure I want to invest all the money in that without knowing for sure I would like it that much better. I don't really need that many different tones.
 
rich2k4 said:
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.
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Have you ever watched Ola Englund demos?

That guy can make a dozen different amps - tube amps - sound virtually indistinguishable if you don't know what to listen for.

I think the same thing is happening here. The differences are subtle because through your guitar (and the rest of your chain) they ARE subtle and would be regardless of modeling vs tubes.
 
It's pretty much the issue is that there are only so many truly unique amp tones and most amps are just improvements or variations on those. That's why going forward I don't see emulating specific amp models as that necessary. We have the technology to represent great tube amp sound and feel in digital modelers but could easily make do with just the FAS amp models considering how much EQ potential we have in the Axe-Fx.

I love telling the story about my old Yamaha DG80 amp I had. For those who don't know, it had a mere 8 amp models. Sure, they were based on your Soldanos, Marshalls, Vox and Fender underneath it all but they were just named in a very generic way like Drive 1, Drive 2, Clean 1, Lead 2 etc. Not even the manual mentioned what they were based on if I remember correctly. The amp was around at a time when Line6 was pushing their first modelers and people were going "well this doesn't sound like a Marshall Plexi" when they tried those amps. People who tried my Yamaha never said that, instead they enjoyed the sound of the amp for what it is without having to make comparisons to what is being modeled. Yamaha still does roughly the same thing with their new THR series and I haven't heard anyone saying those don't sound like a Marshall or Mesa either.
 
If you are diming the MV on the Keith Urban amp at an 85 db SPL listening volume and percieving it sounds the same as the IIc+ with pull bright & pull deep using a dimed MV at the same volume, then I would have to question what are you using to monitor your sounds. The difference between the sounds of both those example amps with those settings is the difference between hunter green and safety orange to use a visual color analogy. If you were using a funky set of color filter glasses or poor lighting, then you could get those colors to look similar, but then that is not the fault of the colors, but it is the fault of a less than ideal environment in which to view them. Also which ir you are using that seems to make these different amps sound the same?
 
The Keith Urban amp wouldn't sound like the IIC+, but as I said in the OP, they would be in different categories. The KU amp would sound similar to other amps in its same category of low/mid gain.

I will admit that I play at low volumes, and don't expect to ever use the unit at gig level volumes.
 
I wouldn't say its depressing or un-popular.

A lot of amps are variations on Marshall and Fender designs and do sound a lot alike. Especially using the same guitar cab or IR (as seen in the vids you posted links to.)

That is not un-popular. It just means you are learning about guitar amps.
 
iaresee said:
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.
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Mind sharing this preset? love this amp model and I like playing with the loaded presets that people build out.
 
ML SOUND LAB said:
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.
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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.
The only difference to me is the difference in self noise if the amp and that holds true for all modellers and what happens with gates.
 
As for going back to Amos and cabs... For me and I can recreate this with monitors... The feedback loop that happens between the sound from the speaker and the guitar when missing is what messes stuff up...I.E. Head phones or volumes where the guitar and Cab IR monitor don't interact.
 
Rex said:
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.
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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.
 
And in general I und I have a tendency to make stuff sound the same. Simply by how u dial it in so I hear what I want to hear or by changing where, what angle or how hard I pick to achieve the same.
I mean in the end a tone is just a certain amount of the overtones that make the timbre, which means certain frequencies being accentuated or attenuated.
The rest is just how fast the attack, decay and release happens. That can be changed just the same. What remains is dirty amps which in reality is an effect...the the squaring of the sine wave...symmetrically or assymetrically notwithstanding.
 
Rex said:
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.
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except that's less the difference in amps but rather interaction between amp sound out if the cab and guitar, plus room compression.
 
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