Tag: Original Content

Stuff we’ve written ourselves :)

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Getting To Grips With The Two Notes Torpedo Captor

Back in January, my wife bought me an 8 ohm Two Notes Torpedo Captor as a birthday present. (It was going to be a Christmas present, but Two Notes can’t make these things fast enough to keep up with demand!) And last week, I added a second one to my rig, to go with my ridiculously-overkill Synergy Amps dual-amp pedal platform setup.

Two Notes Captor on top of an amp
Two Notes Torpedo Captor

What Is It?

The Two Notes Torpedo Captor is both a reactive load box and a fixed-level attenuator. There are three different models available: in 4 ohms, 8 ohms (the one I have) and 16 ohms.

  • As a reactive load box, the Two Notes Torpedo Captor allows you to run your amp without having to have a speaker plugged in at all.
  • The -20db fixed attenuation allows you to turn your amp up to get the power tubes cooking and have a (slightly) quieter volume level coming out of your speaker cabinet.

The Captor is a completely analogue device. Unlike the Torpedo Live or Torpedo Studio, there’s no onboard computer to run impulse responses or power amp simulators. If you want to use it for silent recording, you’ll need to run a plugin in your DAW on your computer.

Why Is It Important?

It’s the first affordable reactive load box to hit the market, that I know of at any rate.

Before this, there was the Suhr Reactive Load (currently £399, twice the price of the Captor) – extra software required! – then the Torpedo range (starting from £560 for the Torpedo Reload and then the Torpedo Live at £680).

That’s a lot of money to spend on a reactive load box for a single amp setup. For a dual-amp setup, you effectively had to budget for a third amp, and then spend that money on a pair of Torpedo units.

Priced at £199, the Captor is a game changer.

Why Is It Useful?

Those of us playing and/or recording at home often want silent recording – the sound of our amp on 10 into our computers, but not coming out of a speaker cabinet at the same time. And that’s where the Captor comes in.

Valve amplifiers need to be connected to a speaker cabinet, so that the signal generated by the output transformer has somewhere to flow to. If you forget to plug your amp into a speaker, you’ll blow the output transformer (if you’re lucky).

A load box like the Captor allows us to run a valve amp without plugging in a speaker cab.

Buy the Captor that matches your amp’s required output impedance, and plug the amp’s speaker out into the Captor. Now you can safely turn your amp on without blowing anything up.

From here, you’ve got a couple of choices on how to get the sound out of the Captor.

As An Attenuator

I originally got the Captor to use as an attenuator.

I’ve been making my own Kemper profiles, and I wanted to crank the amp as much as possible so that the source signal sounded as good as possible. Power tube saturation plays an important role in the overall quality of the tone, and to get it to kick in, you have to turn the Master volume up.

However, my little home project studio The Hermit’s Cave is just an ordinary room in an ordinary house. A cranked amp – especially my Blackstart HT-100 – will wreck my hearing in here. Not to mention the problems inflicted on my family and my neighbours!

That’s where an attenuator comes in.

An attenuator takes the cranked signal from your amp and bleeds some of it off. What comes out the other end is a quieter signal, to save your hearing and your marriage!

More expensive attenuators offer variable power soak levels. The Captor offers a fixed -20db attenuation. To put that in context, that’s roughly the difference between 2 and 4 on the HT-100’s Master volume control.

Which is just enough to get the power tubes cooking nicely.

The end result? A big difference to the quality of the tone captured by the Kemper Profiler – without a louder volume coming out of the speaker cab. There’s more definition to the tone, with the power tubes filling out the mids nicely. And that’s exactly where the Kemper’s internal algorithms seem to work the best.

However, I’m not ready to sell off all my pedals and stick exclusively with the Kemper just yet. Which is where my new Synergy Amps dual-amp setup comes in … along with the Captor’s other useful function.

For Silent Recording

Right now, I’m using a pair of Captors for silent recording.

I’ve just built up a dual-amp setup: a pair of Synergy Amps SYN-1 enclosures, with different modules in each, running into the two channels of the Synergy SYN-5050 power amp. I’m running that in stereo mode, with each channel running out into an 8 ohm Captor.

There’s no speaker cab plugged into either Captor. Instead, I’m using the XLR line out to run a mono signal from each Captor into my Apollo Twin unit. With two Captors, I can run two mono signals, and effectively have a dual-amp setup for blended pedal tones, a la That Pedal Show’s usual setups.

The only noise? The fan on the SYN-5050 power amp, and (if I crank the power amp too much) some sympathetic noise from each Captor. The noise was annoying when I had everything out on top of a speaker cab. For now, I’ve bundled them under a desk and out of the way, and that’s cut down the noise just enough to be able to ignore it – most of the time at any rate.

Both channels at the Apollo run into my DAW (I use Reaper – it’s excellent). There, I record onto two separate channels – one for Channel A, and a different one for Channel B from the SYN-5050. I have different impulse responses loaded onto each channel, chosen to match both the preamp module and the guitar I’m using.

The Captor comes with a license for Two Note’s highly-regarded Wall of Sound (WoS) impulse response plugin. I’m actually using something else – mixIR and the Redwirez BigBox collection.

I’ve been using the Redwirez BigBox for the last 4 years, so I know it well and I’ve had a lot of practice getting the results I want from it. It has great, phase-corrected impulses that suit all the Synergy preamp modules that I’m using. I’m really happy with it.

The end results are excellent.

I found that I got the best results using the XLR output of the Captor, rather than the TRS Line Out. You need to be able to provide phantom power – which the Apollo Twin does.

The Line Out doesn’t need power to operate. I struggled to get a signal that I liked from the Line Out. The output volume there seems to depend on how loud you run your amp. The Captor is rated for 100W amps, and my amp is 50W. Even cranked, I found I was having to crank the preamps on my Apollo Twin too. The end result was too noisy for my tastes.

Your mileage may vary.

What’s The Competition?

The Captor is the entry-level model for Two Note’s Torpedo line of units. There is nothing entry-level about the results you can achieve with it.

On one of the forums I hang out on, someone else posted that the Captor sounds identical to the more expensive Torpedo units. If you don’t need the features of those units – and at home, you probably don’t – then the Captor is an excellent choice.

Almost any other competitor – the Suhr Reactive Load, or Fryette’s Power Station – still relies on impulse responses running in your DAW. You might prefer how these units affect the tone. Each load box uses a different design to bleed off the power, and each design has a different effect on the end tone. We all hear things differently, and which unit you ultimately prefer will be a subjective matter of personal taste.

The only way you’ll get a substantive improvement over what impulse responses offer is to use a proprietary modelling solution like Universal Audio’s OX amp top box. If you want to know more about that, here’s a recent blog post comparing it to the other options.

Final Thoughts

I’ve only just finished wiring up the dual-amp pedal platform. It’ll probably be Easter weekend before I have the time to sit down and really explore what it can do. I’m excited for the possibilities.

There’s no two ways about it. I wouldn’t have been able to build this before the Captor came along.

Because there’s no software running on the Captor – and therefore no software drivers to worry about as time goes on – not only is the Captor cheaper, it should also outlive its more capable big brothers.

If you’re recording at home with valve amps, and you don’t have anywhere to run a real speaker cab at volume, the Captor + impulse responses should be on your list of options.

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Initial Thoughts On The PRS Silver Sky

This evening, my friend Matt asked me on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/matthew_darcy/status/971115684552937473?s=21

Well, truth be told: I haven’t played one, and until I do, all I have is an emotional reaction to the announcement.

And my feelings are really mixed.

The pricing was a nice surprise to me. I’m used to PRS charging top dollar for their guitars. In return, you get an amazing musical instrument that’s also often a work of art. Plus this is a signature model.

I was expecting it to be priced around the same as the Custom 24, if not higher. So to see it priced where it is was a really nice surprise. If I was looking for a top-end Strat, it’d make my to-try list on price alone.

The thing I’m not feeling good about is that, in looks at least, it’s a Strat. It’ll have all the little tweaks and improvements that PRS do best, but it’s a Strat. It’s a little too close to being a clone for my comfort.

I don’t know why I’m having this reaction. I grew up playing Strat clones, and I still own one to this day that I’ll never part with. Last month, I was very happily bonding with an Xotic California Classic, and I didn’t have the same reaction then.

It makes no sense, but there it is.

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Some Thoughts About Gear Opinions

Whenever new gear comes out, people ask about it on forums and Facebook groups. Money is tight for most people these days, and many people aren’t covered by the great 14-day return distance-selling laws we enjoy in the UK.

The new Fender pedals are an interesting case in point.

Fender’s put a lot of effort into getting the word out and promoting these from launch. Not only have we seen demos appearing on YouTube, but they’ve also been running online ads for them too.

So when someone recently asked for opinions, it wasn’t a surprise to see people quickly respond with their thoughts. But how many people have actually played them?

At the time of writing, I’m the only person who posted in there and said “yes, I’ve played them.” That’s 1 out of 28 responses.

And that has me thinking. I joined forums and Facebook groups to learn how to get more out of gear, and to learn how to solve some of the problems I’ve run into over the years. Just how many people are offering their opinion (often with complete confidence) without having ever tried or owned the stuff they’re talking about?

It’s something to be aware of, as you look for helpful advice on getting the sounds you want at home.

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Initial Thoughts On The Santa Ana Overdrive

Earlier today, I had the opportunity to play the new Fender Santa Ana Overdrive for myself. AStrings’ recent demo had left me unsure what this pedal actually was, so I thought I’d go and find out for myself.

And I’m glad that I did.

I ran the Santa Ana into the vibrato channel of a Fender Deluxe Reverb Reissue (DRRI). I went for that amp partly because it’s the clean tone that I’m into right now, and partly because I know that particular DRRI is a very sweet-sounding amp. (If only I had the space for it, it would have come home with me a long time ago!)

For guitars, I used two very different beasts: a single-cut PRS 594, and a certain green Fender Special Telecaster. I’m not sure how I managed to leave the store without the Telecaster …

I haven’t come across another drive pedal that sounds quite like the Santa Ana Overdrive does. To my ears, it does offer something different.

I really liked how it sounded through the DRRI. Roll back the treble and presence a bit, wind up the drive and mids, and there’s a really sweet creamy lead tone there. Roll back the volume on the guitar, and you’re in ZZ-Top-ish Texas tones for rhythm.

There’s a softness to the initial attack that I particularly liked. Along with the pedal’s natural compression, it certainly made me sound a lot more fluid than I really am! I really enjoyed how it tamed the natural spikiness of the Tele’s bridge pickup. I had a hard job handing the Tele back after that 🙂

You can hear an example of what I mean in the jam at the end of this video:

The jam starts just after the 32 minute mark. The tone that Danish Pete gets out his Les Paul is very similar to what I was getting myself today.

Also, check out the earlier jam around the 25 minute mark. Very impressed with how well the Pugulist Distortion pedal worked over the top of the Santa Ana Overdrive in that.

Other thoughts …

The light-up knobs aren’t a gimmick. Even in a well-lit shop, I found they made it quicker to see how the pedal was dialled in. I wonder if we’ll see them catch on with other brands.

The two voices were different, but not drastically so. A bit like how a Tweed is different to a Deluxe, I guess. One was a bit more in your face than the other. Both were very usable.

The boost/extra drive circuit doesn’t change the tone at all. It’s just either a volume gain or increased saturation. I’m not sure that I’d make any use of it personally. I’m more inclined to either ride the volume knob of my guitar, or kick on a second pedal to change the tone.

It’s an interesting pedal, and I’m sure I’ll be picking one up at some point.

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Setting Up Synergy Amps Back At The Cave

This is a first look at the Synergy Amps system now that it’s home, where I can hear it through my cabs and with my guitars. 

I’ve been away for work this last week, and whilst I over the other side of the country, I managed to pick up a set of Synergy Amps modules, enclosures and the power amp.

Now that I’m back at the Hermit’s Cave, time to unbox everything … just to make sure it survived the journey, right? 😀

So what have we got here?

  • 2 x Synergy SYN-1 module enclosures
  • 1 x Synergy T-DLX preamp module
  • 1 x Metropoulos Metro Plex preamp module
  • 1 x Synergy SYN-5050 4x6L6 power amp

They’re sat on top of a pair of Victory Amps 1×12 cabs. The top cab is a V112-C with a G12M-65 Creamback, and the bottom cab is a V112-V with a V30.

Let’s talk about the power amp first. I have a lot more to say about it than I expected to.

Synergy SYN-5050 Power Amp

The power amp is deceptively heavy. The SYN-1 enclosures aren’t exactly featherweights either. It’s all solid stuff. If it was all mounted into a rack, I wouldn’t want to be moving it around much.

When I switched the power amp on, first thing I noticed is that the internal fan is loud. Loud enough to be heard when playing at home tone volume levels. It’s loud enough to be an issue for my environment. I’m hoping that it’ll be less noticeable once it’s properly racked. Failing that, the sound reminds me of one of those old 90s computer fans. Maybe it’s possible to replace it with something more acoustically engineered?

(I’ll do a follow-up post at some point talking about why fan noise is important.)

I’ve owned a few rack-mount power amps over the years. This one’s a little different to what I’ve seen before. This isn’t a dual mono-block power amp. It took me a bit of fiddling to get both channels working, and at first I really thought that Channel B wasn’t working. It was working, it’s just that Channel B’s volume control isn’t always active.

I’ll do a dedicated post about the SYN-5050’s 3 modes of operation shortly.

One reason why I want to make that a separate post is the manual that comes with the SYN-5050. I didn’t find the manual any help at all. I’m hoping it’s just that the manual is a draft, and that they’ll improve it as time goes on. The diagrams aren’t labelled, the text refers to sections that aren’t included, and the description of MONO, MONO-BRIDGED and STEREO modes wasn’t clear enough for me.

On the front of the power amp, the STANDBY/ON switches for Channel A and Channel B are next to each other. I’ve already switched Channel B on by mistake at least once. Fortunately, I had a cab plugged into Channel B, so no harm done. But be aware of it. It’s an accident waiting to happen.

The amp itself sounds great. It’s 50W in MONO and STEREO modes, and 100W in MONO-BRIDGED mode, I believe. The volume range is very usable for home use – already a bonus compared to many Fender amps! I’m looking forward to running it through the Two Notes Torpedo Captor so that I can crank it a bit and hear that lovely power tube saturation.

I’ve been after a rack-mountable 6L6 power amp for many years. The old Mesa Boogie 2:90 was on my wishlist for a long time. The sheer weight of it always put me off. That, and how much it would cost to revalve! I’ve been using software-based emulation in the mean time, which certainly does a job. I’m very pleased that I don’t have to any more 🙂

So what are the two modules like?

Synergy T-DLX Preamp Module

This module takes drive pedals really well. Especially on the red channel, which I believe is voiced like a Fender Deluxe. Some pedals just don’t shine through the Blackstar HT-100. I’ve had a couple of them out the cupboard and through the T-DLX, and so far I like what I’ve heard.

Early days yet. I need to do some recording and mixing before I can say that this is definitely a great pedal platform.

The module sounds good through the G12M-65. I would like to pair it with a Celestion A-Type soon, to get even closer to that Fender DRRI tone. I’m going to take a looat at how easy it is to swap speakers in the Victory cabs. Not sure yet whether I’ll swap out the V30, or just pick up a third cab and swap the speaker in that.

Metropoulous Metro Plex Preamp Module

The Metro Plex doesn’t take drive pedals at all. When I kick in the pedal, all the bottom end disappears. And I don’t care.

Because this thing sounds utterly glorious with a Les Paul.

I lost what – an hour and a half? two hours? – last night just playing straight into it. Hit the front end with a compressor (like my favourite, the Forest Green Compressor from Mad Professor) or a Wampler Tumnus, and it’s amp drive heaven. I’ve never been a fan of amp drive before. This module has converted me 🙂

Well … almost. I haven’t yet managed to dial in a touch-sensitive kind of crunch. Hopefully I’ll find it. If not, it’s still a special sound, and this module is a keeper regardless.

So Is This A Great Pedal Platform?

I bought this rig to be a completely-overkill pedal platform. The plan was to run pedals into both modules at the same time – a la That Pedal Show and their dual-amp setup – to get the best blended tone possible.

Then I got sidetracked a bit, because I had the opportunity to get the Metro Plex module. The early YouTube demos had deeply impressed me. I didn’t think there were any in the country, so when Peach Guitars said they had one, that was a no-brainer. I really don’t care that it doesn’t take pedals. It’s worth having for what it does.

So, going forward, I’ve got a couple of options.

  1. Get a third preamp module (like the B-MAN or Morgan AC) to be the second amp for my pedal platform.
  2. Keep the Blackstar HT-100, and use its preamp as the second amp.

I’ve already got the HT-100, and I know it takes many drive pedals very well. I’m going to wire that up into the SYN-5050 and give that a go first.

I don’t have a second Torpedo Two Notes Captor atm, and once again they’re on backorder at the retailers. I’m going to have to wait a few weeks before I can try this out.

And let’s not kid myself. I’ve been looking for a platform like Synergy ever since I decided that I’d had enough of digital amps. Unless I run into some big disappointments once I start recording this setup, I am going to collect the other modules over time.

Final Comments

I’ve spent years building a sound around my pedals into the Blackstar HT-100. Getting the Synergy Amps system has blown that up to a certain extent.

It’s going to be a few weeks before it’s fully integrated into my little home project studio here at The Hermit’s Cave. Probably won’t be able to get that done until Easter weekend. After that, I’m going to need time using it to learn how to get the best out of it.

I’ll be posting updates about that as I go.

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First Impressions: Synergy Amps

I’m just back from a visit to Peach Guitars over in Colchester. I went over to try out the Synergy Amps modules in person, and Peach Guitars are the only UK stockist right now.

tl;dr: the Synergy Amps are exactly what I was looking for

What Are Synergy Amps?

A quick introduction to Synergy Amps: they’re an American company making a modular amp system. They make a range of preamp modules, a couple of different housings to put them in, and a 50/50 6L6 1U rack power amp too. Some of the preamps are made by Synergy themselves, and are re-creations of classic amp circuits. Some of the preamps are made by folks like Friedman and Metropoulos. If you’re uncomfortable with the economics of Kemper profiles (basically, the original amp manufacturers get nothing), Synergy is a way to get a range of real valve preamps and for (some of) the original amp manufacturers to get paid too.

The system came out just before Christmas. There’s a whole heap of YouTube demos online. Here’s a playlist of just some of them:

(There are hours and hours of demos there. What can I say? I was ill in bed with the flu over Christmas and New Year, and needed something to cheer me up …)

Why Am I Looking At Synergy Amps?

There’s a couple of reasons.

  1. I’m looking for classic Fender cleans, but I don’t have the space for a real Fender amp.
  2. Some pedals – especially Marshall-in-a-Box (MIAB) types – don’t work well through my existing rig.

I’ve been frustrated with MIAB pedals through the Blackstar HT-100 for the last 4 years now. Yes, frustrated is a fair word there. Nearly all of them have sounded dark or dull through the Blackstar, and nothing I’ve tried has solved that one for me. Many pedals sound fantastic through that amp. Just not MIAB pedals. Not for me, anyway. Having tried everything else, it’s time to try a different amp.

When I’ve seen pedals demoed on YouTube over the years, especially official demos done by the manufacturer, more often than not those demos have been done through some kind of Fender, Marshall, or a clone amp. And that got me thinking. I’m sure that pedal makers test their pedals with a range of amps before launch. But they’re probably designing those pedals through Fender and/or Marshall-style amps. It’s those amps that’ll get the best out of those pedals.

Over the last 18 months or so, our little music project has been moving away from palm-muted power chord riffage heaven and trying to be a little more … well, musical. The very properties that make the Blackstar HT-100 a great pedal amp also make for a very uninteresting clean channel. It isn’t something I’d use for clean tones, and I haven’t found a pedal that can bridge that gap.

What Did I Look At First?

I looked at the Fender Deluxe Reverb Re-issue (DRRI), and the Kemper.

There’s a fantastic-sounding DRRI in my local music shop. Sounds great at low volume, and it sounded even better cranked a little bit for product demo nights. The only reason I haven’t bought it is that it’s a combo.

Combos are simply too big, too bulky, and too heavy for me and my circumstances. I need separate head and cabs, and the head can’t be a 20+ kg monster like the the HT-100 is. I need a lunchbox head or better. Anything bigger, and it’s not for me.

Sadly, Fender just don’t make those kind of amps. I think that the only all-valve head they sell right now is the Bassbreaker, which is basically their take on the JCM800 circuit. No joy there.

I did look at getting the DRRI converted into a separate head and cab; that’s something the folks over at Zilla Cabs do, for example. It’s not a cheap option, and at the time a second-hand Kemper would have cost a lot less. Plus, as Adam once asked me – why not go Kemper, and have all the amps?

So I did more than look at the Kemper – I found one second hand for a good price. I’ll say a lot more about the Kemper in other blog posts. I’m nowhere near as in love with it as some folks online. Buyer’s remorse? It’s more complicated than that.

I think it’s good at what it does, but I don’t think it’s a good dirt pedal platform. If I dial up a clean amp model and run dirt pedals into it, the breakup doesn’t sound convincing at times. That was a real shame.

I’d love to get value-quality tone without the sheer hassle that valve amps bring. The Kemper can do that, as long as you’re plugged straight in. The more you throw at it, the further away you go from what it’s designed to be. That’s just its nature.

(There’s a couple of issues too, but I’ll save them for their own blog posts.)

Has it solved my Fender cleans need, at least? Not really. The Kemper doesn’t re-create the full frequency range of a real amp. It sounds like a very-professionally recorded amp. That’s great, as long as you record everything using the Kemper. The moment I try and mix and match Kemper profiles with recording my own rig … you hear the difference. I don’t have the mixing skill to overcome that. And the Kemper can’t re-create all the tones and textures I get from pedals.

My Kemper sits right beside my desk, and its what I play through most of the day when I’m taking breaks from my work. It’s not going anywhere. But neither are my pedals, and at the end of the day, I enjoy them more.

Why Synergy?

Synergy offers me everything I’m looking for:

  1. real valves!
  2. small
  3. light
  4. Fender cleans
  5. 6L6 power tubes
  6. range of classic preamps

I like that the Synergy system is modular. If I’ve got a pedal that I’m struggling with, I can try it with a different preamp – or even with try it through a couple of different preamps at the same time. That’s awesome for me.

I can get the Fender cleans that I’m looking for, without having a big heavy combo taking up space I just don’t have. When it’s time to get things serviced, I’m not going to have any problems struggling with the weight. I’m dreading when I have to move the HT-100 for its first service. So much, in fact, that I rarely use the power amp on it, just to avoid that day for as long as possible.

The matching power amp uses 6L6’s. I think that, at heart, I’m a 6L6 person. Since I got the Kemper, I’ve been making profiles of my rig. I’ve switched from software emulation of power amps to using the HT-100’s real power amp and its quartet of evil-glowing EL34s. I just prefer the tone of a 6L6 myself.

And because it isn’t a digital system, the Synergy amps should last decades, if not the rest of my lifetime. Other than the TV, I don’t think there’s anything digital in the house that has lasted more than 5 years. Even if the device itself doesn’t fail, manufacturers drop support, and eventually you upgrade your computer’s operating system and the old drivers stop working.

Digital gear has a built-in obsolescence. It’s one area where analogue gear still has a clear advantage. My music gear is a hobby. It doesn’t earn me money at all. I’d rather spend money on gear that’ll last the longest, all other things being equal.

What Did You Try?

I played three modules:

  • B-MAN
  • Metro Plex
  • T-DLX

through the Synergy Syn-50/50 out into a Friedman 1×12 loaded with a G12M Creamback. For guitars, I used a 2018 Les Paul Standard fitted with Burstbucker Pros, a Suhr Strat and an Xotic Californica Classic Strat.

My main cab at home is a Victory V112-C 1×12 loaded with a G12M Creamback. The Friedman cab is physically larger, and seemed to put out more bottom end than my cab at home does. It was very helpful to play through something that’s in the ballpark of what I’m used to.

I picked a 2018 Les Paul Standard because I own a 2013 Les Paul Standard. There isn’t a lot of difference between the two models. I turned down the chance to use a Tom Murphy-aged Custom Shop True Historic 59 Les Paul. Gear at that level always sounds different from instrument to instrument, making it harder for me to assess what the amp might sound like with my guitars.

The staff at Peach Guitars selected the Suhr Strat and the Xotic California Classic for me. That was very kind of them, as it gave me a chance to try both brands for the first time. I grew up playing Strats and cheap knock-offs, and I’m more comfortable trying different ones than I am with Les Pauls.

I had the choice of running the SYN-1 modules directly into a Friedman FRFR cab instead. I went with the power amp because it’s one of the things I’m interested in. Very glad that I did.

I picked the B-MAN module because the staff thought it was the only Fender-type module in stock. I went with the Metro Plex module partly because they didn’t have the Synergy Plexi module in stock, and partly because it was too good an opportunity to pass up. All the demos have said that the Metro Plex module is something special, and they weren’t kidding. The staff found a T-DLX module out the back whilst I was trying the other modules.

(I’m saying “the staff” because I am crap with names. If you’re reading this, I’m really sorry. You looked after me really well.)

I started with the Les Paul into the B-MAN module. Not unsurprisingly, a lot of bottom end. Way too much. Splitting the coils, playing with the dip switches and bass knob on the front … still too much bottom end. Was it the cab?

Best way to find out was to switch modules. Man, the grin I had on my face from the first chord. Les Paul into the Metro Plex module … oh yes. IIRC, I said straight away that I was sold. I wasn’t even there for a Plexi module! It was just so easy to dial in my kind of crunch tone. And no boomy bottom end problems at all.

Switch back to the B-MAN module, and tried it with a Strat. This was my first time playing a Suhr Strat. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch the exact model. Still lots of boomy bass, and a lot of high end too. Maybe that was the stainless steel frets? I think that’s the first guitar I’ve played with stainless steel frets, so I don’t have much experience to help me out there.

The Suhr Strat was very nice to play. Loved the neck carve and fingerboard radius. Action was right where I like it. I’m definitely interested in playing more Suhr guitars one day.

I can’t remember if switched to the Xotic California Classic Strat at that point, or if we switched to the T-DLX module first. I think we switched modules first. Either way, the Xotic into the T-DLX was just as much home to me as the Les Paul into the Metro Plex. Instantly found the tone I was looking for. And what a guitar.

It had a beautiful baked flame maple neck and matching baked flame maple slab fingerboard. A 2-piece neck. Perfect neck carve. Lower-output pickups than the Suhr. They reminded me of Abigail Ybarra’s work, they were that good. If I wanted a top-end Strat, that would have been the one.

Did You Get Anything?

I got the T-DLX module, the Metro Plex module, a SYN-1 for each of them … and the SYN-50/50 power amp.

You’ve always got to be careful with going on YouTube demos alone. Many of those demos are made by professional musicians who can make a rusty tin can sound amazing. Us mere mortals, strumming away at home, don’t have those skills.

In person, the Synergy amps sounded great. That’s with me playing through them! (It isn’t false modesty. My enthusiasm makes up for a serious shortage of musical talent and technical ability). To my ear, they had the sounds that I was looking for.

I’ve a lot going on right now. It might be Easter weekend before I’ve got time to sit down with them, hook them up to my pedals, and really get into what they can do for me. I’m already looking forward to it.

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First Visit To Peach Guitars

I’m over this side of the country for work this week, so took the opportunity to pop into Peach Guitars in Colchester for the first time. tl;dr: great selection of guitars, great staff, and well worth a visit.

I first heard of Peach Guitars last year, when I was shopping for a PRS McCarty 594. A batch of Private Stock 594s with Brazilian Rosewood necks had come into the country. I got to try one out at Wildwire Guitars up in Selby, and doing my research, I discovered that Peach Guitars had one of its siblings. No two ways about it, that got me curious. They must be doing something right to be stocking such exceptional instruments.

Then, at Christmas, when the Synergy amps system finally came out, it turned out that Peach Guitars were the only UK stockist. I’d recently purchased a 2nd hand Kemper instead of a Fender Deluxe Reverb Re-issue (DRRI for short), and was definitely having buyer’s remorse. But, I was also pretty unwell with the winter flu that went around this season.

Today – finally – I was able to get over there (about a 4.5 hour drive from South Wales if you do it in one go) to try out the Synergy amps (spoiler alert – they’re fantastic) and just visit the shop and see what they do.

Their big unit is out on a business park at the north-east end of Colchester. If you’re not from the area, make sure you’ve got sat-nav with you. You’ll need it to find your way in and back out again. On the plus side, absolutely no problems getting parked right outside the shop.

They’ve got all the usual stuff that you’ll find elsewhere. As is common across the UK, it’s all around the same price. They do have more of it out on display than most places, which is handy if you’re after a particular colour and you want to walk out the store with a guitar you’ve actually tried first.

But what made Peach Guitars special to me was the sheer amount of custom and boutique gear that they also have in the store and available for you to try there and then. Their Gibson Custom Shop selection was stunning. I don’t think I’ve seen that many Custom Shop Les Pauls in one place at one time. I never even made round the corner to look at their PRS selection, or their Patrick James Eggle selection, or … you get the idea. If you’re looking at that end of the market, Peach Guitars is right up there with World Guitars as a place to look.

A huge shout-out to the staff too, who were welcoming and friendly right from the go. That’s important when the front door is kept locked, and you have to buzz to get let in! They didn’t know me at all, had no idea whether or not I was a serious customer, and they still had no reluctance at all in letting me try what I asked for. They had to dig out back and unseal some stock for me to try. Not everywhere will help if you want to try stuff that isn’t already unsealed and out on display.

They don’t know this (and there’s no reason they should ever read this review), but that actually got them an extra sale. I got to try out the full rig that I was interested in, and it worked so well together that I’ve brought the whole thing home. I’ll be writing about it – and doing some demos – later in the year, when I’ve had some time living with the new rig.

And if I have an exceptional year at work, I might just be back there for my birthday to take a closer look at that wall of Custom Shop Les Pauls … 🙂

As a footnote, I think it’s great to see all these guitar stores in the UK being able to bring us custom and boutique instruments. At that end of the market, if you’re buying to play (and not everyone is), it’s important to be able to go and try guitars for yourself. No two look alike, or sound alike, and it’s all about finding what works for you. Impossible to do that if you’re stuck with mail order only.

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Some Thought On Gibson QA And Pricing

Over on Facebook, Spectre Sounds shared a link to an article about the risk of Gibson going bankrupt this year. Glen’s own tagline was “If you build crap, nobody will buy it” and, predictably, the comments include a lot of complaints about Gibson (and Epiphone’s) quality.

It isn’t just here. Forums have been complaining about Gibson’s quality for many years. It’s a line that seems to have stuck. But just how true is it?

My own experiences first …

I’ve had 7 Les Pauls in recent years – a mix of Epiphone, Gibson USA and Gibson Custom Shop. Most were hand-selected, which just means that I’ve spent a lot of time going round guitar stores and playing their stock to find the ones that personally connected with me. Since 2012, I’ve probably played at least 50 Gibson Les Pauls. That’s a tiny number compared to how many Gibson make every year. I’d wager that it’s a lot more than most of the ‘Gibson quality sucks’ commenters have ever played.

In terms of manufacturing quality, none of those Gibsons had a manufacturing flaw that would have stopped me buying them. Not one. Yes, flaws in the nitro finish were common – especially around the neck joint. I don’t remember any other manufacturing problems with any of those guitars.

So why have I played so many? Apart from the fact I’ve fallen hard for the Les Paul …?

The thing about Les Pauls – and it’s something I haven’t found in Fenders or PRS to the same extent – is that only the bad ones sound the same. Every great Les Paul has its own voice. I don’t always like that voice, but that’s a preference thing. Doesn’t make it a bad guitar, just makes it the wrong guitar for me. I played a lot of Les Pauls because I was hunting out ones that worked for me, and that offered something different and complimentary to what I already had. Not because they were bad guitars.

Over the same period of time, I’ve also bought Fender and PRS guitars – an Elite Strat, a Deluxe Tele, and a Wood Library PRS. Line-wise, the two Fenders were the equivalent to top-of-the-line Gibson USA, and the PRS is equivalent to Gibson Custom Shop. I’ve had more QA trouble with them than with any of my Gibsons. As I’m writing this, both the Tele and the PRS are in the shop to have issues resolved – issues that affect their use as musical instruments, not cosmetic issues. My Gibsons have only ever gone into the shop for mods.

That’s just my experience, here in the UK. It isn’t the same as the overwhelming number of commentators online. Why is that?

The cynic in me does wonder how many of these folks have actually played a Gibson Les Paul, and how many of them are simply parroting what they’ve read in the comment directly above their own. Gibson’s one of the biggest-selling guitar brands on the planet. They’ve also been shedding dealers at quite a rate in recent years. Unless you live near one of the big outlets, or are willing to make a special trip to one, most people don’t have the opportunity to try out a Les Paul on the rack before buying. I suspect the numbers don’t stand up to scrutiny there.

Folks don’t buy Gibson Les Pauls direct from Gibson. You buy through a dealer. And if there’s no local dealer, you have to buy mail-order and take your chances on what the dealer sends you. So if there are a lot of badly-made Gibsons out there, not only is Gibson making them, but dealers are sending them out to customers. WHY?

Why isn’t the dealer catching these QA flaws and sending them back to Gibson in the first place? Are dealers really just box-shifting any old crap out to their customers? If they are, then they’re as much to blame as Gibson on this. Maybe my experience is different here in the UK because our guitar shops do their job, and do it very well.

I think, though, that there’s another aspect to all this … and that’s pricing.

The Les Paul has become an expensive guitar to buy. Over here in the UK, their USA line starts at more than Fender’s top USA factory prices, and ends well into Fender Custom Shop territory. Let me say that again. I can buy brand-new Fender Custom Shop guitars for less than some Gibson USA factory-line models.

It’s no different at the higher-end of the market. I’ve just taken a look at the website for a guitar shop I’m going to visit later today. Out of the 40 most-expensive guitars that they have up on the website right now, 26 of them are Gibson. This is a shop that also stocks PRS Private Stock, Collings, Knaggs, Fender Masterbuilt, and other expensive boutique brands.

Gibson has priced itself at the top end of both markets – factory-line, and boutique. That is going to affect how critical genuine buyers are. At these kind of prices, buyers are going to expect guitars with no QA issues at all. That pricing is going to magnify how anyone feels when they do find a flaw.

Combine that with the times we live in, full of financial uncertainty and hardship for many, and it’s clear that Gibson has made a rod for its own back. Gibson’s charging top dollar, and has to live up to the expectations that come at that price point. Or something has to give.

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What Are Impulse Responses?

This question crops up on guitar forums from time to time. I’ve been using IRs for home recording since 2014. They’re great for home recording, where it isn’t always practical to mic up a real cab. And there’s no reason why you can’t use the same setup to listen to your rig when practicing or just noodling at home too.

An IR is an Impulse Response. It’s an audio model of how a reference tone is affected by something. They’re commonly used to emulate what a guitar cab, speaker, microphone setup does to the audio signal from a guitar amp.

There’s several different ways you can run IRs:

  • pedals, such as the Two Notes Le Cab
  • outboard gear, such as the Two Notes Torpedo line
  • plugin in your recording software on the computer

I run them on the computer. Just personal preference. I’m reluctant to spend that kind of money on outboard gear that has a limited shelf life. Even if the gear itself still works, at some point they’ll stop making new operating system drivers for the unit.

To get the guitar amp signal into the computer, you need a load box of some kind. The load box connects to the speaker out of your amp, and then runs into your audio interface as a line-level signal. Without a load box, you will blow the output transformers on your amp (if you’re lucky). You need a load box that matches your speaker out – 4 ohms, 8 ohms or 16 ohms.

There’s quite a few load boxes on the market these days. ‘Reactive’ load boxes are considered the best type to get. Instead of a single load, they vary the load, mimicing the way a real speaker fluctuates as you play. You can get standalone reactive load boxes like the Two Notes Captor, or outboard gear that’s both a load box and IR player all in one.

You can do other cool things with IRs too. I have a set of impulse responses that model different venues – for example, the sound of a theatre or (my favourite) a famous neolithic burial chamber. I use them in my mixes to add life and room ambience, without needing expensive outboard gear or CPU-intensive plugins.

Final thing to know about IRs is that they’re an audio snapshot. They capture what happened to a reference signal at that point in time. There’s nothing active or dynamic about them at all. You don’t edit an IR if you don’t like it – you switch to a different IR instead.

That’s why Universal Audio’s OX unit is getting so much interest, because it uses active software models rather than IRs. It should be indistinguishable from a real cab, speaker and mic – as long as you like the cabs, speakers and mics that they’ve chosen to model. IRs offer a lot more choice, at the expense of being static models.

You can purchase IRs direct from speaker manufacturers like Celestion (haven’t used them myself, heard rave things about them), or from third parties like Ownhammer or Redwirez. If you’re just starting out, and you’ve no experience micing up real amps with real microphones, I recommend buying a bundle like the Redwirez Big Box (not affiliated, just a happy customer). A bundle gives you a lot more options to explore, allowing you to experiment and figure out which cabs, mics, and mic positions you prefer.

If you’re looking for silent playing and/or recording at home, it’s hard to beat a good load box and a set of impulse responses for the money. You can get great tone, and keep the family and your neighbours happy, all at the same time.