That game misses the point entirely. I would much rather play the “which inspires the best outta me” game.

No doubt. Personally speaking, I am a “best tool for the job” type. I love my low watt tube amps and play out with a dual amp rig, but my sounds are few. If I needed a many plethora of tones, the AxeFX would soon be in my studio.

The reason I went with an AxeFX was that it had all the features I wanted, and I picked it in several blind comparison demos, sometimes over the actual amp itself.

I think there's this idea that a tube amp is always the gold standard for what a guitar amp should sound like. This just isn't true. Before modelers, we had plenty of guitarists, including myself, that picked transistor amps. I did this in the late 80s and ended up with an Ampeg transistor amp. I didn't even realize it was a transistor amp until I got it home. I just picked the one I liked the most. It remains one of my favorite sounding physical amps of all times. Later I became friends with a guy who had a Pearce G2 that I thought sounded fantastic. Of course the Roland Jazz Chorus line remains a classic. People like transistors so much, they put them in front of their tube amps! SHOCKING.

So, as always, pick based on sound and features, not based on what technology is being used. I actually moved to modelers because I was using audio looping with guitars and synthesizers and it was difficult to do with a traditional amp. My move was feature driven, but I found a way to make my gear make me happy. I always do, for the most part.

Excellent post. I have a handful of amps. I tend to play out with a Mesa Mark V 35, and a Deluxe Reverb along with a pedalboard switching system. I not once ever thought to justify my gear to another guitar player, and never once thought to criticize others for theirs.

Anecdotally, I have heard a modeler sound really really good to my ears as an audience member, exactly one time. And it was some guy at a multi band gig. HOWEVER, I haven't heard mind blowing guitar tone that often from tube amps either.

The high water mark AFAIK for modeling use cases is Dweezil Zappa who absolutely pushes his AXE FXs to the limit. His analog rig did sound much better to me, but he also had significant problems with rig malfunctions which he cited as justification along with shipping costs for moving to AxeFX. Didn't affect the show at all.

A local observation: Small time bands I know or have watched featuring dual guitarists, one with a modeler, and one with a tube amp. The modelers tend to sound overly compressed and flat and lifeless compared to the tube amp. I witnessed a very basic guitarists Peavey Classic 30 completely murder a very good guitarists Line6 Helix tones.

IMO These anecdotal examples could very well be user error and wouldn't sway me from buying an AxeFX if I had a use case for one. However that type of "demo" would tend to play to the confirmation bias of folks who enjoy bashing modelers. The sides of the debate are clearly polarized with the fanatics taking up all the oxygen..

4x12 Cabinets and 100 watt Marshall Plexis don't make you a man nor a better guitar player, and musicians ears more often than not, can easily hear the difference between modelers and tube amps with the tube amp and cab ***in the room***. And literally none of that matters. It is what comes out of the player that is important.

Folks need to calm TF down and play their guitars.

Is anyone actually claiming that? I don't think I've seen that claim myself.

re: the overall point, I think there are all kinds of options that can get results that all kinds of people dig. Personally, I don't care about any kind of 'consensus' or whatever. I've tried so, so many electric guitar recording options. And for me, the comparison process is pretty much always tedious and always the same - layer up a couple of tracks worth of guitars using whatever option I'm deciding on, and compare them blind to whatever technique I'm considering replacing. (e.g. if I'm considering using a sim instead of mic'ing my amps). I've done this with Kemper (multiple rounds), ISO cabs, UA Ox, Iridium, TH-U, Suhr Reactive Load, etc, etc, etc. For me to even go to the trouble, I need to have been impressed with clips other people have made first. But for me to really know what my ears want, I need to do my own blind comparisons. Meticulously level matched, several guitars layered up the way I would do it, all blind toggle-able together, to see what the overall sonic/spatial reality is and what is worth my time and effort going forward. As it stands, I use an Iridium (loaded with Ownhamer IRs) to get my takes (easily, as quietly as I want) and then I re-amp in batches. When it's time to be loud and I have a bunch of takes done, I mic up my amps and let 'em rip. Keeper takes with quieter options (that are still very enjoyable to use), keeper tones with amps and mics.

If I couldn't be loud, though, I'd be more than happy to just use some of the quieter options. For me, the winners there have been Iridium, TH-U and Suhr RL. I think the Neural Quad Cortex seems to sound good too, but I haven't done the whole testing rigmorale with that one, so it's a second hand guess.

Your point on consensus is spot on. A consensus to me would mean everyone sounds the same. That would be really boring.

There is an overlooked point here, and it's that the presets in the AxeFX III and Kemper are not very good. I hear there is a similar issue with synthesizers, even high-end ones. One really needs to dig in and tinker a bit with these things to make them sound good.

We never talk about it here, but the issue with crappy live sound is a far bigger problem than any difference between a good modeler/capture device and a tube amp. Many shows seem like they're more interested in damaging your hearing than entertaining.

An issue that I noticed when I started using modelers, was that I'd dial in what seemed like a great sound in my home, and then get to a gig and find it didn't work. There's a difference between a sound set up for the studio and one for live. I find that for a live show, a far more simple sound works a lot better than what I made for the track that I recorded, or even practiced with.

They sure do!

I worked in music retail for a really long time, and I used to call them "seller presets," because they seemed to be only for hyping the device on a sales floor, and not really for day to day use. In all honesty, I don't think I ever even bothered to use an AxeFX preset. I think guitar presets are even worse than synth presets, because they have no idea what you're plugging into that device, or what your playing style is like. Whenever I build a patch on any modeler, I start out as if I was in my house with actual hardware. Plug into an "amp" that I feel has the characteristics that I think will work in my track. Work with the cab emulation and virtual mics until I'm happy, or switch to an IR. Try out various pedal emulations, etc. When I do check out a preset in Amplitube, I'm always amazed at all the crap they put in there. I almost always ditch the post amp effects in favor of better dedicated plugins.

I can sometimes hear the sound of a Kemper if it's from a bad capture, which many of the captures are. It's a sort of grainy mush in the lower mids. It's not always there, though. Many sound great. I have a theory that if you do an amp profile in a very live room, that can have a big impact on the quality of the result. Hard to say, though. I never did my own Kemper profiles, so that is a total guess. If someone buys a Kemper, I always recommend putting aside some money for some great 3rd party captures.

I don't think I could accurately guess every time, but I do think that Fractal models sound more like "idealized" versions of amps than actual amps. I think that's what a lot of people mean when they say that there's a Fractal sound. I think it actually sounds really great at times, but on some things the missing personality just ends up sounding generic. I've made the mistake of picking synthesizer plugins over the real deal for the same reason. Sometimes the emulation sounds "better" than the original, and can work better in some contexts.

The one true advantage modeling amps have like Fractal / Kemper is it allows the average Joe to have an arsenal of vintage / boutique amp sounds for a fraction of the cost of owning the real thing. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of amps and classic hardware effects sounds.

The convenience aspect is there. But what percentage of players who own these units are home players vs gigging musicians? I’d wager 90% are home players.

You guys have fun with your modelers. I’m looking forward to snatching up classic tube amps at bargain basement prices when the market drops out for real amps.

Rock on!

There are many more advantages than that, and sorry to burst your bubble, but if the market for hardware amps hasn't dropped out by now, it never will.

You have documented psychic skills? If you do you’ve played the stock market and you’re worth millions right?

Sorry to burst your bubble but digital modeling amps suck!

“There is no accounting for taste.”
Lots of great players have crap tone WITH tube amps. Some of them are on your list. Satriani being the poster boy for lousy tone.

OK, so Joe. But wat about the rest of those guys? I swear I'm old enough to remember when the word "TONE" wasn't applied to guitar playing, but rather actual PLAYING was applied to guitar playing.

When I saw Steve Vai last year playing with Belew on his Beat tour, he was also using a Fractal AxeFX.

That’s a half truth. He’s also using his Synergy rig through Fryette power amps…

The only good tone Vai ever had was on DLR’s Eat Em and Smile “amazing tone,” and the Whitesnake album. His tone has been a thin, plinky, trebly mess since. And I am a huge fan of his playing.

Vai uses AxeFX only for the Effects, not the amps.

These are ideologues and you are attempting to use evidence. They’re not here for a discussion, they just want to bully people into their beliefs.

When I started playing guitar and recording myself, I came into it from a Beatles/George Martin style of thinking. By that, I mean that I loved the way he used technology to create sounds and textures to the music that was way beyond traditional pop music techniques. Hendrix was similar, and the tales of him using prototype pedals is well known. In the 80s, I gravitated to artists like Adrian Belew and Laurie Anderson, who I was lucky to work for. I’ve always loved the artist who makes use of whatever technology is available to seek out new sounds.

I’ve got no beef with the dude who’s happy with their Klon going into their AC30, or whatever technology they use. Of course those classic amps and pedals are great. Why would they inspire so many emulations, if they weren’t? What I don’t understand is the religious zealots who act like they should dictate what everyone should do. Don’t like amp modeling? Don’t use them. Why act like a victim? When I last checked, music stores are full of amps to buy.

What isn’t me is conceding that they are the end of guitar amp tone. I’m always looking to experiment with different technologies. I find it inspiring. I’ve also never once heard any negative feedback on my guitar sounds, though I had a band mate that liked to mimic himself using an electric razor whenever I used high gain sounds coming from an Ampeg amp that I was fond of in the 90s. I’ve actually gotten many complements of my guitar sounds, even though amp modelers. I had one guy interrogating me because he refused to believe that my “David Gilmour tone” (his words) was coming from a Vox Tonelab. My small venue rig in those days was the Tonelab into a Boss VF1, and I got great sounds from it. I used it because it opened up the ability to make music with audio loopers in a way that is impossible with traditional amps. Above all, I’d never use something that I thought sounded bad. I’ve rejected many amp modelers because I didn’t like the sound.

Yeah well you know, I came to tone - like I EVER DID - way late in the game. For me it was always the fingers. It was about learning the instrument. My tone sucked but I played so well, for the time, that nobody bothered to tell me. Or they didn't notice. I had my own sound I guess you could say. And that's all I ever wanted. I NEVER, not in my whole life, wanted to sound like X or Y or Z. I always thought sound was such a personal thing. Nobody has these fingers, for good or for bad. And these guys who ONLY talk about tone, as if that's what guitar playing is really about just have a 16th of a clue. And it's not JUST the fingers but it's the knowledge you have in music to impart to your fingers so they can do their thing. THAT'S where the 10k hours comes in. Not sitting around with carious tubes in various amps and tone stacks and guitars and guitar strings and speaker cabs and pedals and modelers. Man! That's so insignificant in comparison. Now once you have ALL THAT OTHER SH** TOGETHER, then yes. Or if you can split your 4-6 hours a day from practicing and then chase tone, great. Do it. But it's all about the MUSIC. The MUSIC and only the Music.

I'm glad we all agree that modellers suck.

LOL! I'm all in on modeler, at least the Fractal versions!

It is a credit to your fingers you can make that crap sound good. I'm just half joking man.

The tone really does start with the fingers though. That's the fun of guitar for me, all the little subtle and not so subtle articulation you get with your fingers. So much variety and color, just in your fingers. That's a big part of what makes a great player great. You can't just strike a note. How boring and styleless is that? You can play it so many different ways and make completely different artistic points with the same note. It's not necessarily on pitch either. This is why I don't use a pick. I get much more variety out of my fingers. Half the time I pluck the notes violently, I am a plucking fool. And I can fingerpick when I want to. I can alternate pick with my thumb nail just like a pick. But the only thing I can't do are the slides and other sound effects I got with a pick. Fingernails don't really work for that, I miss it. I miss the tremelo sometimes too, but I can't be bothered with all that. I have to shake the guitar violently for trem, always a crowd pleaser.

I don’t know if I totally agree with all that. Tone and technique are very personal, and I often feel like the tone encourages the technique to come out.

When I seriously started playing guitar, I had zero idea of how to get “good tone,” but I knew that I didn’t like the crap guitar and amp that I picked up from the newspaper classifieds. My kid brain thought, “I’ll just buy what John Lennon used, because obviously he picked the best.” It was a big step up, for sure, but a few years later, I just felt like the guitar didn’t suit me, or the sound I wanted to make. I ended up with a G&L Skyhawk, that I still have, but kept the AC30. Instantly I just started playing more and enjoying it more.

So, I get the feeling of wanting to really love their gear. It can be inspirational. What I don’t get is, why they feel like they need to dictate their own preferences to everyone else. Seems pathological. It’s like the meat eater who goes up to the vegan who’s enjoying a Beyond Burger and starts preaching about how much they’re missing and how crappy vegan meat is. I feel like it’s their own mind they’re trying hard to prevent from changing, not the vegan’s preference.

What part are you putting in the modeler that produces the sucking sensation?

Oh, it's the meat-eater who bothers the vegan? Not the vegan who preaches to the carnivore about their immorality?

Don't get me started on preaching about healthy food man. Because I am the ideological zealot who will pathologically dictate your gear. Why are you picking on me?