Posts by Baguette

Quote from darthwain

hi no demos no mics listed.guitars or pickups not listed. was it done in a studio or in a house. and a bit pricey considering guido sells a pack for 5 euros

Hi Steve!

Thank you for showing interest in my packs

Regarding your points about mics, guitars, pickups, recording space, and so on:

I recommend that you download the Freebie Pack - it's completely free! With the pack you'll get a comprehensive, ten page long PDF "Read Me" document where I describe in detail the amplifier, the settings and the signal chain, including why I chose the microphones I did (Heil PR30 and AEA r92).

In the same document I also describe the characteristics and some key dimensions of the actual physical recording space used (yes, it's a studio).

The Read Me document also contains information on the physical placement of the cabinet, mic placement, placement of acoustic elements etc.

Furthermore, I've included information on the make and model of the guitar I used for dialing in the sounds (a Fender Ultra Telecaster), as well as other guitars I've tested the profiles with (a Gibson Les Paul Standard CS VOS R8, a Fender Stratocaster, a Gretsch Duo Jet and an Epiphone Casino "1965" John Lennon Ltd.). I've included some general tips on how to use the KPAs own settings for tailoring the profiles to suit different types of pickups.

Also, I've tried to tag all profiles as comprehensively as possible - including the make and model of the guitar used and, of course, the type of pickups it has (single coils).

It really is a good thing that you bring up these points, I think – so, thank you for that! It gives me the opportunity to point out that I have really made an effort to produce the most comprehensive Read Me document I possibly could. However, I felt that the document was far too long to post in this forum, so I included it with the Freebies Pack instead, so that anyone can download all this information for free, together with a few profiles to try out themselves.

As I mentioned in my first post, this project has been a labour of love for me, so I've tried to go the extra mile in all aspects of the process. Do feel free to ask, if you have any questions I haven't addressed here or in the ReadMe document! There are no secrets, and I'm happy to help out in any way I can!

Pricing is a very subjective thing, so I really shouldn't comment much on that point. And I won't comment on how other profile vendors have chosen to price their own products. Having said that, this is the first and only set of commercial packs I've produced, and I've aimed to provide a healhty amount of profiles in each of them, hoping that most of you would regard the pricing as fair. I do understand and respect, however, that not everyone may feel the same. As far as I know, though, there are no other profile packs of this amplifier, so I haven't really found anything comparable I can compare my pricing with.

You also mention the lack of demos. This is a fair point, I think, and I will try my best to address this omission as soon as possible!

Cheers,

Bag

Hi everyone!

Great news! I finally finished profiling my Vox UL730 with original UL cabinet and Silver Alnico speakers! It was a true labour of love that took me six months. I have done my very best to capture the unique sounds of this legendary, ultra-rare amp. I believe this may very well be the first time this amp has been profiled. I really hope you’ll like it!

A little about the amplifier itself:

The Vox UL730 is a very rare amp that was produced for one year only – 1966. Most sources claim only around thirty UL730s are left in existence today. Only a few of these are still mated to the cabinet and speakers they were originally sold with. I’m fortunate to have the full set, so all profiles were made using the original UL cabinet with T1088 (Silver Alnico) speakers made in 1966.

Despite its rarity, the UL730 has a unique place in rock history. Its very distinct sound can be heard on Led Zeppelin II (Whole Lotta Love, anyone?), many albums by Joy Division/New Order and, most famously, by the Beatles on Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band.

The UL730 is a hybrid amplifier. The preamp section is a hand-wired transistor circuit. The power amp section uses a quad of EL84 valves, and a single ECC83 valve for phase inversion. It shares some characteristics with the AC30, but the UL730 is still a very different sounding amp. Due to the hybrid topology, the unusual EQ structure and the completely unique ”Ultra Linear” power amp circuitry, the sound of the UL730 is distinct enough to set it apart from most other amps.

The UL730 is a non master volume amp with two separate channels - Normal and Vibrato. Each channel also has a switchable Top Boost circuit. In addition, the Vibrato channel has a footswitchable Distortion circuit that changes the sound of the amplifier in a fairly big way - think Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde... I have profiled both channels and both circuits extensively.

The original UL cabinet has the same twin 12" Silver Alnicos as the AC30s have, but the box itself is larger. This difference in size seems to bring out the mids more, which, in turn, seems to make everything sound a bit fuller than a regular AC cab would.

Part of the charm with the UL730 is that it's slightly quirky. Unlike most other amplifiers, it was never refined beyond the original design due to the short production run. The upside is that it can sound and feel like no other amp I've ever played or heard. The downside is that it can be a b***h to profile in a systematic way. But I made the effort and put in the hours to learn all the quirks, and I believe these profiles are a good representation of what this amp can do!

In conclusion, I think the UL730 is a bit like an AC30 that went to the gym for a year, and then grew a really hairy pair…

About the Profile Packs:

There are three different packs, as well as a small freebie pack, available here:

https://bag-of-amps.sellfy.store

If you download the Freebie Pack, I’ve included a comprehensive PDF where I describe the amplifier, the settings and the signal chain in detail.

Here’s a short description of the available packs:

• The Normal Channel Pack contains 50 Studio profiles of the Normal channel of the amplifier. That’s it!
• The Vibrato Channel + Distortion Pack contains 50 Studio profiles of the Vibrato channel. In addition, it includes another 50 Studio profiles of the Vibrato channel with the Distortion circuit engaged.
• The Complete Pack contains all the Studio profiles from both previous packs, plus Merged and Direct Amp Profiles of everything – a whopping 450 profiles, in all!

And then there’s the Freebies Pack, of course! I’ve selected 3 of my favourite profiles for you to try out and use for free!

Have fun!

Cheers,

Bag

Quote from paults

Baguette

There has been a way to do this with a Kemper effect, ever since OS 1.1

Rate Reducer
This effect reduces the sampling rate of the audio signal passing through. The sampling frequency is controlled with the ‘Manual’ parameter. Lowering the sample rate results in a raspy, scratchy quality as well as aliasing. Use the ‘Peak’ parameter to continuously control the quality of the sample rate interpolation, which will alter the harmonic content drastically.

I know

What I'm kinda hoping for someone (maybe the OP) to test, is a completely different thing, though.

I guess I can see where you're coming from. If the Kemper and the QC were traditional samplers - which they most certainly aren't - then looping audio samples back and forth, over and over again between two samplers, would inevitable result in generational degradation of a type that the Rate Reducer partially can simulate. Even that isn't the same thing, though, but yeah - I get what you're saying.

The process I propose has very little to do with trying to manipulate sampling frequencies, bit depths or aliasing errors per se. Sure, there may be some of that creeping in, too, as I already mentioned in my post, but the main point lies elsewhere. I'm curious about how the fundamental (?) differences between the algorithms and analysis of the two systems - as well as the inevitable imperfections or randomness of the respective processes - when "crashed" into each other repeatedly, would accumulate and warp the original amp tone and characteristics generationally, over time, and perhaps lead to useful results beyond what an amp normally can do?

Remember that the raw material here are amps - not sound sources or audio samples. We would not be resampling audio over and over again. It's more about trying to find a new way to influence a multitude of (hidden) parameters by which any type of input audio - for example that of an electric guitar - gets shaped when fed through a device that after some serious mangling maybe can be pushed intp producing a behaviour that still resembles and feels a bit like a regular guitar amp, but now also has, perhaps, completely new characteristics not found in any real world amp. It would not be a basic, static effect that is slapped on top of the amp sound. Instead it could, perhaps, be another way of changing the amp behaviour itself - by using these devices in a particular, but technically "wrong" way. It's exploration - that''s all. It's probably complete nonsense, I know, but still...

As I already mentioned in my previous post, the probability that it'll sound like s** is very high, of course. Kemper even warns us that profiling digital modelling amps sometimes can lead to unexpected artefacts. I fully expect artefacts from this process too, but as the QC seems to be a little bit like the Kemper - I'm thinking more complexity, dynamics and user induced process randomness here - , I started to wonder if maybe those artefacts sometimes could lead to something musical or musically useful, too? Of course, the starting point would likely influence the end result to an extreme degree in an iterative process like this - ie. if the original amp sound is distorted or not, for example, would matter a lot.

I have no idea what sourcery is afoot inside the Kemper when it profiles. I do, however, have reason to believe that the makers of QC probably make use of deep neural network technologies for black box modelling of audio circuits in their device. Force-feeding real sourcery into a neural network training model, over and over again, sounds like a bit of weekend fun to me. I'm already married, of course...

In conclusion, this is not a very serious proposal. I get that this is not what these devices are designed for, nor what they're bought for. I'm simply a bit curious, and I decided to put this out there - in a tongue in cheek spirit - in case someone with both devices would have the time and energy to maybe try it out?

Okay - I'm done hijacking this thread now. My apologies to the OP. My excuse is that you kind of already started this process, in a way Also, you're the first person I've encountered that owns both boxes, and isn't a YouTuber Thank you for your contribution!

Cheers,

Bag

I must apologize for intruding again, but something just occurred to me: Could this idea of profiling another capturing device potentially be the start of something completely new... if taken far enough, I mean?

Are we, perhaps, on the verge of discovering a completely new type of lo fi here?

It could also be that this idea is pure nonsense, but let's not get too serious, shall we?

Here goes:

What would happen if you just keep on profiling and capturing, going back and forth between the two platforms? How will the sound start to deteriorate? What will the amp sound like after, say, 20 or 30 rounds of "looping" like that? I would actually be really interested in hearing that!

This is new. We simply haven't had two different devices that can do this before. Maybe the folks at Kemper and NeuralDSP have tried it at some point for shits and giggles, but the deliveries of the QC to regular customers have barely started at this point in time.

My guess is that the inevitable digital artefacts eventually will start to sound quite different from other, more "traditional" forms of generational conversion loss, as we won't be hearing only the resolution loss and dithering noise from the repeated AD/DA conversion loops, but, in addition, the cumulative, possibly random interaction between the secret sauces and algorithms that power these two quite different capturing technologies... I also think it's quite possible that the core sound and character of the original amp may survive for longer than expected. But I know nothing, of course.

One thing is sure - sooner or later it will start to sound different from the original amp.

But will this flavour of different sound nice, like when bending 8bit circuits - or will it sound bad, like when cell phone signals hit the bridge pickup of a Stratocaster?

The history of popular music is full of these sorts of happy accidents and unthinkable combinations that turned out to be epic in the end, right? The very sound of the rock guitar, as we all now, is the result of something conceptually very similar - abusing and pushing clean amps way over and beyond any and all of their designed limits, and THAT then suddenly starts to sound fantastic, right? How about badly maintained tape machines and flanging? Scratching vinyl, anyone? Bending circuits? Glitchy 12 bit sampling? And how about that lovely, screaming feedback that guitarists of the lead type so often turn to for effect when they get extra emotional during intense soloing work - there's even a pedal for that now, didn't you know? This scheme of breaking the rules has worked for us before, is all I'm sayin'

If it turns out that this actually works and new, exciting sounds start forming at the inputs and outputs of our KPAs and QCs, then maybe it could be us guitarists - against all odds - that once more will be riding the cutting edge of digital audio sound trendsettery? Maybe our humble 50s Teles and 60s L'Pauls could once again be the magic wands that all chart topping soundmanglery eminates from? Could this, dare I ask, be the the new autotune - but this time around it can djent?!

Of course, it could also sound f*****g awful.

Someone with both boxes needs to try this, I think. And share. How about it, ur2funky - you up for it? Anyone else?

Just putting it out there... late night over here... no harm intended.

Carry on,

Bag

Quote from Chris Duncan

I absolutely love the irony of this.

Well said, Sir!

...well, I guess the only thing that remains now is for someone to grab the eBow and start laying down some guitar tracks directly to multitrack tape, through an emulating mic into a modeling preamp, then sample and loop those to the pads on an Akai MPC, create some really sick beats and record those live into ProTools, then import the resulting tracks as samples into a mellotron plugin, rerecord everything by playing the mellotron, then groove quantize those tracks, upsample everything as high as it goes and then print to a 2-track analogue master tape machine through a summing mixer, slamming the VU meters so hard on the way that they turn into fishing hooks, and then pay a dude to press a small batch of custom acetates from that and slam them on a pair of Pioneer decks and... well... somehow convert whatever happens next into mpegs for release on YouTube, I guess...

That's just irony, though. I honestly appreciate that the OP has given us this to try out, and I'm really curious to try these out! So, for the sake of utmost clarity: I'm not in any way trying to make fun of the OP here! Clear?

Cheers,

Bag

Interesting! Thank you very much!

I realize this thread is old, but as it's still the only thread here about UL amp profiles, I take my chances...

So, are you guys, perchance, still interested in, say, Vox UL730 profiles or suchlike?

Just asking...