On the whole, guitar amp modellers suck big hairy balls. No point in beating around the bush. I’ve tried most of what’s on the Market, and they all sucked.

Back before I met my wife, when I had no kids and really didn’t give a rat’s ass about my neighbours, I went through a series of nice valve amps that sounded incredible and made your nipples vibrate. My favourites were the Peavey EVH 5150 and the Mesa Rectoverb. I used to play through those things for hours every day.

Then I moved into a flat, and shortly afterwards my future wife moved in too. That, understandably, resulted in me parting company with my valve amp. The guy who bought that Mesa got a bargain!

This was 2001. Digital amp modelling was taking off in the shape of the Line 6 Pod series. I bought one since they were quite cheap. Compared to the amp modelling that preceded it, the POD was terrific. Compared, to a real amp, the POD was pap. There’s a sterility to these modellers, combined with a slighlty unpleasant fizz, and a stiff feel. This feeling is the hardest thing to quantify, impossible to describe to a non-guitarist, yet the most important thing to a guitarist, even more so than tone. A good guitar amp does more than just amplify your guitar, it’s a instrument in it’s own right, and like all instruments feel is everything. So this failing on the PODs part is significant.

A few years later the POD XT came out promising everything the original failed to deliver. I snapped one up immediately, and was disappointed to find that things hadn’t really progressed much. I’m not entirely convinced the XT improved on the original at all. Mine’s currently gathering dust in a bedroom drawer – it’s a hateful thing.

I’ve tried going down the software only route. This accomplished little other than killing my company laptop. Guitar Rig was just as lifeless and fizzy as the POD, and I spent more time chasing tones with POD Farm than actually enjoying playing. No, software didn’t help either.

It’s got to the point where I don’t plug my guitar in now as it sounds better unplugged than through a modeller. But it’s an electric guitar and I’m a rocker at heart, so “better” is relative. An electric guitar needs to be plugged into an amp, without one the experience is a vastly diminished. I’ve played a Tyler similar to my own through a nice Mesa at GuitarGuitar and the experience was put-a-smile-on-your-face sublime, addictive even. The lack of an amp has led to my guitar being almost permanently hung on the wall, which is sad because I really miss playing it. It’s been my sole passion since I was 16, my wife and kids excepted of course.

I’ve heard really great things about the AxeFX, read some stellar reviews, and listened to some great clips. It’s allegedly a guitar amp and FX processor that not only sounds real, but feels like a real amp too. Of course, it comes with a hefty price tag to match, but so too do the 60 amps it models. This box of tricks is a true instrument with all the sag, feel, and response so sadly missing in every other modeller on the market. It’s only available direct, so cannot be auditioned in person, but Fractal Audio are so confident in their product that you get a 14 day no quibble return period. I’ve been drooling over these for about a year now and really hope to get one sooner rather than later. It looks like a real replacement for the Mesa amp in a quiet, family friendly package. Finally a reason to pull my guitar off the wall – if I ever convince my wife that it’d be money well spent, the last “amp” I’d ever need.