AIAB pedals

[vvv]

Picked up a cuppla One Control AIAB's, the Sonic Blue, the Super Apricot and the Hooker's Green.

Recording with 'em on my current project thru a Omnicab Mini; I'll publish soon. Also have a cheap Chinese Dumbler, an Exotic and a Catalinbread Marshall-type I might use ...

https://vlayman.bandcamp.com/album/inna-bad-place-a-3p

So this is all One Control AIMP's on guitars and bass except the lead guitars are an Exotic SL, all thru either a Omnicab Mini and or a Shaper cab sim into a GT Brick and a 160XT with the compressor disengaged.

I'm pretty happy with the sounds.

#1 and # 2 on the EP before have some AIMP action, also (One Control Apricot and Catalinbread DSL, respectively).

As always, the lyric sheets note the recording chains.

My current project will confine the AIAB to rhythm guitars, with a mic'd amp on leads - I'll link that when I publish.

[Nick Sevilla]

Sounds good man!

Grungy, old, messed up.

Love the vocal too.

[vvv]

Thanks!

I love tube amps, s'pose I'm a collector by now.

But I live with my daughter, and sometimes I wanna play and she wants to sleep.

Fcuk the neighbors, except I like to play at 1 AM sometimes ...

So that set me off on the amp inna box thing - they are getting much better.

They'll never replace the sheer joys of hot tubes and shaking walls and guitar interaction, but they are starting to so sound very good.

I have a Catalinbread SFT on the way.

I'm gonna do some of my next few projects with the AIAB pedals, likely in combo with amp'd tracks.

For most leads, yeah, I definitely prefer submitting to my inner J. Mascis, but I'm intrigued by the rhythm sounds I'm getting here.

[markjazzbassist]

my wife goes to bed at 9p and i have young kids, so i'm all headphones for anything musical at night. for me the best Amp in a box is the original, the Marshall Guv'Nor. The first AIAB released in 1989 it sounds great, i use it on electric piano.

[winky dinglehoffer]

So that set me off on the amp inna box thing - they are getting much better.

My complaint here is that you missed the mark with the record title: if you had gone with, say, "Already In A Bad Place," the initials would also have conveniently stood for "Amp In A Box Pedals."

Regardless, it sounds good!

[standup]

The only time I’ve used those pedals is when I wanted to play a Gretsch hollow body at an open mic. Tech 21 Liverpool.

If it’s late at night I might use the Amp Designer plugin in Logic, it seems reasonably decent. Last night I was working on something, and my recorded tone from a tweed Princeton tube amp was a bit too bright and clean, so I blended it with a crunchy, mid-heavy tone from Amp Designer. Sounded OK in the end.

[vvv]

I have had mixt results with 'pooter plugs, and decided to avoid 'em for this.

YMMV.

Over the years I DI'd, I distorted pre's (the cheap Studio Projects VTB1 is still ver' cool on bass), loved a dbx163X on bass, bought a Hafler T2 tube pre and rannit thru a Microcab (acceptable) ...

Bought a cheap Zoom analog unit (GM-200 actually not bad, for a all-plastic toy), a Vox guitar multi (Stomplab II) what was too commercial/processed, other cheap Zooms (sucked), etc.

I'll never give up mic'd amps - will likely prefer 'em most times - but the AIAB are getting so much better, especially if ya can crank the monitors when ya need the feedback - what makes 'em still inferior to amps.

But for clean to medium dirty-guitars, they are near-impressive, certainly useable (but likely never preferable).

standup - those Tech 21 pedals are getting ridiculous $ - I saw a Leeds go for US $200. I like 'em but they are oft-used, kinda samey-sounding, big ... I have most or all, but am digging the One Controls at the mo', more. Mebbe because I like the speaker sims I have ... The Joyo clones (speaker sims "always on") are also useful. That said, I intend to re-visit 'em, here.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

Not familiar with those pedals but I'll put in a plug here for the Bugera PS-1 power soak. 120 bucks. Lets me play my amps at whisper quiet volume, and I can send a di signal to the computer to use with a speaker IR. Has made recording guitars way easier and way more fun.

[vvv]

I recall a friend of mine in The Service playing with a Power Soak on his master-vol Marshall back in the early 80's - sounded great into a 4x12.

I have a Power Soak that I bought to tame a Mesa Mark IIB but never really liked how it changed the amp's "feel" - sold the amp as it was just too loud. I did love it, tho', and now have a .50 Cal. I like ever so much more.

I still have the soak, also, but I now live inna house and so it's not been necessary.

Shortly thereafter, well, late '80's, the Jubilees and then the 900 series came out and they sound good between increasing the amount of pre distortion with the pre tubes and FET's. Not an 800 sound, or a master volume, of course (tho' not far off), but they became a standard. I've been considering the later DSL's for a while but bought a HRDX instead as I have a Jubilee.

There are AIAB pedals that claim to go after specific Marshall sounds, ex., the DLS, the Exotic SP (switchable, even), the Plexion and others. Lots of others. One Control has one that's supposed to sound like a Jubilee; Lovepedal, also. IME, such pedals do sound Marshall-ish, but not really model-specific.

The One-Control Super Apricot is supposed to sound like a tweed or a Supro (contradiction?), whereas the Blue Twanger is supposed to be like a small Fender tweed to black to silver face (where's the brownface? ) ...

I don't really hear 'em as distinctly emulating a specific model, but a general area of ampage, and I do like' em.

The cab pedals are hugely useful in terms of making differentiated sounds. I have a Microcab that has 1x12 and 2x12 and 4x12 settings some of what it calls vintage. I have a Shaper pedal and the stereo Digitech VRdry and they have adjustable presets, as well. The DSM Omnicab Mini is a little different in approach but you can make a AIMB sound like a combo or a stack, in comparison to another AIMB track, pretty easily with all of 'em.

For me, the key thing is mostly what's going on in the upper mids with these AIAB pedals, that can then be further addressed with the cab sims.

I love this stuff!

[digitaldrummer]

Carl Martin Plexitone (this one -- https://www.carlmartin.com/plexitone-single) is still my favorite Marshall in a box. try one sometime if you can.

[vvv]

I have read good things about the Plexitone: I have the Catalinbread DLS and the Chinese Plexion.

Alla that and my new SFT arrived a little while ago - looking forward to using that soon!

[CraigS63]

This one makes some nice surf guitar sounds, I've never gigged it though.
Looks like it's been discontinued (got mine at some guitar show a while back).

https://www.boss.info/us/products/fdr-1/

[vvv]

Thing about those Boss COSM pedals, and I've heard they sound real good, is that they now cost even more than the Tech 21 AIAB pedals do.

[CraigS63]

Thing about those Boss COSM pedals, and I've heard they sound real good, is that they now cost even more than the Tech 21 AIAB pedals do.

I just noticed that on ebay, I had no idea they were getting "vintage" prices.

[markjazzbassist]

get the Marshall Guv'Nor (Black one) from 1989, can be had for 125-200 on reverb and ebay all day. i've owned a bunch of other ones, but this one just works and sounds the best. it's circuit got a thorough analysis on this site:

https://www.electrosmash.com/marshall-guvnor-analysis

for me the built in low pass filter help to filter out that top end "fizz" that can be prevalent, while the high pass filter cuts out the lows so it gives it that amped speaker sound where you're not getting much below 80-100hz just like you wouldn't with a mic'd amp.