Wow, hearing reports of evacuations, prayers go out to Rain, Danny and all other east coasters that Irene is gentle to you. Now that I've did a bit of recording with the amp. I think I can do it if I needed to. I would someday like to be mobile and able to record live sessions or events. For software amps I have GR4 (Sonar elite pack), Amplatube 3, and Amplatube Fender. My favorite is the Fender kit. I'm liking GR4 a tad bit better than Amp3, mostly because of the higher CPU usage. If I'm going to do a Amplatube 3. track it has to be early in the project and froze. My measly P4 core is the cause of the low performance, I'm sure. To my ears I would have to say there's nothing I would do with an amp that I couldn't do with the Amp sims I have now. The choice will be a matter of convenience and CPU usage.I tried a tone port and Gearbox software a while back, I was impressed with the tones but the deal breaker for me was their software did not work with the tone port unplugged. I think it's a great time to be a guitarist recording on a DAW with so many options, but sometimes I get overwhelmed with them all.

Quick post-Irene update. :)

I think I've found the convenient/simple solution I was looking for. While I prefer impulses, it was sort of a drag to have to set up 2 or 3 busses - 1 for each mic, one for room - and then deal with one plug-in per bus + the amp sim. 

The folks at RedWirez sell a marvelous little plug-in called MixIR2 - basically an IR loader which lets you load up to 6 blocks/impulses, mix and match them either in parallel or in series. It has its own browser, you can save blocks as fx chains for quick recall. Easy to use, straight-forward GUI, light on CPU. For $50, it's a bargain for anyone looking for a plug-in that allows to work with multiple impulses.

So basically, I get all the flexibility while greatly simplifying the whole process, and unlike Audio Ease's Cabinet, I can use whichever impulses I want.

That being taken care of, I don't mind all that much switching between whatever works better for the case at hand, be it Amplitube, GR, GTR or whatever.

That's it for the quick update. I'll be back with the quick examples I've mentioned earlier and hopefully I'll catch up with the rest of the music you guys posted.

Rain,

Really interesting thread.   Great comments and ideas throughout. 

One topic I haven't seen in the discussion regarding guitarists' favorite amp sims, cab emulation, tips/tricks, sims vs the real thing, etc... is this.  Is there a secret sauce for capturing the RAW guitar performances in Sonar?   I have Guitar Rig 4, Waves GTR, TH2, and agree each has strong suits for different styles.  One thing, in my studio, that they all have in common is that they sound weak and thin when used as VST plug-ins.   I have tried my guitar input though Hi Z inputs on my RME Fireface, through NI Kontrol Rig Sound Card, through a pre-amp and then to RME FF800 and get the same weak, thin and lifeless result when using VST plug of these products.   Listening to RLD's examples with his pre-amp  to Line6 GearBox method is proof enough that it should work.  Maybe I am missing something or doing something wrong...  When trying the VST method I experimented with levels between -18db and -6db and the results were similarly bad....

About 6 -8  months ago I set-up a separate laptop that I connected my NI Kontrol Rig to and I use that system as my "guitar amp.'   Basically running the stand-alone versions of the aforementioned programs and recording them "wet" .   The result with this method has been the great, the stand-alone audio is much superior (fuller, clearer, more colorful) to my ears than the VST insert method.   I also don't have to worry about latency as I am just recording the sound coming out of my laptop amp. 

After reading this thread I thought maybe what I was missing was the Guitar Cab Sim piece so I downloaded LeCab and that free Marshall amp impulse from RedWirez and still cannot acheive a better sound than recording wet though my laptop .   For my experiment with the cab simulators, I turned off the cab in Guitar Rig and Waves GTR (tried them both, not at the same time though;)) and put the LeCab VST with the Marshall impulse after it.  Also tried Perfect Space with the impulse and got the same result as with LeCab.  I am happy to continue with the method I am currently using but clearly am interested in having the option open for  re-amping a performance in the future if need be. Would love to hear others'  experiences or thoughts on this.

Regards

Funny you mention that, Mark.

I get the impression that most of them don't "overload" properly. So you have to feed them something substantial.

I was watching the videos on NI's website for Rammfire the other night. That's some serious high gain stuff. So I thought, let's try this one. No way one earth could I get anything remotely close to what I heard in the video. And that's using the guy's own presets! The sound was all over the place, weak, as is often the case with amp sims. It's like it applies the distortion evenly all across the frequencies, without tightening them up and shaping them in the first place. 

In other words, it sounded like a clean, unprocessed guitar track with a layer of distortion over it - not touching it, just laying on top.  

No matter if I'm using my strat or my LP, no matter if I record as hot as possible - most amp sims don't shape up the tone before adding the distortion characteristics.

I went as far as questioning everything in my signal chain, from my pick ups to my converters. But the truth is that my guitars sound just fine in an amp. And Line 6's Pod Farm didn't seem to have that weakness most of the others have.

Anyway, I tried. I tested the amp sims with pre-recorded material that was bundled with Guitar Rig - no luck.

So for me, the answer is clear - if you're after gain, you have to shape your tone in front of the amp sim. Meaning including some sort of tube device that you'll push hard enough to feed your amp sim with something it can work with. But if you intend to just plug your guitar in, using a standard preamp w/o tubes to warm up and shape your sound, I can't for the life of me, see how you could get the type of tones those amp sims all promise.  I'm still hoping someone will jump in and say - listen, all done using AT or GR, plugged directly into my audio interface. Until then, I just don't trust the ads which tells you that all you need is to plug your guitar in and the amp sim will do the rest. There's something they're not telling you...

I don't have a tube preamp here, so I tested my theory using a dedicated tube sim from Wave Arts. I tend to be over-enthusiast when I try stuff which seems to work, plus I haven't tried the high gain stuff. But I was working with a model of a Marshall Plexi this afternoon, and, it seems to help big time already. It really isn't how hot the signal going in the amp sim is - it's how pre warmed up it is. But like I said, I need some more time to really judge if it helps all that much, or if it's just me getting excited.

Now, that's a poor man's test, w/ tube emulation - but putting some real 12AX7 in your signal path must do marvels.

Line 6 seem to be doing things differently - when I tried Pod Farm, unlike the others, it didn't just apply distortion all across. It shaped the sound before. Waves GTR seems to work more or less similarly. I'm thinking that they do a lot more to your sound - it's like they tighten it up and stamp it before. Play with the all tone knobs on a Line 6 Marshall emulation - it'll always sound as much as a Marshall as it does when properly set. 

Try the same thing with Amplitube or Guitar Rig - seems pretty easy to me to get them where they completely miss the target sound - imho, they tend to just fall apart.

Hey Mark,
You know, I think I did try Guitar Rig or Amplitube, but I couldn't get a feel for them because there was always a bit of latency which I couldn't stand.
I use a table top POD for a long time and when I wanted to try the plugin stuff, the zero latency way of the Tone Port made sense to me.
It basically splits your signal sending clean to the direct out and also a stereo output of the effected signal via the stand alone program for monitoring...course you can record either signal.
So whatever I hear in real time when recording is what I hear on playback...unless I want to change it via the plugin which is the beauty of this whole technique.

...And no I've never tried any other plugin with my tracks...that might be interesting, but I just haven't felt the need as I'm pretty happy with my current results....I should try that though.

RLD - man, I have problems focusing on the actual guitar sound because the songs themselves just work. I imagine some could try and be a purist and say it'd all be even better with real amps and all, but at the end of the day, anytime I listen to your material, as much as like to hear the air moving and the little subtle colorations, all that stuff becomes irrelevant. 

And that's what using amp sims should allow us - to at least get it to a point where it doesn't stand out as "not working". The struggle to bring that up to yet another level of realism is a different one altogether, IMHO. 

FWIW, I've tested a few models from the just released Guitar Rig 5 today. I think they're getting better with the hi gain ones - the new 5150, though it still doesn't "shape" your sound like a real tube amp does a bit more than just sitting on top. Definitely one of the better ones. Not so sure about the rectifier though. 

Went on and did a bit more testing/recording with the WaveArts Tube Saturator in front of the amp sim. I don't think it'll fix issues with very high gain tones, though I have yet to really push it, but for typical Marshall Plexi or JCM800, as far as I'm concerned, it does the trick nicely. Not really that you can use it in real time in a regular session with a bunch of tracks and other plug-ins running. It's way too CPU-intensive - but there are alternatives, like the free Voxengo Tube Amp for that.

As a side-effect, Amplitube and its cab simulation seem a bit less harsh in the higher frequencies - that's even without using the EQ on Tape Saturator. Definitely easier to handle using the regular parametric in the rack. Didn't seem as urgent to resort to impulses to fix the sound. 

Speaking of which, since some of you guys showed interest - there's an impulse pack of an oversized Mesa cabinet called God's Cab (donationware). It's definitely got more "character" than the RedWirez ones - won't work with everything, but if you're looking for something that'll give you that big metal sound without much tweaking/re-eq'ing, you might want to look into it. It also includes ambient/room impulses for your tweaking pleasure.

http://www.signalsaudio.c...amp;id=8&Itemid=21

Always a pleasure. :)  And thanks for the info about the Tube King - that's an option (pedals) I was considering looking into. 

The trick to getting a good sound from a guitar amp sim is to treat it like a real amp, not a track plugin.

Stand back from your monitors and crank the level to something on par with what you'd normally use with a "real" amp and you'll get the interaction between guitar and speaker that is missing at lower levels.

I find setting these up and tweaking, with all the millions of settings and options like series parallel IRs, etc... overwhelming

Most people don't have a warehouse full of "real" amps and FX to choose from,  pick 1 or 2 amps from your sim (maybe a Marshall and a Fender for contrast) and use nothin else. Likewise limit your selection of stomp boxes to what would be realistic.  If your "real" gear is just a cheap echo, a fuzz box and a valve amp with 1x12 speaker, use a similar setup in the sim and stick to it untill you learn how to get the good sounds.

Lastly,  record it as if it is real.  Add the sim to the track, record your guitar, then treat it as if you've just recorded your "real" amp.  Apply the same processing after the amp sim that you would for a real amp.  Don't try to do to much processing within the sim.

I can certainly understand the convenience of being portable. Makes a lot of sense. I guess also, it is nice to have so many different tones at your fingertips to try out ideas.

Karyn, that is good advice. I think the S-Gear sim fits this idea pretty well (3 amps and 1 effect lol).

I love my Carvin V3 and somehow feel guilty not using it to record with but the S-Gear stuff sounds so different from my V3, I think it will be a nice compliment. ...and 15% off the S-Gear sim until the 11th. Hmmmm.

Rain, I see you are using Amplitube. I find of all the sims, with my setup, it is the brightest. I cascade multiple low pass filters in the front end then again after the amp, if I am using KeFIR, or after the cab, if I am using Amplitube's built in cab sim. I have since learned about Pro Channels high order rolloff, errr slope, so I don't need to cascade low pass filters anymore. :-)

I found it to be the same, but not to the same extent, as GR 4 Pro. Now S-Gear, just worked for me. No external pieces to make it sound good.

You are using a tube sim in front of the amp sim? You mentioned Presonus. Would Pro Channel work or is that something else altogether? I suppose I could try using my ADA MP2 or the effects send from my V3. See! To many options! lol

Thanks for the thread Rain. I need to re-read all the posts again. However, I am inspired now. ...If only my fingers could reproduce what's in my head :-)
 
Rock on!

Rain, I'm just curious....do you have any pedals around? Like a Tube Screamer or a Boss Compressor Sustainer? They work incredibly well in line...from your guitar, to the pedal and then to your computer. I've really been experimenting with this stuff due to my developments at ABG. One of the coolest things I've used that I think would help you greatly if you're not already, is using a hardware compressor before you hit the computer. If you listen to your clean tone going into the sims, without a good comp going in, it's probably pretty spikey, right? If you comp that just right, it literally allows the sim to react better. Then, add one of these pedals I'm telling you about and it can really make a nice difference because we're now buffering the tone.

When I use the Boss or the Tube Screamer, I set the gains all the way down to 0 and turn up the output as hot as I can get it without hiss. Then, I use the tone knobs to sweeten things up further for a little bit of warmth by turning down the tone knob...or raising it slightly if I need a little presence. Try that stuff if you haven't already. It's made a world of difference for me in my tests. Thankfully for us at ABG, we have what is called an "input gain" that compensates for all that I have mentioned up there...so I don't really need anything other than a hardware compressor to control my clean tone going into the sim. I know you have a MAC and can't use our stuff...I sure wish you could....I have an awesome beta I think you would love. But anyway, the hardware compressor alone will make a nice difference with the right settings. Unfortunately, it has to be a hardware compressor that controls your tone before you hit the computer or it won't work the same way. Good luck man...I hope this helps a bit.

-Danny

Any time Rain...glad the snare verb thing helped you out as well. :) The Boss compressor sustainer I mentioned....keep in mind, we're not using it to compress nor sustain in the example I gave. We're just driving the signal a bit. The reason those 2 effects boxes were mentioned was because they don't give you loads of hiss and gain. With the gain knobs rolled all the way off, you get very little noise from them which is a good thing. We just want to punch the signal in the mouth a tad and these little units do a nice job there. Of course you could bring up the gain if you needed to, but for me, I was attempting to simulate what happens in an amp when you plug your guitar in.

There's a buffer in each amp that pre-amps the sound a bit so it's not mixing just a pristine clean sound in with the amp once it hits the official pre-amp stage of the amp, know what I mean? This is where every amp sim has failed for me. You can get loads of gain out of all of them with very little sustain. Our ABG stuff literally feeds back with sustain which is something I think gives us a bit of an edge. I really think it would work well for you if you boot camped it...especially because you're in need of that plexi tone and that, we have on all our amps in the suite. You click a switch and the amp turns into a ratty looking, ripped up, old beaten up head. LOL! Granted, I'm not knocking all the other companies that put this stuff out. I actually still to this day, use the first version of Amplitube that came with Sonar at one point years ago. That thing has an incredible sound to it that not many amp sims have to this day...including their latest stuff. I do use Amplitube Metal a bit too as well as a few others. As a matter of fact, part of my job is to buy up amp sims and see how they respond...benchmark them against our stuff...compare cpu usage, load times, the whole 9 yards.

As a matter of fact, quite a few of the companies you would think are our rivals actually are our friends and we share ideas with each other all the time...so it's more "ok, you do what you do great and we don't want to compete with you totally, but we do this other thing pretty great" and we all get along fine. LOL!

Sorry to get off topic there. Anyway, I didn't want you to confuse the Boss compressor sustainer with a real hardware compressor. The Boss really doesn't compress at all. I'm still not sure why they called it that, but it does add a nice clean boost as well as add sustain. I know you're hands and bags are full so you can't fit much more at this time, but I sincerely think one of these pedals I mentioned as well as some sort of decent hardware compressor would work wonders for what you're doing. The key to all this sim stuff is to condition the natural tone going in so that it's where it needs to be before it hits to amp sim. So just keep some of that stuff in mind. As for your tube pre stuff you were talking about, I really don't think that will make much of a difference and I'll tell you why.

The key thing about tubes in my experience with all this stuff, is to have a 12AX7 literally creating the tone because it's been created for the pre-amp it is pushing. Just running some sort of tube driver will probably not give you what you're looking for. If you do decide to investigate into this further, Chandler has some nice stuff made for guitar. Quite a few of my friends have had really good results with the Chandler stuff. But I sincerely do not feel you will ever get "that sound" unless you have a hardware pre-amp made for guitar that has 12AX7's in it to drive the tone the right way. The good thing there, most of these are 2-space racks, so it's not like you have to lug an amp or even mic it. Most of them come with speaker sim or you can add your own. But the key here is to have the 12AX7's driving the pre-amp they were made to drive.

I'll give you 3 great examples of what I really enjoy tube wise that have some incredible sounding surprises. :)

Mesa Tri Axis: This pre-amp is state of the art. It's pricey as heck, but it's really sweet sounding. You can get just about any tube sound known to man out of it

Mesa Recording guitar pre-amp: This is pretty sick too. I was impressed when a client of mine showed up with it. We plugged it in and it just sounded great with the presets he had ready to go.

Digitech 2101: This is what I use. I like it better for what I do than my Tri Axis. There's just something about this Digitech that is perfect for how I play. Like...it's become a part of me and though there are like a million people that will bash it and say it's a pain to program and it's old etc...just about everyone that hears me play asks me what the heck I'm using to get the sounds I'm getting. I've never been able to NOT get a sound out of that thing...plus it has incredible effects built into it...like loads of them....like...every effect known to man all in one box except for a talk box. LOL! Though I enjoy working for ABG and messing with all these amp sims etc, there is something about glowing 12AX7's that just completes me. Most guys like a combo of pre-amp tubes AND output tubes...but for me, I'm not crazy about that output tube sound because you have to go so loud to get there, it's just not worth punishing your ears, your neighbors or people in the audience. I also feel that power amps have come a long way in simulating output tube sounds. It's way easier to simulate them than it is to simulate pre-amp tubes. So for me, if I have a healthy front end, I can get away with the Rocktron Velocity power amp to output tube simulate me, and I don't have to be super loud to get it...which is a great thing. I've been using Rocktron power amps since they came out. I just bought a few 1-space 300 watters. Their older models were 2 space...so this free'd up some space in my rack to add other things.

Oh yeah, one other thing that blew me away recently. A client of mine came here to record and brought this little pedal with him. I started laughing at him because...well, it's rare you can just plug a pedal into a console and get a good sound out of it. I didn't know what to expect until he played and THIS came out of it!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4909348/Recto_Fried%5B1%5D.mp3

Now this isn't him playing...this is actually one of the demo patches from the actual pedal from Rocktron's website. The pedal is called a Utopia 100. I was completely blown away at how great this little thing sounded. I know that tone there is way more gain than you are looking for...but it sounds so much like tubes, it's scary. This is definitely one of the closest tube sims I've ever heard. As a matter of fact, this particular patch and sound is what my live sound sounds like with my 2101 using my stereo rig. It sounds like 2 guitars because there is a HAAS delay effect on it. But this little baby was so impressive, I just ordered one for myself to have because it's so small and potent. Anyway...just feeding your head more brother. I hope you get what you're looking for with all this stuff, and I really look forward to hearing your stuff when you get it all done. If you ever need a mastering guy, don't hesitate to contact me. :) Best of luck to you bro!

-Danny

I think from all those these discussions and ideas - reading and then experimenting - that I'm getting better at deconstructing guitar sounds instead of referring to them simply as tones. I'm hoping this can be as inspiring to some folks here as well.

Inspired by Danny's post above,  I gave that little zoom box another try - because that's what I have here for the moment - this time trying to use it only for the booster fx, just a tiny bit, not really driving the sound, just giving it more bite. Certainly not the best option available, but it helped me understand something.

This doesn't fix the guitar tone itself, but how it evolves - the attack seems to have a bit more "focus", making the whole thing more articulated. It's really more a matter of how the sound evolves rather than the added harmonics/distortion. 

That's something I couldn't seem to get out of the amp sims I've tried just by themselves, one of those elusive little things.

Of course, we're talking milliseconds here, but still, it brings something that makes it sound a bit more realistic. That's certainly not the best solution, and I may over-enthusiastic once again, but, that's just me when I grasp something I couldn't put my finger on before, as obvious as it may be to most and should be for a fellow who's played electric guitars for over 27 years. lol

I would like that. :)

One of those mini rectifier you mentioned in another post (just turned a friend of mine onto these - he's drooling. I soooo wouldn't be surprised to hear that he bought one before long. lol

The good thing is that I am put in a position which forces me to learn and understand - it doesn't fix my issue, at least not completely, but I'm really having a blast these days - not a day goes by without me figuring out a little something in terms of music/engineering/mixing. I wake up all psyched, full of ideas and anxious to try new stuff. 

After years of guess work and running into walls, it's a bliss.

I ended up purchasing S-Gear with the 15% discount coupon. Based on the ideas in this thread, I got a decent clean sound (which I struggle the most with using a sim). I used Prochannel in the pre setting. I added the lowest compression ratio (4:1) using the 76k mode and 50% wet/dry. At 100% and the lightest compression ratio, it is still too much (for me). I also added tube saturation to warm it up a bit. It certainly was a usable sound for me.