I always record one side with my Ibanez and the other with my Les Paul Custom. Of course, you have to be pretty good at timing.

Sanderxpander
That Slipperman article made my day, thanks.

Also made my day! It's crazy goodness.

If you heard his tone out "in the world" first, there may be a bias there. Just as if you know someone has a Line6 vs an Orange in person, you might be prejudicial if the tone is close. A bit of a placebo effect if you will.
 
But to my point: it still is hard to reduce distortion efficiently (without re-amping trial and error) when mixing, and that is where the sims are pretty awesome.
 
We laid down tracks live at a real, and I didn't like them in the mix, so I redid them with GR5 and loved them.
 
There is no wrong or right, just what you prefer or what works for you. 

Some good conversation. So, let me qualify something real quick. There's absolutely nothing wrong with using Sims in my ears. I'm mainly advocating that if you can do the tried and true amp, that's my purist vote. I personally prefer the real thing, however, in many cases, I'm no analog snob. My mixing and Mastering is all in the box. I just feel if you're copying or re-amping, the real amp can likely be easier to get exactly what you're looking for, IF that's where the sound is right. One could tweak to heaven and back on a sim to get the sound the amp naturally has.
 
Hockeyjx has a solid argument about reducing distortion on an otherwise clean guitar. Sims are amazing there. Believe me, on another session I have, the amp used was awful and I'd love to get rid of the Boss pedal distortion, in favor of a real tube head.
 
The thing that tube head rigs can provide that emulations can't (faithfully, IMO) is what you get when you drive the bias of a tube in different ways, such as using the Resonance setting on a Peavey amp. It creates this "loosened" effect that can be felt in the room, which simply fills the air with a solid layer of guitar. An Ampeg SVT bass amp pumping an 8x10" cab is another example that a sim simply cannot provide (at least none that I've tried). They come close, but again, there's a certain looseness or punch-iness and such you can get from a rig that inherently just fills the track.
 
The argument I have against sims is one that I believe has been valiantly fought for years--with some success. Once the signal is in the box, the signal isn't as reactive as an actual coil pickup underneath the strings. In the box, you've passed through at least a few OP-AMPs which will collectively smear the signal and then, depending on your A/D converters may not retain the full thrust of a mad guitarist ready to break strings. Even if the sim were exactly the same as the real amp/cab, the input signal has changed slightly, and I can even see that on my scope.
In either case, I use sims, too, when that's the only real option, or when the amp just isn't doing it for us. However, standing the sim up against what I can mic from the amp, the amp emotionally works better for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to see better and better sims coming. I don't have any problems with post-processing a guitar if it works. I just think that doing so now is harder to me than getting the real thing in the room and tracking it there.
 
And I do have a sort of contempt for modeling amps, not because of brand or accuracy. It highly depends on the room. In a studio, both amps may sound exactly the same. A lot of effort has gone into these ideas. However, this isn't a typical result in a live room on a stage, and most live shows don't happen in an acoustically controlled room. I still believe the engineers at companies that make amps which emulate other, more expensive tube amps are clever and ingenious, but I also believe there's a sense of arrogance that these amps are better than the real ones.
 
 
 

I am having some really good results with the Torpedo-Wall Of Sound plugin. It was mentioned on this forum a few days ago and I tried it and liked it very much. I am using a Fender Concert-Rivera model with the line recording connected to the interface. Then in X3, I have the wall of sound plugin doing the cab sim. I have Amplitube, GR, Pod Farm Free, and TH2. I use them constantly but being able to use my tube amp without the micing hassles and also being able to change cabs is priceless. If you get a chance, check it out. The plugin is free. You can check it out with all the cab sims in their library for free. You don't like it, dump it. If you like it,they only ask you to buy two or more of their cabs. I bought 5 cabs for about $60.
Bringing my tube amps in to the interface and using cab sims has brought a really nice choice of tones in to play.

I never got "amp sims". I can never get a good sound out of them. They always sound so fake and brittle. Bass isn't so bad but there still, I would prefer an amped bass.

Guitarpima
I never got "amp sims". I can never get a good sound out of them. They always sound so fake and brittle. Bass isn't so bad but there still, I would prefer an amped bass.

Have you tried S-Gear 2?

Bass I usually like just DI'd.

I have your book on my nook Craig. I just can't get good tones or, I'm just not patient enough which I doubt. I take the time to edit de'essing rather than use a plug in.  Maybe I just need to spend more time with it but I've spent a lot already.
 Although, I will say clean tones are doable. The Fender bundle from A3 is nice.

Guitarpima
I have your book on my nook Craig. I just can't get good tones or, I'm just not patient enough which I doubt. I take the time to edit de'essing rather than use a plug in.  Maybe I just need to spend more time with it but I've spent a lot already.

You're right, it takes a lot of time. It's almost like knowing how to set up mics on a session, each amp sim is different. Fortunately for me it's a gig to figure these things out, which I've been working on for over ten years.
 
I don't want to sound discouraging, but I feel it's only in the past year that I've actually cracked the code about how to make amp sims sound really good. If there was a magic formula, I'd share it but it's more like I now have a bag of 100 tricks, and I've pretty much figured out which ones I need to use for any particular situation. Sort of. Mostly 
 
So when people say they have a problem with amp sims, my first reaction is pretty much that I'd be surprised if they didn't. A guitar through a physical amp has a certain quality that doesn't exist (yet) in the virtual world, so I think part of the problem is companies trying to emulate that instead of forging new directions that are unique to virtual amps. Maybe someday...

I bought a Line 6 HD500 back last summer. I also have a POD 2.0 as mentioned in an earlier post. The HD500 is leaps and bounds ahead of the 2.0 as far as the feel and response of the guitar in your hand. I liked the 2.0 so much it was a mainstay in both studio and live work. The HD500 has taken it's place. There is a steeper learning curve to the inner workings of the HD500 due to all of the editing ability but it feels VERY close to the real deal.