edited for various reasons, "too many to list.

Thanks for the all the responces. Funny I have always been a Fender guy. Last night I was playing the Amplitube deluxe reverb and thought it was great! I have the HD500 so I don't think pod farm will add anything to what I have. Tonight I'll try to get a good distorted tone.

As one can easily see opinions about guitar emulators are like rear ends...everybody's got one.  I've had them all at one time or another (hardware and software) and I guess I'm in the minority as I never liked my line 6 stuff that much.  I find myself using either Amp3 (I've got most of the packages and CS stuff) cause I (generally) like the sounds and I love the interface...or SGear, which tho limited is tres fab (mucho solo work with this) and, occasionally WAVES GTR3 (for interesting boutique type sounds).  Just another county heard from.  YMMV.

  I have the Line 6 dream rig and I'm thrilled with it live, but for recording it bothers me. Most seem to think the HD500 is better than most of these plugins, but I don't.
  Amplitube 3 blows it away with the Fender stuff. I haven't worked with Guitar Rig enough to form an opinion.I may go into the custom shop and buy me a Fender (clean) rig, including a few pedals. Is there a way to put the modulation pedals after the preamp or do you have to use the rack gear for that?
 I also need a good high gain rig. I don't play metal but I like rock tones. On my pod I use the Park75 and the Plexi with a tube driver or tube screamer or both.
 If Amplitube sucks with the high gain tones, I may not need the full version of it. I may need one of the others.
 

clintmartin


   Amplitube 3 blows it away with the Fender stuff.  
 
If Amplitube sucks with the high gain tones, I may not need the full version of it.  
 

The Fender models are quite good.  For Gain try the new Carvin amp, the Jet City Stuff is pretty good.  Also, FWIW, the low watt versions of some of the amps seem to sound better than their higher wattage siblings.  Nice thing with custom shop is that you can try all the stuff out for a couple days to see if like it before having to commit.  Downside:  once the trial period ends you can't try the item again for a few months.  (Or is it ever?)

 I have Amplitube 3 with many of the add on packs, GR 4  Pro, the TH2 in Sonar and the HD 500. 

 The definite pros to software simms are a total recall of settings and the ability to change things up later. OTOH with my HD 500 I don't need to worry at all about delays in my in interface buffers. I have the option to go in usb or analog. If I like the tone going in then it doesn't really matter.

  You can use a combination. Track the HD500 in on a nice semi-dirty amp sound,or clean whatever your flavor,then add effects from any of the other simms you have in the computer. I tend to prefer tracking with the HD500 and if I want to sweeten things up I'll add something from a simm later.The impedences and inputs are matched up well from the HD 500 into my interface so I can get a nice signal going in as opposed to just plugging into the 1/4" input of the interface. 

 I suppose if you wanted to you could get a live chain going with multiple simms/hardware using the in/outs on a Sonar channel.Lots of choices.

 I generally go from 1/4" analog out of the HD500 into a Mackie 1402 stereo input and then to the  inputs of my Presonus Firetube studio(not the fire studio)this makes for some good gain staging. Or I'll use the two tube preamps in the Firetube studio direct from the HD500. Either way gives a nice lively signal into Sonar.The preamps in the firetube studio have built in limiters if needed.

  If I had to choose only one I would pick the HD500 but thats JMO too. It doesn't have wings and can't fly....you still need to work with it. The nice thing is the software interface makes that process easy.

The Orange Rockerverb and the German Engle emulations are quite good for hi-gain stuff in Amp3 and you should also check out their Metal package.

Owning most of them and having tried pretty much everything out there - because I had to rely on amp sims for almost 2 years, my opinion is that they're pretty much all hit and miss. 

And the "miss" by far exceeds the "hits". Which is why I own so many of them and have used them in almost every possible configuration.

But sometimes, out of nowhere, one will just work for something. I have a song in the works for which I used Waves GTR because I suspected it could get me in the ballpark quickly for the kind of tone I was after. It's the first thing I tried and it just worked beautifully. I don't think anything else would sound half as good.

Same for the Hiwatt model in Amplitube - I have one slow blues kind of song which I revisited last night for which that particular model is absolutely perfect. Everything else I've tried failed. Usually, I bypass the cab in AT and use impulses, but that song is the one case in a million where AT worked as is for me. Using impulses actually took something away, so I reverted to the cab emulation.

Honorable mention to S-Gear, which gets the closest, imho.

One thing I can tell you is that I have learned an awful lot by using amp sims, and one of the most important things I've learned and on which I'm getting a grasp is not to trust my ears as a guitar player. I need to take a step back and put on the engineer hat.

Most of those amp sims can be a whole lot of fun to play - and there are at least a few very cool models and effects in each of them. But when you've spent so much time trying to mix them, you start to recognize these little flaws hidden in those amp sims, little things that can drive you nuts when you're trying to mix, because, oddly enough, that's where they become more obvious. And no amount of EQ'ing will work w/o severely compromising the tone.

It's a bit like those abstract pictures in which there's a hidden image - once you've tuned your eyes to see it, the hidden image is crystal clear.

So my verdict on amp sims is that they don't necessarily make your life easier. They can require an awful lot of work and tweaking, same if not worst than trying to learn to properly mic a cab. But sometimes, they just work.

 Yeah, It's very true that as a player I'm wanting a certain thing, but when I put my engineer hat on, I wish the guitar player would chill out a bit.
  I do love my HD500. It has a very large selection and many nice things to have in the tool box. I always seem to be fighting for the tones I'm looking for though. I'm running it stereo into my Presonus 44vsl. I use a blank patch for the plugins.
  I should mention that I do have Redwirez MixIR2 ( with several Marshall and Fender IRs) too.

clintmartin

 I should mention that I do have Redwirez MixIR2 ( with several Marshall and Fender IRs) too.

I thought you had Redwirez given that long thread upstairs about TH2.


Regarding what others are saying here--I agree fully.  Different amp sims work very well for different people, for different guitars, different styles, and for different mixes.  I don't do metal so I am not qualified to comment regarding the high gain amps.  For clean, blues, clean overdriven, fusion and singing transparent leads I like S-Gear and Amplitude for me.  Just fits well for me.  However, I fully recognize that others find GR5 or Pods or TH2 or even Waves' GTR great for them.  It really is a matter of personal preference and style.  What is true is that really any of these amp sims will get the job done.  The trick as Rain and others allude to here is to get a great sounding mix; it is easy to get any of these amp sims to sound great in stand alone modes with reverbs and full spectrum eq, but when the guitar is placed in a busy mix, it takes that engineer's ear and discipline to dial it in and often back....


BTW, what I love about this thread is that no one is being pretentious or "shouting" or a zealot.. just offering good input and opinions to consider.