Going Ampless: My Journey

Your experience with the various solutions mentioned in this post could vary widely when compared with mine. However, I do hope my thoughts are helpful to you as you navigate the many amazing options we have. I’m so thankful to have so many options; it truly is the best time to be a guitar player, in my opinion. In the end, I hope reading my opinions helps you along your journey of bringing glory to our Lord Jesus Christ through the talent and resources God has bestowed on you.

It may be helpful to know that at the time of this writing I most frequently use a Lambertones Crema neck and Lambertones Grinder bridge pickup.

At the time of this writing, aside from a month-long stint with a Jackson Ampworks Scarlett + Suhr Reactive Load + Two Notes Torpedo cabinet simulator, I’ve been “ampless”, “sans-amp”, “without amp” for 10+ years now. By that I mean: I run my pedalboard into a device or devices that attempt to simulate an amplifier. If memory serves correctly, in the last decade I’ve used:

Line 6 POD XT ran in mono
Line 6 HD500 ran in mono
Tech 21 Sans Amp Liverpool ran in mono
Two Notes Torpedo with a Kingsley Squire preamp ran in mono
Kemper ran in mono
Kemper in stereo via the effects loop/four cable method
Kemper and Atomic Firebox in stereo
Two Kempers in stereo
Line 6 HX Stomp in stereo and mono
Strymon Iridiums in stereo
Fractal Audio AXE-FX III in stereo
Neural Quad Cortex in stereo
Universal Audio Ruby + Dream in stereo
Universal Audio Ruby + Woodrow in stereo
Universal Audio Ruby + Ruby in stereo
IK Multimedia Tonex pedals in stereo

Long list…wow.

My Criteria for Evaluating Ampless Solutions

In my attempts to evaluate the various amp-less solutions, I’ve identified five criteria:

Tone

Does the solution have that sound and feel authentic under the fingers—full, good bass response; pleasing, prominent high end without digital ice-pick stuff; breaks up naturally; and responds well to picking dynamics. Some of those are hard to define objectively. I simply know when it’s good. You likely do as well. If the solution passes the initial tone test, then I move on to the rest of the criteria.

How the solution responds to outboard pedals

- Does it dull my reverb and delay? I can tell this if I have to make significant changes to the mix levels. If I have to turn the mix up much higher, then the solution isn’t ideal, as it usually means the input compression is too high and…
- …if the input compression is high, headroom is low, which means it won’t take overdrive, boost and compression pedals very well.
- Sometimes, due to high levels of input compression and lack of headroom, these devices can make all overdrives sound the same, which is a huge disappointment.

The “energy” created when reverb, delay and overdrive are combined

The way the reverb, delay and overdrive smear, bounce off each other and create a mess of artifacting, crackling goodness is, in my opinion, the best part about the ethereal tone most of us are chasing. Some devices do this better than others.

The solution’s UI/UX

Workflow is not the most important thing, but it definitely matters to me. As a husband, father and employee, I have very little free time. Therefore, fighting with Kemper’s or Tonex’s terrible editors is not something I love doing (at the time of this writing, both editors are still awful). I’ve sat down to edit on the Kemper and wasted 45 minutes accomplishing absolutely nothing. On the other hand, editing with Quad Cortex, Fractal and Line 6 is amazingly simple and is actually a joy.

Which ampless solutions have I enjoyed most?

I’ve tried a bunch, but these are my favorites. I plug my pedalboard directly into the inputs, as I would if I were running real amps; that is, no effects loops or four cable method.

Honorable mention to the Strymon Iridium. Great device, but doesn’t make it on to my favorites list.

Fractal Audio AXE-FX III

I don’t use any aftermarket presets with this unit. I made my own using the stock Fractal stuff.

Tone:	Full, not overly compressed at the input and is authentic. Responds well to picking dynamics. Feel is a bit soft, but not terribly so.
Outboard pedals:	Takes outboard pedals pretty well. Drives retain their character, but not as well as some others. It’s not too compressed, so there’s a really great openness, which allows the delay and reverb to move around nicely. Not a ton of headroom, so the user has to be careful not to set the volume of overdrive, boost and compression pedals too high (i.e., gain stage well).
Energy:	Acceptable, but not as good as I wish it was. Better than the HX Stomp and Kemper. Not as much artifacting and crackle as I would like.
UI/UX	Amazing. No complaints. Really cool to have a stereo setup in ONE device with ONE editor, especially when the editor is near best-in- class. This makes balancing left and right very simple, as opposed to the Kemper, UA and Tonex setups, where the devices are managed independently. This can make balancing left and right difficult, especially when adding boosts and drives to the mix.

Neural DSP Quad Cortex

I don’t use any aftermarket presets with this unit. I made my own captures by capturing the Kemper profiles I made…I know that’s weird, but they sound amazing.

Tone:	As good as it gets. No complaints at all. Having the ability to capture makes this device super fun. I captured my favorite Kemper profiles that I made myself as well as my favorite tone from the UA Ruby. So cool to combine my favorite tones from different devices into one stereo preset that can be managed on one device!
Outboard pedals:	Takes pedals very well. Drives retain their character. There’s no unwanted mush, squash or compression. Headroom is good as well.
Energy:	Acceptable. Good artifacting and the wet effects sit in the right spot. No complaints.
UI/UX	So. Easy. Love it.

IK Multimedia Tonex

I use aftermarket presets with this unit. I’ve tried Tonefactor and Tone Junkie captures and am happy with both. I really love the Tonefactor Vox AC30 and Benson Chimera captures.

Tone:	Has that sound. Full and “feels” amazing. Responds well to picking dynamics. No unwanted compression.
Outboard pedals:	Takes outboard pedals so well, in my opinion. Drives retain their character, which I love. Lots of headroom and doesn’t eat up the delay and reverb too bad. I do have to turn mix levels up a touch, but it’s so worth it (see the Energy criteria for why). The user has to be SUPER careful not to slam the inputs too hard, as the Tonex will basically cut the sound if the input is hit with too much volume and wet effects. A little bummed by this; other than that, I would’ve given this setup the highest marks.
Energy:	Best of the bunch. There’s a sparkle and shimmer created by the artifacting that’s hard to describe, but is so good!
UI/UX	Terrible. The software is so bad. Note: balancing left and right is a breeze with the captures I use.

Line 6 HX Stomp

I don’t use any aftermarket presets with this unit. I made my own using the stock Line 6 stuff. I have used many different impulse responses in the past. Some are great, some are terrible. I don’t think they’re necessary, but many disagree with me. I most recently tried the Tonefactor XR IRs — they were really nice!

Tone:	Sounds a little thin, but is still good. I had to do a lot of adjusting via parametric EQ (PEQ) at the end of the chain to get the Stomp where I wanted. This wasn’t unlike what I did with the AXE-FX III; however, the difference is this: I was polishing the tone of the AXE-FX III with PEQ, and I was really shaping, sculpting and transforming the tone of the Stomp with PEQ (I explain the process in the Tone Training and Resources section). It was a lot of work. All in all, the tone isn’t as authentic as the Fractal, Tonex or Kemper, in my opinion. Responds decently well to picking dynamics.
Outboard pedals:	Takes drives really well. Wet effects…kind of (see Energy criteria for more). They sound nice and washy, rather than subdued, which I really like.
Energy:	The energy just isn’t there. Not bad, don’t get me wrong. But compared to Quad Cortex and Tonex, the Stomp leaves a lot to be desired.
UI/UX	Amazing. No complaints. Really cool to have a stereo setup in ONE device with ONE editor, especially when the editor is near best-in- class. This makes balancing left and right very simple, as opposed to the Kemper, UA and Tonex setups, where the devices are managed independently. This can make balancing left and right difficult, especially when adding boosts and drives to the mix.

Kempers (two in Stereo)

I used aftermarket presets in the Kemper. I used my own and profiles from Tone Junkie.

Tone:	Huge and full. Responds well to picking dynamics. So good, but…
Outboard pedals:	…so compressed and soft. The Kempers eat up drives and wet effects in an undesirable way. I love high-mix wet effects, and it was really difficult to achieve this tone at times, especially with big drive sounds. If you’re using stereo Kempers, you’ll love the tone. I sure did, but I didn’t realize what the compression was doing to my sound until I tried AXE-FX III and Stomp, both of which are less compressed at the input. This compression also makes different character overdrives sound the same, to some degree.
Energy:	The high level of input compression dramatically reduces the energy factor. Big bummer.
UI/UX	So many complaints about the UI/UX. I can’t stand the Kemper editor. It seems good at the outset, but gets quirky quickly with things not saving correctly…drives me nuts. Note: balancing left and right isn’t too hard with the Kempers. Thankful for that.

Universal Audio Ruby, Dream, Woodrow

Tone:	Incredible. Authentic, full, great high end. Some of the best “cab thump” I’ve ever heard. They feel a bit stiff to me.
Outboard pedals:	Takes wet effects perfectly. Character of the drives is retained, so that’s a plus; but the inputs of the devices can’t be slammed too hard with volume. The net effect is this: It’s harder to lock into the “broken up amp plus a nice overdrive slamming into the front” sound. I have a hard time getting the overall level of drive where I want to be sometimes, so I find myself tweaking these a bit more, which causes a constant battle between the volume and drive levels on my drives and the drive level on the units themselves. That said, overall, I still love them. A lot.
Energy:	So, so great.
UI/UX	N/A. Balancing left and right is SO hard, especially when adding boost and drives to the mix.

So which of these would I buy again?

For straight up tone with versatility sprinkled in, my answer is two Tonex pedals. Why? The user gets access to a lot of great captures, which means the sky is the limit for tonal possibilities.

For value, the Stomp.

For tone + value + workflow (because the Tonex software is awful, at least at the time of this writing), the UA Ruby and Dream or Ruby and Ruby. I think they sound better than the Stomp, and they’re easier to work with than the Tonex. I also think they are the best of the bunch when it comes to how wet effects behave. So good!

I can’t necessarily recommend Fractal or stereo Kempers for the purpose of strictly modeling amps. The tone the other devices produce in combination with the reduced cost makes them the clear winners, in my opinion.

A couple final thoughts:

First, all of these in the context of a mix sound amazing. The little inches of improvement are all but lost in a mix context. So if you’re happy with what you have, stick with it.

Second, although I experiment with a lot of gear, my opinion as it relates to the most popular amp modelers (UA, Tonex, Stomp, Fractal, Kemper, QC, etc.) is this: they are all amazing. If you’re curious about other devices and have the financial means to try them, go for it. But, please, please, please, never feel like you’re inferior if you’re not trying the newest device. All of them are so good at this point that it’s mainly preference. If you spend time to get to know your gear, you’ll be able to squeeze out some great tones! It’s an inches thing, really. Small “tone” inches. No device is that much better than another. So, choose the device that fits best with your budget, and know that you’re not settling—the devices are so good that there’s no such thing as settling. It’s a great time to be a guitar player!

I hope this was helpful to you in some way!

Coram Deo,

Troy, GFHG