Darkglass Anagram

[joeabass]

35 minutes ago, Killerfridge said:

This is what I mean by "mistake" - as in, not working as intended. It feels like such an obvious omission that it can't be intended 

To be fair it takes some beans to distort a 300W SVT on its own 

[joeabass]

43 minutes ago, MrDinsdale said:

 

purely pointing out that Id expect a capture to have at least some breakup when pushed.

The QC is good at adding a little more/less gain to captures (did this for guitar rather than bass but same rules I suppose) haven’t tried it with these NAM in the anagram as they come with 3 distortion levels to pick from as you’d expect so little need. Although I don’t think you’d get good results anywhere taking a clean capture and trying to gain it up to distortion

[MrDinsdale]

20 minutes ago, joeabass said:

The QC is good at adding a little more/less gain to captures (did this for guitar rather than bass but same rules I suppose) haven’t tried it with these NAM in the anagram as they come with 3 distortion levels to pick from as you’d expect so little need. Although I don’t think you’d get good results anywhere taking a clean capture and trying to gain it up to distortion

 

Yeah, I'd still expect even a little saturation though if it was a capture and I pushed it aggressively. The suggestion from Ivan was that it was impossible to get any distortion whatsoever, not even a hair of break up by pushing.

[joeabass]

11 minutes ago, MrDinsdale said:

 

Yeah, I'd still expect even a little saturation though if it was a capture and I pushed it aggressively. The suggestion from Ivan was that it was impossible to get any distortion whatsoever, not even a hair of break up by pushing.

Are we talking about a capture here or the Peggy (that’s what Darkglass call the Ampeg) model? I can just go and try this now if it’s the model and let you know 

Edited Sunday at 19:16 by joeabass

[MrDinsdale]

5 minutes ago, joeabass said:

Are we talking about a capture here or the Peggy model? 

My initial question was regarding the Peggy model.

 

I’ve heard conflicting statements regarding how it does/doesn't saturate. Someone suggested it was a capture and that was why it lacked gain I believe, I suggested that you'd still expect breakup if it was a capture.

 

All I’m interested in is if the Peggy or GK models have the capacity to break up but seems impossible to get an answer 🤣

Edited Sunday at 19:21 by MrDinsdale

[joeabass]

The Peggy is a model. I personally wouldn’t expect breakup from a capture that didn’t have any break up when it was captured. I can go and push the Ampeg model now though and see what it does 

[MrDinsdale]

1 minute ago, joeabass said:

I can go and push the Ampeg model now though and see what it does 

It would be cool to find out for certain, I didn't realise it was going to be so contentious 🤣

[neepheid]

1 minute ago, MrDinsdale said:

I didn't realise it was going to be so contentious 🤣

 

How long have you been here?

 

[joeabass]

3 minutes ago, MrDinsdale said:

I didn't realise it was going to be so contentious 🤣

I hope it’s not going that way… just bass gear innit. But there is always gunna be crossed wires when a million people put out a video and we have models, captures, NAM (which are called models but are really what QC would call captures) and neural has nowt to do with NAM despite having the same name. 
 

aye that Peggy to me sounds like it’s modelling the pre of a proper SVT which you would have to work hard to make drive. I would always use something else with it to drive it. On the bright side it sounds excellent and half regretting not making my gigging presets with it. 

[EssexBuccaneer]

I bought my Anagram a few days ago, it’ll be with me in the first week of July 😮.

 

I’m certain it’ll be worth the wait though, we’re looking at going ampless in the next year, and this looks perfect for my needs.

[Hellzero]

Kaldgrass.

 

What do I win?

[bassmayhem]

The use of an overdrive in front of the amp block is what make it break up. I don't drive that too hard, just to get some hair on the tone. It sounds very good; not at all that harsh or "crackled" than many other modelers sound when raising the gain on the amp block. It makes it for me, anyhow. I sold the Quad Cortex, I sold the Helix, I sold the HX Stomp XL. This one sounds so much better to my ears. Not at all as competent as QC, but I prefer tone and simplicity.

 

[Sibob]

On 20/05/2025 at 16:59, bassmayhem said:

The use of an overdrive in front of the amp block is what make it break up. I don't drive that too hard, just to get some hair on the tone. It sounds very good; not at all that harsh or "crackled" than many other modelers sound when raising the gain on the amp block. It makes it for me, anyhow. I sold the Quad Cortex, I sold the Helix, I sold the HX Stomp XL. This one sounds so much better to my ears. Not at all as competent as QC, but I prefer tone and simplicity.

 

I’m not sure I quite understand your first sentence?! In that case, you’re not making the amp break-up, you’re just introducing a drive circuit before it, which is then being amplified. 
The test would be putting a significant clean boost in front of the amp capture, and seeing if that drives it.

 

With no horse in the race, I too would not expect an amp capture to break-up, as it doesn’t have the information to do that in the same way a dynamic, controllable effect does, it’s just a snapshot of a single sound. I’d probably expect digital clipping (bad) before you achieved anything useable. But happy to be proven wrong of course.

 

Si

Edited 5 hours ago by Sibob

[Killerfridge]

22 minutes ago, Sibob said:

I’m not sure I quite understand your first sentence?! In that case, you’re not making the amp break-up, you’re just introduce a drive circuit before it, which is then being amplified. 
The test would be putting a significant clean boost in front of the amp capture, and seeing if that drives it.

 

With no horse in the race, I too would not expect an amp capture to break-up, as it doesn’t have the information to do that in the same way a dynamic, controllable effect does, it’s just a snapshot of a single sound. I’d probably expect digital clipping (bad) before you achieved anything useable. But happy to be proven wrong of course.

 

Si

But we aren't taking about a capture here, but a traditional model such as you would get on an HXStomp or plugin i.e. it has all the expected controls of an SVT (bass, mid, mid selection, treble, ultra low switch, ultra high switch) except gain, and apparently has infinite headroom (within digital limits). It just seems like a bit of a weird design choice not being able to make the amps break up in any way beside digital clipping

[Sibob]

3 minutes ago, Killerfridge said:

But we aren't taking about a capture here, but a traditional model such as you would get on an HXStomp or plugin i.e. it has all the expected controls of an SVT (bass, mid, mid selection, treble, ultra low switch, ultra high switch) except gain, and apparently has infinite headroom (within digital limits). It just seems like a bit of a weird design choice not being able to make the amps break up in any way beside digital clipping

Oh sorry, I misunderstood then. Yeah I’d expect a dynamic amp effect to break-up in the standard way. If it doesn’t, that is somewhat odd.

 

Si

[LukeFRC]

This is getting silly. @Dood - you need to cover break up of amp models in a mini review! 

[MichaelDean]

I must say, I'm becoming more and more enamoured with the idea of the Anagram. It sounds great based on YouTube demos. Being able to have a few NAM pedals might make my external effects redundant too. My main sticking point is the three footswitches. I'd need a MIDI footswitch with an expression pedal input of some sort to make it more useable for me.

 

I was playing around with a pedalboard designer based around the Anagram and my current needs if money was no object and this is what I came up with. That's on a Harley Benton Spaceship 40, so not a huge board.

[Kev]

1 hour ago, Sibob said:

I’m not sure I quite understand your first sentence?! In that case, you’re not making the amp break-up, you’re just introducing a drive circuit before it, which is then being amplified. 
The test would be putting a significant clean boost in front of the amp capture, and seeing if that drives it.

 

With no horse in the race, I too would not expect an amp capture to break-up, as it doesn’t have the information to do that in the same way a dynamic, controllable effect does, it’s just a snapshot of a single sound. I’d probably expect digital clipping (bad) before you achieved anything useable. But happy to be proven wrong of course.

 

Si

In terms of QC captures, I think there is a lot more to it than capturing a single sound.  Its effectively machine learning, the QC sends all kinds of signals into the device it is capturing for several minutes and "learning" what each signal makes the device do.  So, in effect it absolutely does capture amp break-up and reproduces it rather well.

[Killerfridge]

1 hour ago, Sibob said:

Oh sorry, I misunderstood then. Yeah I’d expect a dynamic amp effect to break-up in the standard way. If it doesn’t, that is somewhat odd.

 

Si

No problems, it's been a confusing topic because it's a bit weird. There's been lots of "well maybe it's a capture", "if you add a distortion block in front of it it sounds great", "I only use a clean sound anyway" answers, but nothing clarifying what's actually happening

[Dood]

34 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

This is getting silly. @Dood - you need to cover break up of amp models in a mini review! 

 

It's been a busy week here at Dood Towers, but I did get to power up Anagram last night albeit somewhat briefly. My initial reaction is that the UI is really simple to navigate and I managed most actions without the need for a manual, which is always good for those with RTFMaphobia. Looking forward to getting my basses connected and then I will collate these questions to include in my video review. 

[Dood]

42 minutes ago, MichaelDean said:

I must say, I'm becoming more and more enamoured with the idea of the Anagram. It sounds great based on YouTube demos. Being able to have a few NAM pedals might make my external effects redundant too. My main sticking point is the three footswitches. I'd need a MIDI footswitch with an expression pedal input of some sort to make it more useable for me.

 

I was playing around with a pedalboard designer based around the Anagram and my current needs if money was no object and this is what I came up with. That's on a Harley Benton Spaceship 40, so not a huge board.

 

I think that as a user, I'd also be inclined to use a MIDI FS to extend the three buttons. Maybe something like the MVAVE Chocolate, though the QC has 8 buttons and I often have many of them assigned per 'pedal board'. For volume and expression, I'd like to try a smaller pedal like those from Paint Audio, but not the tiny versions as I'm a size 13 in ma slippers! 

 

 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by Dood