To really get a "professional" guitar sound you probably need a "professional" studio. I personally could never record at home at the kind of volume levels necessary to get proper speaker excursion and cabinet involvement to accurately record distorted guitar.

Man, I love these forums! Excellent stuff as usual. In reply to the poster(sorry, busy going thru all the other replies), I think GR and Amplitube are excellent tools in a very wide box. My own take is generally to put any "wet" fx afterwards, post-recording, yet I have to say in terms of drive/distortion I invariably get this in at the front end(v. my comments about phrasing/shaping and using the o.d./sustain element in forming the runs).
I don't know if this is a help but I post on the Bare Knuckle Pickup site as zigmund: I've uploaded 2 "tracks" there on the Players forum I recently submitted done on my Yamaha SG...these were done on a Pod XT in the same way as I've described(overdrive at front end, echo/reverb once in Sonar); if it's not bothersome to trawl around, these might be a help as they illustrate what I'm trying to say.

I just checked out the womanizer on the damage control site damn they all sound good

:)

ORIGINAL: marcos69

stratton, is that a picture of heaven I'm looking at? I'm envious.


mottull, I think your answer is use what works for you. By the many different answers here you can tell that there is no one way to get good results.

Compare stratton's setup (which I would die for) to mine. I play through a digitech processor directly into the soundcard. No amp or software amp sims. You can click my sig to listen. Some of my stuff sounds over modeled, but part of that is me still learning to record.

Hey Marcos, thanks a lot. Heaven? You know I love these amps and having them all lined up ready to go is WAY cool. On the other hand, if I can't get a tone, there's no one or nothing to blame but myself, which is it's own kind of hell!

Seriously, I bought all of these amps to do a specific thing or two. Some of them happen to be very versatile, but I bought them after listening to records, hearing tones I liked and finding out what was used to record the sounds. BTW, that includes the POD.

I listened to some of the guitar recordings mentioned above and I like them... but its certainly apples and oranges. It seems like the digital modeling is really good at getting that vintage Quadraverb/ Yamaha SPX sound...from about 20-25 years ago... but that's not tha same as

"make you humbucker sound like a single coil"
"series/parallel britsh cabinet"
"classic caifornia clean"
etc etc that digital modeling optimistaclly offers to the aspiring guitarist.

If you have the time or inclination you might enjoy hearing some analog style guitar I recorded a while ago with Cakewalk 9 on a Win98/Wave 4 sytem. They are hiding out on my webpage here:

http://www.harmoniccycle.com/hc/music-05-songs.htm

FWIW, I know I am not a good guitarist... I am a jack of all trades, master of none type guy :-). These recordings are improvisational jams that I laid over some chord progressions "composed" using Jammer Pros automated features. I used the auto looping features in Cakewalk and then "mixed" the various takes in layers.

The MIDI tracks are very MIDI :-) but here's the point:

The guitar sound is from an small single ended 6V6 Fender "Champ" clone I built for fun. I was playing the amp thru 2 circa 1950's 8 ohm Rola speakers
wired in parallel for a 4 ohm load. The speakers were rescued from a Baldwin organ that was done for. I have never played a "creamier" set of speakers.
Various distortion and envelope filter pedal efx were used. At the time I was alternating between a '92 Gibson SG special and a '66 Martin GT70 Hollowbody electric (very similar to Gretsch, same hardware, pickups etc.)
I either miced with a AKG 414 or a SM58, sometimes a 57.

I just don't think you can get these sounds with a sim anything... It's not like I don't like playing my buddies Zoom pedal when he visits ... but :-)

My current fascination is Playing a Warmoth parts Strat clone I strung up with flatwounds and hooked up a set of Lindy Fralin "real 54 alnico III" pickups. I play it thru a '70 Fender Champ with a custom Weber VST speaker. I set everything at 10 play some rhythm chords... it's imediately apparent this combo is a classic. It's just chimey and clean and pure with a little quack and bark when you dig in for some solo work.

I know I am being a pest here but it's cause I get so disappointed when I stop by the guitar stores and see the total lack of real, honest to goodness guitar amps and speakers. How are aspiring guitarists ever going to find out about the good stuff if someone doesn't make a big deal about it.

best regards,
mike

Everything you said is your opinion. Theres no fact in it. that may work for you and your style. I think your big ramble is a shameless plug get people to listen to you songs. Im calling it how i see it. Sorry.
CJ

ah gee CJ I was trying to be nice with the vintage quadraverb reference :-)

best,
mike

I've been a guitarist for 20+ years and recorded at real studios (and still have my huge rig from back in the day) and I can honestly say there is nothing that I can't do with GR2 that I paid to do in the real studio. Feedback - for instance- isn't a problem, and even if it was - I have an eBow.

I did a song with three guitar tracks for a song with 3 different models (and some eq-ing effects and so on) and I am abso-smurfly convinced it really couldn't sound better at real good studio. This from a man who was a mic'ing snob. The versatility of the software is amazing and inspiring.

When I recorded with my band; even though we mic'd my guitar, I mostly sat in the control room when laying down the tracks. I found it silly to put on headphones and sit in the room with the amp to feel it. In that respect, it's no different than having GR2 in my house - its coming through a set of monitors.

"Modelers and/or VSTs should not be considered." - that quote is sheer madness!


Hasn't Tom Scholz (the Boston guitarist and Rockman founder) used modeling on a lot of Boston albums? They sound darn good to me!

Like most things on this forum, its about preference - but I guarantee we could record with a sim/modeler and fool about 99% of ppl on this forum in to thinking it was mic'd. Sans the UBER AUDIOPHILES.

Nicely said hocketjx.....
CJ

The mission here is to get killer guitar sound in our recordings. In this case we try to faithfully capture and reproduce the guitar tracks. Naturally, playing a track back through studio monitors is not going to sound the same as a Marshall JMP/1960A when it’s fully cranked. Likewise on other speakers…the 6X9s in your car, the 12 inch stereo speakers in your living room...

Modelers try to recreate the sound of professional valve amps. While they do a pretty good job of it, your tracks are only going to sound as good as your source. Some might be happy with that sound. I’m not.

I also own a Vox AD50VT which is great for everyday playing, but when I’m live or recording, I want a Marshall valve amp behind me. No modeling amp will sound as good as the real deal at creating the trademark wall of sound or incredible clean tone. It’s not about who you can fool.

So, while modeling and VST are great for tracking demos, for professional recordings I’d want the real deal. Think about it. Do you want the valve amp, or do you want the modeler/VST trying to recreate the valve amp sound?

As for signal processing, I have never seen the need for FX on the guitar. Just give me the unadulterated sound of a Strat and a Marshall.

Regards,
Joe