Ibanezer
Hey Mettelus is your Carvin the TS100? I really like mine. I have the guitar rig 5 with their pedal. It's cool to mic all that and then run another line straight into the daw. Gets both worlds and options for later

 
Carvin makes top quality gear, for sure. I have a Carvin XV-212 I bought way back when (1989). It is a bit beefy for a home environment; but after I cleaned the pots in it, it has been better than I remember. Carvin is a company with a high reputation, and I was a bit leery to mail-order something I never played, but no regrets whatsoever. 
 
This same "issue" is why I never bought a guitar from Carvin actually, since I cannot be sure of the tone I am getting. I did a second rebuild of my first guitar in 2012, and used a modified "Super Seven Switching" configuration (only using 6 switches (wired slightly differently), 4 of which are in two "Seymour Duncan TS-1 Triple Shot pickup mounting rings"). Since the guitar was rare to begin with and is now truly one-of-a-kind, I put the effort into making it play the way I have always wanted (it has had bass frets in it since 1989).
 

SO Kenny and Craig....
 
It sounds like a job for the FX CHAIN! Do either of you have existing FX CHAINS presets to play with Guitar Rig or AmpliTube? Something more than the stock ones would be helpful.

kennywtelejazz
A common mistake that guitar players often make ( myself included at times ) is they often think that an amp sim is gonna magicaly inspire them to play and sound better than they actually do  [...]

Another "great post" endorsement for this! I think both effects and "expensive (guitars)" are common pitfalls for new players.

To be honest the man-on-the-street couldn't care less what guitar/amp/FX/room/software/mixer/studio/engineer you use, or how many hours/weeks/months you spent getting your sound "just right".
 
Similar questions can be along the lines of...
Do you use real drums or a machine?
Do you use a synth or a real orchestra?
Do you actually play the notes or programme them in?
Do you sing in tune or use auto-tune?
Does the band play as a band or track by track?
etc..
 
Bottom line, it's the final product that matters.

PH68
Bottom line, it's the final product that matters.

To the person listening, yes. But the point of this discussion is how to get a satisfying sound, and have an enjoyable playing experience, for the person who's doing the recording. I think that's related to creating something that the person doing the listening will like.

I feel compelled to chime in on this one, as I recently resurrected three of my amps. An old musicman that I have had forever that I use as a power amp with a rack fueled by a Hafler T2 preamp and a no name 4 x 12 w emminence legends, a crate vintage club 15w class A(they got the lunchbox idea down years before they came in vogue) And a Rivera 5512. A good diverse selection of tube tone. I did a lot of A/B comparisons between my real and virtual worlds.
While I don't think I would take a laptop to a gig, I have to say that the convenience of sims is too much to resist when tracking. I have been using Guitar Rig 5 Pro with great results, and occasionally still go to my old johnson jstation. Keep in mind, that while only tubes truly sound like tubes, your tone sits in a mix, where subtleties tend not to be as noticed. One piece of advice I would give is track your guitar clean and dry, when you can get away with it.(try enabling two tracks in record if you need the sustain and effects feel, feeding one a dry signal) Get a good,hot full bandwidth signal. Then you can "re amp" to your heart's content. Make sure whatever you choose has a good library of amps and effects available, and allows you to run both as a standalone and a VST plugin. 

Anderton
 



To the person listening, yes. But the point of this discussion is how to get a satisfying sound, and have an enjoyable playing experience, for the person who's doing the recording. I think that's related to creating something that the person doing the listening will like.

I believe that IS the answer for the bands/musicians that create the most recognizably enjoyable music for their listeners.  We all know the term "sell out" and I can't seem to think of any bands that went that route and had better success in that area, than bands that didn't.  Then there's people who twerk...  good grief.

lawajava

kennywtelejazz
 
I do my best to nail my guitar part with a workable sound that I can sculpt using the more powerful and versatile plugs that come w SONAR or Logic …first …just like in the old days when I was in the studio 
 
example I will use the VC 64 as my guitar compressor or the Sonitus delay as if I'm using these plugs in a virtual pedal board . the same goes for EQ , then as my last step I will hit them with a touch of an amp sim just as I would use my amp in real life / real world 
now when I use the amp sim last I treat it as if I'm using it just like a reverb ..
I want just enough to imply not over power ...
it has been my personal experience that by using the more powerful and versatile plugs before hitting the amp sim 
I can get a more idealized / unique guitar tone …
if you happen to have the time to give the first 4 tunes in the link 15 or 20 seconds worth of a listen ...
you will be able to hear I hit everything hard in SONAR first . my amp sim was the last object of my signal chain 
 
https://soundcloud.com/guitarist-kenny-wilson 
Kenny

Kenny, I'm not accustomed to your idea of putting the amp sim last in the chain, and it seems illogical.  That said, I listened to your sample songs.  First off, I have to say you've done a great job on those pieces.  Really well done!  Your guitar tone is excellent.  I certainly may try your idea for an experiment.  However, I'm finding tweaking with an amp sim (like Amplitube) and applying effects within it, I can also easily produce some great sounds to my liking that fit within a song.  That said, it's clear you've nailed your guitar sounds, and really your performance on them, the notes you're hitting and your pieces are really nice.  I'm glad I had a chance to hear them.

Hello lawajava , 
 
thank you for taking the time to give my clips a listen . I appreciate that you did that and had nice things to say about my guitar playing 
 
let me substitute the idea of putting the amp sim last in the chain with an idea that is probably a lot more Logical ...
How's this ? I am using my amp sim last in my signal chain so I can Re Amp my guitar while staying totally in the box .
this always happens after I have done all my editing of my guitar track .
 
why do it that way ? …….I do it that way for manny reasons….
a few examples are , an amp sim can easily mask many imperfections I don't want on my guitar tracks .
I'm talking about things such as hot spots on the guitar neck where a section / range of the neck may be more resonant and boomy..
or it could be something as simple as my guitar pick hitting the metal case of the neck pick up on my Telecaster . 
I do use single coil guitars a lot and there are so manny little things that can add up 
 
OK real fast , while I'm editing my guitar track I'm multitasking …now what do I mean by that ?
Having handled the creative end of things by playing something I'm happy about I now have to change my mind set . In this mind set I will be going through every critical aspect of my track  ...
this is the place where I don't want anything from an amp sim at all …
I want to be able to use the full power of my studio and avail myself of the absolute best my DAW has to offer ...
the things I keep a constant look out for are every nuance and every element of my guitar performance ...
What am I hearing and seeing ?….do I have any problem frequencies ? are any of my phrases to loud or too soft ?
How much do I have to carve out using an EQ so my guitar will sit where I want it to in my ever evolving mix?
 
pardon my capacity for repetition  but this is the place where I don't want to BS around with some retro stomp box in an amp sim ….unless that happens to be the sound I'm looking for .
 
now heres where it gets interesting man  
I take care of business and use my studio quality plugs and advanced editing capacities from my DAW...
Now guess what happens next once I reengage my amp sim …..my signal is now too hot so I start backing off...
before I edited and applied my plugs , my amp sim was sizzling like a Death Valley Rattlesnake perched on the side of the road on Route 66 in a 110 degree weather in the shade ….
now I can turn that bad boy down because I'm hitting the plug w a much more processed and appropriate signal and gain stage ….
now we are talking the type of territory and sound where an amp sim can really shine ….
SONAR and all the studio quality plugs did all the heavy lifting ..once I hit the amp sim that way 
all I got left to do is a little  tweaking that bad boy looking for the sweet spot , then , I'm good to go  
 
OT, an interesting historical side note  , I certainly do remember well the era in Popular Music when all the guitar players were shlepping multiple racks of studio gear to every gig ….big or small ….
We got it pretty good now a days …. 
 
it has been nice talking with you 
 
Kenny
 

Anderton
But I don't know how many people just stick a mic 3 inches from a cone. I put a lot of effort into capturing some room sound, sometimes using a ribbon's Figure 8 to accentuate pickup on reflections.

 
Lots of people when recording hard rock or metal will put the mic even closer to the cone, to make sure there is no room sound at all. This might include taking the grille off to get closer. And some even put the cab in an isolation box for this, so zero room sound there.
 
Obviously it's a very hyper-processed genre but it's interesting how nobody minds or even notices the difference between the recorded tone and the performed tone. I strongly suspect that these fine details are lost on pretty much everybody except the people who do the actual recording.

FWIW this is what i do.

Often when i want to add a certain sound, and being basically a little lazy, I DI my rp500 or ME 80 effects pedals into Sonar via the line in of a LS56.

The resulting sound is OK, but I NEVER inject any reverb nor delay - for that i use Sonitus, both of which are more than adequate.

Sometimes I use GR 5 (full version) but less and less now. On rare occasions (when the wife is out) i use an SM57 to mike my stage amp, a Marshall VT100, through which i use one of the above mentionned pedals.

The sound, i find, using the Marshall, is (of course ?) much better (iMHO), but i have to admit, going against the grain, that GR 5, which therefore gets my vote, is not that bad.......

Cheers,
Jerry