I love the way you have structured your channel man. You are an amazing storyteller and I love these deep dives into gear. I can very much relate!

I dig your attitude, Mike. Don't stop what you're doing here.

Here's a fun trick with the OX: run the sound out to some studio speakers that have bluetooth. Then send your favorite song from your phone to those speakers through the bluetooth and play along with it. Your guitar sits right in the mix.

I've used the OX Box on many many many of my videos here & it's awesome for silent recording (get good headphones or in-ears). However nothing will replace those glorious SPLs from your amp speakers massaging your ear drums.

Mike your gear collection is getting pretty awesome. I have a Revv G20 with the two notes torpedo in it. It's a game changer for sure. It sounds great through headphones for silent recording and even when playing with my band at full volume there is no messing with Microphone placement or any of that. My recording always comes out sounding good.

I started playing electric back in 1983. I'll say Cliff Chase of Fractal Audio's modeling, surpassing so many aspects of my analog gear. Impulse response tech and reactive load boxes were in the running. Congrats on your acquisition!

I was born early 80’s and used to lugg huge amps to gigs in the 90’s. And recording guitar at home was always something you had to go to a proper studio to do cause it required making a lot of noise and owning some decent mics. For me the biggest innovation is definitely the digital amp capture devices and IR’s such as the Ox and the Captor X. I wish so badly that it existed when I was 15. Sure would’ve made our early demos sound heaps better.

You definitely and consistently provide some of the best guitar/recording videos on KZfaq...Looking forward to you hitting 1million subscribers!!!

Thank you Mike! You're the man! I NEED THIS!

Incredible video! I love your video style a ton!

This is excellent! I had similar excitement when I first got my spark amp. so amazing what you can do with emulation but you gotta have some speakers paired up that really drive it home.

I was a guitarist in the 90's and we already had amp modeling with the SansAmp PSA1. :)

These have been around for a LONG time - In 1994 I bought a THD Hot Plate for my JCM800 and never looked back. I also use Logic Pro and the amp sims in that and while I can get some interesting tones there is a physical interaction between a guitar and a real tube amp that just does not happen with Logic or a Kemper. The Les Paul and the JCM 800 have a symbiotic relationship that I love.

The pedal-amp has me amazed. I got an electro-harmonix 2 weeks ago and love it.

Love your videos! Thanks for the details and the "real talk" throughout. Under the category of "don't be late to the party"....jump down the rabbit hole for the Rival Sons. You will not be disappointed. INCREDIBLE band and the guitarist, Scott Holiday, is a brilliant sonic architect!!

Attenuators are a life changing experience. Suddenly you can play and record with the amp where it needs to be but at a human volume (even silent!). I love it and it changed my recording experience for the better!

Long time watcher, first time commenter: I finally subscribed to your channel, Mike. Thanks for all that you do and for your good natured-story-telling! Cheers!

This was the most pleasantly watchable and engaging video on guitar amp sims I have ever had the pleasure of watching. So relatable. Subbed ✊🏼

hahah ok I was digging this vid and then the Allman Bros break put it over the edge. Love it, man!

The combination of the info you provide and the concise delivery and your humor make these vids very rewarding. I hope some major gear co. is watching and starts inviting you over for endorsement BBQs. I haven't use an attenuator yet but this makes me wanna try it.

I used it on the EP on my channel because I was recording late at night. I'm still using it but using microphones on the cab. Lead and creative stuff is great with the OX software

Loving your content , Love from Manchester UK

I think cab emulation is such a handy tool. I play all of my amps at home with a cab sim without a real cab since I never could experience the thing that loud anyways. It‘s just so easy to use and actually sounds very very good.

my modern day "a ha moment" was discovering Impulse response. they are a game changer. coupled with a solid amp modeling software I can dial in such amazing rich tones its unbelievable. I mostly record directly into the DAW these days. I mix it down and use "access analog" when I need real analog hardware like an ssl fusion or neve. it sounds amazing and super easy to use. sorry got a little off track there. loved the video and youre a funny dude. great channel. keep on keeping on my friend and God bless

Good for you, sound wise, and to respect the neighbors tranquility. Personally I use digital modeling through fx return of a tube amp.

Great video Thanks!!

How different is the ox from a two notes captor? I tried my best to like the captor, but it never sounded real to me

You are the second person this year that just listened to the Allman Brothers band. My nephew decided that it was life changing. It really helped him level up on piano and keyboard. Great video

I have an OX box for years and I love it. That is a great purchase you made.

Dude. Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore East is essential listening. I know you will (if you haven’t already) just love that album. Great video. That unit seems cool, but I would probably hold on to my amp for sentimental reasons as an emotional lifeboat.😊

Thanks for this vid. I’ve wanted to know about attenuators myself so this helps.

The ox changed my life! I can actually play a 100 watt Marshall at night and not piss anyone off. Killer.

I have a pair of TwoNotes Captor X' I use with my stereo Princeton rig and I haven't recorded with a mic since. Sounds great, and both boxes are still smaller than the humongous OX. I had upgraded my speakers to Celestion Gold, and I was able to purchase the same speaker for the Captors for 10 bucks. I still use the real speakers live, but I use the Captors to feed the FOH instead of mics. It's a great time to be alive for guitarists.

How did you connect the AC15? Mine is directly connected to the speaker. Did you have to cut the wire and solder on ends?

For me, it was the BOSS Katana. It was a complete game changer.

I got a Kemper power head and I love it. I know the effects aren't great but I don't use effects that much. Kemper allows me to have a lot of great amps in a single unit, and it sounds great at low volume. Josh approved it!

Great video! I'm excited about the future of amp modeling too! What exactly is 'silent recording'?

Love your vids. I’m kind of going in the reverse direction…tried many emulations over the years and watched as they got better and better. Recently tried a Benson Monarch and my creative life changed forever. Even at whisper levels it just sounds so full, and 3D. Hard to describe, but I’m ditching pedals altogether and going direct! It’s great that we’re living in an age where both paths are viable. Keep up the great work!

Hey Mike, how did you manage to run the OX with the AC15. As it’s a closed back amp. Did you have to mod it to get access to the speaker. I love my AC15 😉

I love using my attenuator too, I have the Captor X by Two Tones, it’s got some sweet features too! The OX was a bit pricey

So how do you use it? Is it really quiet in the room and you still get the great tone or not?

Yep, I'm down to 5 pedals, small tube head and the OX for studio and live. I play at church and we always do 5 songs, so I just setup my delays using the Rig selector for each song. It's so nice to have the repeatable tone anywhere I go and honestly, the OX sounds better than my nice cab mic'd up with my U47 and M160, plus I don't have to wear headphones when recording! Best purchase for any electric guitartist. I tried the UA Dream Pedal, but it doesn't have anywhere near the feel of the OX and a real tube amp.

Nice video!!! I finally understood what that ox is used for ahhaha :)

When I got my first Line 6 POD it was mind blowing. Prior to that DI-ing was only an option if you wanted a sterile clean sound, being able to play through something that approximated an amp was revolutionary. Attenuators are amazing but amp sims changed the game imho.

Wow I love this video, i need to check this out.

The low latency digital interface paired with powerful computers and cheap storage was the game changer. It opened the floodgates to let everyone record music with pro quality.

I got a Weber MiniMass for my 7-watt all-tube amp and use it with my 5-watt Fender VCR and it is fantastic. The tone I get by cranking both (at what is a bit higher than most people's max apartment volume) is always better than any overdrive pedal.

I have friends who come over and we play on three amps bass guitar another guitar/piano and then acoustic drums and through my years no neighbor of mine has complained 🙏🏻

Excellent video. I don't know much about the Au OX but I own the Two Notes Torpedo Cab M+ and it's excellent. You can store 99 custom IRs that you can create from their software. Many different cabs available. Preamp EQ shaping, Mic placement, Tube Power Amp sim for those running just a pedalboard, reverb, etc..

Entertaining, informative and interesting. Subscribed.

This thing looks great. I have a Two Notes Torpedo Studio which unfortunately they don't make anymore. The Ox looks like it could be a really good alternative. Love that AC15 clean tone!

I like how you discovered load boxes and told the story in a way people who've never heard of load boxes so they can understand.

good video and info..all new to me..but its the future I agree..thanks Mike

Thank you. More please.

How about showing how to set this ox box up and what it takes to actually use it with a tube amp.

Thanks for a great UA OX demo! (And just when I thought I finally had overcome severe G.A.S.)

Great presentation! I’ve been using the OX on average a few times a week for home recording since 2019. It’s everything you say it is. Not perfect, and I do miss miking real cabs at full volume in a studio, but for home use it’s been stellar and a life changer because I don’t want to abandon tube amps or get myself evicted from my overpriced apartment.

You should make a video about what a digital amp even is. I’ve heard of them but I really don’t know what they do. Like, where does the sound come out of? Do you plug into your computer? Do you need studio speakers? Like, I have no idea.

Ox is 👌🏻👌🏻. I’ve got two of them for the stereo amp goodness.

Bro instead tu use an amp can I use an amp pedal like iridium and have the sound in my audio monitors?

Nice guitar playing, nice stories. Subscribed. There was a thing called a Power Soak in the early 80s. Sure, there were no impulse responses for the speaker/cab emulation but, unless you’re looking for that sound where the speaker is actually breaking up you can get a reasonable facsimile of the sound of a guitar speaker with filters and a good eq. And if you’re using the Ox OTB, you can’t get that speakers breakup anyway. So that person in 1990 would indeed be gobsmacked at the amp/speaker/anything emulation we now have and would probably be fascinated by the AI stuff we’re seeing come through but apart from the software integration, the Ox would have seemed pretty familiar. Remember, PA systems hadn’t evolved to the exquisite state they are now. so a wall of Marshalls was a thing people did to be heard, not just for posing. Although there was still plenty of posing! I used to record at EMI studios in the late 80s and many guitarists wanted to use the multiple stacks we had in the orchestra room (studio B). It hasn’t seemed to occur to people that unless you were going to mic up all those speakers, most of that sound never went near tape :D. Anyway, as a 2x4 stack with at least one hundred watt valve amp driving it was considered the standard if you could afford it, high volume was an issue anywhere other than large stages or a properly treated recording room. So Tom Sholtz (yeah, that guy) invented a product called the Power Soak. Which kinda evolved into the Rockman but this post is waaay too long already.

Congrats on your Ox purchase! It's an amazing piece of recording gear and I love it too. Have fun!

Hey cool video thanks for making it. How did you connect the ox box to your ac15?

Another option (which I use) and which is about 1/2 the price of the OX box, is the Two Notes Captor X. I also live in an apartment and always play using headphones. I love being able to get a killer tone even at 3:00 AM, and no one else will hear anything - so no more complaints and threats of eviction from the rental office. My signal chain is: Guitar -> Pedalboard -> Vintage 1964 Deluxe Reverb amp -> Captor X -> Yamaha mixer, w/Strymon BlueSky stereo reverb pedal in the FX loop -> Headphones. I can use the mixer to play along silently to YT videos or any audio source I want. Yes, total game changer. Keep up the great (and entertaining) videos, Mike!

How do you feel about dolby atmos becoming an industry standard? Also, do you have plans to incorporate atmos into your own music?

I clicked on the "subscribe" button when this channel had like 10-11k subscribers, and it was like a few months ago... Fastest growing KZfaq channel in guitar history

I live in a house with my own basement studio. I regularly crank my Marshall 1987x and Fender Twin Reverb as loud as they will go, good times for sure. I'm still somewhat modern in that I do sometimes use a Rivera Rockcrusher Recording, the Ox is awesome, someday I might have to get one.

I've never tried one but I see them a lot. Good review man!

I mean, there's also pedals with amp and cab emulation, and those will save you even more money... take for example walrus audio acs1 or the UA Dreams. The portability makes it crazy useful for live settings.

Actually you’d probably have to go back to the early 80’s or late 70’s. I remember going to a local guitar shop in the late 80’s and playing with The Rockman effects modules. They were insanely expensive but mind blowing. Then in about 1992 ish I bought a stereo guitar effects deck. It was a 1U rack mountable deck. It had MIDI so you could control it with a pedal, and it was amazing. I wish I still had it. Again, very expensive for the time. But could have easily replaced an amp with it. Then, in late 90’s I first started using my home PC to connect my guitar to. The technology has actually been around for a long time. But there’s this whole culture around amps. Especially tube amps. That somehow you’re not really playing guitar without an amp. I’m in a band with some friends and just bought an amp for practices. I basically use it as a monitor. But also started using IEM so the amp is almost pointless. I guess the only reason I keep the physical amp is that if we play a bar without much of a sound system, having an amp is pretty vital. But I routinely play into my computer or iPad. I have the IOS version of BiasFX. It basically does everything.

I swear you keep getting gear that I'm lusting after!

Yeah, this stuff it really getting great. Same as digital photography. I was NEVER giving up on my Kodak slide film. Then one day digital got so good that I did. Way back when (before tube amps had master volumes) they used attenuators but I think all they did was dissipate the power to the speaker. This way you could crank your amp up enough to get the natural tube distortion without having to replace the windows in your house.

Another good option if you just need a small clean amp would be a Reeves 12 watt 1x12 combo with power scaling. Allows you to directly turn down without changing the tone. If you like classic rock, AC/DC, Hiwatt kinda clean tones it’s a keeper.

Just saw the thumbnail, and I’m like yaaassss! I want one, but oof! So pricey. Love digital amp model’s, and it does make it easy, kinda… I get to the point where I get more exhausted dialing in something with so many options. I want to get back into just real amps, and simplified to record straight to daw. Also, Cant believe I wasn’t subscribed, been watching your vids for a while now, and always cool. Subscribed my good friend, love the vids, and how you talk n nerd out. Good stuff.

Love the thought process. Getting good tone doesn't take too much these days. I am bummed that I sold my tube amps a few years back to go digital. Now I wish I still had my Top Hat King Royal amp! glorious AC30 tone, just too loud for normal use.

Welcome to the Ox world! 🎉

i moved in to an apartment and i was dying inside, i bought a milkman the amp 50 last year and that little thing brought me back to life, its got a direct output for a computer and a great headphone output so I bought some nice headphones for it. it seriously is a little piece of magic for silent recording. and it will get you there if you plug it straight in to a speaker cabinet also, thanks for all the good vids!

Best thing about this box is you can "soak" some of the energy coming out of the amp and drive your cab as loud as you need without losing that output tubes overdrive!

I've used a torpedo captor as load box and ran irs in the DAW, I can get great sounds but I normally have to layer the cabs a bit, the signal in always seems really dark though compared to the same sound also routed through a cab in the room- I've never figured out why. I would really like to try an Ox as I think it is supposed to be the gold standard for those type of devices.

Would love to see the OX box vs Bugera PS1 video. Is it worth the extra $$$?

I got a 100W Marshall JCM800 - I can now get that sound without the family having to leave the house and all the stuff hung on the walls coming loose and breaking. Ox is the best thing ever.

Oddly enough, it was the ‘90s when I dumped my amp for a digital modeler, a Digitech GSP-21. It certainly didn’t sound as good as the options we have these days, but I never got any complaints about my tone. It was good enough for most purposes.

No, but i have used an attenuator. Everything has its place, i mostly just use my Kemper but i do prefer it through a cab moving air than just cans.

I bought one a while ago, stunk to find out afterwards that UA doesn't support it any more. There haven't been any updates in years, and the USB port still hasn't been enabled.

I’ve had an Ox for quite a while, and as a Marshall player, it’s been my favorite tool since I got it. Finally getting a cranked Marshall sound without ripping my face off or blowing out the windows has been so, so nice. The software of it sounds incredible IMO. And I also enjoy my digital amp sims, so not knocking them either. But I’ll never part with my Ox. Welcome to the Ox party, ha.

0:11 well i started playing in 1995 , and the big game changer is that back then the affordable guitars where crap and the amps were solid state , a tube amp of descent quality costed well over a 1000 . so there , being able to start playing with lets say a squire tele and a marchall dsl5 for 850 or so is gold

Theo Katzman uses one to great effect in all his solo and Vulfpeck stuff, I always wondered what it was for!

DSP chips, Digital Signal Processing... Genie is out of the bottle and there is no way back...

I’m a very much a beginner guitar player. I assume I need more experience playing before considering something like this to replace my wittle Fender Mustang?

Hey man, this is really interesting. I also own an ac15 and I was wondering how do you connect the ox box to the amp? Do you use external speaker or there is a way to connect the box to the internal speaker?

1990's not everyone had a computer. My first PC was like $2500 which is like $10,000 today. And the computers did not have the horsepower or the needed ports that they have now. Blue Sky - one of my favs.

i just got one these too. Still trying figure out why I need it in addition to my Quad Cortex.

Hi! Guy from the 90s here… We had digital amp modelers in 1990. Granted they weren’t on a computer, but you could easily interface them with your computer. Some amp simulators actually came onboard multi track recorders. You could plug your guitar straight into a channel and emulate a guitar amp.

Am I right in stating...the OX is only really for TUBE Amps?? I have a Katana and wonder if this expensive piece of gear would enhance anything.

Yep got an OX .. and Yep it is used all the time with the Cab I's into my DAW ....I can crank my amp and still survive the neighbours ..

Boss Tube Amp Expander is even better IMO. The updates they've made have really increased the usability

For me, the big technological breakthrough was 32-bit float. I just got one of the first DAC interfaces with 32-bit float and I can say that it is not a gimmick. I'm not a guitarist, just a violinist, but hoooooooooooooly shit is it a gamechanger for recording. Whether I'm playing something quiet, or loud, it captures everything without needing to add gain. And the less gain I throw at the mics, the lower the noise floor is. It changes how I'm able to use all of my passive mics, since I can put them as close or as far away as I want without fear of clipping. That alone has opened up so many possibilities. I'm basically re-learning how to use all of my mics now. Condenser mics no longer hog the spotlight. I'm getting layers of overtones I never would've captured before! (and new reflections off the walls, unfortunately). Cheap microphones sound flippin awesome now. Well, maybe not _awesome_ but they sound way different from before if I record in 32bit and compress the whole fat signal.

I've been trying to record music with my friend in my apartment recently, and we were able to make it work without pissing off the neighbors too much, but I wasn't able to really get the guitar tones I wanted. luckily I'm going to be moving into a house soon where I'll be able to turn things up and my friend can bring his drums, which will be awesome. I realize not everyone has that luxury and I think this is a really cool solution for those people

I a big fan of amp and guitar modelling. Line 6 has done a remarkable job with both of these. I have a a guitar from the Line 6 Variax line and being able to switch from a telecaster to a banjo by turning a knob was the game changer for me. Also, where were the Deadhead and Phish head attire on your '90's "we dressed like this" bit? 🤔

Love my Ox and love my Captor X