I saw a video of a rig rundown with Joe Bonamassa where he went through his elaborate 4 amp setup and played through each one. He sounded the same through each frickin' amp.

if you want an all itb solution with feel then go get VANDAL, you'll be stunned by how it feels...even has a sag control. If you want to go with a hybrid set up then put a decent pedal in front of most sims and the feel improves because pedals change the dynamic between the pick-ups and the amp (though I caution against thinking that a pedal with a tube will give you more of a tube feel or sound). I'm not going to sit here myself and play the tone clone game though, I'm not sure why these discussions always turn into "this tone sounds better" because that's just a waste of time.

For 8 1/2 years here I have been saying the same thing, it's not either/or but that's not exclusive either because for some people the choices are limited due to their living arrangement or workspace. Much of feel is in your head, which is fine...that's just how it works with some people likely myself included.

I'm not Adrian Belew or Robert Fripp so I cant say if trying to get their style or tone is possible through a software amp, in fact I do not even know if perhaps they both are using software amps right now. I know that Gray Moore's "Back to the Blues" album suggests he is using a Marshall and a Line Six POD XT. I suspect that a lot of guitarists are using both hardware and software to create the best tone possible. Face it, in a studio a great guitar track is only as good as the engineer mixing it and a good mixing engineer can work magic while not being concerned with feel. While different tones can be a muse and inspirational for the guitarist making that come across to the listener is a different story entirely.

For me I'm always going to prefer an amp with a miked cab when I'm laying down the tracks because that is how I like to play the most, if I like how I sound playing and am happy I'm not worrying about tweaking this or that. When I am in the moment I want as little think as possible, when I'm in the groove it doesn't matter how I got there as long as I'm there. This can happen with an acoustic, an electric into a high priced tube amp or a free sim because as you said the guitar is so versatile and even "bad" tones (if such a thing exists) may take me on a journey of discovery no other tone would.

Take note I rarely finish songs because at my age there is no real need, I'm happy and that's all that matters. But when I decide that I have the guitar tracks I want based on performance I'm not married to any source of tone whether it be in the box or not, that's when I put the mixing engineer's cap on and put the guitars down. That's where I try to take what I find fascinating to play and make it as fascinating for the listener to hear. (note I said I rarely finish songs )

At the end of the day if I were to be playing on a stage I'm probably not going to do it with a laptop and a sim into a power amp just like I do not want just tube amps in my studio and like to have plenty of itb options as well. That is why when I hit record I'm recording at the very least two tracks, one from my source (POD, amp etc) and one direct clean signal from the guitar. When you get down to it over the years I have spent just as much on just guitars and their tone as I have on my entire studio and I dont let any principle define what is best for my music and complimenting the parts of my performance I want to stand out and say what I have to say with my guitar.

I wont throw blankets over the topic at hand (though OT from the what the thread is about) and say things like "impossible", suggest a tone is dated or allow my own subjective views like you did with "Except for modern high gain metal sounds of course, kill that shit with guns" to decide anything for me and especially not for others. I'm just gonna pick up a guitar, play and then bask in the afterglow of another fantastic journey...just like I have been doing since I first learned to play my first riffs and then songs.

Of course, you can't get the feedback loop or live exchange of an amp interacting with a pickup at high volume with a DI. If there's anything in the software world that can emulate that effect it's this. And no, that plugin is not "quite the same" sound and I don't care because it doesn't matter anyway. The listener wants to hear music NOT accurate reproductions of someone else's tone

I'm not convinced that one or two effects like this live style of playing with feedback or the discussion of "pick dynamics" or "sag" render the whole lot of amp simulation useless. To the average person, these tone difference are subtle and just not that important to the song. In many cases, guitarists in the studio are not interacting with the speaker cabinet anyway. They are typically in the control room with just the head in front of them, while the mic'ed cab sits in an isolated environment. Sure, you can turn an amp up loud and make single coil pickups squeal like a raped beast. I say...big deal! Use a synth or a sample if you need that sound. Get that effect some other way and move on. It's just not that special to me to warrant some kind of holy grail status that we should discredit digital technology as irrelevant or "not quite there yet"

Frankly, all of the comparisons with "tube" and "analog" and "vintage" (that I'm also guilty of making myself) are wearing thin on me I'm not suggesting that anyone here is against amp simulation entirely or pointing fingers but the future is already here, now folks. We have digital amp simulation technology, it is being used EVERYWHERE and it is here to stay (until some new technology comes along to replace it). We may as well make the most of it and push onward with getting new and interesting tones that are fresh and not necessarily copying the old sounds.

The amp sim companies themselves are mostly responsible for perpetuating this unending fascination with all things vintage. These discussions become like classic rock radio for me; yeah, I love those old songs (and guitar tones) too but ffs, I'm getting tired of hearing how good some a$$hole rock star from the 70's tone was. It wasn't THAT good that we can't move on and try something new. Would Jimi still be dickin' around with those old Plexis today? I doubt it! A lot of the noise he was making then was cutting edge and some of it was total crap. But he used his creativity to make MUSIC NOT TONES with it

So...can we get over this already and move forward? Or...should we keep showing our age here?

All in good fun and love folks, ymmv and all of that

R

BTW, here's Adrian Belew himself raving about a digital guitar (of all things):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYHJaL6g6Jc

I'd like to see that, but I'm not surprised in the slightest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5GMTfY6yoc&feature=youtube_g data_player

Great players can make anything sound great.

I don't know about these (they will never have those in a store around here) but the older ones had all kinds of piezo issues. Kinda ruins it

Ooops, I was wrong, they have a whole bunch of them at GC sac. I think it's a little funny that I was like "why did they put a picture of a hat on them"

Thank you for that, that was enjoyable for sure

Yeah, sameish, but you can hear the subtle diffs. Love the idea of using the TS on things, almost every sound I use AT/GR has a screamer on it (even if it's not really highly OD) The GR one is the shizzle, the AT one isn't quite as good so I usually go with the moller instead, but the idea works best imho.

re: Joe Bonamassa

Yeah he may sound the same, but they apparently drive his creativity and inspiration with the different dynamic playing responses they produce. I didn't say anything about sound or tone. Just in response to the creativity thing. He'd probably just use one amp if that was the case. Just like he uses the fancy rack TC delay unit just for a simple slapback. His quote about that was funny.
"It's like driving a space shuttle down the street just to get some milk"

Is it fair to say we are all picky as hell about our tone????

I think "obsessed" is a better term

True this...

we can still dream though Seriously though it hasn't really changed much even since before sims, if I had two bits for every time I have heard or read sounds just like a marshall I could afford a collection of vintage marshalls