A Vintage Amp Snob Goes Direct - Ask Zac 104

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You don't change until you have to.....

I have always been an amp guy, and have always had a preference for tube amps. With a recent fly date I did with Paul Bogart, I ran into a situation that caused me to finally make the jump to using a direct setup. In the video, I cover how I began to see more and more of my friends and heroes go direct when the situation called for it. My solution was the Strymon Iridium with a Tone Junkie Celestion Vintage 30 IR pack. With it, I could get a nice BF Deluxe Reverb sound, along with the V30 IR to give me a sound I was comfortable with. Though others I spoke with used the Kemper or Line 6 HX, I chose the Strymon as it had actual knobs, and was much easier for me to use on the gig.

This is my beginner's guide to going direct.

Gear for this video
1957 Fender Esquire with an added neck pickup. Restoration and aging on the body by Dan "Danocaster" Strain. Bridge pickup re-wind by Ron Ellis

Strings:
D'Addario NYXL 10-46

Pick:
D'Andrea MH 351

Pedalboard
Turbo Tuner
Mirage Compressor
Karma MTN-10 Mostortion
Boss DM-3
Strymon Flint
Line 6 Echo Park
Strymon Iridium
9v power via Truetone CS6

JBL powered speakers for this video #askzac #guitartech #telecaster

[otisgibbs]

That sounds a hell of a lot better than the Rockman I got for Christmas back in 1985! : )

[bermibrit]

as a blind guitarist, the trend towards going direct is a real concern for me. I cannot use the Kemper, Ax, or Line6 Healix because none of those companies have taken the trouble to make the phone apps or PC editors accessible, although it is entirely possible to do so. I was blown away when I purchased the Iridium. Whilst I cannot upload new IRs or make any changes on the PC (again, Strymon have not made this accessible) I can get good sounds using what was included out of the box. But in the medium to long term, I think this trend will prevent guitar players who are blind or who have very little vision from gigging as successfully as we have in the past.

[DDPAV]

In the 80's i went to the gig with two full marshall stacks and several guitars in a van. In the 90's and early 2000's it was a 4x10 combo and two guitars in an suv. Since 2019 it's a Headrush and one guitar in the trunk of my two seat convertible. Thankfully technology has kept up with my aging process and the audience can still hear all my bad notes with perfect amp-like tone😜
One thing often left out of the equation in the smaller venues, clubs or churches is the fact the sound person is often the weakest link(I'm a live soundman myself so I know). That Dumbel you brought to the gig with your perfect tone somehow gets lost thru a beat up 20 year old 57 hanging from the amp handle somewhere close to a speaker, going into generic guitar preset in the house

[JtotheP]

For that gig, if you’d said to the hire company “I’ll just have a hot rod deluxe like everyone else does” you’d have saved yourself all this heartache!

[jessebfly]

I'm a certified amp lover.. but this is really cool. I've always been curious about this. Talking with a good friend and fellow amp geek who's on tour w a major act, he told me "we hardly use amps anymore".. I nearly cried when I heard this but most of his gigs are fly in dates where hauling big gear is really a hinderance. I get it.

[patrickcasey]

Been using the Helix for 6 years for every gig. My go to country patch is a Deluxe Reverb model with a compressor, slap back delay and a touch of verb. Sounds great.

[fivewattworld]

Nice! Good to see you dragged into the modeling world Zac! :)

[grdorn]

I A/B'd the Iridium and the ACS1 from Walrus Audio as a pretty apples to apples product and I only really cared about the Fender clean type sound and the ACS1 is astoundingly great-sounding in the standard Fender setting that it comes with ...shockingly great. I highly recommend guys looking for a really legit country-sounding amp that the ACS1 is a little better than the Iridium...maybe a lot better. It also has a cool stereo feature that the ididium doesn't offer if you like to mimic running to two amps.

[ShinyShinyBlack]

I’m so glad you touched on the user interface - I really think tools like the Iridium or the Simplifier (which has XLR outs!) are such a great solution for the majority of players - especially those of us who have a board we already love that’s set up to work well with traditional amplifiers!

[dougwerner]

Hi Zac, I am using the Milkman Amp on a similar board for small quiet stage gigs. It replaces the Flint on my board since it has REV and TREM footswitches. It has a great cab sim and a 12AX7 tube to give me a 95% Princeton Reverb tone with my Glaser tele into the board. In Ears or a QSC K8 sounds pretty nice but it takes some adjustment not having an amp behind me. Welcome to the future!

[Tony]

I have a TM Deluxe (BF) but I also recently purchased an Iridium. IMO, the two biggest issues are using your pedalboard that you are already completely familiar with and the fact that the Iridium provides a level of consistency no matter the venue.

[iamgcase]

I appreciate your honesty. Direct is really easy, if you just do it!!!

[DadRockAndGuitars]

Very cool. Nice, simple, and straight forward rig that makes sense for certain situations. Can't wait until all the venues make drummers play electronic kits to keep the stage volume down 😂

[daringbarons]

I’ve come full circle a couple times. I always used amps for awhile, then no amp for awhile, now back to amps with few to no pedals. That balance between convenience and sound is always present.

[christianstevens]

I love my iridium and just getting started with an H9

[sgriffett]

that true tone youtube guitar sound, that made some of the greats sound great, dialed righthere folks... thanks Zak!

[nedward]

I have an Iridium as well, and when I can't use my Fender/Dr. Z amps it's great! If you haven't, Get the Nixie Beta editor as it unlocks a lot of features you can't do on the panel - you can use any of the 9 speaker IRs for any of the 3 models. Other thing that's fun - Chase Bliss makes a Fave pedal that's small but let's you switch between 3 banks of 3 presets on the Iridium so that you can have different amp settings/gain stages or volume...

I have found the York Deluxe Reverb 1x12 IR is a favorite, not only for Fender, but also for the Marshall sound. YMMV.

I printed up a small card to remind me how to defeat the speaker cab emulation in case I can plug into an amp effect loop and still get the sounds...

[roscoenyc]

Excellent look at the box. "On the gig" indeed. These are also mighty good for the simple home recording setup. I've got the OX but a bunch of my pals are using the Iridium and I was just suggesting it for somebody who was new to home recording.

[nostromo]

Personally I prefer the amp. Night and day difference in sound. Especially compared to your deluxe. The amp is warm and chunky, where the direct system is like unsalted butter

[klvsply]

I’m hearing a lot about the Revv D20 which is basically a deluxe designed in Nashville to go direct!!! Supposedly it sounds better direct than a kemper and much easier to use.