What Amplifier withe the Dwarf

Hi,
It might be a stupid question but nevertheless since I’m a beginner I’ll ask it.
I understand you can use the MOD Dwarf with headphones, straight into your DAW or directly into the mix board, but what about with an amp (if you want to rehearse with your band or loudly at home) ?
What kind of amp, and with what setting, do you use the MOD Dwarf to have the same sound than the one you design ? Since everything about your sound (pedal board, amp sim, cabinet) happens inside the Dwarf, what amp do you use that won’t modify the sound you’re trying to achieve ?

Thanks !

P.S. I’m an early Kickstarter backer but haven’t received my Dwarf yet (I answered august-september in the survey). For now I usually play with one of two modeling amps (a Fender Mustang GT or a Marshall Code).

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Hi Tomcant,
you can use any amp, no problem. But indeed the sound will change. I have several banks of my sounds for several solutions. And each bank has the same sound but I squeezed them that it fits to the different Amps / Mixers etc. I run three parallel banks, one for my band’s amp, one for my home amp and one for the Mixer. If you don’t want to change the designed sound too much, you should go for a neutral (if it even exists) amp, like the Orange PedalBaby.

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I think the simplest answer is it all comes down to personal taste and what sounds good to you.

If you’re playing into an amp, then you might design your pedalboards not to include an cabinet plugins, maybe not any amp plugins either. You might also be better off using the Dwarf as part of a send/return loop from the amp if you have that option. I typically output to PA speakers so I’m counting on the simulated amp and amp sounds and will usually have those in my boards. Like @Kim said, if you’re playing in different places with different equipment you’ll likely want copies of your boards or use some snapshots to route around or disable amp and cab plugins. On my other digital modeling device it has a handy feature where you can change where the output is routed from in the pedalboard to be either at the end of the chain or before amp.

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Nice idea! I guess there is nothing stopping building such a switch into any mod pedalboards as well :slight_smile:

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Welcome to the forum, @tomcant.

Both @Kim and @unbracketed were right on. In the end, your question brings another question: what do you want to do with it? You have to evaluate your needs and possible use scenarios to better gauge what is best for you.

The fact that MOD units are also MIDI-capable synths (with instruments, sequencers, arpeggiators, etc) might be something to consider. If you want to make use of all that, a good full-range amp might be better than a guitar/bass one, as it will colour your sound a little less – or so one would hope! – while also responding to modelled instrument sounds.

(I once plugged my MOD into a Schertler amp and it sounded just heavenly – but hey!, Schertler amps sound heavenly by themselves.)

If the advice of a bloke with Asperger’s Syndrome and dyslexia is of any use, here it is: the only stupid question is the one you don’t ask. You can ask a movie star out on a date, and he/she will very likely turn you down, but if you don’t ask the answer is already “no”. Ever so often they go out to meet someone who simply invited them, so why not you?

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I’ve used pedalboards on the Duo where I had a mic on one input running through some harmonizers, a guitar chain on the other input, and MIDI keyboard hooked up to either percussion or synth. A one-person-band box! You’ll likely want a PA-type speaker for uses like this. Over the years I’ve output into small and big amps, PA speakers, headphones, and even little portable party speakers. It’s a flexible system.

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Just to clarify, what I mean by full-range encompasses PA speakers, (some) FRFR speakers, and amplifiers. The very Schertler I mentioned is used by many a one-man band.

Very much so. I’m still lost to what I can do with mine… :no_mouth:

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Thanks for all your answers. Very enlightening.
Can’t wait to try !

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Thank you. “Full-range” better describes what I meant.

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My amp takes an unbalanced ts cable however the output is balanced - can I just plug a ts cable into output 1 to my amp?

and connect the Dwarf post amp? I didn’t really understand the setup. Which amp are we talking about?

I have a blackstar amp with effects loop - I usually connect reverb/delay into that effects loop put boost / distortion in front of the amp.

I notice on dwarf the outputs are balanced (trs) these are usually for monitors / full range speaker - amp takes ts cable - I thought using balanced into non-balanced was a no no due to signal degradation.

I read on forum that the outputs were balanced/unbalanced but the tech specs on the wiki indicate balanced.

That means I need something between amp and dwarf I think like a di box.

My dwarf has been dispatched so will find out soon enough. Looks like an amazing pedal looking forward to getting it on my pedal board.

You don’t really need a DI to connect the MOD Dwarf in the FX loop of your amp.

Do I use ts cable to connect to amp or trs ? With trs will I get additional noise ?

I have a studio monitor that takes trs for instance and in my interface I have both unbalanced and balanced outputs and an amp out with ground lift.

Sorry for all the questions I’ll use trs cables to see how I get on

The noise is not “granted”. You can use normal guitar cables and work. If you do get the noise, try balanced cables and you may also end up needing a DI. But that depends on a lot of things in your setup that are actually external to the MOD Dwarf.

Thanks - one thing I love about the dwarf is that it’s pedal board friendly. I’ve been waiting for a product like this for over a year. I’m hopping I can reduce the size of my board :slight_smile:

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Welcome to the forum, @nelson_fretty.

A DI box takes an unbalanced signal and converts to balanced. It may not be what you need there. Dwarf’s output is balanced, so to route it to the RETURN jack, you would need something opposed to a DI box – that is, take the balanced signal and convert to unbalanced, such as a reamp device.

My advice would be to NOT use the Dwarf in the effects loop. Too much trouble, impedance mismatch, and very prone to raise the noise floor. That was discussed at more length here.

UPDATE: @bassyben just posted a very thorough test in which he addresses this very issue. Please check it out.

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