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Topic: Amp-In-A-Pedal Recommendations |
Chris Bauer
From:
Nashville, TN USA
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Posted 15 Jul 2022 5:41 am |
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I have a growing number of shows coming up where it will be helpful to have an amp on a small pedalboard that will go straight to the board. No cabs allowed. š
The Milkman āThe Ampā is an obvious choice that Iām leaning towards but before I pull the trigger Iām wondering whoās had success with other pedalboard amps as well. There are some good ones out there for guitar but my experience is that what sounds good for guitar doesnāt necessarily sound good for steel.
Soā¦. Recommendations on pedals to consider? |
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Dale Rottacker
From:
Walla Walla Washington, USA
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K Maul
From:
Hadley, NY/Hobe Sound, FL
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Posted 15 Jul 2022 12:56 pm
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Yes, Chris- Quilter!!
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Jeff Highland
From:
New South Wales, Australia
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Posted 15 Jul 2022 1:46 pm Re: Amp-In-A-Pedal Recommendations
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| Chris Bauer wrote: |
I have a growing number of shows coming up where it will be helpful to have an amp on a small pedalboard that will go straight to the board. No cabs allowed. š
The Milkman āThe Ampā is an obvious choice that Iām leaning towards but before I pull the trigger Iām wondering whoās had success with other pedalboard amps as well. There are some good ones out there for guitar but my experience is that what sounds good for guitar doesnāt necessarily sound good for steel.
Soā¦. Recommendations on pedals to consider? |
If you are going "straight to the board" with no speaker cab, you do not need an Amp in a pedal. These have a power amp to drive a speaker. What you need is an amp simulation pedal with a DI output. There are many of these like the strymon iridium and I use a DSM & Humbold Simplifier.
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Paul Sutherland
From:
Placerville, California
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Posted 15 Jul 2022 2:19 pm
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I'm using a Two Notes CABM for it's power amp and speaker simulations. I use a Sarno V8 preamp in front of the CABM. It sounds really good in my IEMs, and people tell me it sounds great FOH.
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It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. |
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Chris Bauer
From:
Nashville, TN USA
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Posted 15 Jul 2022 5:13 pm
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| Jeff - Good point about not needing a power amp. My thought was simply that the versatility of having a power amp - not requiring a load - on board for 'if/when needed' could be a nice perk but it's certainly not a requirement. What is needed is tone I like with as small a footprint as I can find. |
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D Schubert
From:
Columbia, MO, USA
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Posted 15 Jul 2022 8:17 pm
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| Quilter SuperBlock US is a great tool. A fully-functional pre-amp with 1/4 and XLR outputs, Also a 25-watt power amp that will drive a speaker cabinet at moderate levels. |
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Posted 16 Jul 2022 12:19 am
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Not exactly a 'pedalboard' amp, but I use my Quilter Tone Block 201 direct quite a bit. I have recorded with it direct several times, and it has saved my butt a couple of times on out-of-town gigs where the backline amp supplied was total garbage - like a silverface Twin Reverb that wouldn't get as loud as a Champ and was more distorted. I have a pair of 201s.
I'm sure the TB 202 would work great too - it has a more standard treble, mid, and bass tone stack and has reverb. I got the 201s reasonable and I have reverb and delay on my pedalboards. They are all pretty small and light (around 4 pounds), fit in my gig bag, have (IMO) good-sounding line outs and 200 Watts of good-sounding clean power when I want to run a speaker cab, and definitely don't require a load to operate safely.
I got a Quilter Microblock 45 back when. It's OK for guitar, but tone control is more limited and gets too distorted for me for clean pedal steel at 45 Watts. It's more-or-less normal stompbox pedal sized, but I don't really think it compares to the 200 Watt Tone Blocks I've played. |
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 16 Jul 2022 2:18 am
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There are two versions of the Superblock, US and UK. I would suspect the US is more suited for steel. Probably "Fenderish" too.
Prior to retiring, I was considering a US model to carry as a backup amp. |
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Alex Cattaneo
From:
Quebec, Canada
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Posted 16 Jul 2022 1:27 pm
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Also worthy of consideration would be:
Walrus ACS-1
Strymon Iridium
Atomic Ampli-Firebox MKII
Newer and intriguing units:
Two Notes Revolt
UA Dreamā65 (this one in particular would be my choice if I could find one)
I have found that having stereo delays and reverbs makes the sound image wider and more enjoyable when playing with IEMs. Your mileage may vary. Some of these things do stereo (Iridium, ACS1, Dreamā65), some donāt (Quilter, Revolt, Ampli-Firebox).
Some have xlr outputs, some have headphone outputs, some have a decent reverb, some have only a room ambiance control that may or may not be enough to forego a separate reverb pedal. All of these things sound fairly similar in the end, as they are all attempting to recreate the same amps. Itās really about the features that you are looking for.
Itās also worth mentioning that the early Quilter heads (Steelaire, Tone Block 200 and 201) bypass the cab sim when no speaker is connected. So I would avoid those for your specific situation. The Superblock has 2 cab sims that can be assigned to either or both the xlr and speaker outputs.
Some units allow you to load several different cab sims, and even use third-party ones, like the Travis Toy or Paul Franklin Eminence speaker IRās. |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Posted 16 Jul 2022 2:09 pm
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I'm using a Strymon Iridium and I'm very happy with it. For recording it goes straight into the board in stereo, complete with room ambience. I mostly use its Fender emulation with a 15" JBL impulse response file that I downloaded into it. For live sound with my full pedalboard, I plug the Iridium into a pair of Altos powered speakers - 2000 watts per side! (Without the pedalboard, I use a Milkman Half-and-Half combo amp.)
The only complaint I have with the Iridium is that it doesn't have reverb. Room ambience isn't really enough for those slow country tunes.
I used to use a Line6 POD XT which has some passable amp/speaker emulations, but it didn't fare well in a real recording studio. It's not really up to today's standards. Currently, Line6 has a high-end product line called Helix that is supposed to be pretty good, but it's expensive.
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Chris Bauer
From:
Nashville, TN USA
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Posted 16 Jul 2022 2:29 pm
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Alex - Both the Walrus and UAD have caught my eye as well. I've tried the Atomic and loved it for guitar but couldn't get a steel tone I really liked. I loved the Iridium for lap steel but have yet to try it for pedal steel. I suspect I'd like it.
Bob - The new Helix gear is almost alarmingly great-sounding. I'd use an HX Stomp in a heartbeat except that I get totally lost trying to tweak it on the fly and on stage I'd rather have something that I can adjust to the room and the guitar easily.
I really do need to try the Iridium on pedal steel. I loved how it sounded with a whole range of lap steels, both clean and overdriven. |
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Gil James
From:
Louisiana, USA
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Posted 16 Jul 2022 5:01 pm
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I've been using the Superblock for a few months now at church. When our regular sound guy's there,I run direct to the board with good results. When he's not,I also feed a small cab beside me as a monitor. No problem getting a good sound on the steel,with a Freeloader in front of it. Love it. Small, lightweight,and simple to use.
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Dale Rivard
From:
Ontario, Canada
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Posted 17 Jul 2022 8:47 am
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| Hi Chris, I used a HX Stomp on a fly date and was impressed. It was set up to emulate a Twin. Once you learn how to adjust the parameters, it's really not that difficult to tweak. |
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Scott Denniston
From:
Hahns Peak, Colorado, USA
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Posted 17 Jul 2022 4:33 pm
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| I've got an Iridium coming I ordered on Reverb used mint for a decent price. As bOb says there's no real reverb on it but I'm going to try my Nux Atlantic reverb/delay pedal and a stereo breakout cable (two 1/4" to one 1/4" trs) and go stereo delay/reverb into the Iridium. The Iridium will take a stereo signal and go stereo out to the board or a power amp or a couple of powered speakers. Or you could sum the stereo to the board if you want mono. My Kemper does all this and much more but this is small and comes so highly endorsed that curiosity got the better. |
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Zoots Houston
From:
Kingston, NY
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Posted 17 Jul 2022 5:23 pm
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I have used a Quilter US Superblock for my last two dozen or so gigs and itās been great.
Steels are so heavy and space consuming, that I felt like I needed to downsize my amp.
For most of the shows I just use the smallest speaker cabinet Orange sells (8 inch I think?) and itās been loud enough to be heard over certain drummers. For louder rock gigs, Iāll still use that but have it pointed at me for a monitor and give the xlr out to the sound engine to handle.
The limiter function I find useful to kinda compress the signal a little without totally squashing it. I run my volume and delay pedal in the loop so the limiter and gain arenāt affected by them.
The reverb is nothing to write home about, but I use reverb so light and sparingly itās not a deal breaker for me. I feel like the reverb is way too lush for my taste.
Probably not the best amp for studio use, but sounds great live and canāt beat the convenience. |
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