I’m looking for an amp for my dwarf that is dynamic i.e the harder I play/volume level on guitar effects clean to crunch.
We get that with tube amps and I’m wondering if it’s possible to get this with simulator. The Amps I’ve tried so far don’t give me that dynamic range.
Would appreciate any references to example boards or other suggestion.
Ta
Nelly
Hi.
I’ve done a dynamic set with the fabulous Collision drive.
You can look at it if it can inspire you.
https://pedalboards.moddevices.com/pedalboards/61b74c50981bb223954ba4d4
Thanks for sharing - it’s a huge help. Good use of CV 
I get this with the Supersonic, as well as with most tube amp simulators on the MOD (like the Guitarix amps, or the Onyx). But maybe you and I are not used to the same rate/range of variation from clean to crunch when on the edge of breaking up. Could you describe what you mean by “The Amps I’ve tried so far don’t give me that dynamic range” ? Do you have the impression that these Amp simulator break up too abrubtly ? or too slowly ? Is that something you could adjust with a bit of compression/expansion on the Amp’s input signal ?
I’m looking for clean at lower volume / lighter picking - and then for gain/distortion when I pick heavier or increase volume - amps are very good but not too dynamic imo
Nelly
Beauty of mod platform is we can sort by dragging a few plugins into chain.
The new red apple amp does this pretty well for me.
You have to keep the gain control fairly low though.
I have recently had issues with trying to get a good edge of breakup tone as well and spent days fiddling with ideas to make it work.
I am now using a Guitarix Amp-X simulator with an expander in front of it setup specifically for my guitar. This basically increases the dynamic range of my guitar from soft picking to digging in to be larger and then this can drive the amp and force the emulated tubes to distort as I want when digging in.
I also had to add a compressor after the amp to try and undo some of what the expander did as the natural compression offered from overdriving the tubes doesn’t seem to cover enough of the variation added by the expander.
The amp sims available (I tried all of them) do seem to have this clean to crunch in the emulation, but it seems the range of my guitars output level just isn’t dynamic enough to cause the sound I want on its own.
My solution does still have some issues with the way the expander/compressor works I dont get the same breakup on individual notes digging in and I haven’t tuned the attack to my liking yet. It doesn’t pick up digging in on individual notes as well as it does chords. I am guessing I need a compressor/expander that uses peaks or something different for the level envelope. I might take a look at the CV option described above and see if that is helpful.
Sounds like you are experiencing the same issue. Not sure if this is a guitar issue (mine is a cheap stock strat) or maybe the amp sims are not quite as good.
Any chance of sharing your pedal board ?
I’m not sure if it’s related, but I’m curious as to how you have the input/output gain configured on your device. Maybe dialing up the input gain might help push your amp sims harder?
I did try a gain module before the amp-sims (I have kept the default settings on the MOD Dwarf global settings).
Just amplifying the input signal does help a little but it doesn’t seem to help enough and I cant get enough difference to make the clean/crunch both work the way I want it. It is either too far into crunch or too far into clean.
But you are making me think I should give it another try
I will do some experiments next week when I have time again. I have a plugin I created for the mod (not public yet) that can show the audio level over time on a graph as the tiny-gain instantaneous level just changes too fast to be useful.
I cant share what I have at the moment as it has custom un-released plugins in it. I will try and create something next week when I have time again and share it. Though it will need to be tuned for your own guitar to work properly.
You could try putting the GxCreamMachine on the other side of one of the amp models. I tried that for fun earlier today, and putting that power amp simulation right after one of the amp simulations - which seem to be more of pre-amps - definitely gives it a different feel.
I actually had a little bit of time today. Here is a link. Not the best tones as I didn’t play with the tone stack a lot yet and everyone has different tastes here. But gives and idea of the kind-of variation from clean/crunch I got with an expander (no other effects added):
Sweet !
Personally I like to run the guitar signal through the GxAlembic into the GxSupersonic, and then into a cab + verb.
Here is an example pedalboard (with a quick sound demo to demonstrate the range of distortion)
Thanks for sharing