Grateful Dead Music Forum

Hey now - can I get some opinions on the use of analog vs. digital effects and amps?
I'm running mostly all tube / analog right now and want to add a few effects into my set up - a nice clean boost, some compression and reverb. Mod effects would also be cool but not a necessity - gotta have some balance between great tone and a bunch of effects. Anyway, I'm going back and forth between all analog pedals and the newer modeling units like the Line 6 M9 and M13.
I've invested for a while in the all tube set up, so it's a decision of a few pedals that will enhance and sound great vs all that potential flexibility with the newer digital modeling boxes. It is 2010 after all and it may well be that the M13 is the greatest thing since steel strings - but may also not translate well into a live setting as an in-front of my amp or through my effects loop set up. That is kinda what I am getting at - practicality for live jamming.
My set up:
fender american fat strat (HSS)
Mesa V-twin tube rack mount stereo pre
Mesa 20/20 tube stereo power amp
Ear candy buzzbomb 2x12 cab
Tone tubby AlNico and ceramic combo
Behringer v-verb pro rack digital effects unit

thanks

I have tried most of the digital stuff out there and always come back to analog.
POD, POD XT, POD 3, V-Amp, Tonelab, M13, Digi's Eleven Rack, Sansamp, etc...

I've only found the Sansamp and Eleven Rack to be usable live for my exact needs.

Others get great results with AxeFx and others with the M13/9.

It's gonna be a long journey of trial and error for you, my friend!

Lots of info here with pedal reviews if you are interested...

In my experience with amp modeling, you get what you pay for. Names like Voodoo Labs and Rocktron will give you near perfect modeling in their high dollar preamps. Plus you can go full range and response with your speakers. I would bet a $1000 that the line six modeling of a fender twin sounds nothing like a real fender twin. I have a $150 modeling practice amp I use late at night with headphones from FENDER and the twin version is OK, but not that close to be called such. I think the lesson here is the money invested. Pro equipment comes the closest and most are using this technology primarily for the FRFR sound systems.
Jerry's best tone was the twin preamp and analog pedals, IMO. Simple and effective. The band was always experimenting with gear, and looking back, the late 70's to late 80's the live sound was great, even without their newest versions of different stage systems. But, the more they incorporated new approaches, the more consistancy problems arose.
Analog sounds better for the basic player/band.

Thanks for the advice guys. Kinda what I wanted to hear so that's good.

To put in some context I added the digital behringer rack reverb unit since I was totally dry with just my pre amp - although the Mesa does sound pretty sweet stand alone. Anyway for less than 100 bucks - and it fit into my single open space - it was a good way to quickly add some reverb and other effects - and even that sounded not to shabby. But about a year after I got it the signal started to just drop for no reason. This is when I realize I need to make the jump to some analog effect pedals - and the whole digital modeling explosion makes one wonder if they may be onto something. But even from my own experience - you guys are totally right that in a live setting you can't get the same sounds and air movement with digital. Although I'm sure the AxeFx is amazing I'm unfortunately not on tour so that's kinda out of scope.

Anyway, I ended up going with an mxr dyna comp to play around with for a while and see how that impacts my clean tone. Considering getting a keeley katana clean boost and matching keeley compressor - but for 65 bucks - and a quite solid reputation - the dyna comp seems like a great place to start. Is anybody using this keeley combo and have anything they can chime in about if they are worth the 400 bucks? I'm obviusly a fan of less is more and it looks like you could get a lot of impact from that combo.

Later,
Pat

I will sing the praises of Biyang pedals all day long. This company is the Chineese Analogman, he uses American and German components and they are low noise, true bypass, and SOLID old school analog. A couple gear heads on here have tried them and like them. They are 50 buck to 60 bucks and they rival these big names for real. I am not lying. I have put the biyang line up to the test with MXR and EHX. They are all identical quality analog sounds, and noise. Plus, they're way cheaper. You can get 4 pedals for the price of 1 EHX.