The Twang! Amps & Beyond (Pt.2)

Steely Dan legend Elliott Randall further explores the alternative options for guitar amplification.

Rounding out last month’s column on alternatives to conventional guitar amplification (read ‘old-school’), let’s look at a few more options. First up, the Red Box output, a speaker cab alternative. I have several devices that offer ‘Red Box ambience emulation’. In plain English, what that means is that, thanks to some very clever engineering, the final output stage of the given device sounds as though it is being run through a warm cabinet and mic’d with an SM57 (or two, in the case of stereo)… and it’s really convincing. I have Red Box Out on my Hughes & Kettner amplifiers and also on my TC Nova System multi-effects pedal. It’s a great solution for recording direct into your DAW’s AD/DA converters, and keeping that ‘amp’ sound real.