hey muris, i was wondering how long you have been using your current live rig. your tone is amazing. that said, are you satisfied with everything? since i heard your tonal diversity, i have been considering a rack system instead of my 100w tube heads. i have read reviews on practically all of your gear, but i would like to hear from someone that i have actually heard/enjoyed. particularly the prophecy and the 2:90. did you try any other pre/poweramps on your way to deciding on your current rig? anyway, just looking for some info from someone whom i know knows what their talking about.

Thanks for asking!!

Well,I've had Prophecy since 2001 I think.Before 2:90 I had Two Fifty Mesa power amp,also in use with Prophesy.
Great one as well but I just needed more watts,that's all.
About rack system,I think much important stuff is to have Midi option while storing presets etc.
Prophesy is Tube preamp with FXs and has great Midi support.
I wanted to have TriAxis as well but I found it hard to use with expression(as general unit's output volume) pedal routed via Midi.
Prophesy does that job with 127 moves while Triaxis has only 20,with is not what I was looking for.
Maybe I'll take TriAxis and G-Force(which I had few years ago) in near future,just as a another rack setup...
Tube heads are ok but you're limited with sound options.
Again,it still depends of what you're going to play...
Hope this helps a bit

Interesting ... I'm thinking for the future now, but one thing I want to build into one of my tube amps is some midi support so you can switch presets without compromising the tone at all - I was pondering this on the way to a meeting this morning and have a few ideas. But for interest, what would you want in the midi support? My gizmo would allow you to store a number of presets, each preset consisting of exact positions for all the knobs and switches - after that I'm not sure what else you would need. Don;t some tube amps have this?

ive been looking at the prophecy 2. is this the same as you have, or did they stop making it? rocktron website doesnt have it, nor could i find it on ebay. i cant find where it says that the prophesy 2 has any tubes in it. did they stop making the tube model?

As far as i know Prophesy II is just a newer version of Prophecy and i was also thinking about getting one in the future!

Prophesy 2 is the same unit as Prophesy 1,it only has some signature presets...
IMO,that's not much useful unless you have same guitar,power amp,cabinet etc as the artist himself...

If your amp would offer that Andrew,I MUST HAVE one!!
And if it's dry amp without EFX,you don't need anything else in Midi support.
Just add some processor that supports Midi as well in EFX loop and that's it.

Hmm - I really don't think it would be too hard from an electronics perspective - the only part I don;t have an answer for yet is replacement of a potentiometer with a device or circuit that can vary its resistance based on a digital signal. One possibility would be a Light Dependant resistor and an LED with varying mark space ratio, but there has to be a better way, I'll do some research. The key point is that the control electronice mustnt interact with the tube circuit in any way at all ... I could even build it so it could be added to existing amplifiers I think.

Ok, its a long term project but I think it is a good idea - love the idea of switching FX and amp voicing all at the same time - could be really cool!

Looking forward to it mate!!
As I told you last night,please keep me updated Andrew!

So andrew, if you built this midi device, would you be able to hook it up to your own footswitch and switch between presets and effects as well?

Actually,trick is in preamp.
Tube heads have preamp and amp section together while in rack setups it's usually splited.
Now,amp section normally stay untouched while preamp goes through changes.
Those changes are not that are not that big if preamp has one-two-three or four channels but if you want about 100 presets to store inside the same preamp and change them via Midi,it requires more job.
When you have that done,it's easy to connect EFX unit to it and run it together,by Midi OUT/Through or som.

And yeah,they are some tube heads on the market with full Midi,must check them for sure!!

As Muris says, you could do both at once if the midi pedal was up to it. MIDI has facility for channels and program chang messgaes, you could set your amp up as once channel and the effect as another and have them work together, your pedal sending the appropriate messages to each device.

Apologies Muris - don't want to side track the issue or babble on on your sub-forum.

But (always a but )...

Andrew long time since I did electronics but what about using a more simple DA convert before the potentiometers rather than an LDr/LED array? Just a thought - and probably wrong - electronics isn't a strong point of mine (or as my wife would say 'have you any strong points Tony?' ).

Cheers,
Tony

ps also, quite a few tube amps with midi - H and K and Engl amps spring to mind plus the new Marshall...

No worries Tony,be my guest!!

The reason I suggested LDRs (perhaps opto isolators would work here too) is that I want this to be a drop-in replacement for a variable resistor both for retro fitting, and to keep any of the digital stuff far far away from the analog path. But, I am totally open to suggestions, so if I have missed something here maybe you could PM me and we can continue this gear head discussion in private and not corrupt this thread further

You're not corrupting at all guys but if you wanna some privacy,that's fine tho

I'm fine either way, just didn't want to bore you all

Thank you Andrew My Hughes and Kettner Switchblade has this exactly, 128 presets including digital effects that's added anaolg to the signal... somehow.

Select a MIDI preset and it remembers all the knob settings and indicates their value with a led (if you turn the knob it will lit up when you reach the spot)
It has a master volume and and a separate master volume for the preset, meaning that the MIDI preset sound has also a set volume which stands in relation to the other presets. Then a master master that you can adjust to bedroom or arena rock volumes while the MIDI preset master still keeps the volume-relation.

SOUnds very cool - couple of good ideas to use there - I like the LED lighting up when you get to the spot

Ohh yeah ,Switchblade...almost to forgot
I listened to some demos at theirs website,sounds really good.
Thanks MikeM

I'm thinking about to buy the Prophesy, but it's a bit expensive, hehe, so I don't know if I end bying the Chameleon 2000... anybody knows if the Chameleon is a good rack ??

(of course I know Prophesy is better, but how much better?)