Man, you guys did NOT steer me wrong on that whole EPSI=C IR thing. Wow, wow and wow. I have not even gotten my Ownhammer IRs yet. One more change in the "studio" rig at the same time. I'm astounded about the level of the differences.

Old Home Project Studio Rig, the common options

Guitar -> 11R -> out to Monitors and Pro Tool
Guitar -> GT-100 -> 11R Line In -> out .....
Bass -> 11R -> out....
Bass -> Sansamp DI -> 11R line In -> out
Mics -> 11R Mic In -> Out

Pretty good, but weaknesses existed. The 11R Line-in AD/Dig converters are not that great. They lost a ton of information from the GT-100 that was there when using headphones alone on the GT-100. I never did fully bond with the driven rigs in the 11R. Seemed like I was always knocking down mid to high-mids overtones in Pro Tools to fit in and not be so harsh. The monitors sounded harsh in general. I've often thought of chasing that trail, too.

Two things happened since then, and it came to life the other day thanks to the very lovely Mrs PB (aka the BattleAxe or BA for short)

First, I stumbled upon a thread on the DUC that just happened to be chatting up AD conversions on the rear Line-in ports. I asked a few annoying questions and ended up with an affordable solution to try.

Second, and at about the same time as I was chasing down that trail, I piped up and found out what you cats were doing with all this "IR" stuff. Quite a few questions later, I had a direction to go there.

Here's the new Home Project Studio Rig.

Guitar -> 11R -> FX Looped EPSI-C -> SPDI/F Mbox 4X4 -> out to Monitors and Pro Tools
Guitar -> GT-100 -> Mbox Inst Ports -> out .....
Bass* -> 11R -> Mbox SPDI/F -> out....
Bass -> Sansamp DI -> Mbox line In Rear -> out ....
Mics* -> 11R Mic In -> out ....
Mics* -> Sansamp DI -> Mbox Line In Rear -> out....
Mics* -> Mbox Line In Rear -> out....
( * - denotes not tried out yet )

The monitors are going out of my Mbox instead of the 11R. I did not A/B the changes on the monitor signal, but I swear there is a difference. I even have a noisy cable (unbalanced) feeding the left side, and it's still nice. That's all minor compared to the other things.

First, the Mbox conversion of the GT-100 signals is night and day. It's every bit as good as listening to cans straight on the GT. The Classic Rock driven patches are mean and spirited, and the mellow atmospheric patches are rich and lush with reverb trails that go on for days. I'm not kidding. nobody gives the GT100 (or GT-001) a chance because of what the GT-10 and earlier models sounded like. Maybe it's modern tones are what some folks don't like?

OK, the second big change. I am blown over by this whole IR thing. I took 3 of my common rigs and duplicated them. One I changed to go through the EPSI-C and the other I left alone. I volume matched the EPSI-C rigs via send/return levels to within reason so that differences would not just be volume hikes. I went with my go-to Clean Twin rig, and a moderate Marshall rig and a slightly modified "Big Tele Lead" rig from someone on this forum. (Singtall's pack?)

The clean rig had a really nice change. It was like having the amp in the room. I have the amp. It's a beast for being a clean amp. I worked on my Rig for hours and hours and got it as close as I could. Using a variety of 2X12 IRs, all of those little noises the amp makes are there. That snap when the Bright switch is on is there. So is the twang and the depth. I didn't change a thing besides the cab off and IR on (with volume reduction).

The Marshall was more impressive. Using just the stock IRs, too. I don't own a Marshall, but many of the tones were eerily close to things I've heard from the 70's. I just rocked and rocked.

The "Big Tele Lead" rig was just simply incredible. The story with that one ends with "and an hour later, I realized that my ears were ringing and I was sweating". Man, I had never had such musical artifacts and overtones. Light touches, string bashing and that annoying ring-out I'm getting in my LP these days. It all sounded great. It all sounded powerful and real. not just loud.

On the Ownhammer IRs. Well, after a trip to GC for some shorter connecting cables. you can't imagine the mess.....

Thanks a bunch, guys! You sure did steer me right on the Logidy trail. I appreciate all the patient answering of some of my thick-headed questions.

it's crazy how much difference a good IR makes. honestly, i think the IR is 90% of the rig. you make just about any distortion work with enough eq, but a good IR makes everything sound and feel more real.

how does the amp modeling in the GT100 compare to the eleven rack when using the epsi as a cabinet for either one?

I'm quite thrilled. I can't wait to try out a few tracks in a song. I think I have just the candidate in mind. As much as a jump as tone was from the GT-10 (10, not 100) to the 11R, the ESPI addition seems to be as big a jump in terms of powerful, energetic signal.


I've not done the EPSI-C on the GT-100 yet. Good thought, and I now have the extra cables to at least try it. The GT-100 would probably benefit from it as well, but perhaps from a different angle. The GT-100 has less of that cabinet buzzing the 11R has. I don't know if that will mean that much more energy out of the ESPI or not. The difference going from my LP and 11R WITH the ESPI on to the Gretsch using just a Hi Gain patch (another Marshall sim) was not as huge as I thought it would have been. Some of that could have been a tamer Rig to start with on the 11R. Tough to combine apples with oranges.

I'm thinking some of the dual channel patches on some of those wider room IRs would be incredible to hear.

Awesome, glad you got everything set up & are getting the sounds you want. I tried all kinds of stuff with the Eleven Rack early on, but noticed playing around with IRs that if we ever had a way to load them in real time without using plugins, it was gonna be the way to go. The Ownhammer IRs are particularly good in the feel department. My favorite is still the Chinese V30 in the 412-GTR MAR-CB MIX Modern Speaker Collection & pairs great with the Scumbacks (also in that collection). http://www.ownhammer.com/store/index.php...products_id=104

It's crazy how much the speaker literally changes everything about the amps & gain settings.

Call me crazy, but it seems like the changes and intentions of presets seem to be more defined or more realized with the better speakers. All that time I spent getting my go to Fender Twin patch just paid off again, and I have not even decided which IR to use yet.

I'm not doing good in one area. Some of my patches that have a lot of atmospheric trails (delay, reverb, etc) seem to get flattened out or lost. I've not tried but only a few of them, and only on a few IRs. Spacey stuff, like on old Pink Floyd songs. I'm still only using the "Mix" IRs and not the Mics. I wonder if that has anything to do with it? Heck, I don't even know if I should be using for regular presets.

I got three sets of IRs. Why 3? I could not tell you. It's too much. I did want to have one 4X12 and one 2X12. They seemed to sound different when I was messing with the stock IRs. I play lighter stuff than most here, unless my impressions are wrong.
412-GTR MAR-CB MIX Modern Speaker Collection
212-GTR BOG-SH MIX Vintage Speaker Collection
412-GTR MAR-CB MIX Vintage Speaker Collection