clintmartin
A helpful review...How would you compare TH2 to GR5, Amplitube and Pod farm? I tried the S-gear demo for a day once. I could never get the latency low enough for it to be useable. I'm getting 7.3ms roundtrip now at 128 samples, so it may do bettter (I got a better interface since I tried it).
I won't go into much detail, but my subjective impression is the TH2 is closer to GR5 than to Amplitube or Pod farm in terms of the clean or overdriven clean and fusion type tones that I prefer. For me GR5 works fine in heavy mixes and cuts thru fine; TH2 seems to have that same
edge to it and I suspect it would do well in busy mixes. What I do not like about either GR5 or TH2 is the lack of the full, warm round tone, which is not a problem in the large mixes with 30-100 instruments, but if it is a three piece or a jazz, I like the guitar to have some fuller tone. S-Gear sounds like running a real amp, with all of the bottom. Even with TH2 "respire" on, it still lacks the bottom for me. Amplitube and Pod Farm (again just my take on it) are better for clean, warm, round tones. If I am being honest, I think Amplitube is actually better for Jazz than Scuffham's S-Gear. I think Ampltitube has pretty much nailed the Fender tones (but then they are licensed by Fender; so you would expect this).
The reality I think most of us realize is that each of these five or six different Amp sims find there use in the same studio, depending of the player, the type of guitar used, the style of music, and yes the instruments surrounding it in a mix. If I were younger and had a "for hire" project studio, I personally would want to have all of them (which I do) but would probably first go to TH2 for hard rock and metal, Ampltitube for Fender and Jazz, and S-Gear for Blues and Overdriven tones.
I should add, that someone early in this thread or the other TH2 thread was bemoaning the lack of a
"santana" like tone in TH2. I agree that it just does not jump out at you. Whereas, that "santana" tone is a piece of cake in S-Gear.
Sorry to run this thread in a different direction.
TH2 is well worth it's price and I suspect that the majority of persons in these forums will find use for it right away. Cakewalk has done us a great service for getting it in our toolboxes and making it affordable if we want to upgrade. And for that I am thankful.