Tonelabs no going for $199.95 US

[tot_Ou_tard]

The Tonelab and Tonelab SE are being discontinued in favor of the Tonelab LE

american Musical Supply has them for $199.95. A great deal for a cool headphone, recording modeller!

http://www.americanmusical.com/item....-VOX%20TONELAB

[Danzego]

Oh my gosh!! I've been on the fence with this thing forever and even was at Guitar Center today messing around with it. I have a $150 gift card and Guitar Center price matches!!

tot, if this works for me, you're my HERO!!!!

[Danzego]

...aaaand it worked!!

Guitar Center has these on their current Green Tag sale this month and trying to get rid of them for the same $300 they always sell them for. My gift card is with my wife in San Diego (I asked her to hang on to it), so I called her and got the card number, then called Guitar Center's website customer service and had them match the price. I considering waiting until the middle of the week until she gets back to get it at the store and not wait on shipping, but I didn't want to risk waiting and having American Musical selling out or my local store not having them in stock (I don't recall seeing any on the shelf today).

Man, I've been going back and forth deciding between a Tonelab and the PODXT for months now. I love the sound of the Tonelab, but it doesn't have the versatility of the POD, especially the artist sounds. The POD, on the other hand, has this weird sound thing to me, where it almost sounds synthesized. I mean, I like what I hear with the POD, except I can't QUITE get over the fakish sound on many amps and then there's also a sound latency in many programs (almost like you have a predelay set or something; the actual sound when you pick a note is noticeably several milliseconds later).

At the same price, a hard decision, but at 100 bucks less, either one would easily win. As for the POD's versatility, maybe I'll just keep my GNX3 for all the other fancy effects and crap like that.


Oh, and thanks so much, tot. Great find. You really made me week.....and the next week, too, when the Tonelab actually arrives.

[SuperSwede]

Congrats Danzego! Looks like we now have three members in our exclusive Tonelab club
Dont freak out when you try it the first time though, the user presets are among the worst that I´ve ever heard, and DOES NOT showcase the possibilities of the Tonelab. Just you wait until you learn how to tweak it properly, classic tones are flowing out of this heavy metal beast! Dont forget to read the manual, the controls doesnt work the same on all models. The editor software is simple and effective and will help you a lot when you are creating patches, so a cheap usb to midi adapter is highly recommended if you dont have midi already.

[tot_Ou_tard]

Cool, I get to be a hero!

I'm glad it was helpful Danzego.

Now I'll have to try for superhero status.

[SuperSwede]

Now I'll have to try for superhero status.

Dude, I would not recommend it. One part of the superhero trials involves eating a couple of Warrens hot pancakes.. (and NOT from a plate )
I´m still on medication after my final superhero exams.

[Danzego]

Cool, I get to be a hero!

I'm glad it was helpful Danzego.

Now I'll have to try for superhero status.

Tell you what...you ship a Blues Jr. to me on the house and you'll have MORE than superhero status.

There. It's been thrown out there. Let's see just how cool you want to be.


Oh, and Swede, I've played the Tonelab before a couple times at the store and I liked what I heard there, just twisting knobs and whatnot, so I won't be too discouraged by crappy preset patches. I know how that goes- like I said, I have a GNX3. Those things come chock full of crappy patches. One of the things that appealed to me about the Tonelab in the first place is that it seemed easy to start getting good tones, not to mention a more traditional interferace, as opposed to the mounds and gobs of button accessed menus of a GNX or POD.

That does bring up an interesting question, though: the GNX3 presets suck, the Tonelab patches suck, and I've heard the POD's aren't all that good either (though I found them better than the GNX's). All of these companies have sound engineers working there, making these things. So what gives? Are these companies telling us that their sound engineers suck or that they can make cool sounds to begin with, but can't actually make good patches out of their own brainchildren?

[tot_Ou_tard]

Tell you what...you ship a Blues Jr. to me on the house and you'll have MORE than superhero status.

There. It's been thrown out there. Let's see just how cool you want to be.

Not cool at all apparently.

[Danzego]

Not cool at all apparently.

Heartbreaking, but funny.

[SuperSwede]

So what gives? Are these companies telling us that their sound engineers suck or that they can make cool sounds to begin with, but can't actually make good patches out of their own brainchildren?

I wouldnt be surprised if Marshall/Vox/Korg which basically is the same company has some kind of sweat shop with 1 employee whose sole task is to create various patches for all their products. I bet that that person gets a new product, and is told to create 199 patches in a week or something. There is a lot of patches available on the net, and if anyone wants some of mine just let me know...

[marnold***]

My guess would be that the patches are created to make the various effects, etc., as obvious as possible. When you're testing out something in a loud guitar store, subtlety will be lost. Having said that, I find I can make use of the presets on my AD30VT with only some minor tweaking (most notably, cutting back on the reverb or delay--a quick nudge of the edit knob does the trick).