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Vox Amplug?

steve_man

By steve_man
in Electric Guitars

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noisebloom Newbie

noisebloom

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I've spent time with all three. I own the AC30 and the Classic Rock, while my brother owns the Metal.

First one I got was the AC30, which I just love. I wish it had a little more gain, to be honest. I spend most of my time with the gain maxed on it. But it makes a slightly nasty, British Invasion sound that I like a lot.

I recently got the Classic Rock, and it's growing on me in a big way. I had to crank the gain down to 5, or else it sounds really muddy in my relatively bassy Sony headphones. With my more modest earbuds, I can max the gain on the Classic Rock and it sounds great ... so YMMV. Somewhat Marshally sound. Thumbs up.

I like the Metal, even though it's a really generic, scooped metal sound. It's just not a sound that inspires me to play for a while. I keep the gain cranked down low on that one, too. It has gain for days.

My fave is the AC30, now followed closely by the Classic Rock. Just pay some attention to the headphones you use with them, and you'll get good sounds. They're all worth getting. I think Vox has a good thing going with these.

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Jim85IROC Newbie

Jim85IROC

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I've got the AC30 and the Metal one. I think they're great for what they are. I think the AC30 one gives a real nice creamy, laid back british sound. My complaint is that there's nowhere near enough gain for it to get the low output alnicos in my strat to break up. Cranked I just start to get a bit of a slight breakup, but still not enough for any kind of drive or sustain. On the high output humbuckers in my ibanez it breaks up pretty nicely.

The metal one doesn't really have a sound that suits my tastes for metal, but I still use it a lot. I don't need a 100% authentic sound when I'm just noodling or practicing in front of the tv, and it's way easier than luggng an amp around. It's also nice on my strat because it's got enough gain to get it to break up.

Where I find these most useful is the ability to stuff one or both into my guitar case and take it with me. I have a guitar lesson every thursday right after work, so before I go I can pull the guitar out at my desk and warm up. I could do it unplugged too, but there's something rewarding about plugging in. It's also great on vacation for the same reason.

Lastly, I also use it as a pre amp to plug into one of my cheap practice amps. I keep my small 10 watt Marshall practice amp downstairs, but the overdrive on that thing is absolutely horrible, so I plug into the amplug, then run that into the amp. I use the amplug for the gain, and then I get a nice pseudo-AC30 tone from that crappy practice amp.

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EllenGtrGrl Newbie

EllenGtrGrl

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Sweet...does the AC30 break up at all?

 

 

Hi Steve. I have both the AC30 and the Metal Amplugs. I like them both. If I want this sort of dirty Indie Rock sound, I'll use the Amplug AC30. If I want to seriously grind, out comes the Amplug Metal. The AC30 does have some breakup to it at full gain. It's sort of like an AC30 non-top boost, or the AC15 top boost I owned back in the late 90s. In other words, it's a bit darker sounding than an AC30 Top Boost. You may recall the sound clips I made for the forum, of my Dano Hodad a few weeks ago. These were all done with my Amplug AC30 (I had my Amplug Metal loaned out to a coworker, who wanted to try it out - I had a hard time getting it back from him, because he liked it so much!). To save you search time, here are the Amplug AC30 sound clips I made. Now realize that the Hodad's pickups are not mega output, even when the neck and bridge positions are run in dual coil humbucker mode. A Gibson humbucker may have more bite. Ditto for a Fender single coil pickup, versus a Dano single coil lipstick from the vintage of my Hodad (late 90s to about 2001 -the newer Dano lipsticks are quite a bit hotter). Both of these clips were recorded with the AC30 Amplug's gain maxed, directly into my Audacity recording program.

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EllenGtrGrl Newbie

EllenGtrGrl

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Get the metal one, it can do about all sounds IMO.

 

 

I LOVE my Metal Amplug. I reviewed it in the review section of Harmony Central. It wildly exceeded my very low expectations had had for it (based upon the major "Meh!" feeling every other headphone amp I'd tried over the past 20 years had left me with). I'm curious about the Lead Amplug. As it is, the Amplug Metal has enough gain to do thrash metal, and with a high enough output pickup, even death metal. I bet the Lead's for singing single note lead guitar, but I wonder if it might end up being mushy sounding, when playing rhythmn stuff.

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EllenGtrGrl Newbie

EllenGtrGrl

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Hmm can you get the metal to clean up at all?

 

 

Sure. It will go clean, way at the bottom of of its gain, or if you turn your guitars volume waaaayyy down. It's actually pretty good sounding for dirty sounding non-metal of rock. I've used my Amplug Metal to provide sound clips for some of the guitars I've bought in the past. For the dirty (as in not mega distorted) stuff, I just turned down its gain. Here are a few clips I made using the Amplug Metal, for dirty sounding guitar. In each case, I had the gain of the Amplug Metal, at about 4 or 5.

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Willyguitar Newbie

Willyguitar

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no. quite a bargain, really. I like it better than the Sansamp.



not really. responds well to different guitars, pickups, articulation...



no way. sounds fine with Sennheiser HD540 headphones.

 

 

Well, with the relative strength of the Euro at the moment...

 

I guess you and I were bound to disagree. I also only very infrequently use stompboxes!

 

I find it gets a very strange, intermittent scratchiness when the gain is on 7 or higher. I also have those headphones, and Sony ones.

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ILikeGuitar Newbie

ILikeGuitar

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I just bought the AC30 so here's my review

If I plug it in through headphones, it sounds a little bit weak. It has decent tone but a little bit thin and not much bass. The breakup sounds pretty natural for this kind of device.
If I plugged it into my powered 200w computer speakers the sound was very good. It sounds much better plugged through a powered device, but then again the point of this is to jam out on headphones though.

I'll play it a little more later, but I'm not sure if it's worth the $40.. might return it

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boonestunes Newbie

boonestunes

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wife sent me out to get something that I would want, so that the kids could give it to me for xmas. it's all about the kids at this point. she tells the kids "this is what you got daddy" and we wrap it up, and i act surprised.

of course she doesn't know I've picked it up yet, and I think I can get it in and out of the packaging without it looking to trashed, so I will probably try it out tonight.....make sure I like it.....

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