THIS is the video I’ve been waiting for! Everybody has a videos showing of the sounds in their home studio, and also speculating on all the ways Tonex *could* be used in a live setting. I’m in a cover band and wanted to hear from someone first hand that has *actually* gigged this thing, ideally for an extended period of time. This is the first one I’ve seen on all of RU-vid. Thank you!
Yeah, that’s a downside with a lot of YT reviews and channels. That’s not to say their thoughts aren’t valid but I haven’t seen much YT content centered around live use.
Comment is not about the Tonex (except to tell IK who might be reading this... use this man more), but about the video. Just want you to know I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of your content. Great balance of info and experience. No need to respond to this... just wanted to say thanks for your hard work.
It seems that most of the Tonex vids out there focus on capturing and the software interface. I love that you focused on using it in a live application. It would be great to see more videos on tips and tricks for live use. Thanks so much!!
Love your tone, Michael! I recently bought the Tonex collection, and it's incredible. In live clip 4, are you using a preset from the collection? I tried to find it, but I couldn't find an exact match with the names in the folder.
So you plug it into the house board and hear yourself through stage monitors? I'll be the 5yr old that needs this explained to me. Great vid, sounds cool though! Thx!
What capture do you use for pedal steel? I don’t see any mention in your capture pack. I’m playing an Emmons push-pull and looking around for a good psg capture.
Every time a revered musician treads into the water with Tonex, the credibility goes up. As we all grow older, the need to lug real amps is essentially gone. Great video Michael, thanks for your information. A couple of questions: you mention the HX Stomp, are you strictly using just delay and reverb, or are you keeping it around for a backup functionality? Also, how do you find the responsiveness and accuracy of your own captures?
Thanks! The HX Stomp is mostly getting used for Delay and Verb but also a boost or compressor every now and then. Yes, it could serve as a backup in a pinch. I’ve also just used it for a quick acoustic set with multiple instruments.
Good review. Very helpful. But Sorry, it sounds terrible to me. Fizzy distortion. Missing the smooth overdrive of a tube amp. I think your pedalboard is heavy as my tube amp.
what is you signal chain, guitar into effect then into TONEX, then tonex out to the house? I'm currently using the TONEX in the loop of the stomp for all the effects and the tonex as the amp/cabs
5 seconds jn, Judging from the thumbnail alone, seems like a pretty serious subject 🤣 but this turned out to be a really high demand setup, and it seems like the toneX measured up to the challenges.
Greetings from Finland, what a great video 👍 Question: compared to, say, Quad Cortex, has the lack of balanced XLR outs been any issue in live or studio use? Do they use DI-box to take your sound to FOH ? Thank you.
Thanks! I have a DISO+ from Pinstripe pedals on my board that is a line isolator (functionally kind of like a DI for higher output 1/4” sources) that takes my 1/4” lines to XLR. That stays put on my board so I always XLR outputs. Most situations I’m in would have DI’s if I needed them as well
so you don't get your sounds out of the hx stomp? Is that only because of the capture option or why do you finally choose a gear on Top of the hx stomp?
Hey Michael, TLDR: Can you do a video on how to dial in a good sound on the tonex? I'm and intermediate guitarist who recently started playing again after a 10 year break and this pedal seemed the perfect opportunity to take a deep dive into topics i previous glanced over. I've had the tonex for about a month and I'm struggling with it. I set up a edge of break up sound on TonexMax on the PC, load it up and the drive is crazy higher on the actual pedal. When I picked it up I was split between the iridium and the tonex, and the tonex seemed more versatile, but I feel like I'm drowning in the options and complexity. Other tutorials I've found seem to be more of advertisements for tone collections than actual tutorials on a methodology to dial this thing as a stand alone jam tool and almost none on using it as an interface. Please Help!
Thanks! The Matchless direct capture is available on Tone.net (check the link in the description) but the deluxe reverb isn’t. Maybe in the future I’ll release a pack!
WOW, your tones are really great, the Dobro sounds amazing! What do you carry for backup in case the main rig fails? That was always my big concern when I was still touring. I've been using ToneX in the studio since it came out and got the One as soon as I could. For me, the ToneX One is perfect on my pedalboard, but I don't really change amp tones when I'm playing with the band in rehearsal or writing. An edge of breakup and a more saturated tone are all I need in that situation. The original ToneX stays in the studio now and is my main tone monster when I'm not using my real amps. I follow Jason Sadites' method for calibrating my instrument inputs, it makes a ton of sense to me and really works. Thanks for this one!
Honestly, I always thought of running stereo as having back up in some ways. I can always go mono. I could also just use the HX Stomp. If the whole board went down I’d be in a little trouble but fortunately I’ve never had that issue!
@MichaelWWestbrook Have you had any trouble with phase issues using 2 units? I recently purchased 2 Tonex One pedals as well as your Platform collection (awesome). I have noticed that mixing with different captures there is sometimes a phasing issue. Is there a way to fix this or have you heard of this? Thanks! Great video!
Thanks for picking up my captures! A couple of things on phase issues - (1) Amps can be different polarity and be out of phase so you might need to switch the phase on one side. This is common with different amps or even different channels of amps (Normal and Vibrato channel on a Deluxe Reverb for example) (2) some folks have experienced a variable latency with ToneX One that was create phasing issues but I thought that was fixed in a recent update but I’m unsure. All that being said - I never recommend summing to mono with stereo effects/amps as phase issues can happen due to the effects or differences in response across frequency ranges.
Excellent ! Are you using only an in ear system or is there a guitar cab on Stage ? I‘m asking because, as far as i know, it is not possible to switch off the cab sim for a cab on stage and switch the cab on for the FOH mixer…..
Very nice. I have a helix and use a tube amp 4cm but the amp is very heavy. I also have the powercab plus but I dont like the helix amps period so I only use helix FX. I have zero use for studio, only live setting or band practice. I dont use IEM and I dont play thru the PA at band practice as its too small. How can I use this tone X? I want to upgrade but not expensive like a FM9. I'd be ok to get a EV PXM-12P. Do you find you run out of foot buttons if only using the tone x?
You could use ToneX with the power cab. I don’t run out of buttons but I’m switching via midi. I think in most scenarios I wouldn’t be changing at all. I typically play single channel amps
Your "Live Clip" sound demo is an isolated recording which is clean and pristine. How does it sound in the mix? How about a room recording to hear it in context with tje whole band? Not a direct to mixer recording either of everyone else. A real "LIVE"" clip of the whole band. Like a phone/video recording from an audience member?
Hi Michael, what a great setup. The stage tones sound great. Looking forward to a video on the full signal chain and how you keep the output level consistent with different pedals switched on in the chain. Question, what would you use for onstage amplification w/ this rig? A solid-state class D power amp w/ a cab or maybe a powered FRFR cab?
I’m curious what a bar/small venue solution would be for stage sound, or if it would work well for that. I’ve heard a lot of folks saying modeling solutions aren’t for that environment, but wondering what you think @MichaelWWestbrook
is there a particular di box you would recommend for live use with tonex one? i am used to using either tech 21 flyrig or dsm humboldt which both have xlr outs.
When you factor in the cost of those fancy DI boxes, pedal board and power supply, your amp simulation board is almost at the price of Quad Cortex and is bigger and weighs more. And the Quad Cortex can even replace the MsaterMind with the amount of switches it has
Well sure but that’s not all necessary, just what works for me and what I had laying around. Like I said in another comment, it doesn’t make sense for me to sell a lot of stuff to put a bunch of money into one solution because what I need or want to accomplish changes all the time.
Would you do a tutorial on how you travel/fly with your gear? Specifically, I haven't found a solid way to fly with the pedal steel and it would be awesome to see how you're able to bring your rig around with no compromise on quality. Since you play so many instruments during the show, it would be awesome to see how you manage keeping track of all your gear and how you get all of it to the gig safely.
To be honest our amazing crew handles most of that. When we fly we have over 40 pieces of checked cases, it’s quite the sight. I big part of it comes down to good cases to protect everything.
Beautiful video. Very insightful. Question: Are you putting the different amps hard left and right through the PA? Do you experience any comb filtering caused by latency differences between the amp captures?
They are hard left and right in my in ear mix. I believe it varies in the PA but I think typically panned to the left a bit (so left would be all the way left and right at 2 o’clock or so) this allows room in the mix for the other guitar player. I haven’t really experienced comb filtering exactly but when summed to mono some amps seem to pair better than others. Maybe that’s a filtering thing caused by latency of captures but no way for me to really know.
@@MichaelWWestbrook Thanks for the reply! I'm going to give two Tonex One's a try for a dual amp setup. Hard panned left and right over the PA and in-ears as I'm the only guitarist.
The price point discussion is weird because on one hand Tonex is cheaper than say a QC, but on the other hand your whole board is probably more expensive than QC
Is there something with ToneX on your complicated Pedalboard setup that couldn't be done "entirely" within a QC Modeler without the need for any additional pedals or switches?
Interesting that you criticized the "size" of the units, but like, you didn't have to take amps or cabs, so isn't the "size" actually a pro or am I misunderstanding?
Good video. I have a Tonex to have access to amps that I don´t own, I agree the software is the weakest point, and time-consuming to audition and adjust presets but a workflow is possible. For live gigs, I prefer all in one solution ( I am not a pro)
Yeah, that makes sense for sure. Having access to all the amps on Tone.net is icing on the cake for me! It’s a lot of fun being able to check loads of stuff out and the software interface is getting better as they release updates. Also, if I weren’t on the road on a gig full time my rig would probably look very different (and smaller) 😂
I tried but it didn’t work for me. Maybe a pro builder could get it all on there but it’s hard for me to drop $1k+ on something like that especially since in the past I’ve changed my setup a lot 😂
Michael, awesome coverage of the full size pedals. Are you planning on reviewing the smaller units? Thank you for sharing. I am a combo player and considering an hx stomp or tonex rig. Really appreciate the insight and your review! Nice share about the software truths too. If you have a video on that sweet black tele, please share the pickups you are using in that one. Thank you!
Thanks! Everyone asks about this Guitar! Fender American Vintage Reissue 62' Telecaster ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_UhtQnswgZ4.html
Hi! Can the Tonex be used with acoustic (piezo) guitars , or it is only electric amps captures? I plan to use tonex in loop of the helix with acoustic and electric guitars. I think, it is worth to pair this two units. Thank you! Greetings from Ukraine!
I did captures of a DI for my Banjo and Mandolin and they seem to work out well. I use the on board EQ and compression to tweak them. I don’t do this but you could also load Acoustic IR’s into the ToneX as well.
Iam 10 gigs in and it already makes problems for me. I love the sound, the tuner update is great, but somehow midi stopped working and I couldn't change banks on the pedal itself... Its a great device! and after a Morgan SW50, a Kemper, an old 70s Fender style amp from Japan (Newport) and ad VHT D50, this thing really is what I come back to. But the damn midi thing....back to step dance
It works great. It’s all about the capture. I use a dirty steel sound… like an Eric Heywood kind of thing… so a bit different. I haven’t heard or played any real PSG amp captures but my guess is they would work great!
Subscribed after watching you on Rhett's channel. Awesome take on the ToneX. I've captured all my amp/stompbox and combinations I use and use an HX Stomp for delay. I have a lightweight rig that won't break my back. Live at church, 99% of the time, I play my capture of my Ruby '63 or ToneJunkie's AC44 captures into to captured the IR of the Ruby '63 Greenback on the normal channel (richer in harmonics, smooths high end). For Lexington Lab Band, I have no trouble finding an amp/cab and sometimes eq match a sound for a video and use the ToneX by itself with a little room reverb builtin. "All Right Now" is an example (although Mike did change my sound a little in the mix). Awesome tone and playing on this vlog. Take care.
Did you find annoying the fact that if you push a tonex switch twice it goes into bypass mode? This behaviour is what It made unusable live for me. Well, I move a lot and sometimes I miss some pedals.
@@MichaelWWestbrook Interesting, the new tonex one can change presets with midi messages by usb port, I don't know what the benefits of the big brother are apart from the thru midi port to use 2 units together like you do. In any case, thank you for your reply!
I do like the menus and ability to tweak all the parameters on the bigger ones. That’s helpful for me but I can see how it doesn’t matter for a lot of folks.
Love seeing the Wampler Belle in use, love this pedal! I use a simple version of this rig, tone x thru the loop of an hx stomp, the nobles model from line 6 always on thru a Tone junkies 65 deluxe capture on the tone x and of course all my effects come from the hx stomp
Very interessting video! Would be great to get infos how those different sounds worked in the mix, I can´t imagine that those sounds all worked on one channelstrip/one EQ with different IR´s and Acoustic Instruments. Switching the Tonex with Midi saves the buttons on tour, so this not a fair test how good the hardware is.
Always love your videos! I'm really curious to hear what you think of the smaller Tonex One. I'm hoping it lives up to the same audio quality, just with less features. It would be amazing if I could get away with just using a pair of those for gigs. I'm only ever using one amp preset per gig so I don't need midi switching. I would be using it for stereo EG and probably modeling my bass preamps/DIs I'm using an HX stomp that is super dialed for EG, but I've never been satisfied with the bass modelers in the HX
First time on your channel Fascinated by the same outboard pedals I have into Tonex. I’ve been interested in this ecosystem since the Tonex was released, but now relatable. (Is that a Texas Tea Tele?) Thanks!
Wow, that’s cool to see you working with a Christian band! Did you enjoy that element of the music? I love great worship music, it’s also improved my playing massively.
can you explain better what you mean about using an acoustic guitar? on the iridium I can turn off the amp and use an acoustic IR, what is different on the tonex?
@@MichaelWWestbrook well actually to show some love to the iridium I have to say that with its latest firmware you can do amp on/off per preset without power cycle! in fact in my setup I have the acoustic IR and amp off just programmed on the fav button while the regular channel is amp on.
That’s fantastic! Didn’t know that. I use the Iridium in my studio but only as an IR loader. That and a Two Notes Captor (not the X version) lets me record my amps silently. I’ll have to keep that in mind as a quick and easy alternate.
Lehle A/B/C switcher, Pinstripe Pedal multibuffer, Lehle Volume pedal, RJM switcher, Cali76 Stacked, Pigtronix Octave fuzz, JHS Kilt, LSL Lucid Od, RC booster, Wampler Belle, Greer Lightspeed, (out of RJM) HX Stomp, Pinstripe TXRX send/receive, ToneX, Pinstripe Pedals DISO+. The order of things in the loops on the RJM do move around sometimes depending on the song or instrument
@@MichaelWWestbrook how do you like the JHS Kilt vs previous od/distortions you've had? What function is that serving in your current rig to win it a spot in your board? I'm a fan of the xpandora so I’m very curious about that pedal.
@@MichaelWWestbrook it has improved for sure. Pretty cool you play with David Crowder! I appreciate this video and it would have made pulling the trigger on the tonex when I did way easier. It was such a ridiculously paralyzing choice with all the options, and hopefully people see this and be able to make a more informed choice. Reliability really is king with me, if it sounds amazing is almost secondary if I'm spending hundreds on a flimsy thing.
@@MichaelWWestbrook Thanks for the great and informative video! Since I'm rather new with ToneX and capturing technologies, I'd like to specify "direct capturing", what does it actually mean? As far as I've understood you can capture the whole signal chain from amp input/distortion effect to speaker (excluding time/modulation based effects) by recording the speaker normally with a mic. But if you want to capture just the pre/power amp stages and leave the speaker off and then use IR, how is that done?
I love the rig! I have a question about your ins and outs. Does FOH only get a stereo signal for you? I worry about running things like that when I’m doing a utility gig because I want monitor and foh mixes to be able to not worry about switching me around on a per song basis. I try to get one output per instrument to keep things easy. Do you have that same issue or consideration? Or am I worrying too much? 😂
Yes, I should have been more specific in the video! I only send out a stereo pair. Part of the challenge in the initial setup is getting everything EQ’d and level matched so that FOH is happy. It’s more work on the front end but is easier in the long run and cuts down on the bands channel count which is already lot.
@@MichaelWWestbrook that totally makes sense, especially with your channel count! Really great video, as a utility guy myself, I am always so intrigued by how people tackle these issues. Would love to hear your thoughts on pedal steel tuning, but I’m sure that’s another whole video 😂 thanks!
@@jonnytherrien8640 I've been using more of a straightforward tuning... The quick version is... I tune the E's with A/B pedals down (makes the E's a little sharp) then tune the B, D#, and F# a touch sharp like the E's.
Don’t agree with you there… just put wet effects after the Unit in the chain. I understand it’s different but in my experience it’s minimal and sometimes even better.
@@MichaelWWestbrook I've been using a TC electronics Nova system for my effects for 15 yrs . Yes it's old tec but I have two of them and never had any issue what's so ever with them and I have great sounding delay, reverb, chorus harmony blocks programmed in them!
@@MichaelWWestbrook I get the portability fly thing. I'm like you though in that I ALWAYS want to use my real amps WHENEVER I can and it seems a lot of places/churches just want whatever is "easiest" these days. I have an HxStomp and Iridium for when I have to be portable and they're "good" substitutes IMO but leave a lot in the feel department to be desired for me. Don't see many places going digital with drums but the amps are becoming not allowable (even silent) from what I'm seeing. Thanks for sharing your rig and other awesome content to us all.
People absolutely do run live amps through an Ox, however, a fly date is very different from lugging your gear under a bus. In the end, you ultimately do whatever is easiest to accommodate the artist. In a church setting it’s the same. You obviously want to be easy to work with. If the sound person says no amps, then you gotta run a direct board. We’d all LOVE to use what we want to use, but at the end of the day we are not here for us, but for the worship leaders or artists we work with. And that includes the sound engineer or M.D.
I have Quad Cortex. I bought the Tonex last Sunday. The Tonex sounds good, but it requires far too much effort and time to get the sound you're looking for. Don't even get me started on how difficult they make modeling. I can get the sounds I want on the Quad Cortex in few minutes what took me hours to do on the Tonex. I took the Tonex back to the store tonight. The Tonex is like using an Atari when the QC is like using an iPhone. Tonex needs desperately to overhaul their UI.
I have a Tone X paired to the effects loop of the Boss 1000GT Core, with the Disaster Area Micro Pro controlling the midi functions and it is the ultimate mini power rig for live performances going straight to a PA.
I have jumped into the water with a Tonex in the first loop of the GT-1000 (full version) as a touring rig. An entire rig in a backpack. There are challenges and it is plenty of work to dial in the sounds, but I am convinced that the sounds, switching, and flexibility I need are all there. I use a guitar that has a second output jack for the piezo pickup, and I can bring that in through the second FX loop on the GT1000. Then I can go instantly to an acoustic sound as well. For local shows, I still plan to use my H&K amp (true tubes but midi controllable!) in 4CM with the GT1000 and a physical second signal chain for acoustic sounds. What a great time to be a guitarist!
