@Dave Davies Absolutely could have sounded better. I just think that if the songs are good and people enjoy the music the "tone and feel" aren't as important as we guitarists sometimes like to make it seem. There is no wrong way to do it though. If chasing tone makes you inspired and happy that's just as cool.
@guitar bonedo thank you for these videos, a great way to hear all these great options side by side without interjecting verbal commentary or bias towards a certain unit. I would be happy recording music with any of these they all sound great in their own way.
I am loving the fact we now have reasonable silent-recording options. I've gone through a few and settled on the DSM & Humboldt Simplifier DLX which is incredibly "amp like" with only the reverb in digital..and no digital interface along with the NUX MG-30 to give me good amp sounds with all the pedals you'd really need. You guys do great demos, thanks!
All are very usable sounds but the UA definitely sounds harsh easier and I feel using some high cuts would help. But it doesn't offer that kind of feature out of the box so you need to do it in the DAW whereas on the others you can swap IRs at least.
I think that maybe if you reduced a little the presence on Acs1 it would match the real amp in the middle of the heart :-) Just wanted to say that this is the best review of all !! You really nailed it !! Great tone on all the pedals !!!
In my opinion I like the Iridium because it is a pedal that has body definition and you can feel the bass very well defined maybe it is not the best in terms of clean tones but with the OD it sounds great.
I hear why everyone says the Iridium is “too dark”. To me, it just sounds like an AC30 mic’ed with a ribbon mic as opposed to something like a 57 or e906. Personally, I prefer that warm, rich sound to the brighter sound of the the other two. Especially for overdriven tones.
The ACS1 on the only one that allows you to split two different amps and cabs and run one into each channel in stereo... I prefer the Fender in one side and the Vox in the other.
This is a great comparison 😊 It sounds like the UA pedals had slightly more treble compared to the real amps and the iridium and ACS-1 had more bass and low-mids. I think they all sat well in the mix though and if you listened to any of them without the others then you’d probably be happy. The only sound I didn’t like was the Vox tone on the Walrus but am aware that an AC style of tone is notorious for being harder to emulate correctly on the modellers. You need to compare the UA pedals with the bigger modellers (Helix, QC, Axe FX 3) to see how they compare to that - I’m a helix user so would be great to know 👍
The AC30 is ridiculously difficult to emulate in a pedal. Even Brian Wampler's thirty something still didnt sound authentic. The ruby is the best attempt I have heard so far in getting closest to the amp tone. If it does a convincing Rory Gallagher tone then I might just pick one up to use with my Wampler Bravado head pedal platform.
@@jameskavanagh4300 yeah I think I agree there with it being the best attempt. There’s been so many failed attempts at the Vox sound which is crazy seeing as how realistec some other amps can be mirrored in digital form. I don’t think you’d be disappointed with the Ruby. Still finding it a bit sad that UA hasn’t considered midi after all of the complaints with their other pedals they released a little while ago though. At that kind of price you would expect it to come as standard when other devices a quarter of the price have it built in. There’s the single preset button but that isn’t quite the same
@@timhopkins3810 All I am looking for is a UA Ruby demo that shows me it can do that Rory Gallagher AC30 amp on 10 sound , if it can, then I will get one. Used with my Bravado head, it would be stellar.
I’m an HX Stomp (Helix) user as well. I switched away from Iridium because I wanted the effects loop. As good as these pedals are, enough time spent editing in HX edit, I can get almost dead on with these. My “real” amps blow all of them out of the water when the sound guy will actually let me turn them up…which is never. So HX for me it is.
@@jburdsinfuse that’s one of the reasons why I thought it would be interesting to see them go up against the Helix and other modellers - you can start adding we’d and lots more things to make the device sound closer to the real thing. Agree that the real thing still sounds more alive but in a similar way but slightly different to you, I just play at home now and can’t turn an amp up loud to sound good so a modeller is a no-brainer! 😊
Thanks for this real world comparison! Do you care to share if you used drums and bass plugs or did you use real ones? If plugs, what are they, please? I thought they sound amazing! And very well mixed also, congrats! Regards!
The Dream sounds fantastic for the Fender tone but I was surprised how much more accurate the Iridium sounded for the Vox tone than the Ruby. I wonder if switching out IRs on the Iridium could get the Fender tone sounding better
Switching IRs doesn't make the iridium get closer to a fender tone. I've bought the best of the best IRs that exist. Can't polish the turd that is the iridium round amp haha. The Dream is just in a completely different league. I partially agree on the iridium vox though.
yes you can get the fender tone sounding "better". changing IR is like changing the speaker and cabinet. if you play an amp through 10" speaker or 4/12" going to make a big different in the sound. also the mic placement and the mic them selves. the Iridium is one of the best IR loader in the market.
@@BluesCover I"m not saying IRs don't make a difference. They can help the iridium get ever so slightly closer to the real deal deluxe reverb. But the biggest problem with the iridium isn't the stock IRs. It's the actual preamp modeling of the amps its trying to model. It doesn't sound anything like the real amps, and THAT part is not swappable after the fact.
@@MitchellSpille well, I guess you never read the manual do you? I will just tell you this: look for Superdanger Studios youtube channel. look there for the dream65 vs Iridium. you will understand (I hope) your mistake. and I do recommend reading the manual before you are starting to post on things. now, you are probably pissed when you read those lines. cool! now you know how someone else feel when he read your comments! and by the way I recommend you to watch Jim Lil also. get little educated.
@@BluesCover I did read the manual for the iridium. I know the iridium inside out. I used it for over a year, gigs twice a week. I have also seen the exact video you're talking about, and its a great RU-vid channel with a really cool dude. BUT even he messed up some stuff from the iridium manual. He said the iridium middle knob is different and doesn't function as a normal eq knob, which is somewhat true. BUT he said with the mid knob down, that's what Strymon intended to be THE deluxe reverb sound, but if you read the manual, Strymon clearly states that the middle knob at noon is the deluxe reverb, to the right all the way is tweed, and to the left is MORE scooped than a blackface. Which is the main problem with the Iridium round model. It sounds NOTHING like a deluxe reverb. Doesn't matter how you eq it, doesn't matter what IRs you use, it still sounds likes Strymon round, not a deluxe reverb. Seriously not cool of you to just assume I don't know what I'm talking about or that I haven't read the manual. I used the iridium for my gigs and recording (I am a full time gigging and session musician), and I know the thing inside out, even all the hidden functions where you hold down fav or on while powering on the pedal to access more settings. But Strymon really didn't do a good job modeling the amps in the iridium, which is sad because Strymon usually makes great stuff. They really missed it on this one.
ACS1 on deluxe reverb was the winner for that round, otherwise I like the UA pedals the most on this demo! Iridium was strangely low passed and muffled sounding
I’m using an Orion Effects Deluxe61 into my Dream 65 because it gives me more midrange and (at least for my personal taste) a waaaaay better Tremolo than the one on the Dream… the Deluxe61 obviously being a Bias Trem, while the one on the Dream models an Opto Trem, not my fave. The Spring Reverb in the Dream sounds fantastic. I know it’s an expensive combination, but it totally nails it for me when I have to do ampless gigs.
The woodrow nails it, a little brighter. The iridium is closest on vox. The ruby sounds great but is less “acccurate”. I like the brightness, but i wonder if it’s actually a good thing. The iridium is too dark on the fender. Dream sounds great - also maybe too bright though.
Great video and comparison. My thoughts - i think the Iridium is a greatly under-rated and under-appreciated pedal. Strymon has done some real magic with the amp simulation. In every instance of this comparison - the Iridium just sits much better in the mix compared to the rest. The Dream and ACS1 sounded too thin and nasally? on the deluxe reverb. The Iridium middle knob works differently on the round setting. It sounds best at 9 o'clock position imo. noon and above puts it into tweed emulation. VOX sounded best on Iridium too. The iridium sounds like it has the needed low and mids to give the tone some body and character which in turn makes it sit well in the mix. The Dream / ACS1 might sound better by themselves maybe because they are a bit brighter? but they definitely seem to lack the body of the tone. again just my personal opinion/observation.
Sold my ACS-1 and bought Universal Audio Ruby instead. Best choice I've ever made. It's completely different league. Walrus has very low gain and too much compression which kinda swallow all the character of any OD pedal in front of it. Universal Audio completely mitigates this problem and overall sounds "alive". I love it.
I've been considering the ACS1, mainly because of loadable IRs and two separate amps on each side. But...I'm reading comments like this often. UA's options are stereo out but with the same tone?
@@clintyoung9902 the option to load L/R with different IR is for sure cool, but you can achieve better result with Universal Audio or any "stereo" amp simulator. what you need to do is put just 2 overdrive pedals in from of the amp simulator and plug one into L and second into R input. The best is when you combine pedals with different character (transparent OD vs. Tube screamer for example) all you need is a ABY box or Y cable splitter. The result is much more complex and musical tone. And let's be honest...we all have more than one overdrive pedal :D
@@ongki_kadek I've watched some demos of V2 and indeed they improve it by a lot, specially adding more gain. But they didn't quite solve the compression problem when it kinda swallows all character of different OD pedals and just doesn't have enough headroom. Compared with the UAFX the difference is huge, but depends on your preferences. UAFX is not that versatile as it only has one amp model with fixed IRs.
The real amps won it for me, but the one that surprised me the most was the Tweed and Woodrow. Didnt think i would enjoy them as much as i did. The ACS1, Ruby, Dream, and Woodrow sounded far superior to the Iridium in my own opinion. The Iridium is too dark for my own tastes.
It's a little lifeless and emotionless. It sounds super close, but in that Kemper dead sort of way. The Woodrow vs the Tweed was legit a dead ringer as you said. Good stuff.
I preferred the real amps every single time, but the closest for each (to me) was: Fender > ACS-1, Vox Dirty > Iridium, Vox Delay > ACS-1, Tweed Deluxe w/ ODR-1 > not a fan of the UA pedal copy. I was shocked that I didn’t choose UA for everything. The ACS-1 was a clear winner.
The dream 65 and the woodrow sound amazingly close, the ruby is way off. Iridium nails the vox tone but is way off on that fender tone. Acs1 is more than decent on everything. I guess if I had to choose for how beautiful it sounds I'd go for the dream '65, if I had to choose in terms of versatility I'd go for the acs1. In an ideal world I would have the real thing for recording, and pick up an acs1 for playing live.
Just to help you all. I am not sure why people actually buy the AC15 or AC30 from who people actually tweak their own IR's to buy from experienced professionals. I am HX Stomp user and I am able to get good Matchless, Bad Cat, AC30, FenderTwin 65, Dumble type of sounds. This is not done on my own but by buying packs from people who have their amp and speaker IR's Included. Till you all learn how these units work, you will keep over Looking whats already good.
Amen! I just discovered IR packs from professional musicians and producers, and it’s opened a whole new world for me on my Iridium. What a sweet pedal!
Disappointed with the UA pedals. I thought they’d be clear winners since they only offer one dedicated amp vs the three in the Irdium and ACS1. But to my ears they sounded the most sterile.
The Ruby is the only one I am interested in and it gets real close to the amp tones. The ACS1 and iridium didnt sound anything like the real amp. I think UA are onto a real winner with the Ruby pedal.
