Anderton
... 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.

 
During tracking I don't care if I have a cranked amp with one or more mics or an amp sim. Either way I am wearing a set of cans or sitting in the control room with the artist/producer/engineer so it makes no difference to me.
 
What inspires me is when I get a general tone (guitar choice, amp choice, dirt level) that fits the song and hear it mixed with the song decently during the tracking. If that tone is coming from a Vox AC30 on 8 in another room, or from a POD dialed to a Fender Deluxe setting, or Guitar Rig set to a Matchless - I couldn't care less. If it fits the song - I'll be inspired.
 
25 - 30 years ago, living 40+ weeks a year in hotel rooms across North America I used to get inspired with a portastudio, "drum drop" recording volumes, and a "Rockman X100". Well - that combined with copious amounts of coffee in the morning while reading "Home Recording for Musicians" to start my day :)

Kenny, I just listened to your songs and I must say your guitar tone and playing technique are second to none. Great job on both!

I never thought about putting the amp sim last until now.  Back before effect loops we used to put our effect pedals before our amps.  This was a kind of back to the future revelation for me.  I am definitely going to try this technique on my next song.

kennywtelejazz
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 
 
disclaimer,  what I might consider a good guitar tone using an amp sim  might be somebody else's idea of nails scraping away on  chalk board 

I'm not sure what dope would ever say that what I just heard on your soundcloud could ever be classified as anything CLOSE to nails on a chalkboard.  I would trade half of what I own in my cheesy Nashville home studio to get tones as sweet as those.  Oh...and can I borrow some of your licks?  ;)
 
You got me interested, as others have noted, to fool around with compression, EFX, etc. BEFORE hitting the amp sim.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts...and your tunes.  Very inspiring.  Both...

Kylotan

Anderton
If you put your ear three inches from a Marshall's speaker cone, it's not going to sound all that great.

And yet that's exactly what ends up on the album usually, and gets called 'classic tone' or whatever.
 
I am 95% convinced that most of the arguments over guitar sound are entirely psychological and largely the result of confirmation bias with a dose of 'louder = better' thrown in. Many albums are being done with amp sims these days and no listener can tell the difference. But then I've also seen guitarists perform live through sims that have 1/10th the fidelity of modern sims (eg. the venerable Behringer V-Amp2) and everyone at the gig seemed to think it sounded great.
 
For me, the key is to not use your judgement of how it sounds in the room to decide what tone to put in the mix (nor to assume that a tone that works well on a recording will sound good in a live setting).

 Great post. Thick should be a sticky in my brain.  

I like Guitar Rig.  Most of the presets are too much—lots of components resulting in over-processed sounds—but if you keep it simple, you can get great results.  The Fenders, Oranges, and the Plexi are pretty good, and I like a number of the components, like the Tube Screamer and some of the choruses.  I use the delays and reverbs on non-guitar sounds sometimes.
 
Obviously, you have to know when you want a Strat v a Les Paul, etc.
 
UPDATE:  I just went to the Overloud website and listened to the demos.  Now I want to buy TH2 just for this sound: Randall® LynchBox

caminitic

kennywtelejazz
if you happen to have the time to give the first 4 tunes in the link 15 or 20 seconds worth of a listen ...

I'm not sure what dope would ever say that what I just heard on your soundcloud could ever be classified as anything CLOSE to nails on a chalkboard.  I would trade half of what I own in my cheesy Nashville home studio to get tones as sweet as those.  Oh...and can I borrow some of your licks?  ;)
 
You got me interested, as others have noted, to fool around with compression, EFX, etc. BEFORE hitting the amp sim.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts...and your tunes.  Very inspiring.  Both...

One of my favorite tricks is de-esser before amp sim. You know how rolling back the tone control gives you a sweeter sound? A properly set de-esser is like having an intelligent tone control in front of the sim.
 
FWIW every guitar part on every song on my YouTube channel is going through an amp sim, and any "acoustic guitars" are actually the piezo output from a Firebird X.

hockeyjx
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.

Hello hockeyjx , 
 
in my case I roll every sound from scratch . I do save my own presets with the intention of being able to start there if I think I might want to repeat that sound . Every time I went to use a sound again ( my pre set ) there was always something that just wasn't right about it gelling in a totally different musical project ….some times that would happen because I would be using a different guitar than what I used when I created the preset.
 
wish I can be of more help 
 
Kenny

MarioD
Kenny, I just listened to your songs and I must say your guitar tone and playing technique are second to none. Great job on both!

I never thought about putting the amp sim last until now.  Back before effect loops we used to put our effect pedals before our amps.  This was a kind of back to the future revelation for me.  I am definitely going to try this technique on my next song.

Hello Mario, 
 
thank you for the listens and kind words   
 
Yes , in a lot of respects an amp sim will respond pretty much like a regular amp would when having the efx running into the front end …
in all honesty , I would have to say the best results I have gotten so far were with the clean sounds ..
 
good luck , I hope you have good results ...
 
 

caminitic

kennywtelejazz
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 
 
disclaimer,  what I might consider a good guitar tone using an amp sim  might be somebody else's idea of nails scraping away on  chalk board   

I'm not sure what dope would ever say that what I just heard on your soundcloud could ever be classified as anything CLOSE to nails on a chalkboard.  I would trade half of what I own in my cheesy Nashville home studio to get tones as sweet as those.  Oh...and can I borrow some of your licks?  ;)
 
You got me interested, as others have noted, to fool around with compression, EFX, etc. BEFORE hitting the amp sim.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts...and your tunes.  Very inspiring.  Both...

Hello caminitic , 
 
Oh i said the nails on the chalk board thing to poke fun at myself …
I'm happy you like what you heard 
sure by all means , if you can grab what I'm playing …you have my blessing ...
 

Anderton

caminitic

kennywtelejazz
if you happen to have the time to give the first 4 tunes in the link 15 or 20 seconds worth of a listen ...

I'm not sure what dope would ever say that what I just heard on your soundcloud could ever be classified as anything CLOSE to nails on a chalkboard.  I would trade half of what I own in my cheesy Nashville home studio to get tones as sweet as those.  Oh...and can I borrow some of your licks?  ;)
 
You got me interested, as others have noted, to fool around with compression, EFX, etc. BEFORE hitting the amp sim.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts...and your tunes.  Very inspiring.  Both...

One of my favorite tricks is de-esser before amp sim. You know how rolling back the tone control gives you a sweeter sound? A properly set de-esser is like having an intelligent tone control in front of the sim.
 
FWIW every guitar part on every song on my YouTube channel is going through an amp sim, and any "acoustic guitars" are actually the piezo output from a Firebird X.

Hello Craig, 
 
thank you for sharing the trick about the de-esser . it sounds like something i will have to try out ..
the version you did of We Got To Get Out of This Place is excellent…great sounding guitars   
 
Kenny

Controversially, I prefer POD Farm 2 (2.5 I think now). I prefer the GUI of this above all the rest and it has some pretty decent sounds too. As has been mentioned a ton of times already no doubt, each to their own. One mans meat is another mans poison.

CPFC1985
Controversially, I prefer POD Farm 2 (2.5 I think now). I prefer the GUI of this above all the rest and it has some pretty decent sounds too. As has been mentioned a ton of times already no doubt, each to their own. One mans meat is another mans poison.

I have been very satisfied by PodFarm 2.x as well. It has really realistic sounds. I received PodFarm included when I obtained a KB-37, which I trot out like a show dog every time I have a chance to talk about amp sims and a real zero latency experience when recording. The KB-37 sounds like a live amp real time, even when fully loaded with amp sim sounds and effects.

Info, as per my usual, on the KB-37 is here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRpCXWSC8TE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwBR1OfHRtM

Even though I have been deep into using PodFarm 2.x and also have TH2 and Guitar Rig 5, I am far more taken now by Amplitube. It sounds amazing and is layed out in an easy to understand interface that looks and feels like how a guitar player would like to work with gear and settings. It's very intuitive. Did I mention it's 50% off until then end of Aug? I'm just a user, but I recommend it.

Also I want to point out that the KB-37 comes with PodFarm included, but works with any of the AmpSims equally well. It's not a proprietary thing why it works so well as an audio interface for recording vocals and guitar. But there is something extra in the wiring that enables that real-time, amp effected, recording experience.

I switch to another audio interface easily in Sonar as needed. Easy to flip between two audio interfaces in Sonar.