Went looking for a footswitch for the Yamaha THR10X, which is a great high-gain desktop amp for those who haven’t tried it. Turns out one exists, and it looks pretty cool too:
It’s the PFS-9, made by Patchbox68. That’s the good news. Bad news is, Patchbox is a mom and pop who appear not to be doing them any more. Anybody got one they want to sell?
Bummer that this is something not readily available. I remember trying one out and loving one of the models, I think it was a british (marshall) one? Felt like it had a noise gate though which kinda sucked, but a buddy told me that can be defeated?
Anyways hope this thread bump helps you find one!
Yes I believe the gates and FX can all be edited via their desktop app and updated with a USB cable. It’s a pretty capable box.
They market this as a “third amp” or something, but I mean let’s be real. Someone could easily use this as their main amp on album or playing live through a PA, nobody would know the difference. The options are all pretty good these days.
Good to know, a buddy of mine wasn’t sure (he has one but doesn’t really dive into manuals or external software), but I’d definitely pick that amp over the cream variant, and I might snag one if I ever need something ultra portable (although I heard the spark is sick too). Like you said the sound isn’t “amateur” at all IMO.
I haven’t tried the standard (cream) THR-10 model, and I’ve heard some grumbling that the new version of that, which has some nice features (more outputs, wireless) doesn’t sound the same for high gain. It’s probably fine. But it’s not the one I’ve got.
I’ve heard the rave reviews of these Yamaha amps, and I approve of the practical design touches, but when I look at the green one, all I can think of is this:
I have 2 of the green ones, I like them for medium-high gain applications, and also because they remind me of an AN/UPM-145 radar test set used while I was still active duty in the Air Force: 
Those are great little amps. I believe they may have been discontinued? Nobody seems to have them in stock… 
They do market it as your “third amp” but I only own two amplifiers and this one gets the most use by far 
I have the regular version and have played at small venues with it and it works really well for direct recording too.
i’ve had this amp for a few years, and you can get some real nice tones out of it. The app let’s you customize it quite a bit, but not having a footswitch to support this amp, renders it unusable for anything but a good practice amp and yes recording…
The THR10 “X” is the “metal” versions of the amp. I played several of the prior models and wasn’t impressed.
I found about this amp from Cam Cooper on Youtube. He practically sells them single handedly.
He’s a very good player.
Honestly, though, with all modeling amps, anything you plug into them sounds the same…
it’s fizzy and compressed sounding.\ imo
I own both a THR10X and THR10C and they are amazing little amps I’ve tried Katanas a few times and they never quite had the vibe these have. The FX can indeed be edited in the computer app to great effect, I’ve played some Pink Floyd covers this way with the sounds finely tuned and put in the presets.
I used to use an amp switcher I built to switch between the C for cleans and the X for dirt and used pedals on the X for other dirt sounds. The C is currently my pedal steel amp so I just use the X for gain at the moment with pedals and the clean channel. Didn’t even know that someone made a switcher for it.
Ok, since you’re a THR10X user, couple questions. I’m a little dense so bear with me:
Given that there’s no footswitch, I haven’t bothered with presets. So I never use the memory buttons. I just turn the amp knob to whichever amp I want, like “Brown I” for gain, or “clean” for no gain. That’s it. When I do this, I don’t see any number displayed in the LED display. Which of the presets am I using? Or am I using none of the presets?
Have you used the editor at all? I just installed that, to see if I can turn off the gate. Is there a way to see all the settings currently in the device, like which amp / effect / etc. is currently selected? Or can I only send settings from the app to the amp?
So basically, if I understand you, when I hit a preset button, it just loads the stored values. And when I turn the knobs after that, I’m just modifying whatever those values are, but not affecting what’s stored in the present button. I can just hit the same preset button again to load the same values back?
So the editor has all these patches, but there’s no indication which of them are the default presets in the device then? So basically, I can just click to load them into the device, and if I want to store them, I can hold down a preset button to save it in the hardware. But there’s not a way to see in the editor what the values are for the five default settings?
And if I start turning knobs, there’s not a way to see the speaker / effects / and so on reflected in the editor? The top knobs in the editor update when I turn them on the device, but it doesn’t look like the effect settings knobs update. And there’s no way to know what speaker is current selected on the device, as far as I can tell, either.
Just summarizing the way I think this works, feel free to confirm / deny. And thank you!
Hi Troy,
RE : first paragraph you are correct.
2nd paragraph: you are correct about all the available presets being able to be assigned to buttons 1-5 on the amp. I don’t believe you can access the default 1-5 settings. its part of the amps hardware.
i haven’t been in the editor in a while, but i was sure you could assign a cabinet to the profile and that the knobs on the amp could react realtime in the app.
do you have the pdf instructional guide? i can sent it to you?
have you checked out Cam Coopers videos on Youtube? he has some easy tutorials on how to used the editor and get some cool tones.
best
