Crowdster + and floor amp modeling

[noregretsguitar]

I have a 10-28-06A Crowdster Plus that I use at church in a contemporary worship Praise team. I love the acoustic sound of the Crowdster plus and y-chord it directly into the house PA. I had a Marshall JVM 210 with a 2-12 Mesa Boogie cabinet that was clear, crisp and versatile. However, because of the size of our relatively small multi-purpose worship area, I use a Vox Tonelab SE floor amp pedal board instead of the amp for the electric guitar. I can't quite get the Crowdster Plus Electric to sound crisp and clear - especially the higher strings.

Any suggestions? What's everybody else using with tonal success instead of a stage amp - Boss GT10? Line6 PodXTPro? Zoom G9?

Thanks!

[tom]

one of the guys here uses a tonelab, hopefully he'll chime in soon.

[Earthworm]

I use the Boss GT10 and love it. Of course, I am primarily an acoustic guy and my opinion on this may not be worth the pixels I'm taking up.

[hdhoo73]

I have some of the same issues you have with space and I have tried several combinations including the POD XT Live amp modelling pedal. Unfortunately all of my attempts to achieve great tone while saving space have been fruitless. The remedy for me with electric is small combo amps. Right now I am using the Orange Tiny Terror with a 1x12 Orange cabinet and it works really well but the cleans although good are just not exactly what I'm looking for and the biggie...it's not a combo. So I think I'm going back to AC-15 w/ blue. Anyway I cannot speak specifically about the C+ until Tuesday when mine arrives with the retro fit humbucker! Full report to follow...

Jim

[noregretsguitar]

Thanks for the responses so far. I'm going to try a Boss GT-10 this weekend. It sounds great in my house with a Tech21 PE60. However, the real test will be through the church PA system in a live situation. I'll let you know how it goes.

[sbruce]

While I don't have Crowdster + (but I do have the Turner Duece, it's cousin of sorts:) ), you might try a PODx3. It's got 2 inputs so you can process both pickups independently and create blend or two outputs. I had one briefly and was starting to like the tone, but it had to go back for financial reasons:(

I think regardless of what you get, using a modeler requires an investment in time to get a good tone.

[Stevenems]

I'm in much the same situation - I'm a praise band guy too and our church isn't super big, so we have to keep the stage volume low. I run the electric side of my Crowdster into a Tonelab SE and then into a 30W 1x12 combo amp. I run the amp as clean as I can and at very low volume (around 1 on the volume control), basically as a monitor. We mic the amplifier and run that into the house PA so the congregation can hear too. The acoustic side goes into a Fender Acoustisonic amp that acts like a direct box; the XLR out of the amp goes into the house PA. The front-of-house engineers control the mix.

The stock patches the Tonelab comes with don't sound all that good with the Crowdster, but if you play with the settings you can get pretty good sounds out of it. I end up running the treble and presense on the Tonelab amp models a little higher than I do on real amplifiers to get the high strings to sound right. So far I've had the best results with the "Tweed 1x12", "Tweed 4x10" and "Boutique Clean" amp models. My palette ranges from bright-funky to medium-crunchy that goes with the modern worship songs we play. Most of the time I'm playing the rhythm part, so I'm 70% acoustic, with the electic side clean with a little delay and chorus to make the overall sound a little thicker and brighter.

The Tonelab SE is super-versatile, so I suspect that if you spend some time with the amp models' tone controls, you can get the sound you're looking for. It takes me several hours of tinkering with the Tonelab to get a good sound, which is much longer than it does working with a real amp and my modest set of discrete pedals. The Tonelab makes up for that in its simplicity when playing live - just click a button and it switches the amp model, settings, and virtual pedals all at once.


Hope this helps,
Steve

[noregretsguitar]

Thanks Steve! I've had my TLSE for over 2 years and have spent numerous hours tweaking the tone options. I use a lot of the same amp models and settings you mentioned. I used a Boss GE-7 before and after the TLSE since it didn't have good EQ options. I've even tried different preamp tubes (I settled on the GE/Tung Sol 12AV7/5965).
I used the GT-10 last Sunday and noticed a huge difference - clarity, crisp at all distortion levels from crunch to dirty. Using the Taylor A/B/Both switch, I play the electric with the acoustic for the effects too. The electric sounds great with the acoustic pickup, unlike the TLSE (hollow, muddy). The EQ options on the GT-10 are amazing. I'm practicing tonight and will tweak with it some more (I'm going to try a Boss GE-7 at the end of the chain for more tone tweaking).
Stay tuned for more updates. Thanks for everyone's input!

[Pietro]

I'm the guy with the TLSE and the C+. I'm satisfied with the combo, but less and less "delighted"... (In truth, Tom would be the first to tell you that the electric side of the C+ is limited by design, though...)

I'm not totally happy with the TL with this guitar either. But it sounds SO GOOD with my other guitars that I deal with it. I had to futz with the TLSE a LONG time to find something that worked okay, but I want to hear your results with the Boss unit, because I might be happy to switch!

But in summary, you will never pry my C+ from my cold dead fingers... I LOVE IT...

[tom]

limited by design, but it's a great sound through a great rig. i won't get into the amp vs. modeler discussion, but they are worlds apart and with any modeler i've seen you have to be prepared to spend a good amount of time if you're used to a great amp.

[noregretsguitar]

Thanks for your reply. I agree with Tom, it does take a lot of time tweaking these amp modelers to get the right sound. Unfortunately, I won't be able to tweak my sounds with the GT10 until later this week due to the church being used.
Pietro - What have been your biggest challenges with the TLSE and the Crowdster+? Just curious...Which TLSE patches have you had the most tonal success for clean, crunch and overdrive sounds - mainly amp/cab combo with basic settings (gain, VR, treble, mid, bass, presence)? Thanks!

[Pietro]

Wow, I can't even remember what worked for me! I'll have to look at it next time I'm using it. Right now it's packed up, as I'm all acoustic this morning, and not playing in church this weekend (I'm preaching instead... scary thought, eh...) Pretty sure I use the 4x10 cabinet model, because that's the kind of cabinet I like best most of the time. For ams, I generally stick with the vox AC30, and the fender deluxe and bassman with most of my guitars.

Beware however, I am NOT the tone-king that many of these folks on this board are (they are all probably borderline OCD when it comes to their sound... that's a compliment, folks...)

[noregretsguitar]

I'm loving the Boss GT-10 amp modeler for My Crowdster +! All of the EQ (and there are many) and comp options on the unit are outstanding. Tom is correct, it is taking a lot of hours tweaking the sounds. However, it has been well worth the effort. I've been able to have tonal success with the electric side of the Crowdster - clean, crunch, distortion, boutique, etc. Gone is the muddiness that I use to have with the Vox Tonelab SE. (The sound team has noticed the difference with this GT10 unit too!) I'm still working on a patch to blend the electric with the acoustic on the Crowdster +. Stay tuned for more details...

[snap1980]

Would someone be able to post sound samples of the success that they have had with the GT-10? I use my C+ in church, no amps on stage, just directly into soundboard. Could definitely use some help in getting better tone. Thanks.

[noregretsguitar]

I use my Crowdster+ with a GT10 plugged directly into the house PA. I'll try to record some stuff this Sunday and post it (if possible). When tweaking sounds, I usually set up my stuff in the middle of the worship area so I can hear the sound from the house mains and then adjust the GT10 accordingly. It takes a lot of time in the worship area tweaking the sounds by myself and then tweaking them again when the full band is present.

My set up is: Crowdster+ -> Taylor A/B/Both switch -> Boss GT10 (Electric) -> House PA (Acoustic and Electric). I'm using a mono cable.

My biggest difficulty is when I try to play the acoustic through both the GT10 and house PA simultaneously. I can get a good tone separately (Taylor A or B), but when I switch it to both (Taylor Both) it gets muddy. I may be trying to do something the switch and guitar was not designed to do. However, I'm going to continue to try until Tom or someone else tells me I'm doing something wrong.

I'm not sure the Crowdster+ acoustic (with it's on board electronics) was meant to go through an amp modeler. (My best success was a stereo Y-cable but then I wasn't able to get any effects from my GT10 when using the acoustic.)

[tom]

i'd think about what effects you need for the acoustic side and get them so you could run the elec and ac separately. i can't imagine you would need much for the acoustic. it's the only way to get the best of both and have both on together. now that you've got the electric side handled, why not try stereo with the acoustic dry just to get a feel for how much better the mix will sound?

[noregretsguitar]

Thanks Tom! I'll try the Crowdster+ in stereo and see how the mix sounds.

[sbruce]

Once again, I'm not a C+ user (but similar Turner Deuce)...I'm loving hearing about what you guys are doing with your set-ups...a question I've had, which would apply to either instrument...is there any phase issues when running both electric AND acoustic at the same time? It's kind of the same principle as if you mic'd the same source, isn't it? I ask because sometimes it seems like something funky happens when I have both pickups running...

thanks!

Crowdster +'s pseudo brother ;) ,
Steven

[tom]

if they 2 sources are out of phase there will be a weird drop in freq response. there is a phase switch inside the crowdster plus, but once we set it there is no need to mess with it. i suppose you could have 2 amps that were out of phase in which case you'd have to change it. most acoustic amplification has a phase switch. if yours does not, you could try a baggs para di for testing it out.