I "PROFILE" for the first time! IK Tone X Review 

I REALLY appreciate you laying out your ethical concerns in the first portion of the video--I had never considered that, and that is definitely some food for thought.

It can work the other way around too. I spent a decade chasing a specific tone. I bought dozens of amps and sold them all. It wasn't until I got a VST and was able to try hundreds of amp, pedal & cab combos, with make and model names!, that I found MY sound. Then I went out and bought it. As a middle class hobbyist, there's zero chance in hell I could have afforded to actually try all that gear.

The fact that IK support was fantastic makes a huge difference. People are dumping Quad Cortex’s for exactly that reason.

I'm with you with the ethical problem, but... wouldn't that be also valid for guitars? What about Harley Benton or anyone for this matter, each brand has a ST, a T a G style guitar. What do you think?

That was a great talk about profiling and brand-name amps. You hit the nail on the head.

Touring musicians are thankful leaving their rigs at home and finally beeing now compatible in their studio with the app or the pedal. I wish they came up with a pedal with a full AmpliTube & TONEX integration.

WoW It only took 30 years but we've finally come full circle! I remember when the original Line 6 Pod came out. I got one and loved it, but many of my friends were all about "The Vox setting doesn't sound like a Vox and the Tweed Sound doesn't really sound like a Fender Tweed Amp". My response was "I don't care, listen to how good it sounds"! At the time absolutely nothing came close. I want a great tone to use in my music, the name of that tone is completely irrelevant to me! This is how I have felt about this ever since then. This is why I like the way UA & Brainworks and similar companies do things. They create a plugin in co-operation with the company that made the amp and pay them for their tone and branding. So you can have a good approximation of "That tone" while supporting the companies that make the physical products so they can keep designing and building great products for those who can afford them. One day I think we'll see companies releasing plugin versions of prototype amps for market research and to create a demand for a physical version.

That was an impressively well articulated, and in my mind persuasive, statement on the ethics of profiling.

I don't think Henning wants to sell us his profiles 😂

Henning, first of all let me tell you that you do amazing work. I love your channel and your take on the whole gear situation. As far as profiling and modeling is concerned: I get where you are coming from, but at the same time we also use pedals that are made to sound like specific amps. You reviewed such products only recently. We use models that are named in a way that makes it clear they are supposed to sound a specific way. At the end of the day an amp is just a circuit. And circuits can be copied and shared freely. If you make it look the same then that's something different, that is violation of trade dress. So I honestly think that profiling is just copying a circuit. But naming it in a way that makes it clear that it is what it is is not an issue to me. I don't think that profiling kills amp manufacturers. Modeling didn't. And I remember a time when modelers said BSSMN50 on the display. What amp might that be? At that time amp sims still sounded like a caricature of the real thing whereas today the differences are suuuper subtle. But there is something about the sound of an amp in a room that will always appeal to people.who can afford it. And they won't be easily persuaded to give that up for a Quad Cortex, a Kemper, or an IK Tone X. If anything the afforementioned group of people use profiling rigs for touring. But they keep using real amps whenever they can. Profiling, much like modeling is just a convenience feature. And if convenience killed tube amps they would be gone twice over ;) All that being said: I would use profiling to profile my home studio sound if it were to inconvenient to bring that specific rig to a gig. But as of now that is not really an issue. EDIT: Why does it matter what's in my chain, in DAve Grohls chain, in anybodys chain really? It's a starting point for people. For designers to make a circuit that recreates a peculiar part of it. For inspired musicians to start their chase for tone. I mean I had to know what was in Kurt Cobains chain when I was a teenager. I went a completely different route after I knew, but it is instructive.

Lehrmann is hell of a drummer. Greetings from turkei

Don't agree on the profile rant...First of all people that can afford a real Soldano, Fender, whatever will still buy that. A profile is not the same as a real amp and will never be. In the synth (rompler) world: everybody is using samples of Rhodes piano's and Steinways. Yamaha piano's (the real ones) are still being sold. It's not the same audience. Profilers are new business and not replacing existing customers (mostly). And by the way, the Marshall example you mention.... didn't they start off copying (sort of) a Fender amp?

My 2 cents is let a user name their preset whatever the hell they want.

Here is the thing...and what excites me about the tonex. I can get a good profile of my own amp and I can now use that for a consistent recording experience. I can also try other people's profiles and if I like them and I know what it's based on, I now know what amp I would like to buy next. You're right if all I cared about was recording, then it wouldn't matter, but that's not the case. At least for me.

Totally agree with you HP on the subject of profile ethics.

Honest review. Thank you!

Its a bit ironical that you are using a Les Paul copy guitar to do this demo, i bet Gibson didnt get any money for using their design either. For me naming a profile with a name that indicates what is profiled is more so that you can know what to expect from the sound which makes it easier to find the one you are after. I dont really care if it the profile is named after the amp otherwise, as you indicate if i like the sound i will use it regardless of what its called, so i see both sides of it and do understand the dilemma for the amp manufacturers but i also see that there is technical progress and tube amps are quite old tech now so maybe the digital will take over completely eventually.

I like your ethics, Henning 🙂 I use a Laney VC50 with 1 IR and i don't really need anything else. If i use different IRs, it will sound completely different. I think one good versatile amp, a versatile guitar, and 1-3 IRs and you can do just about any style with great sound.

If they're making no amps, there is nothing to profile - thank you Henning ♥️

I've been using tonex for a couple of months to make snapshots of my own amps and it has been great. I profile my amps at volume when no one is around and I can then use the loud amp profile at a 'friendly' volume any time. This pedal means I can take my amps wherever I want with out them leaving my home. One thing to share, when you make a capture if you have a good graphics card installed in your computer it will significantly reduce the processing time as tonex can use it to create the model. Also you don't need the capture box to make captures, it just helps.

I agree with what you say about the hard work these builders put into their circuts. They are basically getting ripped off. But when you get up on stage, you don't have said Amp behind you if you are using some kind of modeling gizmo. Although I think you have an awesome setup of sweet amps. I personally could never utilize them to their full potential in my musical situation. They would be too bulky and loud. I realize I could attenuate, but I never liked that. I'm down to 20 Watt tube amps, and I still get told that I am too loud.

I agree the ethics. But what about UA woodrow, you demoed it as vintage Fender clone. What’s the diffence?

These things are fun. Spent a good part of today having a great time playing the TONEX dual rectifier on my iPad, sounds amazing ‘just like the record’. But, after all that I played through my real Victory amp and it’s like being able to breath again. The modelled amps just don’t respond like the real thing, for me it feels like they offer a much smaller tonal palette. I doubt many people would actually give up a real amp for one of these, great as they are. It’s a different tool for a different job.

It doesn't have neither a delay nor any modulation effects and also not an effect loop, does it? It's of course possible to put a pedal after the ToneX, but then you would have to switch it separately as long as it has no midi. And the modulation or delay would be after the reverb. In my opinion they should really have added an effects loop.

Spot on in regards to the "got to have the soldano" rant, I am lucky to have recently acquired the Quad Cortex, I don't care what the names are as long as I get the sound I am after. It does deliver in regards to that.

This has some serious "boomer is afraid of ai" vibes. Lets be real, if youre not gonna call the Profile "jcm800" its just gonna be called "brit 800" or something. You cant own the sound of an amp anyway. Neither can you own the look of a threadplate or something You CAN NOT draw a line with copyright thats not a slippery slope. Is friedman "unethical" cause it looks like a marshall and sounds "brittish"? Is every tube screamer ever "unethical" cause its green and sounds... well... like a tubescreamer? You either cant own these ideas, or you want to establish totalitarian Monopoly Systems. Theres no realistic inbetween Also, theyre not even just using those names cause it "kinda sounds like xyz". In this cause the tone LITERALLY USES SAID GEAR

I find that your "rant" was not really a rant, but more of a logical informed presentation. Very thoughtful, and it made me think about the modelers that I use. Now, some amp builders "license" their name and even help the modeling company cultivate the model. That is their choice. Great video!

I purchased the SLO pedal because of the sound , not for the name , if it sounded like crap , I would not have , most gear heads would like to be able to purchase high end boutique amps , but for those who can’t , profiling in a small package works , it’s as close as we can get !

I don’t think its a legal issue either as schematics cannot be copyrighted or trademarked. Sure, maybe they shouldn’t use the name but at the same time I’d much rather prefer the name of the amp vs something that is a silly close 2nd. It would pay homage to the amp and creator of it uses it and I would be like “wow, now I kinda know what that amp sounds like”. People are still going to buy amps and those using modelers are not going to go out of their way to buy a SLO100 in the first place, it’s a different target audience with no effect on their bottom line. If anything, someone might find the sound they love and then decide I want the real thing and buy it.

Love how passionate you are. I see your point but people paying $400 to get 150 captures at $2.66 each weren't going to buy those amps anyway. When you buy a multisampled piano VST none of that money goes to Steinway. I would totally watch a 1 hour debate between people on both sides of this issue... And I'd probably agree with both sides, lol.

I’m tired of you preaching what is wrong and what is right! We’re not a bunch of elementary kids in a school. Majority of us here are professionals that just wants to see and hear about the new ToneX pedal if it’s worth purchasing. We’re not here to listen to your “Ethical Dilemma”. Do it in another platform or video.

Intro song is awesome! Great review.

Passion...that will do. Love you man.

I get your rand and I think in the same way, but I also understand the guitar players. We all are seeking certian tones and not all are able to just to identify what they really want by hearing the sound. ( It's rumored some listen with their eyes 😀) I like the concept them having a separate column "based on" just to get into the ball park of the sound you are looking for and giving the title to be named whatever. Having a "based on Marshall xxx" doesn't mean it sounds good, but your in the range of sounds you like to be. And with the high amount of profiles/captures available you need a starting point to filter the data. But really good vid! One of the best on this topic.

I love the song at the very end with the dogs. Great feel!

Henning, you strike me as one of the most honest gear reviewers here on RU-vid. You should really do a follow up where you highlight the licensing issues that exist with the ToneX pedal. I am specifically talking about the fact that the ToneX Max license is non-transferable. So if you buy the pedal and want to sell it on, the buyer will need to purchase their own ToneX license in order to be able to transfer captures to the pedal. IK Multimedia's standard response is that you can just use the free ToneX version and use that for the librarian features. But they always "forget" to mention that the free version will only ever allow you to transfer 20 captures int total. EVER!! to the pedal. Once you have done that, you are stuck with the pedal as is if you don't pony up at least $149 for a paid ToneX license. Why am I asking you to do a video on this? Because the wording on the IK Multimedia websites and the replies that the IK Media representatives give mean that a lot of buyers are going to get bit by this when they realize that they cannot sell the pedal on if they should tire of it. Not without taking a 2/3 loss on the purchase price. It is already happening. Frankly, I think the business practices of IK Multimedia are a bit shady at best. I am mulling over this while I wait for my ToneX Pedal to be delivered from Thomann. But I am already considering cancelling the order because of this license business.

Ya because amp companies are completely ethical. Most amp designs are just copies and previous designs with small changes. I get there are people who make there livings manufacturing tube amps, but just like the internal combustion engine, we are seeing that being phased out. Most amps sound very similar anyway and it’s mainly the speaker your playing through that matters. Amps are becoming obsolete and it’s only a matter of time before you mostly see tube amps in expensive studios.

It might just be a preamp from the Synergy system, but I bought a Bogner Überschall just because I fell in love with a corresponding Kemper profile.

Even I have a Kemper and an Axe-Fx III which are great tools, I always prefer one of my tube amps, a great guitar cabinet and some decent pedals with a high quality loop switcher. A real rig is more expensive and heavier of course, but I always found a profile, capture, snapshot - a sounds like current settings thing - too limited. And of course I like, that the money goes to traditional amp, cabinet and pedal builders. At the end that is, where all the great tones come from. Of course there will be the next Innovation and the next it never sounded better thing. But I love to design and built my own signature signal chain (with blood and sweat) with finest hardware representing my tone. And I also love not being asked to share profiles, captures, snapshots or having updates f***ing up my presets.

Damn you! I just bought a gx-100, while I still have an origin 20, a peavey 5150 combo and a PRS MT-15, and now I’m feeling bad for selling the amps to have the space and still have the sound! Now I’m rethinking my game plan because your 100% correct on your point! Not really damn you, love your channel, thanks for what you do!

As always, one of my fab channels and reviews! nothing to add. Animals at the end!

Amazing demo, just great ! To be improved : missing an on-board DELAY, but mostly an FX LOOP, and an integrated EXPRESSION PEDAL. Then, this will become the winner in the game

While I agree with the whole copying the look and other trademark stuff when it comes to the sound it is different. The rectifier is an slo100 preamp with a new power amp, the slo itself a hot rodded jcm800. Maybe brands should allow the manufacturers to licence their look for profile stuff. For me personally I'd use the tone x for my amps and plugins and pedal chains together not just to buy other peoples rectifier profile because I want to sound like my rectifier.

I appreciate the ethical argument being made here. Same as the dilemma we went thru in the 90s with digital music.

I first started paying attention to HP when he made the original 3 "kemper ethics" videos. That was like 8-9 years ago? Something like that. I thought, finally! Someone gets it. Glad to see that after all this time you're still true to what you said back then.

I agree with your reasoning about needing amplifiers to remain in the future.I also agree with your clothing styles.

With 100’s of profiles it’s the amp name that would help me find my desired sound much quicker. The sound I associate with the amp name, which in turn I associate with the people who play them. Example… if I’m learning a track by band x, band x uses a gained up rectifier… so I look for the profile based on this amp. Just quicker and more convenient. I do get where you’re coming from though… suppose in that case of you just called it band x heavy sound. That would do the job 🤷🏻‍♂️

but you've been doing reviews on pedal clones such as Joyo, guitar clones such as Harley Benton, etc. Isn't that kind similar?

Totally fkn agree on the difficulty in setting up the capture. Been doing my head in for the last week. So worried I’m going to fck up my Marshall.

On profile ethics: Yes, I wanna know what amp model is behind it. Because that makes it way easier work with. Take the Diezel: I once tried a modeled version ("Deity Crunch", Line 6) and didn't get anything cool out of it. So I looked it up, found out it's supposed to be a Diezel and then searched for ways to dial it in. And voila: It clicked. With some gear, fiddling around is gonna get you nowhere (eg. Metal Zone), so that's why original names can be super important. That's not to say your position is unreasonable, I agree with a lot of what you said.

If your interested in getting the sound from a particular song, then knowing what the profile is, is kinda important. Modelers are not going to stop the people who want and can afford a real amp from getting the amp. In the end the amp is going to be more versatile because the sound can be infinitely changed, where a profile is more or less a picture in time of a certain setting.

5:13 What a smart thougts! I agree in 100%. I don't get the searching of digital recreations of famous amps and naming it similar to them... I don't need any little stuff giving me marshall, mesa, soldano names on any little lcd screen to make me happy. I like my Ac30, 1987x, but the amps aren't the must to play gigs. There are many little analogue, tubey stuff, doing the thing right without any digital fakes, AD latencies.

This is the same as making a mp3 copy of a CD you own Vs downloading them for free. I'd be much happier if companies got paid for each capture you buy as having amp names makes it much easier to find the sound you are after Vs Face melter 4

If you're looking for a particular sound, it usually comes with a picture in your head of which amp does that. For example, if I want to play AC/DC, I'm going to aim for a Plexi or a JCM800. I don't really care that this is an expensive amp that I can't own, I'm simply wanting a quick way to find the sound I'm looking for. That black and gold thumbnail image may help me find it more quickly. And if the manufacturers are ok with getting some kind of royalty, it's a win-win.

I get your problem with profiles using the names and visuals of known brands but here is an argument for it: When I get a pedal that comes with presets or models, I know in my mind that I want to go for a Fender'ish sound and the visuals and names will help me quickly find the sound I'm after. If I want an Orangy kind of sound, I know what to look for. I'd do the same if I'd profile my amps - simply to find quicker what I want. It would be great though if a manufacturer like IK comes out with a pedal that has these presets, that a commission would be paid to the manufacturers.

Very well articulated. Wouldn't it be great if the amp companies do really high quality profiles packs of their amps themselves (with, let's say, a dozen profiles for all channels with a few different settings, with and with out cabs etc) and then include IRs of their cabs, to sell these? I would buy a Diezel VH4 pack or a Soldano SLO pack in a heartbeat. For me the Tone X would first and foremost be to profile the stuff I have in different configurations and check out other stuff. But to be honest, I would rather buy a profile pack from the company that makes these amps if I want a profile of a certain amp. If it is nameless and faceless I wouldn't care, but if I see a Soldano or a Diezel or a Bogner in the Display, I would want them to be from that company.

After getting Tonex, I honestly just listened to the tone of the profile and deleted everything that didn't sound superb. Now I have about 150 amp/cab combinations left and they ALL come from all sorts of different amps, not even necessarily expensive ones.

I still remember your video series on the ethics of Kemper profiling a few years ago. I once met Christoph Kemper at an event in Bochum and asked him about it. And asked him if profile swapping wasn't comparable to illegal MP3 swapping. He just said: "If I hadn't invented it, someone else would have done it. It's not a problem for me!".

I think the point of the names are so if you are looking for a Fender clean sound, for example, you don't have to click through a thousand John's tone or holiday tone, etc. before you find it instead you can search different fender clean tones

Markets moving too fast for Amp companies. People don't want to lug around a full sized 50lb amp and 80lb 4x12. Most can't afford the top amps we all want as the majority of us are not independently wealthy or play in arena filling bands. As great as they are something like this is just better and if big amp companies want to compete they need to drop their prices, release more so the used market isn't hyper-inflated or release smaller units for the masses who don't need such a crazy expensive amp. I like there were some small mini amps that came out recently but they only got release day coverage and then no one continued doing videos on them. if you market to the masses you will make significantly more than if you market to the top 1%

I agree on your comment if it sounds good then it is good. It doesn’t matter how that sound is created or whether it’s trying to model a particular amp or effect. Profiling or modelling a particular amp is more about marketing than anything else.

Holy moly, your band sounds epic! Damn. I need to know more…

I’ve had this for a while now, but mine is white. It’s called the Mooer Preamp Live. Jokes aside, how does the compare to the other “affordable” capture devices, like the afore mentioned Mooer, or Positive Grid’s Bias software/hardware offerings.

Spot on rant. 💯

Almost all amps are at least based on circuits that other amp builders have copied and modified. When it comes to trade dress, you don't need to make many changes to make it different, and in the case of "virtual amps", it's fairly obvious that an image is not an amp. FWIW, my Cornell 18/20 has a control panel that is almost identical to a Marshall Plexi, and it even has "Plexi" on the front of it, so I think if you are ethically worried about profiling, you should also be ethically worried about any one who makes a Fender/Marshall/Vox type amp.

Your philosophy is exactly my point of view when buying Tonex. I'm profiling my own amp to take it with me on the road. Instead of having the whole car loaded with an amp, cab and a pedalboard, I'm just taking the pedalboard

You are possibly missing the other possible application which is that ToneX helps me to find out which amps I really like and which amps I want to buy. Because all the ToneX amps are strongly labelled by the originals now there is one stop place to find out what sounds like this and that. Of course it depends on the quality of the modelling engineer's work but it is better than nothing. The old fashioned way is to buy them all and find out(after 30 years) that the cheapest and smallest is the one you like most. Currently I think 40% of the sound is in the cab. 20% is in player who is supposed to play something sensible. 20% is the amp. 20% is the guitar. In this context "The Cab" is only a FIR filter(impulse response). It means it has any kind of(arbitrary) frequency response compared to regular filter plugin. Then it possibly tames the amp and also possibly makes it sound delicious. More often not.

Totally agree if it sounds good, it is good. i never heard of amps lie the Soldano or VH, dumble etc.. before i got amplitube. (yes i know all the pre 1980 amps like marshall, fender, Vox and orange) so i dont care what its called as long as it fulfils the brief.

TBH, that's a good point in the rant part. All I can say - honestly I don't care that much about the looks and branding if the sound is right for me. All I want to know is how can I replicate it? If I find it on a profiler (without knowing any background for the most amps), can I replicate it somehow without the Tonex pedal? Also a big question: if I like the sound I designed in this profiler or in a software, should I be forced to learn about different sounds of different amps again or is it fine for me to roughly know the amp and the cab I used in software? Just a thought. Also I know it's too late for you (seen your review of Tonex One), but still, it's a thought.

I only care for the sound not for the brand. Also sound especially clean is in the fingers. Brand names are used for models to help people know what sound to expect. I would prefer descriptive language for this but like whine tasting that is very difficult to do accurately. 25 years ago I bought a Johnson Marquis JM60 with a second 12" cab. The amp models 18 amps with analog circuits. They are arrange in three groups of six amps labeled American, British and Johnson. I still like the sounds of this amp very much. Its variety was very usefull when I used to play Top40 music. Nowadays I tend to reuse sounds I like and try to sound like myself and not like the recording of the original band when I play covers.

We need a contest where everyone makes an instrumental track called "Drop D Catastrophe" 🤣

Im very late to the ToneX party - I Think the gain knob is not referring to the amp's gain setting, but rather the gain for your guitar hitting the front of the amp. I think the overall signal hitting the amp is boosted, not the amp's gain.

The profiles are not a matter of ethics for me at all, though I appreciate your POV. I have a Vox Stomplab, and I haven't even started with all the amps and cabs supposedly contained therein. I can hardly wait for what a 4x12 box will sound like over my 1x10 combo. Actually, perhaps it may sound pretty, which would be enough for me. If somebody really needs a, say, JCM800 with 4x12, so be it. Personally, I think that's rather dumb when there are so many good sounds to make great music with. Right now, I'm rather satisfied with the Boss Acoustic Simulator for my ES335 clone, anything else will be icing on the cake.

The "rant" is great really. It should not matter (but for obvious reasons it does). That is why I am trying for all my guitarists that are using Helix to promote Badonk in the preset, just because it sounds great and it is not modeled after nothing particular.

Hi Henning. Deinen Standpunkt zum "Profiling" kann ich nur unterstützen. Aber: Ich kann mich nicht mehr erinnern, wie Du zum letzten Mal einen richtigen Lautsprecher verwendet hast. Im Prinzip sind LSP IR´s auch nichts anderes, wie eine Art "Profiling". Die Firmen wie; Celestion, Jensen usw. investieren mindestens genauso viel Arbeit in die Entwicklung und die Herstellung der Lautsprecher. Natürlich sind das zwei unterschiedliche Dinge. Aber einen guten Lautsprecher im Signalverlauf finde ich ebenso ganz wichtig. Ich weiß, dass Du hauptsächlich Studioarbeit betreibst. Es ist ganz bequem, über eine App einen anderen Lautsprecher zu schalten. Ebenfalls ist es aber auch bequem, einen Amp über die App zu steuern. Vor allem, wenn man im Studio nicht so viel Platz hat. Nur als Überlegung. Gruß! Schau dich gern! 😀

Sorry, still don't get it! Kemper bashing because of their profile naming, ToneX does the same and additionally adds pretty obvious amp images - but ToneX is great ??? And I remember somebody who the was involved in the Joyo bantamp naming - aren't in the amp names hints to their originals?

I don't think that companies like IK Multimedia use other brands names for their own business without paying license fees. So i don't see any ethical problems here. If a user captures his own for example Marshall amp and shares this capture on ToneNET for free, why not calling it Marshall? After all, it is the capture of a Marshall amp! I don't see any ethical problems here either.

oh try recording an amp with your cab and mic just as usual and then use zynaptic unfilter and it removes the cab by linearizing the source tone and then you can change the cab afterwards BUT in there it wil work differenty. The testtone will feed the program with infos about the clipping curve and the capturing of the Filtercurve simply goes into another place in the code. The Kemper can do the same, profile with a cab and then you can change the cab. The thing is the kemper can profile without the cab and that gets you simply closer because the kemper does not have to estimate the parts that would hide the cab while profiling. Oh and the gain thing, Since both create a clipping curve reducing the gain simply reamoves the clipping until you have a sine curve. And this is AWESOME. Because of this you can get the compression and the tone of the higher gain setting at lower gain setting ... this can give you unique flavors even the amp can not do. and you can simply profile at a lower gain setting to have this tone also. That is why i always make multiple gain and mastervolume variations when profiling

I get where you are coming from with amp models and business but companies have been modeling or trying for years,there’s still tube amps. By the time tube amps are gone we’ll be long gone anyway. By that time who knows what technology might exist? A lot of boutique builders can always do the same or switch over to building better frfr. Who knows maybe they’ll do better in that market? Tube amps can be a nightmare sometimes especially adjusting bias etc. Ultimately it won’t matter what name they slap on an amp sim, it will either be good or it won’t. Most people looking at a name of an amp sim will gravitate towards sounds they like best anyway so I really don’t think it matters what they call them. Thanks for all the hard work you do and really appreciate your honesty with newer products.

Omg I want to buy this pedal omg!

Just a thought Henning: Marshall started by copying and changIng the Fender Bassman, Mesa Boogie the same with the Fender Princeton, Soldano with Mesa Boogie Mark II ...

I agree with your ethical questions. A good example of how it should be is Michael Britt's Brown bag profiles...

Dude, I want "Drop D Catastrophe" tbh.

Your 59 with the P90's just kills.

The xlr out would make sense for me if it had a stereo loop. Otherwise I still have to use a DI at the end.

Hey Henning, I totally understand your rant. In my case I use an FX-Modeller with bunch of official IRs for my speakers and whatever amp model get's me to a good sounding tone - I really don't care too much which Amp it is supposed to be, but in most cases the model names will give good enough hints to know. Before I started with modeling amps and speaker profiling (which in my opinion contributes much more to the sound as the amp itself) I was very happy with my Bugera G5 into 2x12 vertical HB cab with V30s. I had about 25 pedals in use und was able to dial in any sound I would ever need. For the living room it was just too much. I sold all the stuff, made enough money to buy a Hotone Ampero 2, two active monitors and even a new guitar. Now all the sounds I can think of are in a little box which can be plugged into any PA. On top I can save my settings and don't have to tinker around with the settings of 20 pedals till I get "that one sound from earlier" back. I miss the feel of the hardware, but it is like 10000 times more convenient and versatile. If I could I would have 20 amps and 30 cabs (and 200 guitars) - but as an amateur musician it is not reasonable to do so - even if you could afford it (which I can't). Nonetheless you are totally right. The names and designs (or similar ones) should not be used in profiling and modeling at all. At least not if there is no monetary compensation for the companies behind the profiled or modeled components.

It is an Interesting ethical stand point. Although how many Gibson and Fender style guitars do you own where the builders paid zero in licence fees to Fender or Gibson? Just asking

For me it helps to know, if I'm trying to get close to another artists tone, like Neil Young's Tweed tone.

I do agree re the profiling being a bit questionable for the reasons mentioned. I would hope that within tonex, you can just build a preset with whats available modeling wise, and they would have compensated those amp builders. I ordered one and will be making my own captures eventually.

When you started the rant I thought "oh god, here we go talking shit about copying impulse responses" but after listening I actually agree xD There is no reason to use the actual names and amp looks other than using brands other people own to sell YOUR product. This reminds me of the position of JHS on copying pedals.

Can we make the same rant argument with digital modelers? or it's just for profilers? cause the same reasoning exist with the amp modeling plugins too.

If you want the amp you will get it and there is a reason. But a Profile is just a snapshot of a setting. Thats just a Photograph of your Setup, you can take it elsewhere. But for experimentation you need the originals! So do not doubt, everything is okay. Each tweak on the tonex is just a guess. Nö need to roar.

I get your point. I want to say I only care about the sounds. The iconography is just a waypoint for me. Not the destination. I've never been a tower of doom guy, but I get it.

I don't own any good tube amps, so I could never "capture" and use them anyway. I'm just interested in how the Tonex sounds with the built-in sounds. Is it worth it just for its existing tones?

Thanks for the review, this thing sounds good! On the ethics: I personally don't care about how the original amp is named and visualized as soon as I can understand the following: is it clean, crunch, high gain; does it sound more "American", "British", "American modern", and so on, i.e. falls to a specific ballpark. If there are clear filters / label I'm personally fine. I just have no time to try all profiles available in the app / on the market to find one that suites my current needs. On XLR: I assume that IK expects people to use it as a pedal on existing pedalboards (at least that how I would like to try it). Because there is no delay on the pedal (at least simple digital) and no FX loop, I'd expect that most people will not put the pedal last.

absolut richtige Meinung. Ich freue mich daß Du endlich mal ein heikles Thema ansprichst, und künftig auch keine Gitarren mehr vorstellst, die an Fender oder Gibson Konstruktion angelehnt sind, aber andere Schriftzüge auf der Kopfplatte haben. mein Respekt.

Now that's a good rant!

I would never buy the real expensive amps but I agree with you if we all consume profiles of amps the actual amp company should have some kind of royalty.

Thanks for sharing your experience, especially with support. With how things are going I feel other than sound, support will really carry the products or not. Also just gotta say hamster shirt is best shirt.

Actually, Boss products in GT-series, they do not “name” their profiles as Vox, Fender, Marshall, or Diezel, which is a good thing, fair game.