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To Amp or Not to Amp: Real Amps vs. Digital Amps (and why they both have benefits) · The Steve Stine Podcast

• 0:35
  Steve: Hey, Steve Stine here and welcome to the Steve Stine Guitar Podcast.
• 0:39
  Steve: What we're going to be doing today is we're going to be talking about digital amps, software and real amps and what the difference is and why it is that you might want to consider one over the other.
• 0:51
  Steve: So, basically, what's going to happen today, we're going to start off by just talking about a few different categories of things and then we're going to break it down a little bit further.
• 0:58
  Steve: So the first thing, if we think about those three things, a regular amp.
• 1:03
  Steve: We're talking about an amp that is either a tube amp or a solid state amp.
• 1:08
  Steve: You're thinking about something like a Marshall or a Mesa Boogie or a Fender or a Vox or whatever it might be.
• 1:14
  Steve: And, of course, an amplifier basically consists of three different components.
• 1:18
  Steve: You have the preamp, which is creating the sound.
• 1:22
  Steve: You have the power amp, which is amplifying that sound, and of course, all of those are connected to the tone that it creates.
• 1:29
  Steve: And then you have the speaker and the cabinet enclosure.
• 1:34
  Steve: So we'll just call it the cabinet, but it does have the speakers in it.
• 1:38
  Steve: And those are the three things that you need to make an amplifier.
• 1:42
  Steve: Now, traditionally, if we go back 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago.
• 1:47
  Steve: We're dealing with regular, standard guitar amplifiers, and there's two different categories of those.
• 1:53
  Steve: There's what we refer to as tube amplifiers, which have, of course, tubes that help to create the tone and the power, and then we have what's called solid state amplifiers, and solid state amplifiers are like tube amplifiers, but of course they don't have tubes.
• 2:09
  Steve: So when we're dealing with regular amplifiers like that solid state or tube amplifiers and we have this preamp and this power amp and this cabinet, we either create a guitar amp or build a guitar amp or purchase a guitar amp by buying those three things separate, or oftentimes the preamp and the power amp will be together in what we call a head, and then we have the cabinet Okay.
• 2:38
  Steve: Or all of those three things are put together in a combo amp.
• 2:43
  Steve: We call it Okay.
• 2:44
  Steve: A combo amp has all of those components all built into one and you just carry it around.
• 2:48
  Steve: And then, of course, the last feature that kind of makes a big difference here is the amount of power or wattage okay that this thing has.
• 2:58
  Steve: So when you're buying an amplifier, the bigger the amplifier that you get, of course the not just in terms of size but in terms of its power, the louder it's going to be.
• 3:08
  Steve: The downside to that is is, of course, you know, like when I was a kid and I was, you know, bought my first amplifier.
• 3:15
  Steve: I remember buying a 200 watt Marshall, and I don't remember which one it was called.
• 3:20
  Steve: It was like some sort of metal amp and it was 200 watts, I think it was.
• 3:24
  Steve: I can't even remember, okay, but not really understanding the idea of wattage and buying something that was so loud compared to what I could actually utilize in the bedroom of my you know, the house.
• 3:41
  Steve: I grew up in a trailer court and there was no way I could use that kind of volume without the cops being called on me.
• 3:46
  Steve: So that's the one thing we're gonna talk about, all of these things why you'd want a certain amp over another one.
• 3:52
  Steve: So we understand that.
• 3:53
  Steve: A combo amp.
• 3:54
  Steve: We can pick it up by the handle and carry it wherever we're going.
• 3:57
  Steve: If we buy a head and a cabinet, maybe we get a 412, which means we have 412 inch speakers in there.
• 4:03
  Steve: We can carry that around too.
• 4:05
  Steve: Hopefully it has wheels on it and maybe we have some help trying to carry these things, because sometimes they get pretty heavy.
• 4:11
  Steve: Even a combo amp can get incredibly heavy, okay, but it might fit in your vehicle better than a 412 or two 412s or something like that.
• 4:20
  Steve: And then, of course, we can get different sized cabinets.
• 4:23
  Steve: We might have a head, which is the preamp in the power amp, but we might buy, instead of a 412 amp or two 412s or something like that, depending on where we're playing, we might buy a 212 combo amp or excuse me, cabinet, excuse me or we might buy a 112 or something like that, so it's even smaller, and we don't need as much of those speakers in that size, which often, though, means that, as we get smaller like that, we might not be able to push as much volume through that cabinet.
• 4:57
  Steve: Now, again, it all depends.
• 4:58
  Steve: What you need to do is you need to figure out what the point of all of this is for you, right?
• 5:02
  Steve: If you're not somebody who's gonna be playing on stage and you don't really care that you're that loud, you might not need an amplifier like that.
• 5:09
  Steve: You might, even though you don't play on stage, you might still love the fact of being able to have a tube amplifier.
• 5:16
  Steve: That sounds really, really wonderful when you turn it up in volume and you have two 412s or even more than that right, and you just love the idea.
• 5:24
  Steve: Maybe you live out the country and you can run incredible volumes and nobody will ever say anything, and that's something that you enjoy doing.
• 5:30
  Steve: Again, it's not for me to tell you that you should or shouldn't have something.
• 5:34
  Steve: I'm just trying to explain to you what the difference is.
• 5:36
  Steve: So let's start off by talking about sound quality.
• 5:40
  Steve: Now, a real amplifier produces basically a warm, organic kind of sound.
• 5:46
  Steve: The beauty of a tube amplifier is the louder that you get it, the more you start burning those tubes.
• 5:53
  Steve: There's a special kind of change that happens to that sound and that feel of that amplifier that you really don't experience when you're playing an amp that isn't tubes.
• 6:06
  Steve: Okay, now again, I have lots of students and lots of friends that play and that isn't a big deal to them.
• 6:15
  Steve: So if you're a little younger than I am and you grow up always playing digital products and things like that, or you're always using in-ear monitors, maybe volume isn't something that is a stage.
• 6:26
  Steve: Volume, I should say, is something that's really a big deal to you.
• 6:29
  Steve: So it's always trying to think that when we're dealing with sound quality, there's a specific feel that comes from a tube amplifier talking about this warm, organic sound, but this compression that sometimes happens.
• 6:45
  Steve: Just it's something you really do have to experience.
• 6:48
  Steve: If you've never done it before, I would highly recommend doing it.
• 6:51
  Steve: Where a digital amp is using software to emulate the sound of these real amps, the difference being with a digital amp is a digital amp does not change as the volume increases in the same way like a tube amplifier, for instance, would do.
• 7:06
  Steve: I always tell people it's kind of like a car stereo or a stereo that you have at home.
• 7:11
  Steve: At some point you can keep turning up the volume because you want it to be louder.
• 7:16
  Steve: If you take your CD player or whatever it is that you use and you're turning up that stereo at home and you're turning it up and turning it up, it keeps getting louder.
• 7:25
  Steve: It's not really changing, obviously like a tube amp or something would, and ultimately what happens is it's gonna get to some point where it's becoming detrimental.
• 7:37
  Steve: You're turning it up so much that the sound is actually becoming and I think of it like a car stereo oftentimes, where a song comes on that you really love and you turn up that car stereo At some point it becomes unpleasant.
• 7:49
  Steve: The speakers are working too hard, whatever it might be, and it becomes unpleasant.
• 7:54
  Steve: Digital amps are kind of like a car stereo Now.
• 7:59
  Steve: They're emulating the sound of these real amps and they do an amazing job.
• 8:02
  Steve: But if you're trying to push the volume to have this experience happen, in my opinion that doesn't happen with a digital amplifier and that's one of the significant differences.
• 8:13
  Steve: So oftentimes people will argue that a digital amp is never gonna fully replicate the real thing, like a tube amp or something like that, and I would have to agree with that.
• 8:25
  Steve: But who knows what will happen in the future?
• 8:26
  Steve: I wouldn't say never, but you know, I grew up playing in bands and things like that, where two bands, you know, turning them up really loud and having that, that Volume experience and that to burning thing happen, is a real valid thing that that some players have.
• 8:44
  Steve: So let's also talk about portability.
• 8:46
  Steve: K, we've already kind of talked about this, but digital amps Tend to be more portable.
• 8:51
  Steve: You know, if you think about a positive grid spark amp or boss katana or something like that, now these are self-encompassed amps, right?
• 9:01
  Steve: If I start talking about, for instance, a camper right or an axe effects or something like that, those are wonderful but they are requiring a speaker, okay, and again, there's a million different things out there.
• 9:16
  Steve: You could say, well, what about the quad cortex and what about the tone X and all these different kinds of things?
• 9:21
  Steve: There's all kinds of stuff out there.
• 9:22
  Steve: When you get into the digital realm, you're either dealing with, again, an amplifier that is self-encompassed it has all of the attributes that you need, including the speaker, right or it doesn't, and it requires Having to be run into some sort of speaker or monitor system.
• 9:40
  Steve: Okay, now that conversation goes a lot deeper when it comes to digital amps, because digital amps often times you have to decide.
• 9:48
  Steve: If you go with the digital realm and you get yourself some sort of digital amp that does not have A cabinet speaker, that sort of thing connected to it, like, say, a camper now again you can buy an external cabinet, whatever Then you run into something that you're gonna have to study a little bit more, which is when you, when you purchase something like that and you want to actually hear it, of course you can run headphones or something, but if you want to run A speaker, you're gonna have to choose whether or not you're going to be running an actual guitar cabinet or you're gonna be running what's referred to as a powered monitor or an FR FR full range, flat freak, flat response speaker.
• 10:29
  Steve: Okay, and they're two very different worlds, and I want to get all involved in that right now Because we're just kind of talking about the similarities and differences between these things.
• 10:37
  Steve: But please understand that if you were to go out and buy a camper or an axe effects or a, you know, a ton X or quad cortex or again, whatever it might be, that is a digital amp that does not have a speaker connected to it you have to decide which way you're gonna be running that.
• 10:52
  Steve: Either you're running it as You're gonna run it into an authentic guitar cabinet, which oftentimes will require you to buy a separate power amp not always depends on the product or you're gonna run it into a powered monitor or what we call an FR FR again, full range of flat response Speaker of some sort or monitor of some sort.
• 11:14
  Steve: Okay, so that's something to really think about.
• 11:18
  Steve: Real amps tend to be, as I said before, bigger, bulkier, heavier, because they have a lot of components in them and oftentimes, then again, you're dealing with bigger speakers and all that stuff, depending on what you're looking for.
• 11:31
  Steve: So, and you have to be a little bit more careful with them.
• 11:34
  Steve: If you're dealing with a tube amp, you know you have to be careful with the tubes in there.
• 11:38
  Steve: It requires more maintenance because you're gonna need to replace those tubes every once in a while, or there might be a transistor or something in there that needs to be replaced different kinds of things like that, but again, not always, but just something to think about a little bit.
• 11:50
  Steve: Okay, the other thing is that real amps can be very expensive.
• 11:55
  Steve: Okay, especially high-end models.
• 11:58
  Steve: When you get into something, you know whether it's really sought after or just you know old or I mean there's a million different reasons but real amps can get quite expensive.
• 12:06
  Steve: Now, digital amps absolutely can get expensive as well, but they don't have to.
• 12:11
  Steve: There are a lot of things out in the market that tend to be a little bit more affordable and they offer a range of different options, as we were just talking about, for all kinds of different people.
• 12:21
  Steve: You could get as small as just having something that plugs into your guitar and then you Bluetooth to your phone or whatever and then run some speakers or headphones or whatever it might be, and that's all you have.
• 12:34
  Steve: You know there's a wide, wide range of things that you can do in the digital realm.
• 12:38
  Steve: Okay, so just kind of think about that.
• 12:42
  Steve: So, where digital amps tend to be a little more beneficial, okay, digital amps.
• 12:48
  Steve: Let's just start with a regular amp like a Marshall JCM 800, okay, or a Mesa, boogie dual rectifier, triple rectifier, whatever it might be.
• 12:59
  Steve: Okay, some sort of real amp, so to speak.
• 13:02
  Steve: Now, that amp is what it is and you purchase it because you like the sound that it makes.
• 13:09
  Steve: Now it might have a clean channel and maybe a crunch channel and a lead channel or something like that, but the amp is the amp and the sound that it makes is the sound that it makes.
• 13:40
  Steve: And, again, you spend a lot of money and purchase this because you like the experience of that sound.
• 13:45
  Steve: Okay, a digital amp is able to emulate in a variety of different ways, whether we call it profiling or capturing or all kinds of different things.
• 13:57
  Steve: We'll just use the term emulate right now.
• 13:59
  Steve: Okay, a digital amp can sound like many other amplifiers because it's not its own thing, it's trying to be other things.
• 14:09
  Steve: So it can capture in some capacity the sound or sound similar in whatever way to a Marshall or a Mesa or, again, a Vox or a Fender or whatever it is that you like, okay, or an Orange or whatever.
• 14:26
  Steve: So that's kind of the benefit is having this digital product that can sound like so many different amplifiers.
• 14:33
  Steve: It's missing that one experience of being able to be loud and the tube thing and things like that.
• 14:40
  Steve: But where would a digital product like this be beneficial then?
• 14:45
  Steve: Well, for me this would be something where, when I'm in my studio and I'm recording, instead of trying to run just one amp and mic it and spend two hours trying to set up a mic and decide where to put it and whether or not the speakers inside the cabinet are the ones I want, or if I want a different cabinet with different speakers in it all these different kinds of things I can simply run a digital product like my Kemper, which is run into my computer through an audio interface, and I can dial up a Freedman or I can dial up a Marshall or I can dial up a Mesa or I can dial up a Fender, and it doesn't need to be loud.
• 15:18
  Steve: As a matter of fact, I don't want it to be loud because I'm sitting in my studio talking like this or recording with my studio speakers or whatever it might be, and it doesn't need to be loud.
• 15:29
  Steve: I'm not looking for that experience.
• 15:31
  Steve: I'm not on stage right when I'm not in my house, just being incredibly loud in my basement because I choose to be.
• 15:37
  Steve: This is a different kind of thing.
• 15:40
  Steve: The other reason why people will use these sorts of amps is maybe they have some amps that they own that they absolutely love, but they don't want to lug these amps around on the road.
• 15:52
  Steve: Right, they might play in a touring band and they have some amps and some tones that they really, really love, but they're not gonna take multiple amps out on the road and they might not even want to take one of these because they love them so much.
• 16:04
  Steve: So what they can do is, depending on the digital product that they purchase, they can actually capture the sound of these amps, or sounds of these amps that they love, and then just put them into, you know again, a camper or whatever.
• 16:19
  Steve: It might be Okay, and now those sounds that they love so much are captured and they can use that digital product in the way we've been talking, on the road.
• 16:28
  Steve: All right, again, they're not going to turn it up to try and get a tube thing, because that's not going to happen After it's been captured like that.
• 16:34
  Steve: That the experience is going to be a little bit different, but they would have those sounds.
• 16:40
  Steve: So there's lots of different reasons why you might use something like that.
• 16:42
  Steve: Again, size, weight, cost, I mean, there's all kinds of things like that.
• 16:49
  Steve: Okay, real amps, okay, we've talked about how the tonal character it's warm, organic, that sort of thing.
• 16:56
  Steve: Playing live, you know, if you turn it up loud enough, you get a real, authentic feedback, dynamic response from this sort of thing when you're playing live.
• 17:06
  Steve: That's something to think about if you're one of those players that loves feedback and that sort of thing.
• 17:13
  Steve: That's a special thing that comes from a certain volume.
• 17:17
  Steve: Now, you can get that from a digital product if it's loud enough, but I would dare say that the feedback is going to be the experience is going to be a little bit different between the two of them.
• 17:29
  Steve: Okay, so now let's talk about recording.
• 17:32
  Steve: Let's say you want it to get into recording, okay, so you are going to record with a real amplifier.
• 17:38
  Steve: Well, with a real amplifier, what you're going to need to do is, of course, you're going to need to get the amp and the cabinet, and the cabinet that you own has got.
• 17:49
  Steve: It's a Marshall or again whatever it might be, and it sounds unique because of the wood that it is, all those sorts of things.
• 17:55
  Steve: And then the speakers inside of it, or speaker or however many you have, are a certain kind, maybe it's a Celestion Vintage 30 or a Greenback or something like that.
• 18:04
  Steve: And then you have a microphone that you're going to put on that speaker.
• 18:08
  Steve: Okay, you are limited by what you own or what you can access, right, so if you only own one guitar cabinet, your tones are limited because you don't have other varieties of things that you can do.
• 18:24
  Steve: If you only own two microphones, your tones are going to be limited.
• 18:29
  Steve: Now, that might not be a big deal, that might be perfectly fine.
• 18:32
  Steve: I'm just telling you that it is the truth.
• 18:35
  Steve: Or, in the digital realm, you, again, depending on the product, you can choose different cabinets.
• 18:40
  Steve: In the digital realm you could say, hey, I'm running this 5150 head in my Kent Burr or whatever it is, but instead of having whatever cabinet this is, I'd rather have an orange 212 or I'd rather have a Mesa 412 or I'd rather have a Marshall with, you know again, whatever neocreamback speakers in it or whatever it might be.
• 19:00
  Steve: In the digital realm, you can play with all of these things and get a vast array of different kinds of sounds.
• 19:07
  Steve: Now, you don't have to.
• 19:09
  Steve: If you're one of those people that just wants something very simplistic like a combo amp, right, which is wonderful, but you'd like it to be digital because you'd like some other options of maybe some different, you know, amp sounds or something.
• 19:21
  Steve: Again, that's where, like a boss, katana might be a really a really great option, and I know I'm missing all kinds of different things out there, and just there's so many different brands and so many different things.
• 19:31
  Steve: Okay, just something for you to think about a little bit.
• 19:36
  Steve: Okay, so the drawbacks, of course, of that digital amp we've already talked about where there's, or that real amp, is that there's, there's.
• 19:45
  Steve: We're limited by the things that we have.
• 19:47
  Steve: The digital amp has all of these other things.
• 19:50
  Steve: Another thing to think about is that your real amp, your regular amp, for instance, like a Marshall JCM 800 or whatever it might be, it doesn't come with a bunch of effects.
• 20:00
  Steve: It doesn't have delay and chorus and flange and reverb and compression and noise gate and all these sorts of things.
• 20:06
  Steve: Now, some amps have some of those.
• 20:08
  Steve: Some amps have none of those In the digital realm.
• 20:13
  Steve: Oftentimes you will have all of those in spades.
• 20:18
  Steve: You'll have them all over the place.
• 20:19
  Steve: Okay, so you know multiple different choices of all kinds of different things that you can do.
• 20:25
  Steve: Okay, so that's something to think about a little bit.
• 20:27
  Steve: It's very important.
• 20:28
  Steve: So Both real and digital amps we can see have strengths and weaknesses, depending on what it is that we're looking for.
• 20:37
  Steve: For a player like me, I have them both because I use them for different things.
• 20:41
  Steve: If I'm looking for efficiency and I want to record, and I want to record now, I don't want to record two hours from now trying to set things up I can just use some sort of digital product and go Okay, and for my recordings.
• 20:55
  Steve: Most of the time that's how I do everything when I'm live.
• 20:58
  Steve: It depends on the band that I'm in.
• 20:59
  Steve: If I'm in a band where I'm doing a lot of big varieties of things, I might use one of my digital products, like my Kemper.
• 21:07
  Steve: I did music theater, excuse me a while back where I did Rock of Ages with a high school, and I used my Kemper for that because I needed a wide variety of tones and what I didn't need was volume, what they did not need.
• 21:25
  Steve: For me was for me to be really loud on this stage with 30 to 40 people dancing and speaking and all these different things that are going on.
• 21:35
  Steve: Volume was the last thing that I needed for that show.
• 21:38
  Steve: So bringing out 100 watt 2 amp is going to be pointless.
• 21:41
  Steve: Other than the fact that it's going to look really cool, I wouldn't be able to utilize it for what it can do anyway, okay.
• 21:48
  Steve: So that's another thing to think about.
• 21:50
  Steve: Personal preference, playing style.
• 21:52
  Steve: These are important reasons why you choose any of these kinds of amps, and the big thing I would say is try out different options and see what works best for you.
• 22:00
  Steve: All right.
• 22:01
  Steve: So the last thing I want to say before we get going here is just talking about plugins.
• 22:06
  Steve: So we've talked about things that have hardware, things that we physically can pick up and move and bring different places, but we also have software.
• 22:15
  Steve: We call plugins, or VST, their guitar plugins.
• 22:20
  Steve: So you could plug your guitar directly into an audio interface, okay.
• 22:25
  Steve: And then you could use software to make your guitar sound like a Mesa Boogie or a Marshall or a Fender or again anything else, all done within the computer itself, okay.
• 22:39
  Steve: So all of these things we talk about from the digital realm are all available for us as a software as well, which is pretty cool.
• 22:46
  Steve: And nowadays people will even use this on stage.
• 22:50
  Steve: So they'll literally bring like a laptop that has all these different sounds in there and they'll control it through Bluetooth or MIDI or whatever it might be, and they can change their guitar tones through that.
• 23:00
  Steve: Now, that's.
• 23:01
  Steve: I've never done that, that's that.
• 23:03
  Steve: You know I own hardware digital and analog hardware that I can.
• 23:07
  Steve: I can do that with, but I know people that do that, so that is definitely an option that we have.
• 23:12
  Steve: Okay, so it's something else to think about a little bit as well.
• 23:16
  Steve: Now, with this software, there's just like everything else, there's a variety of different companies out there that make software.
• 23:23
  Steve: Sometimes that guitar plugin might just be one amp, sometimes it'll be a piece of software that you buy that has all kinds of different app options in it.
• 23:31
  Steve: There's and we can always talk about that.
• 23:33
  Steve: Of course, you can always get a hold of me over at GuitarZoom.
• 23:35
  Steve: com or, if you're part of the GuitarZoom Community on Facebook which I would highly recommend that you do If you're not already we can talk about these things as much as you like and get you to better understand the similarities, the differences and the uses for these different kinds of things.
• 23:51
  Steve: Now, of course, when it comes to software, the downside is that you might need a higher performing computer.
• 23:58
  Steve: You know, I don't know what you have, but you might need something that does a little bit better job.
• 24:02
  Steve: Okay, and as you keep moving into that software realm, we just understand that we're moving further and further away from this analog real amp thing.
• 24:12
  Steve: That may or may not be an issue for me, or it might be exactly what you're looking for and, to be honest, I use a bunch of those too.
• 24:19
  Steve: I mean, I have all of these things that I use.
• 24:21
  Steve: I love all of this stuff.
• 24:22
  Steve: I just use them for different kinds of things.
• 24:25
  Steve: So, anyway, hopefully that helps you a little bit Now, better understand the difference between these and the similarities between these, and maybe even help you better understand what might be best for you, depending on the situations that you're going to find yourself in.
• 24:37
  Steve: So, take care, stay positive, of course, keep practicing and make sure that you head over to GuitarZoom.
• 24:43
  Steve: com.
• 24:44
  Steve: Check out the all access membership that we offer there.
• 24:46
  Steve: I would love to have you part of the family.
• 24:48
  Steve: You can head over to Facebook GuitarZoom Community.
• 24:51
  Steve: Join that and I'll talk to you soon.
• 24:54
  Steve: All right, thank you so much for joining me for this podcast and I'll talk to you soon.