A Guitar And Gear Support Forum

Here's my new main rig...I think I've posted about it here but now it's complete so here's a recap.

It's an older i3/SSD Lenovo laptop I bought for 80€ and forced Win11 on. Basically there's nothing but Neural's Plini plugin and Amplitube 5 and Tonex plugs installed.

Got a used MOTU USB soundcard as well, two channels & MIDI, 100€, and a sliding rack tray (50€). The chassis was built by someone pretty professionally, got that for 20€. The Boss SE-50 I have had since the 80s.

GPA-100 guitar power amp was 120€. Then I got a Greenback 60W 16ohm, because the amp delivers about that much power per channel at 16ohms. That was an even 100€ as well.

Everything, power strip, supplies etc is wired at the back, one pic is of the backside without the back panel and some bits still missing; there is now also a 19" rack panel where I soldered fixed connectors for MIDI, ext.speaker out and XLR modeled out connector.

So basically the guitar goes into the motu,
Into the plugin of choice,
Into the Boss (it merely adds a little bit of 'softening' to the otherwise fully digital signal). It's actually pretty crucial, but almost any analog pedal could work in stead.

But, the most important thing is, on the right channel I'm using all modeler capabilities to send a signal with speaker emulation and all to PA or recording to DAW, BUT the left channel is sent to the power amp without speaker emulation, and a real speaker.

That gives a MUCH better dynamic and punch than using an FRFR speaker. We have for instance a 2000w FRFR speaker, and it's funny how a 60w guitar speaker puts it to shame in how it moves the air, produces volume, and has that midrange punch you can literally feel.

For control, I use my Boss GX-100 pedal board. It's handy as it controls the plugins easily via MIDI, but is also a good modeler on its own, so it can be a backup. So I have three different banks programmed in it; one feeds and controls this new system, but one does the same sounds but the modeled line goes to PA direct from the Boss and uses the Origin halfstack on the background for monitoring.

And the third bank sends just stereo modeled sounds direct.

We've played maybe like 5 hours on the system and it works great. Plugins are little work for the laptop, so it can happily run in there lid closed, I only need to open it up if I want to change the sounds.

Only one thing I should maybe add and only just now occurred to me...I could see if there's an USB sleep switch available for the laptop, so that I could wake it up and put it to sleep without having to open the lid at all. Hmm.

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And here's the board I control it with. Gotta have a real - and auto-switching - wah, and I also like to warm things up a little with the Tube Pilot in the loop for some sounds. The DI box is there just for easy access and signal stablilizer as well as a ground lift. The Palmer Galvanic Separator I use whenever I have to connect both to PA and a real tube amp, in that case a simple ground lift won't do.

I got a Friedman ASM -12 used not to long ago. While it's the best FRFR speaker I've ever tried by far, I'd also say that when you're using it, you're typically capturing a sound that has cab and microphone emulation. So you're hearing the sound recorded, akin to through a monitor, rather than the sound through your own amp. I see it as comparing apples to oranges but admit I prefer the direct out of one's own cab sound for more dynamics.

Lost me at "i3/SSD." Ha.

What a rig! Congrats to you for building it with the big picture in mind. That's some juggling that had to be done just right.

tlarson58 wrote:Lost me at "i3/SSD." Ha.

What a rig! Congrats to you for building it with the big picture in mind. That's some juggling that had to be done just right.

Thanks...it was a literal squeeze, I didn't realize the soundcard was a little higher than normal 19" rack gadgets and the three U slots were super tight to begin with and the cover fabric goes inside too...

So yeah, the only way to get them in was to cut some of the fabric off and even then insert all three layers at once and sort of force them in. They would easily stay there even without rack screws it's so tight.

But since the front is angled, there's plenty of air around the units on the inside.

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Here's a video from last Saturday's gig, where I'm using the rig.

It's really awesome how you can get such a great sound out with modelers, we got loads and loads of praise for the sounds in the vein of "I can't believe one could hear such a band and such sounds in a small pub" and so on. Could never get that kind of sound quality using actual amps, unless they would be like 15w small ones carefully miked and positioned and sent thru the PA anyway.

Most of the sound comes from the PA speakers, two 400w/800w peak 12"+tweeter tops and a single 800w 15" subwoofer. The drums had to be pretty heavily damped, even the cymbals with those silicone dabs on them, but still the volume level was at the very maximum possible. We need to start looking at those plexiglass drum shields really.

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The thing that stands out to me is how the vocals are out front in the mix. Perhaps the way modelers compress everything so much and the dampening of the drums are helping with that. You guys sound great.

Sounds great!

I am surprised with all the 'digital' happening, that there is no perceivable latency. Which would be evident on a up-tempo tune with lots of shredding. Kudos!

andrewsrea wrote:Sounds great!

I am surprised with all the 'digital' happening, that there is no perceivable latency. Which would be evident on a up-tempo tune with lots of shredding. Kudos!

There is a little latency, as with all digital, but it's something like 3-5ms or so. Good quality soundcard at 96khz 48bit allows for that. I would suspect it's about the same as the physical QC or pretty much any multiFX unit. Nothing to worry about, really. The wireless the lead player probably has a latency as well of circa the same.

But, since you're hearing everything straight to ear monitors, it's actually much less than with a real amp standing a few yards further.

Usually I don't mind under 20ms latency when I record, but live it's good to keep it below 15ms or so, or you start getting a feeling of it a little.

20ms is equivalent to standing about seven yards from an amp, so if you have well under 10ms in detail, it feels like you're right at the amp.

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