Category: Amp It Up

The magical beast that turns potential into sheer tone!

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#TweedTone: UAFX Woodrow vs NUX Sixty-Five For Stratocaster Tones

I’ve just finished writing up both my First Impressions of the NUX Sixty-Five and my look at Universal Audio’s UAFX Woodrow Tweed Deluxe amp simulator pedal. Seeing as both are on the board at the minute, I thought: why not get some Strat tones out of both, and see how they compare?

This is a photo of three guitar pedals on my pedalboard. On the left, there is the UAFX Woodrow. In the middle, the NUX Sixty-Five Overdrive. On the right, the NUX Horseman.
UAFX Woodrow, NUX Sixty Five Overdrive, NUX Horseman on my pedalboard

I think this is worth doing. As much as I love tweed tone, there might be times where something else is a better option for me. And clean-ish Strat tones just might be one of those times.

Read on to find out what I think (with audio demos!).

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New Arrivals: October 2023

This month, the second-hand market has completely taken off. After what seems like years of me saying that there wasn’t much interesting stuff out there (well, interesting to me, anyway), I saw at least twenty different pedals that I would have loved to experience.

In the end, I got precisely none of them. I’d already picked up a couple of extra items back in September that I didn’t get to use until this month. And they’re both pretty fine, in my honest opinion.

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#TweedTone: Is The Kemper A Good Alternative To A Real Tweed Deluxe Amp?

I’m lucky enough to own a physical Tweed Deluxe amp. I also think that a Tweed Deluxe amp rig for home use has become so expensive in 2023, it’s difficult to justify. So I’ve started looking at alternatives, to see how they compare to the real thing.

This week, I’m dusting off my old Kemper to see what kind of 5e3 Tweed Deluxe tones I can get out of it.

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#TweedTone: Is The UAFX Woodrow A Great Alternative To A Real Tweed Deluxe Amp?

I’m lucky enough to own a physical Tweed Deluxe amp. I also think that a Tweed Deluxe amp rig for home use has become so expensive in 2023, it’s difficult to justify. So I’ve started looking at alternatives, to see how they compare to the real thing.

This is a photo of the UAFX Woodrow guitar pedal, from Universal Audio. We're looking down on the pedal from an angle. The pedal is sat on my practice pedalboard at home. On the front panel, there are four rows of controls. The first row contains three knobs. They control INST volume, NORM volume, and OUTPUT volume. The second row contains three toggle switches. They control the selected speaker emulation, whether or not to save the current settings as a preset, and the kind of boost that is active (if any). The third row consists of three knobs. These control the amount of room added to the sound; the overall tone of the signal; and how much boost to use. The fourth row consists of two latching footswitches. They control whether the pedal is in live mode or bypassed; and whether the pedal is in preset mode or bypassed.
The UAFX Woodrow pedal on my pedalboard

This time around, I’m looking at Universal Audio’s UAFX Woodrow pedal.

Continue reading “#TweedTone: Is The UAFX Woodrow A Great Alternative To A Real Tweed Deluxe Amp?”
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#TweedTone: Comparing Fractal Audio’s Deluxe Tweed Model With A Physical Tweed Deluxe Amp

I’m lucky enough to own a physical Tweed Deluxe amp. I also think that a Tweed Deluxe amp rig for home use has become so expensive in 2023, it’s difficult to justify. So I’ve started looking at alternatives, to see how they compare to the real thing.

I’ve previously looked at UAD’s Fender 55 Tweed Deluxe plugin (which did well). How will Fractal Audio’s Deluxe Tweed model in my Axe-FX 3 compare?

Continue reading “#TweedTone: Comparing Fractal Audio’s Deluxe Tweed Model With A Physical Tweed Deluxe Amp”
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#TweedTone: Comparing Universal Audio’s Fender 55 With A Real Fender Tweed Deluxe Amp

I’m lucky enough to own a physical Tweed Deluxe amp. I also think that a Tweed Deluxe amp rig for home use has become so expensive in 2023, it’s difficult to justify. So I’ve started looking at alternatives, to see how they compare to the real thing.

First up is the Fender 55 Tweed Deluxe plugin from Universal Audio.

Continue reading “#TweedTone: Comparing Universal Audio’s Fender 55 With A Real Fender Tweed Deluxe Amp”
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#TweedTone: You’ve Got To Be A Huge Fan Of Tweed Tone To Get A Real Fender Tweed Deluxe Amp In 2023

Regular readers will know that I’m quite the fan of “tweed tone”: the sound of classic amps from the fifties. So much so that, back in 2021, I went out and bought Fender’s modern reissue of the holy grail of tweed amps: the 5e3 Tweed Deluxe.

I’m glad that I got mine when I did, because I’m not sure that I could afford – or justify – buying the same amp in late 2023.

Read on if you’re interested in my thoughts and experiences on this topic.

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Studio Diary #37: Can I Use The Axe-FX 3 As A Power Amp For My Synergy Rig?

I’ve had a lot of success – and a lot of joy – using my Axe-FX 3 to record guitar pedal audio demos. Heck, it sounds so good, it’s my go-to pedal platform all the time now.

Can I do the same with my Synergy rig? Instead of running my Synergy modules through the SYN-5050 power amp + attenuator, can I run them straight into the Axe-FX 3 instead? Can the Axe-FX 3 add a bit of that power amp tonal magic?

I’m going to experiment, and find out.

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