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I guess this is a poll question, but I'd like to take it a step further.
Not only would I like all you pros/semi-pros to choose which one you would use, if you could only use one, but please give a brief description why.
Keep in mind I am a bang for the buck, middle of the road project studio. I've done my own research, but am still on the fence.
I want the most quality sounds for my $. The genre of material is rock/pop with an edge. We will be using some distortion as well as some clean/ambient sounds. My guitarist currently has Behringer V-Amp DSP. In my opinion it sounds fair at best, but I'm shooting for the stars with this project. Fair isn't cutting it for my picky ears.
Any and all replies are greatly appreciated!

Joshua

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Comments

anonymous Sun, 09/11/2005 - 13:36

you wont get anythign with either aside from a decent (im using that loosely) clean DI sound.

go to your biggest pawn shop and look at the cheapest large amps you can find. go and get ya a SM57. with the right setup you could spend 500$ and get amazing tones. might shoot for a fender and run a boss pedal through it, eithe a DS1 or a OS2 (i think is the name, its overdrive/distortion and it sounds GREAT esp as a pre gain boost). they have a couple other good pedals as well. they should give you a good flexible gain to work with. a tubescreamer (not the cheap metal POS ones) is a nice addition too.

and dont underestimate the power of lower wattage guitar amps. you only need 50W+ for miking (though i would try not go over 100).

personally, i run an OS2 set very low gain on overdrive mode with the level jacked slightly higher into a trace elliot supertramp (and for miking used a 57A). that ran me about 300$ for the trace, 90 for the OS2, and 90 for the beta, which altogether is 480$. no effects though, but the way i see it, effects are fluff on an amp. get real pedals for effects cause no POD is going to simulate a good small stone or a straight up crybaby.

if you MUST have DI, try a sansamp classic, they are very flexible tone wise.

anonymous Mon, 09/19/2005 - 03:42

SeniorFedup wrote: i used a pod 2.3 in a pro studio instead of my peavey 5150.... of course they ran it through a pre... but honestly you could swear i was using a marshall head thats how good it sounded..

i use to do the same thing with various digital distortions, until i finally tweaked them all to death and realized it really sounded nothing like a marshall, just a fake magic trick.

anonymous Tue, 09/20/2005 - 08:54

If you can find a used Johnson J-Station it may sound better than both of those mentioned IMO. There is no support for it though. Johnson is out of biz.

I thought I was the only one who liked the J-station! I remember seeing one for the first time and thinking, "What the crap is this?" I knew I was going to hate it. I was quite impressed after I spent a little time with it. Too bad they are no more.

Back to the posters original question, I think both products (XT Live and Tonelab) are great, each with pros and cons. IMHO you should audition them head to head and judge on personal sound preference. The are different but equally good.

Wes