I got to try one out for a few days. Overall, its a pretty great recording tool! I used it with two amps: my Roadster and my Tech 21 Trademark 10. :lol:
The Roadster's clean channels, along with the reverb, translated extremely well. Lonestar owners should all own a CabClone! My lead tone, Channel 3, Vintage, basically copied Petrucci's settings, also translated extremely well. What did not translate well were heavy rhythm tones. However, that may have been more my fault than the CabClone's. There is the obvious absence of a speaker moving air, no amp will change that, but I had been tweaking settings on Channel 4 and I will just leave it at "I'd another shot at it."
The big surprise was how good the Tech 21 Trademark 10 sounded through the CabClone! The Trademark 10 is Tech 21's "recording amp" and has an XLR Speaker Emulated D.I. that sounds pretty much exactly like the amp does in real life, which happens to be pretty darn good. I was betting on a worse tone simply because I had 2 speaker simulators doing the same thing on the same signal. Apparently, I was wrong because the tone was better and there was no additional noise.
My other amp is a Mesa Boogie Rectifier Recording Preamp which shares some strong overall tonal similarities with the CabClone. I'm curious if it played a part in the CabClone's design. :?:
You may have noticed every amp I ran through the CabClone was a Rectifier of some sort which makes for a rather lame review: Mesa Boogie Rectifiers sound good through other Mesa Boogie products. The store at which I bought the CabClone made some Kemper Profiles of a Marshall JVM running into the CabClone and out through the Kemper... :?: ...and it sounded like a Kemper Marshall Preset. Take that for what its worth. The reason I returned the CabClone was partly due to it being an impulse purchase and partly due the fact I can mic my Roadster, record direct with both Tech 21 Trademark 10's (they really are great amps!), or use my Rectifier Recording Preamp when I want to record. I'm also currently treating my room so that takes financial priority right now.
The CabClone is worth every bit of the $299 price tag! If you are expecting pristine digitally mastered guitar tones than you will be disappointed. The tones you get are roughly the same as if you had mic'd your amp and those never sound digitally mastered as raw tracks.
I was really impressed when Mesa came out with the 5 Band Graphic EQ, super impressed with the Throttle Box EQ, and I didn't even know they could make something like the CabClone. I hope this is the beginning rather than the end of a long line of "utilitarian musical tools."
