Westside Steve Simmons
Hi. Does anybody use a pod or other Hardware guitar processor before you get to the computer? If not what would you suggest as a guitar plug-in with lots and lots of cool presets?
Hopefully this forum is okay for that question?
WSS

Guitar Sims have come a long way but if you want the best possible sound, use a real amp with an SM57 (or better).
I just built an ISO box. it was one of the best things I've ever done (Thanks To Pragi). I not only have classic amps but also classic vintage speakers and here I was using Amplitude, Bias FX and guitar rig.
 
However, when I want to get some decent sounding scratch tracks down for building a song structure I still use the Amp Sims and I still try and get the best sound achievable.
Through trial and error I have personally found that adding a compressor to the front end of the pre amp adds a much cleaner, tamed signal.
 
You don't want to compress the snot out of it, you only want to tame the transients a little bit.
This does 2 things: 1- it gives you a better signal to noise ratio. 2- Allows you to run a good signal without clipping.
I also use a built in noise gate that's in the compressor to rid my signal of unwanted hum from computer monitors.
This gate is only engaged when signal dips below hardly anything.
I could gate it with a plug in later but why bother. its only for silent passages.
 

danbottomburp
Some great posts here,i was wondering if you all had any tips for getting a better sound when using something like Amplitube.
i have just read somewhere that adding a De-esser before the amp sim is a good step,anything else i can try ?

I think you'll find the article How to Make Amp Sims Sound More "Analog," and the audio examples, very helpful. Avid adopted these ideas in the Eleven Rack expansion pack.
 
You might also enjoy How to Avoid "Hidden Distortion" in Amp Sims.

I've had a Behringer box of sort for guitar, also the Guitar Rig controller board but only kept the Line 6 POD XT Live. It acts as a USB audio interface for the guitar, I can use the Pod Farm software and just use the plugin sound fx, or process on the way in as the sounds can be accessed inside the floor board or use it live connected to an amp or all of the above, depending how you connect it all up.

Things have evolved a good bit since then but it does me fine for anything live and/or recording. Of course I've got all the other Software sims except Scuffham which I hear is the best.

mudgel
Things have evolved a good bit since then but it does me fine for anything live and/or recording. Of course I've got all the other Software sims except Scuffham which I hear is the best.

IMHO Scuffham set out to do a limited number of things really well as opposed to trying to be everything to everybody. Both approaches have their merits. What I find most interesting about amp sims is that they're as different as real amps 

I use the pre out from my CybertwinSE into a Focusrite channel. Many options.

I played the same exact guitar for all my lead guitar work on both of these songs .
 
One features amp sim only recorded direct . The other clip is Hardware into amp sim recorded direct ...
 
Can you tell which is which ?
 
https://soundcloud.com/guitarist-kenny-wilson/come-dance-with-mytele
 
https://soundcloud.com/gu.../my-good-tele-gone-bad
 
Kenny

Slugbaby
When I had my Fender Twin, it was so damned loud that I could almost never push it.  With the sim, i can get the sounds I THOUGHT I was getting at a usable volume.  Same with the JCM800, but maybe my ears just aren't catching the deficiencies.

Loudest thing I've ever owned was an Orange OR120. The volume control went from silent at 0 to to shaking the paint off the walls at 2 then just got louder and louder. I had a 1968 Marshall 50W Lead back in the 80s, and that thing was just too loud to really get it into really singing without a fuzz. Had a great, warm, rich, bell-like clean sound though. The harmonically complex Marshall JTM45 through to JTM800 era clean sound is something the emulators don't seem to focus on much, which is a pity.

These days my "go to" amps are a very early model Tiny Terror (which is really nothing like the Amplitube one at all), a Princeton Reverb reissue (which I do think Amplitube gets close to) and a VHT Special 6 which was very cheap, does the small Tweedy blues thing very nicely and isn't so "special" it would be a tragedy if some idiot poured beer into it at a pub gig. Not that I gig much at all nowadays, but I originally got the TT for regular gigging purposes and it's 15 watts handled a lot of small local(ish) gigs without any problems at all.

I don't miss the days where you weren't a "serious" guitarist unless you hauled around a 100W full stack in the slightest.

Hi guys. First of all thanks for so many great and informative posts. Frankly my skill on the electric guitar is very very limited. I've had a fender 90s Deluxe tele for a long time just don't really have the skill to get a bunch of different and varied sounds out of it. One sim I really liked was Way Way Back when I had a Roland 2480. By the way I've had Cakewalk ever since version 3 on a floppy disk... In one of those Roland FX cards was a set of guitar presets many of which I really like the sound of. Tweaking things to a huge extent doesn't really appeal to me all that much but that's kind of what I had in mind.
I will try the Sims that come with Platinum though.

Thanks again!

As for the acoustic I have a Fishman blender in my Martin and I can get a pretty decent basic track why putting that about halfway but if there is something good for messing with an acoustic guitar tone in a FX plug I'd like to play with that too.
WSS

I'm a guitarist and I'm also an "Old School" player. I believe in a great "Tube Preamp" Summit Audio 2BA-221 as an example, which I love. Really rounds off the digital sound when connecting to the DAW, I also like an SM57 and Royer R-121 on a great guitar cabinet (Bogner 2x12OS w/Celestion V30's) I also own many of the boutique amps and pedal boards etc. Also AxEfx II, Kemper, Line 6 HD, Suhr Reative Load (IR) either for late night recording or when doing a client session where time is money. I'm not a big fan of "Simulators" but I also own most of the top level plug-ins, their fine but for myself there's something to be said where mic placement, room shape & proximity make a huge difference. I also prefer recording my Acoustic Guitars with a Neumann KM 84 (two location/pair) absolutely beautiful. Amp Simulator Plug-ins can also get pricey, for me their pricey because their always "close enough" I can hear the difference through my RME interface (general audience and non-guitarists, most likely not) I've had good results with UAD plug-ins, great advice from the forum!!! 

Been playing around with the Overloud th3 and it seems great.
It turns out Roland no longer makes that set of plugins and universal audio had one called Nigel but they decided to take it away.

Thanks guys.
WSS