Korg Ampworks

Very easy to get good sounds right away. Unit is very straightforward and intuitive. I couldn't care less about editing patches. I just plug in, dial the model and cabinet and effect and away I go. Manual is okay but could be a little more comprehensive. Other than that, what's not to figure out?

I prefer single coils on this. It especially sounds good with my tele. I hear a little hiss in the background sometimes but it is not intrusive. I use the unit for quiet practice with headphones. My favorite settings are the Vox models--not surprising since it's the same company. I mainly stick to a touch of reverb. Sounds pretty convincing. Haven't tried recording with it but I think it will do just fine.

I wouldn't gig with this but I don't think that's the point. I have had Vox pathfinders in the past and a Korg tuner and have never had a problem with them. This seems tough enough for its intended purpose.

No contact.

I play blues based rock and British invasion style. I like this device. I have owned Pod 2.0, J Station, Genesis I, Zoom GM200 and Yamaha DG Stomp. Except for the Yamaha, I prefer this to all the others. It's basic, straightforward and I can get sounds I like. It is small enough to take anywhere--fits in the guitar case. Only one thing I don't like and thats the white letters on chrome knobs. Hard to read, Korg people! Otherwise I love it. I purchased from Portland Music Company--great store!

Pretty simple.. choose amp, choose cab,choose effect and there ya go. Only a quik view in the manual for edit and save mode.

There are some presets and you can add two of your own favorites, I wouldn't mind some more in that department. I mainly bought this thingy because of the Vox AC30 and AC15 sounds. Very very convincing though they copied the top boost bright channel wich sounds euh.. bright. Also the blackface and bassman are very nice, I think you could fool a lot of people with it on tape. The roaring silky el34's of a plexi (Blues) is a little to complicated for such a small little fella', next time better boys and I dont like blasting recto's and JCM 800's in real world and I simply have no opinion of the Ampworks renderings, it's just not my taste of a good guitar sound. Last, the fuzz is a joke but then again, most fuzzes are (I make an exeption for the sun fuzzface and the Roger Mayer's) The cabs are basicly in two flavours: ceramic and alnico's, the latter sounds warmer and more natural in my ears. The combination of amps and cabinets alone would justify the Ampworks but Korg added some nice effects (all very good, only the delay is very limited of course)
On the back there's a switch for line and amp and this works pretty well so you can use it with your guitar amp, headphones or direct recording. Minus: background hiss can be a problem though you can hear the noisegate working. And please, next time dont use white letterings on grey knobs..
It's just amazing how much quality the Korg people cab stuff in such a small box, if this doesn't put the Pod people out of business...

Same quality as the boss Rockman stuff, that thing fell apart after a couple of years... oh well, thats centuries in digital years...
I would use this as a backup in case the amp blew.. he buddy, just plug this in channel 14...

Instead of doing 11 amps and cabs with half of them exellent and the other half just for fun, I rather would have 3 KILLER tones (what about a AC30, a Plexi and a Dumble!) And make an other with 3 other absolutly KILLER tones (tweed deluxe, Mark IIC, Bogner) and make another with 3 more KILLER tones....
We would buy them all, you hear Korg people... we would buy them all...

Very simple, efficient, to the point. This is the answer for me for simple effective direct recording with GREAT tones. 3 knobs...choose your 1)amp 2)cabinet 3)effect. Also has nice gain, 3 bands of eq, overall volume and effects knob. Effects knob works in similar fashion to Line 6 POD. Tap tempo controls parameter of whatever effect you dial up. It doesn't get much simpler than this. Very intuitive.

Various guitars, single coils, hummers, P-90's, etc. Genuine representation of the guitar tone comes through. One of the coolest deals about this is that you can select mix/match cabinets with whatever amp you choose. This GREATLY affects the tone, and gives you unbelieveable options for tones. The gain works very well on every amp model, and allows clean to overdrive tones for every model. My ONLY beef so far is the combination chorus/delay and chorus/reverb settings. When you turn up the effect parameter knob, you can't isolate more reverb/less chorus, they work together...and if you want more reverb, the chorus becomes more apparent and somewhat "detuning" effect comes into play. And since you can't change the parameters individually, it makes those two effects selections somewhat limiting. BUT...you can dial reverb alone, or chorus alone, or delay alone, and those settings ARE very useful. Really the only problem I have had thus far. Oh, one other thing...it runs on 4.5 volt, would have been nice if they would have used 9 volt instead. Batteries (2 AA included) or power supply (not included).

It's not a heavy duty pedal...actually it's not even a pedal. It's a desktop recording device above all. It does have line/amp switch if you wanted to run it in front of an amp, but it's plastic primarily, so save it for home recording. No problems functionally so far, Korg seems like a solid company in this regard.

No experience here.

Really...tried them ALL (POD 2.0, POD xt, Valvetronix amp, Vox Tonelab, Adrennalinn, ValveFX (ancient, I know), Zoom, Digitech GNX, etc.etc. Even compared it to other Korg products such as the PX4 which supposedly has the same sounds, but it sounded much different to me, and the NEW Korg AX10G. Korg AX10G would have been the ultimate answer to this Ampworks as it allows 80+ presets to be programmed and a expression pedal...only problem, they removed the coolest feature which is cabinet selection and put preset cabinets based on the amp model chosen. Again, this is where the Ampworks really shines and gives the user MANY cool options for tone selection. Soooooo, long story long....the Ampworks is IMHO the best sounding and ironically, LEAST EXPENSIVE direct recording guitar amp modelling preamp available at this time. Check them out and decide for yourself! You will be surprised!

Very easy to use, dial in your tone! Save settings! Don't need a manual!

I use strats.. I use this for direct recording and it's awsome! The amp patches are great, the cab patches are awsome, the fx are good! If you are a player that needs 7 or 9 effects, this isn't for you! If you are a player that likes a little reverb, chorus, or delay, this is awsome! I play blues, rock and jazz.. This little box blows the way more expensive POD away as far as authentic amps and cabs sound!

I will not gig w/ this.. Like all of these boxes, it's kind of "plastic-ee".. Don't drop it, it will break!

NA

Great sonding little box. It blows the POD and the sans amp stuff away as far as amp and cab authenticiy.. Easy to use! I'd buy another one if I lost this! The best recording tool for guitar!!

I like the way you can easily set eq and find it user friendly. Tap temp feature real nice. Hard to read white on chrome small letters.
Definitely need light to see. Programing somewhat limited.

Killer tones, but can hear noise in the mix before gate kickes in on noise reduction feature. Disappointed that the effects had what I call some digital noise in the background while note is sustaining,as most effect processors do. Played thru Fender 2X12 deville with humbuckers and single coils.

Small and plastic, looks built for studio work. I'd assume it would be very reliable

Wish it was a little larger with black on chrome large letters. Wish it did'nt have as much noise on some of the effect settings. I have lots of high quality pedals, guitars and amps. If you have hardly nothing it would give you a lot of features and tones for the bucks, and may possibly pass your satisfaction, has killer VOX tones. I have very rigid specifications as far as quietness. It has rich sounds but I feel I can achieve most with the gear I already have, so it's going back tomorrow.

Very easy to use.

If you can't set this thing up within 10 minutes. Go see a brain doctor.

Excellent sound quality. Very quiet when set up properly. I'm using it with an old Telecaster, an old Strat, and a Les Paul. Either thru a Yamaha mixer for recording, or to either a Roland, Vox amps. All sound very convincing.

The noise reduction works extremely well when set up properly (it's easy too. Takes only a few seconds to set it up correctly. Even with my very noisy old Tele.)

It's pastic. But looks/feels like well made.

Had the Line 6's similar unit at the same time, comparing both side by side for 2 weeks. Returned the Line 6. (The Line 6 was actually falling apart right out of the box. Bought brand new from an authorised dealer!)

Never needed any with all my Korg's gears.

Can be a few dollars cheaper. Or include the AC power supply with its current price.

Killer unit for studio works!

After reading the review in December 2003 issue of Guitarist magazine went into local music shop and had a listen, twenty minutes later and #99.00 lighter headed home with new toy.... After using it for about 10 days, well worth the money. Easy to use, pre set sounds all really useable though Fuzz pre set sounds like a bee in a tin. Considering the size of the thing the sounds it produces are very convincing and with the right connectors into the line in of a pc sound card I get good guitar sound using Cakewalk Studio. The manual is ok but the unit is so easy to set after a couple of reads your up and running. Dials a bit fiddly use.....

I use the unit with a twin humbucker Crafter and Aria pro single coil guitars playing various styles of music rock blues, using headphones for practice, sounds fine but make sure switch on rear set to line, only use amp setting with an amp the unit is fairly quiet thanks to the inbuilt noise reduction. I have tried it through my Marshall TSL 602 combo to see how it sounds but sounded noisey when using higher gain settings. There is an option to use a footswitch to change through the two user pre sets and manual or to switch between by pass and one patch. I bought a cheap NON LATCHING JHS footswitch wich works fine and makes it easier to switch patches when recording. The effects are very good but use care when setting tap time based ones. It is quite easy to set a sound that you want...

Wouldn't gig with it but then thats not it's purpose, seems solid enough, sockets a lot less flimsy than a Behringer V amp.. dials work well and knobs and buttons ok, main gripe is that white letters on chrome dials are very hard to see, Korg take note... Can't see it failing unless I pull it of my desk or my PC falls on it.

No reason to call them so no opinion on this one yet...

Since buying this unit I have packed my Behringer V Amp 2 away in its box, the Korg unit takes up very little space and runs for ever on two batteries I get about 14 hours out of 2 AA NIMH rechargeables. I would deffo buy another if it got lost or stolen. It is very easy to connect to the line input of a PC I bought a couple of adapters from a local Maplin store. Pity there is not aux input for a cd etc etc but the worst thing about it is the white writing on the pre set dials at times it's impossible to read Mr KORG might make some stickers to rectify.... Care has to be taken when editing a storing patches to make sure the relative volumes are close to avoid huge jumps in volume....

Straight out of the box this unit was easy to use. Simply plug in, select your amp type, select your speaker type, add an effect if you want. And away you go. It really is as easy as that. Editing is quite simple but you only have two custom user patches to play with, but to be honest you don't need to worry about it. Since you can mix and match all the amp and speaker types on the defaults anyway.

Overall this is soooo incredibly easy to use, it really is just a case of "plug and play".

I have used both my Ibanez JS100 (with Paf Pro and Fred pickups) and my Burns Brian May, both sound very good through this. I play mostly through the pc or headphones when using this as I don't feel that the colouration that is added by running through an amp does it justice. I own a Marshall JCM 800 which I use for gigs so I immediately went straight for "UK 80's" with a 4x12Vintage with the gain turned right up. And boy was it close. Not 100% but, lets face it you are never going to get a box this big to sound exactly like a full blown 100 watt all valve Marshall. But it sounded very close.

Next I tried the AC30TB with VOX2x12. Now to my ears it sounds pretty damn close as well, but not having an AC30 lying around to play with I can't say for sure. It sounded good with my Burns Brian May. I then thought of experimenting a little so I ran the Treble Booster output from my Brian May Vox into this, and low and behold a VERY passable Queen sound. Again not totally 100% but to the average person they would never tell the difference.

I have played with all the effects and they are really nice and quiet, no excess noise that i have found.

I wouldn't use this at a gig, but I didn't intend to. It is clearly a desktop recording device, which is what I bought it for. I say this because of the difficulty in which you change sounds and that there is only two editable patches. To me the whole design of the thing screams desktop rather than stage. Although I also use it for a bit of silent practising. Other than that it seems fairly dependable, and solid although it is made of plastic. And I suppose the knobs could snap off but only if it was abused terribly.

Not dealt with them, probably won't have to.

I dabble in all types of music but play mainly rock. Having played around with many of the different combinations I feel that this would probably fit most styles. Although I did feel that some of the Fender amps sounded a bit too overdriven, but the vox,marshall and modern sounds were all very good.

What anyone reading this needs to realise is that this is not a multi-fx unit designed for gigging, it is a desktop recording device!!! Plain and simple, maybe use it for practising at home, that works well, but I would never consider gigging with this. Recording straight into the PC it sounds great. But I really think you would be missing the point if you used it live. So far the stuff I have recorded with it sounds great, but I wouldn't use this over my Marshall JCM 800 in a live situation.

Is this better than the POD,Behringer or Genesis3? I don't know to be honest but it was a lot cheaper. I took a leap of faith based on the fact that Korg worked so well to produce the VOX Valvetronix amps, which are very good, and that it sounded great on the Korg website. And having used a Pandora IV, I figured what the hell it won't be awful, and I was right. In fact it is a pretty damn good piece of kit. If it was stolen I would probably just try out some of the others but I suspect I would come back to this. This is my first foray into the world of digital amp modeling, and while, for me, they won't replace a good valve amp, for the average person who wants to do some home recording without having to replace their windows or annoying their neighbours this unit is great.