I was one of the two guitar players from my church who was selected to play with a known worship leader from abroad for a youth event on the upcoming months. Needless to say, I was really stoked about the opportunity and I saw it as a chance to upgrade my board and do some adjustments to make my overall sound better.

We had at church one big Marshall amp (yes, you’ve heard that right a Marshall amp) that I was never too fond to play with, so I decided to leave it to my fellow guitar player. As you may know, this created a problem for me because now I had to bring my practice amp to the rehearsals. I mean, it was a little bit of hassle but I liked the sound of my amp so that made everything easier. But as you may guess by now, some challenges immediately followed…

First, it was the overall amplification. My 15-watt amp was not loud enough for the room and I had to put a mic in front of it to go through the mixing desk and have a more powerful sound. Dealing with the cables and dealing with the sound engineer to achieve the perfect volume was a little bit of hassle, but hey, it worked, most of the time… But as the rehearsals kept intensifying and the date of the event approached I was starting to get a little worried about what the final solution would look like. Should I stick to micing up my little amp for the event and hope for the best? Should I invest some money in a more powerful one?

After giving it some thought I started to toy with this idea: what if there was something like a pedal that somehow could decently emulate the sound of an amp? What if this pedal (if it exists) could be directly connected to a mixer and provide a decent sound?

I didn’t know it by then but pretty much I was looking for something called “amp in a box pedals” and on top of that, I needed one with a cabinet simulator, so the pedal could sound good connected directly to the mixing board. At first, I thought this piece of gear was somehow something mythical… boy, I was wrong!

What Exactly is an Amp in a Box and What it Does?

Excellent question. An amp in a box (AIAB) as its name suggests it’s an effects pedal that emulates the pre-amp section of an actual amp (it is usually modeled after famous ones) and provides you with an easy and portable solution for not having to carry your big amp or cabinet to every rehearsal or gig. Some models even come with something called a “cabinet simulator”; this means it will emulate the sound being produced by an amp that’s connected to a guitar cabinet. In essence, it will allow you to connect the pedal to the mixer, so your sound will come up straight on the main speakers. Bye, bye microphones…

I think the first company (or at least one of the firsts) to go into this niche was Tech21 from New York City. They revolutionized the market with a product called SansAmp which was an analog tube amplifier emulator that enabled the player the benefit of direct recording and playing (as we mentioned before, this meant going straight into the stage PA). If you visit their website, you’ll notice they still produce this product among many other pedals that emulate the sound of specific amps. Enough history for the moment, let’s keep going.

Cabinet Simulators

Before continuing, it’s necessary to further clarify something, there are mainly two types of these pedals: the ones with a cabinet simulator and the ones without a cabinet simulator. This is important to note, because if you get a pedal like the Thirty Something from Wampler (that’s designed to sound after a VOX AC30) and put it at the end of your chain and expect it to sound good, you’re not going the get the sounds you want; this is because you need a cabinet simulator to go with it, and that will grant you the ability to go directly to the mixer or another interface. Does it make sense?

On the other hand, if you take a pedal like the Liverpool from Tech21 NYC, you will notice it has a dedicated button to active/deactivate cabinet simulator. This is what allows you to go straight to the mixer, a recording interface, your headphones and be able to hear your whole signal like it’s coming from a real amp.

There are also pedals whose forte would be just cabinet simulation. For instance, the ADA GCS it’s a pedal (more like a box :)) just dedicated to that; it’s simple to use and will allow you to choose for instance, between a British sound or an American one, the possibility to fine tune the position of the virtual microphone and as a big plus, it works as a DI box too, so you don’t have to add that piece of gear in order to go to the board.

Another example would be the Chameleon from AMT. This pedal is also just dedicated to cabinet simulation and will grant you the ability to choose the cab size, the overall tone of the cabinet and of course, the mic positioning (it can even simulate the rotation of the microphone!).

Cabinets With Impulse Response (IR)

Finally, nowadays you have cabinet simulators that allow you to use something called “Impulse Response (IR)”. This simply means that you have a specific file in your computer that’s modeled after an amp and you can download that file into the pedal and have that as a setting. The Mooer Radar (which received 2 thumbs up from Pete Thorn!) comes in a tiny enclosure and have this cool feature (among many other things like 30 different cab models!).

You can also check a pedal like the NUX Solid Studio which also allows you to choose between cabinet models (8 to be precise) and the flexibility to pick different famous microphones that match your taste. As a big plus, it also comes with an amp simulation feature (it works as a very simple AIAB), so basically, this pedal is all-in-one.

Can an AIAB Pedal Power my Guitar Cabinet?

I’m pretty sure by now you’re excited about the possibilities these type of pedals have to offer. If you’re like me, you have already wondered, “ok, if I connect this pedal to my cabinet, I really have a portable solution for not having to deal with my amp-head all the time”. It’s a nice idea, but it won’t work. AIAB pedals are pretty much pre-amp pedals. This simply means they will let you shape the tone of your sound (the typical bass, mid, treble and drive knobs) but they won’t power your cabinet.

For powering a cabinet you need, well you’ve already guessed, an amp! This confusion arises because amps normally come with both: a pre-amp section and the power amp section. Usually, the distinction is not made and the misunderstanding happens. But in the simplest terms, the pre-amp shapes your tone and the power amp gives volume (power) to your tone. They both work together but are not the same. Just remember, when guitar players talk about this they do not normally make the distinction and all end up being called the “amp”.

I’m not very familiar with power amps in the form of pedals, but I’m aware that Electro Harmonix has some related products, specifically the 44 Magnum Amplifier. I need to still do some research, so in the meantime check them out.

Also, I think it is safe to make the difference between a head amp and a combo amp. A “head amp” it’s just that, the amp section and comes separately with from the guitar cabinet. A combo amp is the amp head with the guitar cabinet all in one piece. Later on, you will find out that a guitar cabinet simulator is a great tool for conveniently recording a loud amp and creating different and interesting tones resulting from one amp head into various virtual cabinets.

How a 30$ Pedal Saved my Gig

After some very needed explanation, I think its time to come back to my history to illustrate some valid points.

As I mentioned before, the deadline for the event was quickly approaching and I was beginning to have anxiety concerning this. On top of that, the rehearsals we’re intensifying so the time had come to actually find a proper solution about the amp.

I did a lot of research, looked through a lot of products online and came up with different possible solutions. I always wanted to have the VOX AC30 type of sound but the pedals I was hoping to get was a little out of range for me at the moment. I also realized that having an AIAB pedal was just half the solution. I was going to need a cabinet simulator to complete my rig and that meant spending more money.

But there was another major challenge: time. I must admit I procrastinated a little bit with this so now, ordering online, was pretty much out of the question (at the moment I was living on a country that had minimum 2 to 3 weeks of delivery time from any online store and sometimes the wait could be longer).

A Visit To My Local Music Store

That pretty much left me with the local music stores. I was starting to lose hope because I was well acquainted with the products they usually showcased. Just so I wouldn’t have to actually visit the stores and eventually get disappointed, I decided that a good first step was just to call one of them.

So that’s what I did, I picked up my cell phone, did the call and I was swiftly being attended by one of the sales representatives. I remember saying something like this: “Do you have by any chance a guitar pedal that somehow will work as an amp, and that could be also connected directly to the mixer board?”.

Notice how I omitted the cabinet simulation part; this was mainly because I was assuming that most amps in a box pedals have this feature (as I mentioned before, this is not always the case, so be careful!). The sales representative just quickly answered me: “Yes, we have that type of pedal, it’s a Behringer GDI.” I thanked him for the info and finished the call.

This gave me some relief because such a pedal was available on the local market, but also, I had my doubts because it was a Behringer and in the past, I had a bad experience with one of their products. So again, I started doing my online research just to have a glimpse of what the guitar community had to say about this pedal.

The reviews were somehow mixed; a bunch of people called it a “one trick pony” with just one main type of sound. Others said it was pretty much a great pedal. Later I found out that basically, the pedal is a copy of the Sans Amp GT2, but the difference in price is, well… big.

So, I did what at the end every guitar player should do: go to the store and try the pedal! No matter how many demos you can hear on YouTube or somewhere else, at the end you must try the pedal for yourself and let your ears guide through to tell what’s a good or bad sound.

Long story short, I’ve tried the guitar with a humbucker guitar and a solid-state amp, and to be honest, it was pretty good! No signal loss, no weak tones, I was impressed. I ended up paying a little more than the online price, but man, the problem was pretty much solved!

The Main Advantage Of The GDI21

I mentioned before that the Behringer V-Tone DI GDI21  is a copy of the GT2, but it has one main advantage: the GDI21 comes with an XLR output. This is the output that has the cabinet simulation and as you can already guess, it also works as a DI box (it’s a balanced output, the type of output that sounds the best and the sound engineers love), so you can go straight from your pedal to the mixer. That right there was a winner for me.

The GDI21 also has a normal “instrument cable” output (jack plugs) so you can connect it another amp while you’re still using the XLR output. This is really great because you can also use this feature to have a personal monitor so to say.

A few days later the first moment of truth came when I tried my whole rig for the very first time without an amp at church. I put the GDI21 at the end of the signal chain and from there went straight into the mixer so I could hear myself through the PA… It was fantastic! For the very first time, I was able to hear my guitar properly in the mix with the other instruments. It also saved me a lot of hassle because well, all I had to do now was show up with my guitar and my pedalboard. Nice and simple.

The Main Event

You might remember the main reason I was looking for a solution like this was that we had to play at a youth event and I needed a more powerful amp. Well, having this pedal as my “amp” did save me a lot of trouble and made everything so much easy. First, I didn’t have to carry a huge and heavy amp to the location. This solved a lot of transportation and logistics issues both for me and the rest of the team.

Secondly, I think that one of the main beneficiaries was actually the sound engineer from the event hall. Now, he pretty much could control the overall volume of my instrument from the mixing board (which was way far away from the stage) and this also allowed him to give me a better return volume on the floor monitors; it was win-win.

I’ve also noticed that my set-up worked really well on this type of hall; I think it had to do with the natural reverberation occurring there; I’ve heard a recording from a song that we did during one of the rehearsals and the overall tone of the guitar was great and I was actually impressed that it worked that well.

To sum it up, the main event was great, the sound was great, the feeling was great, the simplicity was great… all of this with just a 30$ pedal. Not bad in my opinion.

Some Things to Consider

You may be thinking by now, “ok, ok, so the pedal is great, but… I betcha it’s not perfect, right?”. Correct, this pedal is not perfect. And I will give you my main concern about this piece of gear.

The GDI21 has the option to choose between three types of amps and three main settings. In essence for the amps you have:

• Californian (modeled after a MESA Boogie).
• British (modeled after a Marshall).
• Tweed (modeled after a Fender).

And three main gain modes:

• Hot.
• Hi-Gain.
• Clean.

Here’s the main issue: the only way to get a proper clean tone out of this pedal is to use the Tweed amp with the Clean setting. If you’re trying to get a clean Marshall tone or a somehow clean MESA tone, then… I wish you luck! There are ways to clean some drive if you roll down the knob of your guitar volume (this works best with the Marshall setting) but in my experience, I had to go back to Californian and Clean settings to get what I wanted. So yes, that’s my main complain about this pedal.

But if you’re not really concerned about that, and you want to use it as a distorted amp, then I think you’ve found what you need. But also keep in mind, this pedal only costs around 30$, it’s super cheap! Yes, the construction is not great, and the knob design feels weird sometimes, but still, you get a lot more (way more in my opinion) for what you’re a paying for.

The Main Advantages of AIAB Pedals

The title of this post stated there are some reasons now to start taking these pedals seriously. I wanted to illustrate it to you with my personal experience, but in case you want a more digested input, here’s a list of why I think AIAB pedals are great and you should consider at least buying one and experiment with it. In essence, they are:

• Portable. Compare the size of a regular pedal to a real amp. I know it seems like an unfair competition but it’s the truth. Because of this, they are also way lighter as an actual amp and you can have them in your pedalboard. You can have mini amps or practice amps, but often times they’re not powerful enough for gigging on a larger venue.
• Affordable. A boutique AIAB like the Plexi Drive Deluxe from Wampler can cost you around 240$. A brand-new Marshall tube amp can cost you around 1.500$… If you’re trying to get something like a vintage amp, that can be really expensive too and often times the condition of used gear is not the best.
• Practical. Because you can have budget-friendly AIAB pedals, you can get a couple of them and experiment with the sounds you get before spending hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars on a real amp. This is also great for recording because suddenly you get different tone “flavors” at the fraction of the cost.
• Lifesaver. Imagine that you’re in the middle of a gig and suddenly your amp stops working and you don’t have a spare amp. Who you gonna call? Ghost…ok, the joke was bad… but now picture this: you DO have a spare amp and it’s in your pedalboard, it’s your amp pedal. You simply enable the cabinet simulation (or use a cab sim pedal), connect it to the mixer and boom, gig saved! Which leads to the other point…
• Gearsaver. Tube amps sound great, but they have a reputation (a bad one) in terms of durability and strength. Carrying your amp in and out from the rehearsal, to the gig, to your home, back to the rehearsal has a toll on it. You can get decent and credible tones from an AIAB pedal and save your precious tube amp for truly special and necessary occasions. In the end, this will also save you a lot of money (and frustration).
• Versatile. In case you don’t want to replace your amp, but get a different tone out of it, you can use these pedals to achieve that. It’s a practical, interesting and affordable way to get different sounds from your well-acquainted amp. Just use the pedal as your pre-amp and off you go.
• Consistent. These type of pedals will always give you a consistent sound. When you play with a real amp, you have to be aware of the environment, mic position, size of the room, cabinet placement, and so on. Having an AIAB reduces all the external factors that can impact your sound because they’re not affected by them in the same way as a regular guitar amp with a cabinet.

Also, there’s something I would like to mention. If you just want to have a cabinet simulation, this is a, a cabinet simulation pedal, there’s one great advantage of investing in one: recording.

This is especially true if you’re on your home studio, with different amp heads but you cannot really play them loud enough for recording through a mic or recording purposes in general. The cab sim pedal is the perfect tool to do it because it will let you record your favorite amp with the volume you want, without annoying your neighbors; for this reason, it’s great for practice purposes as well.

It will also foster some experimentation because you can “run” different amps through the different cabinet and mic models and find new and interesting tones.

One Last Thought

Thanks again for reaching this point and taking your time reading the article. That’s very nice from you.

I think two main questions will still resonate in the head of the skeptic player. One being, can you get a decent tone from an AIAB pedal? The short answer would be yes. The second one should be, can I replace my amp with such a pedal? The answer here is something like “jein” as my German friends sometimes say. It’s a funny word because is the combination between ja (yes) and nein (no) and it expresses the possibility of doing something but not in all cases.

My experience is that you can replace your amp for most occasions. I know the sound of a boutique tube amp it’s hard to beat, but trust me, there are pedals and cabinet simulators that can give you something pretty close.

Add to it other facts like the size of the venue or the room and how they interact with the overall tone of what’s being played and the sound you can get it’s legit. Plus, you get all the benefits listed before like portability, affordability and a practical solution for direct recording and rehearsing in the quietness of your room.

What do you think? What’s your experience with these types of pedals. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Share your experience in the comments. I’m sure is very valuable.

Until the next time,

M.M

Gear Mentioned:

*Some affiliate links below.

• TEC21 NYC SansAmp.
• Wampler Thirty Something.
• TECH21 NYC Liverpool.
• ADA GCS.
• AMT Chameleon.
• Mooer Radar.
• NUX Solid Studio.
• VOX AC30.
• EHX 44 Magnum Amplifier.
• Behringer V-Tone DI GDI21.
• SansAmp GT2.
• Wampler Plexi Drive Deluxe.

Additional Resources:

• https://youtu.be/Qp_oyu8fFGg – A demo of different cabinet simulation pedals from Brian Wampler.
• https://youtu.be/X8W9IKWkwbM – Another video from the Wampler crew explaining why you should use a cabinet simulator.
• https://youtu.be/JIhLdNd7cao – You can see an interesting demo of the Behringer GDI21 here.
• https://youtu.be/t4oR13iZbFk – A demo of the Mooer Radar by Pete Thorn.

Credits:

• Image 1 and Feature Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sun-basix/
• Image 2: https://www.flickr.com/photos/penmachine/