Home guitar-time setups

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kim
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Home guitar-time setups

Post by kim »

Which amps or other devices (pc, pedalboard amp, headphone amp etc) setups are you using for quiet playing times at home ?

Do you have a dedicated room or corner of your living room ?
Do you keep things ready to just plug in or store everything away when not in use ?

For apartment dwellers; anything you prefer than takes up little space, is easy to just plug in and go and keeps your neighbors from calling police ?


I've become a fan of amplitube these past years (specifically the fender, mesa and orange collections ).
I store my 2 big amps at my folks (no room, no elevator here), kept the blackstar HT1 but don't keep it 'ready to go'.
Getting out the pedalboard (esp for spring reverb, need that) is too much hassle, lack of electrical outlets in my old place etc, it's just too much work when i just want to sit down and play a bit.
Amplitube is less hassle but not the same, obviously.

What are your @home guitar playing therapy setups ?
Last edited by kim on Tue Nov 30, 2021 7:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Home guitar time setups

Post by Bacchus »

Amplitube, or the full Matamp stack with a promise to myself that it won't get loud before it inevitably does.
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Re: Home guitar time setups

Post by kim »

I love that with amplitube i can be very loud and it's directly going into my earholes and not into the apartment building but it sure is a big compromise compared to having an amp, pedalboard and soundproofed room all set up and ready to go.

Perhaps i need to move things around a bit in the living room to find some sort of middle path...

I've been eyeing those mustang gtx amps and similar ones with a bunch of features for a while
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Re: Home guitar time setups

Post by lorez »

I've been using Ableton for a lot of my guitar practice with headphones. In fact probably use it more through my monitors than through my guitar amp. I use the guitar amp more for reamping sounds to record back in to ableton and sampling.
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Re: Home guitar time setups

Post by kim »

What do you use in ableton for emulation ?

I could never get on with ableton, better with fl studio but hassle recording,
mostly just use amplitube as standalone, make some drums stuff in superior drummer and put that in amplitube as 'jam' tracks.

I got reaper and planning on getting to know that.

Always used garageband back in the day but never again putting money into tim cook's crApple.
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Re: Home guitar time setups

Post by Bacchus »

The "amp" device in Ableton as pretty good. Good enough that I've been happy to record guitars then just use it instead of giving up CPU for Amplitube.

http://www.ableton.com/en/packs/amp/
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Re: Home guitar time setups

Post by Doog »

I've been using the HX Stomp on headphones 99% of the time since buying it last September; I think I've literally plugged into my little Yamaha THR10-II two or three times in that time.

Being able to directly insert an AUX into that set-up is brilliant, either for learning/jamming, or just putzing while watching some YouTube or whatever.

I seem to just use "pedals" on the HX Stomp more often than plug real ones in, as it's veeeeery convenient. That said, I'm building up a board using my NUX drum-machine/looper thing and the weirdo unique pedals I've got, as I wanna get back into writing off the cuff more; less moving notes around a grid on a computer.
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Re: Home guitar time setups

Post by lorez »

kim wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 3:43 pm What do you use in ableton for emulation ?

I could never get on with ableton, better with fl studio but hassle recording,
mostly just use amplitube as standalone, make some drums stuff in superior drummer and put that in amplitube as 'jam' tracks.

I got reaper and planning on getting to know that.

Always used garageband back in the day but never again putting money into tim cook's crApple.
the amp & pedal sims are a lot better now. I use them but most of the time I will also use a lot of the other effects and delays to get the sounds I want. I can easily loop drums, bass, synths, etc in clip view and then just play over the top.

I also have a version of guitar rig which I use for variety but I still run it in ableton
plopswagon wrote:I like teles and strats because they're made out of guitar.
robroe wrote:I dont need a capo. I have the other chords in my tonefingers
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kim
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Re: Home guitar time setups

Post by kim »

Doog wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 5:04 pm I've been using the HX Stomp on headphones 99% of the time since buying it last September; I think I've literally plugged into my little Yamaha THR10-II two or three times in that time.

Being able to directly insert an AUX into that set-up is brilliant, either for learning/jamming, or just putzing while watching some YouTube or whatever.

I seem to just use "pedals" on the HX Stomp more often than plug real ones in, as it's veeeeery convenient. That said, I'm building up a board using my NUX drum-machine/looper thing and the weirdo unique pedals I've got, as I wanna get back into writing off the cuff more; less moving notes around a grid on a computer.

The HX stomp seems well worth the money if you just want to keep it simple in wiring/setting up and have a craving to play at 3am (my brain thinks it's the BEST time of the day to come up with ideas).

It's not cheap but as you say, if you reach for that most of the time and checks all the boxes for what you're after it's worth the investment.
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Re: Home guitar-time setups

Post by NickD »

Roland cube and headphones for quiet playing, 18 watt Marshall for the rare times when I can play loud. Both live under my desk when not in use.
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Re: Home guitar-time setups

Post by Hurb »

Everything I do these days, guitar practice or demos are done through ableton and guitar rig 5. I have a tweed amp and a bass amp that I use exclusively in guitar rig.
I have been very lucky to have everything set up ready to go for playing and recording demos(lights etc) but that is changing as my daughter has moved out of sharing her room with her brother and has moved into my office/destroy amps hq(eagle eyed viewers might of noticed some her toys etc in the background of the past couble of demos) . We are currently sharing but I will be moving my laptop/recording stuff in my bedroom (much to the annoyance of mrs hurb) but I literally have nowhere else to put everything. Although it will be a case of having to put everything away after use which is going to be a ball ache. My guitars will have to be dispersed throughout the house as they wont all go in one place now.

Having said all that I don't actually mind using headphones.
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Re: Home guitar-time setups

Post by kim »

I've gotten too used to that splishy splash drippy spring reverb, it's become essential, i would put that above any other features that make something handy.

For amp at home i need something like that ehx oceans 11 there with the blackstar ht1.
For amplitube i use emulated fender reverb unit or the one on the amp i'm emulating if it's good.

And yeah, a dedicated room with all set up and ready to go is ideal, the hardest part is usually getting the fuck to it when you have a number of things to set up.

I think i've talked about this before but having amplitube work with an amp manufacturer and installing emulation packs on the amp and having the software on pc compatible with features on the amp would be so awesome.
I've tried guitar rig and while it's comparable to stock amplitube, the specific amp packs amplitube has have some wonderful emulated stuff.
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Re: Home guitar time setups

Post by Doog »

kim wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 6:36 pm
Doog wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 5:04 pm I've been using the HX Stomp on headphones 99% of the time since buying it last September; I think I've literally plugged into my little Yamaha THR10-II two or three times in that time.

Being able to directly insert an AUX into that set-up is brilliant, either for learning/jamming, or just putzing while watching some YouTube or whatever.

I seem to just use "pedals" on the HX Stomp more often than plug real ones in, as it's veeeeery convenient. That said, I'm building up a board using my NUX drum-machine/looper thing and the weirdo unique pedals I've got, as I wanna get back into writing off the cuff more; less moving notes around a grid on a computer.

The HX stomp seems well worth the money if you just want to keep it simple in wiring/setting up and have a craving to play at 3am (my brain thinks it's the BEST time of the day to come up with ideas).

It's not cheap but as you say, if you reach for that most of the time and checks all the boxes for what you're after it's worth the investment.

Although the memory is a bit limited*, you can do some very cool stuff with routing, like setting up parallel chains, and having multiple pedals mapped to one footswitch (bypassing AND activating different 'blocks' on a single click). One of the reasons I got it was as a super-portable Casa Bonita setup, taking care of dual amping with the stereo outs and all the specific switching I "need". Honestly, being able to try weird configs and setups at the twirl of a dial is amazing.

It's got LEGIT weird FX too, recreation of recent boutiquey stuff (there's a Montreal Assembly 'Count To 5' style block, for instance), so it can get pretty wacky if you want to. Honestly insane value for the money, esp while they're still offering firmware updates with new blocks/FX. I keep finding new config options that open up how you can "play" the pedal, like the 'momentary' footswitch option for instance.

*(you can't have infinite 'blocks' as some are very memory-hungry, I guess the Helix is the beefier version)
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Re: Home guitar-time setups

Post by kim »

Yeah cheapest Helix looks like double the cost.

Very curious about the HX, i'd be using headphone 99% of the time too i think, very rarely i play (amplified) without headphones in my apartment, it's nice to have it as an option though (headphones out on emulation amp) but then you'd sacrifice other features.

Personally i'm not after multitudes of FX, just an accurate spring reverb emulator,(tremolo), decent fuzz, octave fuzz, overdrive and distortion but it sure helps to have lots to choose from in there. Tastes differ.
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Re: Home guitar-time setups

Post by Doog »

It's only as complex as you need it to be tbh, and there's a load of surprisingly good-sounding dirts and reverbs on there. There's even a damn FUZZ FACTORY that does the oscillating shit (albeit obviously in a different way to the real circuit).

If you're interested, I'd be happy to do some dial-twirling on video to give you a feel for it once I'm back at my place next week.

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Re: Home guitar-time setups

Post by sunshiner »

I play through an 8 inch speaker solid state combo. It's still loud as heck past 3 or 4 on the volume for an apartment, much louder than any of my neighbours' stereos. I need something quieter as well. I haven't tried amplitube, though I was going to for a long time now. Still there's something magical about a combo playing in the room and how your ears pick the sound of it. Plugging into the same combo with headphones doesn't work for me, it sounds like complete crap
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Re: Home guitar-time setups

Post by Doog »

You want those mental Katana headphones, bud:



sorry about the R*b Ch*pman content
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Re: Home guitar-time setups

Post by kim »

Haha, yeah...

I think the blackstar ht1 and oceans 11's spring reverb are a good combo for the time being if i don't want to use headphones (headphones out also less than great).
I've always liked that small valve amp. Chimey cleans.
To me amplitube really does what i want in simulating a room and response when using headphones.

On the HX, thanks for offering to demo it but save yourself the hassle, i think i'm giving it a lot more time keeping an eye on what's out there to make up my mind on something. No decisions anytime soon.

All over the place currently...amp sim in pedal form, modeling amp, small valve amp, with a spring reverb tank in there ? decent digital spring reverb ?
I know the max budget and what i'm after in sound (it needs to surf).
There's a lot of pros and cons to either more vintage style with less features or modeling with more features.


Anyone here own any sort of princeton reverb ?
65, 64 custom Blackface, silverface, reissue, custom reissue ...one princeton isn't the other princeton. Too many princetons. :lol:
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Re: Home guitar-time setups

Post by Bacchus »

I'm playing a lot of effects heavy stereo guitar in a band I'm currently in. Might try to add some Ableton on top of that (although, to be honest I have enough mad mess coming out of the speakers already). I suppose something like a HX or Helix might be an interesting way of bridging everything?

On the subject of amp vsts, I think some of the issues that people run into with them (particularly Amplitube) is that they do what Kim said: show the sound of a particular amp, in a particular room, recorded in a particular way. They aren't trying to sound like a real amp in your room, but like what that amp sounds like recorded. Which is often very different.
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Re: Home guitar-time setups

Post by Gavin »

What's the cheapest way to get an interface for using amplitude / GarageBand these days? back when I used to attempt to record music at home I ended up having to buy a £150 audio interface. But I just want a wee USB plug thingy I can use to plug my guitar into my laptop and off I go. Is that possible yet without horrible latency? I remember I tried some wee interface for amplitude and found it unusable because of the latency.