I was tweaking & reading this weekend (finally had a chance to sit down with it for a while). Read up particularly about the amp and cab sims. Made some good headway into putting the Ultra to good, practical use. I've had it about 10 days now.
I play in a cover band and have had a Mesa RK w/a TC G-Sys for effects for 4 years now. Let me just say that the Ultra is sooooo much more versatile AND with a workable tone. Anyway...
I have a Bogner 4x12 cab I've been using - I've been using the Ultra through an ART SLA-2 (great little amp BTW) into the Bogner both at practice and at home - on kind of a hiatus for live playing (drummer broke his right ankle Snowmobiling 5 weeks ago - he played at practice Friday with a cast on his RF playing the kick LF'ed and was awesome
) Uh, anyway again...
So when I first got it I figured I would try to simulate what I know so I have ear reference for dialing (I mean, you have to know what you're shooting for, right?) And since I've spent the last 4 years dialing in the RK to give me a sound I want... So I tried to sim my RK - which is just an overblown Dual Rec - so I dialed in just the amp Recto Orange and within a few minutes, I had it fairly close and have been tweaking ever since. At loud volumes (practice so far), I have the cab sims out of the picture and it's getting there but it's a longer process. My thought was always that tube amps sound poor at low volumes due to the obvious lack of distortion from the power section and the speaker breakup from the cab. Conversely, SS amps sound OK at low volumes but poor at loud volumes. I immediately found myself not only listening to the breakup levels for distortion with the Ultra but actually being able to shape really nice tones into what I WANT to hear - and I gotta tell you I'm having a hard time believing what I'm hearing - too good to be true and that it somehow won't translate (I have to convince myself it's gonna be OK :shock: ).
So plan of attack - I know I have to shape 3 different types of presets (tonally) to sound good at various volumes:
Practice volume - which is loudest so it carries enough for all to hear without FOH
Playing volume - not as loud (so it translates well out front and the sound guy doesn't cry) and
Bedroom or in my case, office volume - low volume to play along to stuff on my crappy computer from iTunes.
I made some progress with a good practice sound - no cab sims and spent the rest of the weekend tweaking for a good low volume. It will take longer to tweak a good practice and stage volume as there is limited time playing with the bass, drums and singer and there's no real good way to dial in a sound that will work and play well with others without the others. How many times have I gone down that road.
What was telling about the Ultra and how good it would be right away was that taking the same presets for loud volumes and using them at low volumes felt very much like doing this with a real tube amp - just sounded poor - not pushed and I finally felt that I was losing the speaker breakup and natural thump that goes with a pushed, real guitar cab. I started tweaking with the cab sims at low volumes and with just a few adjustments, WOW! It certainly made sense that this would make it sound better and I was wondering if I wasn't kind of getting into a flatter response with less cab "coloring" at low volumes? I wound up using a 4X12 w/ V30's sim in mono and could not put it down - especially playing along to music at low volumes. I've been reading a lot about FRFR (which I NEVER knew about at all until a month ago reading all of this here)
and I was trying to stay away from the cab sims as I see so many times the suggestion to turn them off when using a guitar cab, but at low volume it sounds 100% fuller.
I knew when I was going to get one of these, that it was not plug and play but with the amount of options it would be fun to tweak - and I'm not a tweaker by nature, but there's so much good stuff in this that you just have to! I read posts in this forum and the manual for a month or so before I even took the plunge and cannot agree more that this unit can yield so much more by understanding it - and I am not a rocket surgeon when it comes to a lot of the in-depth stuff, but I have learned a lot over the last month. I do know what I think sounds good and I can match what I want to hear with this unit.
So - does anyone else feel the same about cab sims on at low volumes in this situation (guitar cab)?
Also, the SLA-2 is great but what's up with the banana plugs? I never knew those existed! It's always been a 1/4" world for me - I have it bridged mono (button pushed in) and have the banana plug into the 2 red inputs but they sure don't seem very tight? Anyone have this issue? Is it a big deal?
I play in a cover band and have had a Mesa RK w/a TC G-Sys for effects for 4 years now. Let me just say that the Ultra is sooooo much more versatile AND with a workable tone. Anyway...
I have a Bogner 4x12 cab I've been using - I've been using the Ultra through an ART SLA-2 (great little amp BTW) into the Bogner both at practice and at home - on kind of a hiatus for live playing (drummer broke his right ankle Snowmobiling 5 weeks ago - he played at practice Friday with a cast on his RF playing the kick LF'ed and was awesome
) Uh, anyway again... So when I first got it I figured I would try to simulate what I know so I have ear reference for dialing (I mean, you have to know what you're shooting for, right?) And since I've spent the last 4 years dialing in the RK to give me a sound I want... So I tried to sim my RK - which is just an overblown Dual Rec - so I dialed in just the amp Recto Orange and within a few minutes, I had it fairly close and have been tweaking ever since. At loud volumes (practice so far), I have the cab sims out of the picture and it's getting there but it's a longer process. My thought was always that tube amps sound poor at low volumes due to the obvious lack of distortion from the power section and the speaker breakup from the cab. Conversely, SS amps sound OK at low volumes but poor at loud volumes. I immediately found myself not only listening to the breakup levels for distortion with the Ultra but actually being able to shape really nice tones into what I WANT to hear - and I gotta tell you I'm having a hard time believing what I'm hearing - too good to be true and that it somehow won't translate (I have to convince myself it's gonna be OK :shock: ).
So plan of attack - I know I have to shape 3 different types of presets (tonally) to sound good at various volumes:
Practice volume - which is loudest so it carries enough for all to hear without FOH
Playing volume - not as loud (so it translates well out front and the sound guy doesn't cry) and
Bedroom or in my case, office volume - low volume to play along to stuff on my crappy computer from iTunes.
I made some progress with a good practice sound - no cab sims and spent the rest of the weekend tweaking for a good low volume. It will take longer to tweak a good practice and stage volume as there is limited time playing with the bass, drums and singer and there's no real good way to dial in a sound that will work and play well with others without the others. How many times have I gone down that road.
What was telling about the Ultra and how good it would be right away was that taking the same presets for loud volumes and using them at low volumes felt very much like doing this with a real tube amp - just sounded poor - not pushed and I finally felt that I was losing the speaker breakup and natural thump that goes with a pushed, real guitar cab. I started tweaking with the cab sims at low volumes and with just a few adjustments, WOW! It certainly made sense that this would make it sound better and I was wondering if I wasn't kind of getting into a flatter response with less cab "coloring" at low volumes? I wound up using a 4X12 w/ V30's sim in mono and could not put it down - especially playing along to music at low volumes. I've been reading a lot about FRFR (which I NEVER knew about at all until a month ago reading all of this here)
and I was trying to stay away from the cab sims as I see so many times the suggestion to turn them off when using a guitar cab, but at low volume it sounds 100% fuller.
I knew when I was going to get one of these, that it was not plug and play but with the amount of options it would be fun to tweak - and I'm not a tweaker by nature, but there's so much good stuff in this that you just have to! I read posts in this forum and the manual for a month or so before I even took the plunge and cannot agree more that this unit can yield so much more by understanding it - and I am not a rocket surgeon when it comes to a lot of the in-depth stuff, but I have learned a lot over the last month. I do know what I think sounds good and I can match what I want to hear with this unit.
So - does anyone else feel the same about cab sims on at low volumes in this situation (guitar cab)?
Also, the SLA-2 is great but what's up with the banana plugs? I never knew those existed! It's always been a 1/4" world for me - I have it bridged mono (button pushed in) and have the banana plug into the 2 red inputs but they sure don't seem very tight? Anyone have this issue? Is it a big deal?
