The Guitar Thread

[Tom 13847]

Here’s how MKI is looking. Not bad.

[Gemmill 34462]

Here's mine. Digital boy. The Freeze and the Ditto+ are not in the signal chain at the minute. 

 

I'm into the Stomp for drives and amp models, then the HX FX is in the loop of the Stomp for delays, reverb, modulations, etc. The expression pedal is mainly used to change mix/feedback on delays. 

 

I'm canny proud of myself for working out all the Midi stuff, so I can get around the lack of buttons on the Stomp by controlling it from the HX Effects. And the Stomp changes the speaker models in the Powercab, depending on which preset I'm using. 

[Tom 13847]

Aye your in Elon Musk territory and I’m still on petrol  

Looks great like! I’ve read that some of the presets are bang on & that you can go on the net and just download a guitarists sound, which is mental.

[Gemmill 34462]

49 minutes ago, Tom said:

Aye your in Elon Musk territory and I’m still on petrol  

Looks great like! I’ve read that some of the presets are bang on & that you can go on the net and just download a guitarists sound, which is mental.

 

Aye there's "customtone" on the Line 6 website where anyone can upload presets, and that's all free - some of them are pretty good. 

 

There's also Line 6 Marketplace where you can buy presets that have been put together by Pro session musicians etc. I bought the Michael Britt presets which are for the most part just really well dialled in amps (Vox, Fender Deluxe, Marshall and Matchless) that you can use for the basis of your own presets. 

 

For someone like me who's a bit clueless the community stuff is really helpful, although tbh you can come up with really good sounds yourself cos the interface is so easy to use. 

[Tom 13847]

It does sound great mind, although I am fairly happy with how I do things. It would be too much of a shake up for me  

 

Proposed date from Thomann for the pedals is Friday. What the actual date will Be, who knows.

Can’t wait to get my Hendrix on, I haven’t had a wah in years.

[Andrew 4220]

8 hours ago, Gemmill said:

 

Aye there's "customtone" on the Line 6 website where anyone can upload presets, and that's all free - some of them are pretty good. 

 

There's also Line 6 Marketplace where you can buy presets that have been put together by Pro session musicians etc. I bought the Michael Britt presets which are for the most part just really well dialled in amps (Vox, Fender Deluxe, Marshall and Matchless) that you can use for the basis of your own presets. 

 

For someone like me who's a bit clueless the community stuff is really helpful, although tbh you can come up with really good sounds yourself cos the interface is so easy to use. 

 

CustomTone was a blessing and a curse for me, great to be able to find pretty much any tone I was after with a quick search and download, but I never built my own patches.

 

I do quite miss a multieffects, might grab one of the new NUX ones this year to give a bit of "everything else" to my setup.

Could really do with getting a board and proper power sorted out for my stuff but its so...boring when I could get a new pedal for that money.

[Gemmill 34462]

9 hours ago, Andrew said:

 

CustomTone was a blessing and a curse for me, great to be able to find pretty much any tone I was after with a quick search and download, but I never built my own patches.

 

I do quite miss a multieffects, might grab one of the new NUX ones this year to give a bit of "everything else" to my setup.

Could really do with getting a board and proper power sorted out for my stuff but its so...boring when I could get a new pedal for that money.

 

Aye there's nothing remotely sexy or interesting about powering a pedal board. It just feels like money you could be spending on better stuff. Nice when you get it sorted but definitely feels like a waste of cash. 

[Tom 13847]

I got mine from Amazon for £35 and it seems to do the trick mind.

[Andrew 4220]

No amazon out here 😕 

 

If I was doing it properly I'd want the whole board to be powered as well, which is tricky since the Kraken is beyond most normal supplies

[Blastronaut 1236]

I might aswell join in since I'm still here. It ain't pretty but cheap, cheerful and sure fuck wasn't a waste of cash. 

 

Just wish I had the time to actually play more often. 

[Tom 13847]

Nice  

[Tom 13847]

35 minutes ago, Andrew said:

No amazon out here 😕 

 

If I was doing it properly I'd want the whole board to be powered as well, which is tricky since the Kraken is beyond most normal supplies

What does the Kraken run on?

[Blastronaut 1236]

5 minutes ago, Tom said:

What does the Kraken run on?

 

The Victory one asks for 800mA. 

 

(which is fair enough tbh, cold-plating pre-amps valves is a total waste of time. They need enough power to at least get warm.)

Edited February 2, 2021 by Blastronaut

[Tom 13847]

Jeez! That’s a lot. 

Mine does up to 500mA. I don’t think you’ll find many power bricks that do 800mA but I could be wrong as I have no idea what I’m talking about.

[Blastronaut 1236]

I'm pretty sure I'm running the same as you, the nordell one that's just a Caline with a different badge. Never done me wrong. But yeah it couldn't handle the Kraken. 

 

800mA is crazy compared to most old school analogue pedals (maybe 10 to 30mA?). Don't quote me on this but I'd assume they have a charge pump in there to step up the voltage to something nearer 24v to get those valves hot which eats up all the current. 

 

[Tom 13847]

Yeh mine is the Nordell, I’m super impressed with it. Before hand I’d been running pedals on a daisy chain so I really wasn’t getting the best out of them and there were cables everywhere. 

It’s neat piece of gear and the pedals are so quiet using it. 
 

I think for an 800mA pedal you’re going to need an independent power supply & that’s really not a problem.

 

[Blastronaut 1236]

I'm not taking a dig a Gemmill or anyone else with a Kraken (I honestly think they're pretty cool bits of kit) but at 300 quid for a preamp that takes up half a pedalboard and needs it's own power supply I'd sooner just buy another amp. 

 

Mad world were living in where you can sell folk "boutique" analogue gear with 60 year old tech to stick in front of a digital modelling amp like.  

[Tom 13847]

Gemmill doesn’t have a Kraken, it’s @Andrew

I think it goes straight into a Victory Tube head and a mesa boogie cab iirc 

[Blastronaut 1236]

Ah fuck my bad. Sorry Gemmill.

 

Is Andrew getting mates rates for Victory gear then? Insane setup. 

[Andrew 4220]

1 hour ago, Tom said:

Gemmill doesn’t have a Kraken, it’s @Andrew

I think it goes straight into a Victory Tube head and a mesa boogie cab iirc 

 

Yup! 

 

 

55 minutes ago, Blastronaut said:

Ah fuck my bad. Sorry Gemmill.

 

Is Andrew getting mates rates for Victory gear then? Insane setup. 

 

I wish I was getting mates rates, as it is I have just picked up decent deals on the stuff over time, the Kraken was full retail but the Sheriff was being sold by a guy in Christchurch so I snapped it up.

 

So the kraken runs into the loop of the Sheriff and I have a four channel all valve setup which I've paid about £1300 for overall (including the mesa cab). So the values not too bad

 

There are a few power supplies out there that can manage the krakens voltage and current draw, they're not cheap though sadly. There are one or two more pedals I want to get before the board is "complete" and then I'll worry about that

[Gemmill 34462]

I ended up with gigrig power stuff - their generator, distributor and isolator modular set up. 

 

So the generator plugs into the wall socket and that feeds the distributor which in turn feeds the isolators, which you can distribute about the board to avoid cable mayhem. 

 

This was before everything got dramatically simplified to just digital stuff so it's now a complete waste of money. 

 

The distributor has 6 outputs, all of which can handle up to 5000mA, so that would work for your Kraken. 

[Andrew 4220]

I'll pay for the postage  

[Gemmill 34462]

I actually still use it to power the Stomp and HX Effects cos their power supplies are proper unwieldy pieces of shit. 

[Blastronaut 1236]

Just thinking out loud here but might be useful to some: for high current draw stuff like the Kraken if your power supply has 2x500mA outputs you can hook them up in parallel to get 1A,  just use a daisy chain cable backwards. 

 

Won't work for me and Tom though since our supply's don't have 2 high current outputs. 

 

Edit: ah fuck my bad, the Kraken is 12V so you'd need two 12V outputs with at least 500mA each. 

Edited February 3, 2021 by Blastronaut

[sammynb 2929]

8 hours ago, Blastronaut said:

Just thinking out loud here but might be useful to some: for high current draw stuff like the Kraken if your power supply has 2x500mA outputs you can hook them up in parallel to get 1A,  just use a daisy chain cable backwards. 

 

Won't work for me and Tom though since our supply's don't have 2 high current outputs. 

 

Edit: ah fuck my bad, the Kraken is 12V so you'd need two 12V outputs with at least 500mA each. 

 

Something like the Voodoo Lab 2 Plus as well as having two high amp outputs, is also 9-14V switchable, so you could easily power the Kraken with one of those.