best guitar processor?

[TechBoyJK]

Originally posted by: vshah
salesman for carvin? :beer:

-Vivan

No, but unless this guy's rich, Carvin is a safe bet for the money.

 

[Triumph]

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK

Originally posted by: Triumph

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
Steve is using their amps, its called the legacy line. Its a huge rumor that as soon as the ibanez contract is up, he is going to carvin for guitars too.

If he does, hopefully the Carvin Vai model will be much cheaper than the 2 grand for the Jem. I absolutely love how the Jem plays, but no one else makes a neck like it that I've found. Given Carvin's reputation for quality products, I'd imagine their model would be at least as good as the Jem, and cheaper.

Plus Carvin builds basically custom guitars. Maybe I could get them to put a "Jem" neck onto a cheaper body...

Carvin sells direct, and custom. I'd bet they would be more than willing to put the jem neck on the guitar, but you would be better off with one of their neck through guitars. Neck through is especially good because the pickups are on the neck part (neck goes all down the guitar to the bridge, with sides attached, rather than the body as one piece with neck attached)

Carvin's biggest fault is that you can't play the guitars before you buy them. I like the feel of very few necks, the Jem being one of them, so I wouldn't want to put all my eggs into one basket without ever seeing the basket, so to speak.

 

[TechBoyJK]

agreed. I took the risk and am so glad I did.

 

[thomsbrain]

eh, i'd try a POD, but do it through the same amp you have, at the volume you will be playing. modelers reveal their weaknesses very fast at higher volumes.

just realize that those all-in-one processors do many things adequately and NOTHING well. i personally would spend the money on upgrading your pedals and/or your amp. always get the best amp you can, then the best guitar/pickups you can, then worry about effects later. most people really just use one or two effects most of the time, so you're much better off buying better versions of those effects than wasting money on poor versions of effects or amp models you won't use.

also remember that with pedals, the more stuff you run, the worse your tone gets. i can clearly hear the difference in tone with each pedal that goes in my chain, and i use high quality cables. just throwing a wah or distortion in the chain can kill your tone simply because of the increased cable lengths (another reason to use amp distortion instead of pedals). if you're running distortion pedals before the amp and other units in your effects loop, you could easily be looking at 60+ feet of cable before you hit the power amp, which translates into horrible tone. when recording, i re-rout all my cabling for each effect i need at a given time. if i don't need effects, i unplug everything and go direct from the guitar to the amp with the shortest cable i have. it really makes a difference. so for this stuff, modelers are good: only one unit and one set of cables to suck tone. the downside: your sound is being digital sampled and regenerated before it gets amplified, and they don't use very good convertors in guitar effects. and of course, the models and effects suck.

the best (but most expensive) solution is to get a signal switcher. you mount your effects in a rack with the switcher, and switch between them with MIDI. your signal only gets routed through the effects you are using at any given time, and through very short cable lengths. you can simultaneously switch between stompboxs, control MIDI effects units, use amp channel-switching, all with one step of the foot. you can plug your wah into it and run it out to you on stage, so it only sucks tone when you're actually using it. you can program changes for songs ahead of time, and just select the song hit the "up" button for each change in the song. now if only i could afford one.

 

[plastick]

Originally posted by: thomsbrain
eh, i'd try a POD, but do it through the same amp you have, at the volume you will be playing. modelers reveal their weaknesses very fast at higher volumes.

just realize that those all-in-one processors do many things adequately and NOTHING well. i personally would spend the money on upgrading your pedals and/or your amp. always get the best amp you can, then the best guitar/pickups you can, then worry about effects later. most people really just use one or two effects most of the time, so you're much better off buying better versions of those effects than wasting money on poor versions of effects or amp models you won't use.

also remember that with pedals, the more stuff you run, the worse your tone gets. i can clearly hear the difference in tone with each pedal that goes in my chain, and i use high quality cables. just throwing a wah or distortion in the chain can kill your tone simply because of the increased cable lengths (another reason to use amp distortion instead of pedals). if you're running distortion pedals before the amp and other units in your effects loop, you could easily be looking at 60+ feet of cable before you hit the power amp, which translates into horrible tone. when recording, i re-rout all my cabling for each effect i need at a given time. if i don't need effects, i unplug everything and go direct from the guitar to the amp with the shortest cable i have. it really makes a difference. so for this stuff, modelers are good: only one unit and one set of cables to suck tone. the downside: your sound is being digital sampled and regenerated before it gets amplified, and they don't use very good convertors in guitar effects. and of course, the models and effects suck.

the best (but most expensive) solution is to get a signal switcher. you mount your effects in a rack with the switcher, and switch between them with MIDI. your signal only gets routed through the effects you are using at any given time, and through very short cable lengths. you can simultaneously switch between stompboxs, control MIDI effects units, use amp channel-switching, all with one step of the foot. you can plug your wah into it and run it out to you on stage, so it only sucks tone when you're actually using it. you can program changes for songs ahead of time, and just select the song hit the "up" button for each change in the song. now if only i could afford one.

Well played clerks....

anyway, you said it. I have noticed all the obsticles you have mentioned above and I figure the best way to get the most authentic sound, while recording, is to just mic my amp and direct input that into my little sound card. Sounds professional with my set up. I just wanted something else that was EASY to carry around. ..hehe.. you should see me carry my junk around.. like a stack of uneven books that are giong to fall. I figured a floor pedal would be more ideal for my situation.

and that carvin tone navigator.. yeah.. Sweet! but a bit too much for the old wallet.. yeah, im in college.

 

[thirdlegstump]

It may be old and out of support but the Digitech Artist 2120 has killer effects and a decent preamp section. None of that cheap ass modeling crap can touch it in terms of effects tweakability.

 

[CptObvious]

I use a Behringer V-Amp Pro and FCB1010 foot controller. I think I paid $200 for the V-Amp and $130 for the foot controller, which is a pretty good price compared to what's out there. You can program both using software which is a lot easier than manually tweaking settings.

Here's a pic: Text