I'm with you on that one Red! I started out with a valvetronix AD50 and the sound was brilliant. The built-in attenuation is very useful. I really need to let you know something about my journey with them, too. After getting the great AD50, I bought an AD30 and while it was good, it was nowhere near as guttsy as the AD50. The low-end in the sound had a nice power that the smaller AD30 didn't have. I kept 2 AD30's for Brian delay stuff and even changed the speakers on them. But I sold both shortly afterwards.
I then bought the AD60 as it was supposed to be a mark up from the budget range of VT's with plenty of effects and extra amp models. But as I tried it I didn't like the sound and worst of all, my booster distorted the input of the amp! Weird... The only note of goodness from the AD60 would be the recorded sound. I hated to play on it, but the recording sounded pretty authentic on the AC30 model. So, again, I sold this one as well!
After this, I thought I couldn't go wrong with an AD50 2x12 model. Twice the goodness, surely. But no, not really. It sounded a bit too smooth and polite!
In the end, I bought a 2nd AD50 1x12 and it was just as great as the first! Hurrah! Hopefully this will help you out. I didn't want to see you buying one of the crummy AD30's just cause the name might be similar to AC30. It's a tiny amp which sounds too thin and weedy. It's got some attitude, but really, not enough low-end.
The only point I'd make about these amps would be to remove the backplate. Once I unscrewed the back off the (AD30) amp, it could breathe! Sounded a lot nicer and didn't have any low-end honk. I still haven't tried it on my AD50. Even though I've had it for over two years, but maybe a day will come when I will venture there!
Adam.
Hmmm, well I finally got power!
Haven't had a chance to run it through an amp yet, but with headphones on I have to say it's a little underwhelming. Actually it sounds pretty much the same as when I play with my ME-50! The Deacy sounds great though.
The same as your ME50? Ooh, that's strange. I think when the sounds are used in tracks, they work really well. Maybe, not as much when heard bare. But still very good emulations. I especially like the clean sounds you can get off it. It really does sound like Brian's setup, then. The harder rocking side is more difficult to reproduce, due to the lack of gain I mentioned before.
I do wonder what it's like through an amp as I only used it on my AD50. It was ok, but seemed to muddy the sound up. Maybe the AC30CC2X would be more interesting. Hmm...
Adam.
Hmmm... tried it through my Classic 30 just now and it's still not sounding 'out of this world' as such, hehe.
Some settings are great fun to play with, like the Keep Yourself Alive one. When I was playing directly into the computer yesterday, I was actually pretty surprised by the Crazy Little Thing acoustic setting. It was much closer than it had sounded on the demonstrations I've heard.
Are there like... obvious mistakes I'm making with the pedal settings, here? I mean it's sounding okay at the moment but a couple of the sounds are AWOL (the WWRY sound isn't really recognisable as such) and with the TYMD bank I'd never know there was cabinet modelling if I hadn't been told beforehand.
Had a 2nd go at the pedal. Bit better this time. Probably my favourite bank to play with, so to speak, is 4. I still can't get it sounding quite like WWRY, but I'm fond of it because it has a certain sort of Earls Court sound about it, through my amp at least.
Also the Bo Rhap bank was fun because there's a setting that fades in and out of the Deacy amp. I spent about ten minutes playing Lennon's "I Found Out" without realising it, ha-ha.
It's a neat little pedal really. Not a revelation, but fun to tool around with.
