New Pedal / Cab Simulator Day: Two Notes Torpedo CAB M+

[tbonesullivan]

Finally got a chance to REALLY sit down with the Two Notes Torpedo Cab M+ Speaker Simulator I picked up as a demo model a week or so ago. Its a pretty massive improvement over the earlier C.A.B. pedal, which wasn't nearly as easy to use or flexible, and was a bit larger. It is based on the same tech that is in the Torpedo Captor X, however it does not have the reactive load and attenuator, though it does have a speaker through capability, so you can use it with an external load box, or with a regular cab for recording.

The original CAB M (non plus) is identical hardware, but different software. All CAB M's can be freely upgraded to the M+, and there is NO REASON not to. It's a very powerful bit of tech, and great for recording. It comes with a license for 32 virtual cabinets from Two notes, which are all pretty good. It also has a memory card slot (micro sd) for loading third party Impulse responses. It comes with a 256mb card, but can load up to a 32GB card. Impulse responses seem to be at most 50K, so a 256MB card would hold about 5000 IRs of that size.

However it's not just a speaker cabinet emulator: it's a full blown clean pedal platform with the PLUS upgrade. In addition to speaker / Mic modeling, it also has reverb, EQ, a noise gate, and an "enhancer". More importantly, the original M had power amp emulation, but the M+ has also a Preamp emulation based on a '74 Silverface Fender Bassman. In other words, you can plug your guitar right into the Cab M+, and get a finished sound out of it. You can even dial in a bit of grit on the Bassman preamp, and it does sound pretty good.

You can also turn on or off any of the various components, so if you have a preamp, you can use it just for power amp emulation, etc. It comes with a great app to control it, and honestly the possibilities are endless. I haven't yet loaded any third party IRs to see how it handles those. With the Virtual cabinets you have a ton of options for microphone placement and so forth, but I would assume those options don't apply to the IR files.

I got it to use with some Carvin Preamp pedals I have, the VLD1 Legacy Drive and the X1. They have a "voiced cabinet out" but having an actual voiced cabinet direct box is just great. It has access to all of the presets from all of the Torpedo Products, which is a good start, and it really has wide range of sounds.

The only real complaints I have heard about it is that it is based on a Fender preamp, and not a Marshall, and that the preamp really can't be boosted real a real amplifier could. For what I'm using it for, that isn't a concern at all.