Filling in the blank on an ampless board…

[DEUCE SLUICE]

I’m about to close on a house with a studio space that’s going to be a lot smaller than where I’m currently at. I had been planning on a 50W Stealth or something - and I still may once offsite rehearsal studios are situated - but I’d like to put something together small I can leave plugged in and play through my Symphony Desktop and really nice monitor setup (Output Frontiers + Presonus T10 sub) or headphones.

Ideally I’d like one dedicated studio board for both bass and guitar, with a small wireless like the Boss WL-50 and a tuner running into an A/B switch, into a bass path (which will probably just be my Source Audio C4 synth and a Darkglass ADAM for now, neither of which live on my “real” bass board but will totally do the trick for this) and a guitar path, both of which would run DI / line out into an ADC that can go into the optical of my interface. I know this is the platonic ideal use case for some sort of modeler board, or to just use amp sims, but neither is really that compelling to me for whatever reason. I dunno.

I’m definitely a bassist and not a guitarist, so I don’t really have a defined “thing” I’m looking for out of the guitar side besides versatility and chugs. I have a 7 but don’t tune any lower than drop A. I think I’m mostly settled on a KSR Ceres, KMA Pylon, Boss RE-202 and Two Notes Cab M+, but I think I’d be missing sort of a mid-drive / edge of breakup option without adding some sort of overdrive to run in front of the clean channel of the Ceres. What would be a good drive to run there to ”fill in“ between the clean and the rhythm channel? Anyone try anything they like there? Would it be better to run the Ceres bypassed and get a different preamp pedal altogether like the ACS1 for such things? Would something other than the Ceres be a better choice to cover more ground? Should I just get the damn Helix and shut up?

Guitars are an Ibanez AZ2206S and an Ibanez RG752FX if it matters. Thanks!

 

[Hybrid_Child]

A Helix or similar would probably cover all your needs and more. But the good thing about individual pedals (besides being more fun) is you can swap, replace and rearrange however you like. The Ceres is a good starting point and with the mode knob it actually covers a lot of ground in terms of amounts of gain. It is certainly one of the better sounding preamp pedals I've tried.

 

[laxu]

Another vote for the Helix. It's frankly just a more straightforward thing for something like this. While pedals are fun, your board quickly becomes larger than a Helix while still doing a fraction of the stuff. If main use is easy recording and jamming through studio monitors and headphones, modelers just excel at that.

Fractal FM3 would be another option. While Fractal has miserably low selection of amps/cabs for bassists, they do have a whole ton of high gain guitar amp models and great set of effects for a more direct bass sound.

 

[ATRguitar91]

I think I’m mostly settled on a KSR Ceres, KMA Pylon, Boss RE-202 and Two Notes Cab M+, but I think I’d be missing sort of a mid-drive / edge of breakup option without adding some sort of overdrive to run in front of the clean channel of the Ceres. What would be a good drive to run there to ”fill in“ between the clean and the rhythm channel? Anyone try anything they like there?

The Ceres with the mode set to the crunch setting can get pretty clean honestly. I would think if you roll the volume back you'd get some edge of breakup tones. Maybe the Ceres + a Friedman BE-OD for more Marshally tones?

Since it has to be mentioned in every thread now, the HX Stomp is indeed perfect for this kind of setup. Even if you're mostly relying on the Ceres for your preamp tone, the Stomp could serve as an IR loader and provide any amp/effects you're missing to fill the gaps. There's a way to get some decently realistic poweramp simulation with compression and EQ which helps preamp pedals that don't have a resonance/presence. Has some nice bass options too, and it's only marginally more expensive than the CabM, especially considering how much extra it does.

 

[JimboLodisC]

love my CAB M+, if you haven't gotten any time with it then it does have a clean preamp sim on it along with power amp emulation (6L6, EL34, KT88, etc.) so really you'll just want whatever preamp pedal will get you the sound you're after, or with the built-in clean preamp section perhaps just an overdrive for edge of breakup

and I use it in conjunction with my interface and amp sims so I would say to not ignore introducing something like the new Tone King amp sim from Neural as an option for your studio, your AZ will probably sound killer through it, plus other amp sims might steer you towards hunting down a particular preamp pedal