Sonicake Rockstage - My search for a second setup

  • Great. Witch loader?

    It's the Hotone Binary IR Cab. I chose this one over the Radar (same price range) because it offers an aux in so I can play along to my tablet. Let us know what you think about the Sonicake. Cheers.

    Gear: Strats & KPA. Plug Ins: Cubase, NI, iZotope, Slate, XLN, Spectrasonics.
    Music: Song from my former band: vimeo.com/10419626[/media][/media][/media] Something new on the way...

  • ...At the moment what flashes me the most is the direct feel of the all analog Sonicake which I hadn't felt for a long time. And I did not know, but was missing it. Just so much fun to play. ...

    Fireloogie I know what you mean by that!


    Recently I play a small pedalboard with either the "Mad Professor Super Black" or the "Mad Professor Loud'nProud" pedal as amp replacement. Both analog pedals sound very convincing and react very tube like. It's a miracle for me, how they get this sound into that small box :)


    Stacking with some overdrive pedals it's tone heaven for me atm.


    I use the pedals straight into a Hotone Loudster for driving my real cabs. They also sound killer directly into the NUX Solid Studio IR loader or my Torpedo CAB. If I am to lazy to mic my cabs or profile a setup for recording in DAW, I use the MIKKO cab simulator plugin from ML Sound Lab.

  • Recently I play a small pedalboard

    I am currently testing some board gearpieces like the Source Audio Collider along with some drives and another solid state preamp. I tend to build a small flyrig, but as much as I like the Sonicake, combining it with the Collider seems a bit unbalanced. I will keep the Sonicstage for sure, but still I am looking for a small preamp that works well as a pedal base. I'll check the Mad Professor Super Black, thx for the input. Do you feel a huge difference in quality soundwise between the Nux and the Torpedo?

    Gear: Strats & KPA. Plug Ins: Cubase, NI, iZotope, Slate, XLN, Spectrasonics.
    Music: Song from my former band: vimeo.com/10419626[/media][/media][/media] Something new on the way...

    Edited once, last by Fireloogie ().

  • I am currently testing some board gearpieces like the Source Audio Collider along with some drives and another solid state preamp. I tend to build a small flyrig, but as much as I like the Sonicake, combining it with the Collider seems a bit unbalanced. I will keep the Sonicstage for sure, but still I am looking for a small preamp that works well as a pedal base. I'll check the Mad Professor Super Black, thx for the input. Do you feel a huge difference in quality soundwise between the Nux and the Torpedo?

    Yes, (most of the time) I like the Nux better ^^

    It is super simple in use, I like the power amp sim better than the Two Notes and some of the build in cabs are really great. And with 3rd party IR it is the best sound of any hardware device I have tried yet. The biggest plus here seems the IR resolution of 2048 samples and 46 ms. As said, I have the MIKKO vst plugin and can make my own IR in no time, save them and load them to any device. The MIKKO itself has some kind of power amp sim too, that can be baked into the IR when needed.


    Back to the Nux:):

    I also noticed immediately the direct response of the device. There was no latency felt at all!! So I searched and found this about the latency of the Nux:

    "Solid Studio uses oversampling technology, which is to increase the system sampling rate to 88.2KHz, so that the sampling interval is reduced to 11μs (microseconds), coupled with the industry's top TI 6720 floating-point DSP and the latest generation of AKM professional AD / DA Converters surprisingly shorten the time needed to buffer to less than 1 millisecond."


    All in all, this thing sounds and feels great to me. But one thing you have to know: When connecting the Nux with USB (for editor use) there can be a high frequency nasty noise. I like to use its editor, so I bought a cheap chinese USB isolator that solved this issue .

  • Really liked the Sonicake Rockstage: keep reverb low, just a little delay shadow and adjust amp to taste.
    My only complain is the chorus section, I think it needs more depth.


    Will keep the weight low at some gigs, very practical.


    Approved.

  • Hi guys, thought it was time for a little follow up.


    The Sonicake Rockstage made me reconsider my gear, as I simply need a few basic sounds plus delay and reverb. So I got some stuff for testing purposes to see if any preamp- / fx-combination might challenge the KPA. Well, turned out, no.


    Here's what I got:


    Source Audio Collider (Delay & Reverb)

    This would be my perfect fx-pedal. Everything about this pedal is right for me but in the end no reasonable reason to keep it along with the KPA.


    AMT M1

    This is a two channel analog preamp by sibirian company AMT. I started with this one and compared it logically to the Sonicake. While the AMT turned out great, the Sonicstage still had something about it, that I prefered though the AMT is twice the price - comes without fx though. Nevertheless I can recommend it. It's a two channel preamp and works great in probably any pedal board scenario. Way better than many digital solutions.


    Tech 21 PSA 2.0

    I was a long time PSA 1.0 user and given IRs these days I wanted to give it another try. Well I don't know if my device was faulty but turning the onboard speaker sim off made the overall sound very thin and weak, so it didn't fit my needs. Form and built factor are perfect in my opinion.


    Strymon Iridium

    Soundwise the Fender and the Vox channel really stand up to the hype. For my taste the Marshall didn't even get close to those. What I found weird was the lack of dynamics. There was a huge jump between quiet and loud with not much in between. Maybe it just didn't work with my guitars (Pacificas) or it was just me. Other than that, for a clean sound – along with the collider – I liked it better than the KPA. That being said I'm still struggling to find a good Fender/Vox profile for the KPA.


    Neunaber Neuron

    I was very interested in this one since I used to own and love their Immerse reverb. While sounding great the noise from the Neuron with gain turned up a bit was over the top for me. I know that it can be tamed to a certain degree with the combination of other parameters like the inbuilt compressor and obviously the noise gate, but I didn't want to spend adjusting all of these as soon as I change my gain setting. KPA spoiled here.


    Verdict

    Sonicake into IR loader (Hotone Binary) into Collider sounded (and felt) the best for distorted sounds. Yet no combination of preamp / Collider could rival the Kemper.


    My second Setup – Conclusion

    Nevertheless the initial idea was a second setup that would work for rehearsals/praticing, clean /distorted, speaker / headphones.


    For headphones I've been using a Zoom G1on that has a looper, a drummer, surprisingly good cleans and really really great delays and reverbs. But the distortion lacks quality and is not much fun. I didn't find any information if it takes line level but finally decided to run the Sonicake into the G1on and there you go. It's like a poor man's Collider with many additional features.


    The G1on now is: Clean amp, any post effect like delay and reverb, a (great) headphone amp, stereo-maker, looper and a drum machine. And it allows to play along with your phone via aux in. The Sonicake now feels like a whole pedal board with pre effects, that sound great being combined with the Zooms effects. The Hotone binary delievers any speaker in the world.


    So the whole package becomes a full set up that lets me grab single pieces for different applications (Zoom = garden, Sonicake = rehearsals) and still a whole playground of possibilities when I want to get lost. I placed two drives that I had lying around in front of the Sonicake and even that works great.


    So I guess my search is over. I like the idea of the whole package being rather cheap. And to me it sounds and feels better than the HX Stomp.


    Maybe I will add some recordings next. Cheers.

    Gear: Strats & KPA. Plug Ins: Cubase, NI, iZotope, Slate, XLN, Spectrasonics.
    Music: Song from my former band: vimeo.com/10419626[/media][/media][/media] Something new on the way...

  • Hello, I created a site for exchanging user presets for the "Mikko Plugin" processors and who wish to share their most beautiful creations with this fabulous software, for that you must attach several photos to your file detailing the type of CAB used to your file as well as for the "Mix" Cab, and of course your best comments and recommendations are welcome, good achievement to all of you;)

    https://www.facebook.com/Community-Exchange-Mikko-Plugin-105802364502060/?modal=admin_todo_tour

  • Hello, I created a site for exchanging user presets for the "Mikko Plugin" processors and who wish to share their most beautiful creations with this fabulous software, for that you must attach several photos to your file detailing the type of CAB used to your file as well as for the "Mix" Cab, and of course your best comments and recommendations are welcome, good achievement to all of you;)

    https://www.facebook.com/Community-Exchange-Mikko-Plugin-105802364502060/?modal=admin_todo_tour

    Hi.


    You might want to post this in the "other gear" section of the forum (top level so to speak) as it might not find many readers within a specific thread rergarding a different topic.


    Cheers

    Gear: Strats & KPA. Plug Ins: Cubase, NI, iZotope, Slate, XLN, Spectrasonics.
    Music: Song from my former band: vimeo.com/10419626[/media][/media][/media] Something new on the way...

    Edited once, last by Fireloogie ().

  • Well, I couldn't resit to try this.


    https://es.aliexpress.com/item…042311.0.0.602863c0Wehhdb


    Will see what happen when it arrive


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    A veeery cheap sonicake...