Success Using Line 6 Guitars and Amps?

[Ken K]

I am wondering if anyone can comment on whether they have had success in getting true, warm vintage sounds by miking Line 6 Flextone (or Vetta) amps and/or using Variax guitars. Or, are the guitar sounds too "digital" (crispy)? What is your experience and opinion, assuming having a roomful of the "real thing" (i.e. great vintage guitars and amps) isn't an option?

Expecting some bumps... but want some opinions too.

Thanks much.

Ken K.

[BrianDiAngelo]

I am wondering if anyone can comment on whether they have had success in getting true, warm vintage sounds by miking Line 6 Flextone (or Vetta) amps and/or using Variax guitars. Or, are the guitar sounds too "digital" (crispy)? What is your experience and opinion, assuming having a roomful of the "real thing" (i.e. great vintage guitars and amps) isn't an option?

Expecting some bumps... but want some opinions too.

Thanks much.

Ken K.

I'd rather have just 1 tube amp like a Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier /Mesa 4x12 or a VOX AC30 or a Soldano SLO, than Line 6 gear. Unless you record industrial bands (I love industrial rock), the best choice will be a tube amp. It will give you less "variety", but it will sound better than line 6, everytime you use it to track.

[kleefurd]

I am not sure if this works for some of you, but this is how I enjoy using a combination of gears for guitars...

Guitar (any kind) -> Line6 emulators -> Good Tube Preamp (you define good based on your budget, but I am talking about stuff like TubeTech, Manly Labs) -> 192 i/o -> ProTools session 96k 24bit session.

alternatively,

Guitar -> Tube Preamp -> ProTools (and using plug ins to tweak the tone, since I have recorded clean, I can now sculp the sound anyway I want). **

** Again, using plug ins like G-Console to warm the tone a little further and smoothing out some dynamics, and applying PSA-1, Amplitude, Chrome Tone, etc. to try to achieve that guitar tone I am hearing in my head. And sometimes, I will again pass this "finished" sound through Phoenix or Smack! to warm it up just a tad more to get that final sound.

Since I do not work on guitar only albums, therefore the final tone usually gets sculpted to work around and blend with the vocals. That fine art of balancing guitar tone and vocal tone is really critical in my work, I like to have the two play around in the mids section and play with one another in the mix... this gives me a lot of satisfaction when I am mixing.

Hope this helps. Cheers.

[Ken K]

Hey, thanks to both of you for your responses. I've gotten some separate responses which have advised me to just go with 1 or 2 good tube amps, as Line 6 sounds pretty good but has some more work to do. I think I'll look into a Vox as a starting point.

More comments welcome though.

Thanks.

[KC Kelly]

Hey Ken K,

What amp did you end up getting?

KC