My experience

[Chad Pippin]

Hey guys,

I am a new(ish) Eleven Rack enthusiast and I wanted to share a brief bit of my experience.

I have been playing professionally for several years (I work full time as a church musician) and I consider myself pretty picky when it comes to tone. I have used Dr. Z amps for years with a full sized high end pedalboard. That is how I normally roll.

I have tried just about every modeler that has been released, starting way back with the first POD, the Johnson J-Station, Vox Tonelab, POD 2.0, POD XT, Boss, Digitech, Rocktron.....basically everything. I had some success with different modelers in studio situations (I loved the POD 2 for recording) but most fell way short in the live environment.

Now, when I play live I am almost always use in-ear monitors and stage volume needs to be kept at a minimum. I have always thought that a modeler would be really easy to incorporate into my playing situations. It made sense that it could work.....it just never did.

A few months ago I picked up an Eleven Rack after hearing all the rave reviews. I was trying to finish up a song demo that I was working on and I really needed some sort of direct recording option. I thought that it sounded pretty darn good at home while recording so I decided to take it with me to church and see how it fared live. I normally use my Dr. Z with a mic'd up cab that is isolated under the stage and the mic'd signal is feed through my in ears. It works very well and I am able to get some pretty kicking cranked amp tones at basically an audible rumble on stage. It is also nice because you can literally feel your amp as it vibrates your feet.

I told our FOH engineer that I was going to be coming early so we could try this Eleven Rack thing out (it's the latest, greatest, yadda, yadda). I had dialed in some tones at home through headphones that I thought worked pretty well. AC30 type stuff. We start working on it and..........meh. It just doesn't seem to have the same liveliness and bloom that my amp does. It was close, but not quite there. The other guitarist (a good friend of mine whom I greatly trust) was there and he wasn't terribly impressed either. We were all thinking, "It sounds.....good. But not great. It would certainly fool a non-musician but it wasn't foolin us."

I switched back to my Dr. Z. My friend (without knowing I had done this) goes, "Woah, what patch is that? That sounds awesome!" Needless to say, I was done with the Eleven Rack. Back to Guitar Center it went.

Not willing to admit total defeat, I kept on reading here on the forum as well as on The Gear Page. I was convinced that I simply wasn't getting it. The deal breaker for me was hearing a clip on Youtube of a guy who A/B'd the Eleven Rack against his Mesa/Boogie Road King. The two tones were basically indistinguishable, other than the Eleven Rack sounding slightly better. My jaw hit the floor! I must simply not be getting it with this thing. So, I picked up another one off of eBay (for a killer deal) with the full intention of working this thing out until I made it happen.

For the last two weekends I have been using my Eleven Rack and my pedalboard solely and I am in love! I was able to spend a great deal of time dialing in two patches. I landed on the AC30 with Greenback 4x12 cab and U87 mic off axis for my Duo Jet and Strat for the cleany chimier things and JCM 800 with Greenback 4x12 and 414 off axis for my PRS when I want to rock it out. I am basically using the 11R as a virtual amp with my pedalboard, using the XLR outs, going straight into the house mix in stereo with my ear mix being mono.

I also decided to rewire my board so that my time based effects (Timefactor and Blue Sky Reverb) are now in stereo in the effects loop). My volume pedal has also been removed from the signal path and now acts as a expression pedal. This made a huge difference as well.

This time around our FOH engineer freaking loves this thing. He told me that is sits extremely well in the mix and sounds absolutely killer. I am loving the way it reacts with my guitars and pedals. The amps clean up incredibly well with volume knob adjustments. My Duo Jet with the AC30 model being goosed by my Foxrox ZIM overdrive is something to behold.....absolutely ripping tone!

Bottom line....

The Eleven Rack sounds insane. I am really stoked for the new update as well (Matchless.....hello!) and I think it is only going to make a great product that much better. My issue was patience, and knowing that I could always run back to the comfort of my tube amp. Forcing myself to work it out has paid off huge.

A few things I am still not completely satisfied with.....

Having my stereo delay in the effects loop means that it is post amp model. I wish there was a way to run a stereo signal path pre amp model, even if there wasn't a way to run two different models, just a duplicate. I am missing out on the way that a delay pedal reacts with the front end of the amp.

I think I am going to have to run my Xotic EP Booster in the loop as well so I have a viable volume boost for solos. I would rather use the built in graphic EQ but at this point in time I have no midi controller.

Thanks for listening!

Pedalboard Shot

[mikefont]

Welcome back to the Dark Side Chad
It's good ta hear that your patience has paid off for ya!

Originally Posted by Chad Pippin

I kept on reading here on the forum as well as on The Gear Page. I was convinced that I simply wasn't getting it. The deal breaker for me was hearing a clip on Youtube of a guy who A/B'd the Eleven Rack against his Mesa/Boogie Road King. The two tones were basically indistinguishable, other than the Eleven Rack sounding slightly better. My jaw hit the floor! I must simply not be getting it with this thing. So, I picked up another one off of eBay (for a killer deal) with the full intention of working this thing out until I made it work.

I'll bet that the youtube video that you are referring to was the one that VaiSatchAtrucci made. That video has apparently help ALLOT of people in their decision to get the 11Rack, as I've heard many similar comments posted to that effect here and over on elevenrackpresets.com. Mr. VSA should hit Avid up for a commision!

Peace

.

[59tweed]

I like your rigs-my favorites are rarely the obvious matches of amp/cab/mic that a person might expect. My most recent thrill has come from the Bassman through the Alnico 2x12 with either the 409 or the 7 (SM7b). I placed a volume pedal in the front set to move between clean and mildly overdriven sounds. The sound is jangly, clear, juicy and dynamic. I cannot get enough of it; everything I play with this patch works brilliantly!

Glad you're enjoying the Eleven Rack, now all we have to do is concentrate on that next set of songs until the EP is ready.

[TFord]

The soundclips of Dave Torn made me buy it. It'was the first modeller with that kind of clarity in the high freq spectrum.
It needs a little attention when dialing in and indeed some patches made bij Vaisatchdoubletrouble are very good sounding.
I'm also using it in a church with in-ear monitoring.
I really love the sounds I'm working with. '
Recording set-up is great with this unit and I really love the plexi with a tubescreamer in front. It's really close to the real thing.

Despite the sound happiness I have some issues with it: switching causes a silence(it's mentioned before) and altering the delay tempo is making the delay pitching, I think that's a typical 80-ies thing when digital was new. Not with a 2011 high profile company product.
I really hate to pay $99 for a new update when these things are not fixed. Also Protools 8LE not having ADC was a big minor.

Other than that, I like it very much.

[blewis]

@Chad....

Can you summarize for us what the difference was between the first time you tried it and the second? Did something just "click" for you in how you set up the 11R, or did you just dedicate a lot of time to figuring it out?

Did you make your patches in something else other than headphones on the second time around?

Just curious. Glad you're happy.

Brandon

[derker]

Originally Posted by TFord

Despite the sound happiness I have some issues with it: switching causes a silence(it's mentioned before) and altering the delay tempo is making the delay pitching, I think that's a typical 80-ies thing when digital was new. Not with a 2011 high profile company product.
I really hate to pay $99 for a new update when these things are not fixed. Also Protools 8LE not having ADC was a big minor.

I agree with the point about switching, my 'workaround' has been simply trying to anticipate the change so that the dropout happens before the downbeat where the switch is supposed to happen... It's pretty hard to do consistently and I do suspect that my MIDI footswitch is contributing to the latency so it's hard for me to blame anything in particular.

I also agree about the delay warbling but they are modeling analog delays which usually do that when you change the delay time. Hopefully the digital delay in the expansion pack will take care of this, although I am a little bummed to have to pay to get rid of it. I'm definitely gonna buy it for the amps anyway.

[Chris Townsend]

Originally Posted by derker

I also agree about the delay warbling but they are modeling analog delays which usually do that when you change the delay time. Hopefully the digital delay in the expansion pack will take care of this, although I am a little bummed to have to pay to get rid of it. I'm definitely gonna buy it for the amps anyway.

Yup, the new Stereo DynDelay does not do a "pitch warble" when you change the delay time with tap tempo or the delay knob.

[TFord]

Originally Posted by Chris Townsend

Yup, the new Stereo DynDelay does not do a "pitch warble" when you change the delay time with tap tempo or the delay knob.

Well that's a improvement for sure, thanks for the update.

[maddmatt]

@Chad

I believe the expansion pack ships with a boost so if you do decide to slip a midi foot controller in, you can use that in stomp mode. I use the Behringer FCB1010 foot controller, lower 5 pedals change rig presets and top 5 are set in stomp mode, so I can turn on or off effects, use the tuner etc. After the expansion pack I will make one of the stomp pedals a boost function. HTH

[Chad Pippin]

Thanks for the reply. I figured I could set up something like that. I don't really want to have to lug even more gear around though. I think I want to try the boost pedal in the FX loop and see how it works for me first.

I just got done playing at our church services this morning and I almost starting laughing several times when I was playing at the tones I was getting. The AC30 model literally sounded like an AC30 about to explode. It was so cool! I was getting Brian May tones all over the place. And the JCM 800 rocked as well. Two really great sounds.