Virtual guitar rig recommendations

[DCrown]

Why don't your rrply does not surprise me, Mr. No Clue Wannabesamart?!

if you're going to imply someone isn't too clever, best not to make typos

Yes, typos show whether someone is clever or not. There are typos and there are typos!

[jens]

Ok, I got to admit that NI Guitar Rig isn't as good as many other plugins when it comes to pure authentic tone. Here I had clearly better results with Tonex or TH-U.

I assume you must be talking about the pre-ICM amps? The latter are best in class. NIs claims regarding this tech aren't just marketing blurb - far from it... so when talking about GR one must start by differentiating between ICM and pre-ICM gear as this is basically like two completely different products - it's a total night&day difference. The feel of the ICM stuff is out of this world really.

https://blog.native-instruments.com/the-making-of-icm/

[mixtur.se]

My New favorite is aodtube amproom. It sounds very 3D and authentic as opposed to something like guitar rig which sounds like a synth (which is perfect sometimes). Amplitude is a rollercoaster where some stuff is great and other mediocre. The software is a bit quirky and growing the preset is difficult as the volume is different between presets.

[audiojunkie]

When comparing just amps/cabs, where does NAM fit in among the best?

Also, I use Linux, and I have the following packages available:

NAM
Audio Assault
Tonelib gfx
Aida-x

Which of these is the best, when considering amps/cabs?

[DCrown]

Yeah, you can feel that Guitar Rig is out of the world lol
Their introduction video shows how good it sounds, really so good!

https://youtu.be/X4XJdG15pY4?si=GWdwFPiNzfeNy8pO

I rarely heard a lead guitar sounding so dead, lifeless, boring fatigueing without energy and dynamics and the rhythm guitar is a joke, c'mon, how can one make it sound that bad?!!! (maybe my speakers are aliasing or where do these high frequency crackles come from?)
I really don't get who NI's target customer is nowadays, there's a very lot of talking in their guitar rig videos, lots of bla bla bla (maybe to distract from the sound quality?!) and they obviouly like writing a lot, too, with bla bla bla and the only video I found with a lil more sound examples is a video called "beyond guitar" , where it's used on everything but guitar, where you all of a sudden hear resonances of an instrument you haven't heard before applying guitar rig, pain to the ear! Must be a joke, I can't take this plugin seriously.

Now I understand why people seem to use plugins like soothe, I always thought, it's because of bad room treatment or not knowing to record properly with mics,
if you use guitar rig and throw it on every instruments, soothe will be your friend for sure!

Just another introduction videos to compare it
https://youtu.be/wweeAtlq1os?si=x7TvOj9nAA52Kppg

https://youtu.be/OElB1MCc4Pg?si=NKAooBma5rar-lOg

[zerocrossing]

Ok, I got to admit that NI Guitar Rig isn't as good as many other plugins when it comes to pure authentic tone. Here I had clearly better results with Tonex or TH-U. But you can get very nice and creative sounds out of Guitar Rig because its stock full with a lot of rather good effects. To me it feels like NI Guitar Rig is actually more like a MultiFX plugin where amp modeling is also an included feature.

That’s how I think about it, though I have to say with v7 I was pretty impressed with the new amps. It still wouldn’t be my go-to if I was looking for a Hendrix Marshall sound, but when you start working with it for ambient or experimental sounds, it’s second to none.

[Fannon]

Ok, I got to admit that NI Guitar Rig isn't as good as many other plugins when it comes to pure authentic tone. Here I had clearly better results with Tonex or TH-U. But you can get very nice and creative sounds out of Guitar Rig because its stock full with a lot of rather good effects. To me it feels like NI Guitar Rig is actually more like a MultiFX plugin where amp modeling is also an included feature.

That’s how I think about it, though I have to say with v7 I was pretty impressed with the new amps. It still wouldn’t be my go-to if I was looking for a Hendrix Marshall sound, but when you start working with it for ambient or experimental sounds, it’s second to none.

Ok, fair point - I don't have v7. Nice to hear that they improved on the amps then. But still there aren't a lot of ICM amps yet. Are they really on par with e.g. Tonex or THU Rig Player?

[jens]

Yeah, you can feel that Guitar Rig is out of the world lol
Their introduction video shows how good it sounds, really so good!

I can play guitar (quite okay actually) myself*, so it would never cross my mind to base my judgement that ridiculously on something that's not going to actually validly allow it at all. Only complete tools do that.


*And if I wouldn't, then what would I do here? Why would I so willingly show everyone what a pathetic fool I am by acting as if I would be an expert on things I don't actually have a first clue about?
Why would I set myself up for being ridiculed and humiliated by people who actually play the guitar?

[jens]

Ok, I got to admit that NI Guitar Rig isn't as good as many other plugins when it comes to pure authentic tone. Here I had clearly better results with Tonex or TH-U. But you can get very nice and creative sounds out of Guitar Rig because its stock full with a lot of rather good effects. To me it feels like NI Guitar Rig is actually more like a MultiFX plugin where amp modeling is also an included feature.

That’s how I think about it, though I have to say with v7 I was pretty impressed with the new amps. It still wouldn’t be my go-to if I was looking for a Hendrix Marshall sound, but when you start working with it for ambient or experimental sounds, it’s second to none.

Ok, fair point - I don't have v7. Nice to hear that they improved on the amps then. But still there aren't a lot of ICM amps yet. Are they really on par with e.g. Tonex or THU Rig Player?

Tbh I never tried Tonex... but the THU captures really aren't something to write home about at all imo - they feel weird - just like that Nebula stuff (which they claimed to be perfect emulations for a decade or so, only to come up with improvement after improvement to finally end up with something that's more algorithmic than sampled.)

Can't everyone create Tonex captures in basically no time? At NI they apparently work for weeks on one capture/emulation, with their powerful workstations endlessly chugging along.
The end result isn't something that feels sampled but indeed like a real amp (or distortion pedal).

They started to introduce ICM with V6 by the way - I think it's around ten amps or so by now and a couple of stomp-boxes...

[Burillo]

You should really try TONEX. It suffers from the same problems all other profiles do (static snapshot as opposed to tweakable model), but it does sound great when you like the profile.

[anttimaatteri]

guitar rig is a joke. it always was
i rather go for the new hotone ampero II stage for a real option.

[zerocrossing]

Ok, I got to admit that NI Guitar Rig isn't as good as many other plugins when it comes to pure authentic tone. Here I had clearly better results with Tonex or TH-U. But you can get very nice and creative sounds out of Guitar Rig because its stock full with a lot of rather good effects. To me it feels like NI Guitar Rig is actually more like a MultiFX plugin where amp modeling is also an included feature.

That’s how I think about it, though I have to say with v7 I was pretty impressed with the new amps. It still wouldn’t be my go-to if I was looking for a Hendrix Marshall sound, but when you start working with it for ambient or experimental sounds, it’s second to none.

Ok, fair point - I don't have v7. Nice to hear that they improved on the amps then. But still there aren't a lot of ICM amps yet. Are they really on par with e.g. Tonex or THU Rig Player?

If I’m looking for a traditional, realistic types of guitar tones, I’ve still found nothing better than Tonex/Amplitube. I didn’t like THU at all. The captures were OK, but I’ve never liked their models, and mostly I want to use a model, and the interface is terrible, IMO. I maintain that the only thing that’s weak with Amplitube is some of the older cabinets, and they are easily replaced with one of the newer cabinets or an IR. I’ve been though pretty much every amp modeler or capture tech, including the Kemper, AxeFX 3 and Helix, and every single time I am able to get comparable results using Amplitube and it’s models. I’ll go to Tonex for odd stuff that has no model.

But why I like Guitar Rig, is that it’s its own thing. There’s no brand logo, or mention of one. Obviously some of the amps are inspired by real amps, but are not a 1:1 duplication of them. It has its own unique sound. I think that sound happens to be really good. I’m working on a sci-fi game right now and I wanted the HQ’s theme to have a familiar vibe, but also be clearly not from this time, and Amplitube wasn’t doing it for me, but I instantly got what I wanted from Guitar Rig.

So, if you’re the type that’s going to spend their time focused on what a guitar amp emulation isn’t, don’t bother with Guitar Rig. It’s not the most accurate, and it doesn’t even claim to be. If you want something that sounds great and has its own character, check it out. It’s very good. If you’re the type of person that’s got a pedal board full of Chase Bliss and Hologram Electronics pedals, Guitar Rig is definitely for you.

[jens]

Ok, I got to admit that NI Guitar Rig isn't as good as many other plugins when it comes to pure authentic tone. Here I had clearly better results with Tonex or TH-U. But you can get very nice and creative sounds out of Guitar Rig because its stock full with a lot of rather good effects. To me it feels like NI Guitar Rig is actually more like a MultiFX plugin where amp modeling is also an included feature.

That’s how I think about it, though I have to say with v7 I was pretty impressed with the new amps. It still wouldn’t be my go-to if I was looking for a Hendrix Marshall sound, but when you start working with it for ambient or experimental sounds, it’s second to none.

Ok, fair point - I don't have v7. Nice to hear that they improved on the amps then. But still there aren't a lot of ICM amps yet. Are they really on par with e.g. Tonex or THU Rig Player?

If I’m looking for a traditional, realistic types of guitar tones, I’ve still found nothing better than Tonex/Amplitube. I didn’t like THU at all. The captures were OK, but I’ve never liked their models, and mostly I want to use a model, and the interface is terrible, IMO. I maintain that the only thing that’s weak with Amplitube is some of the older cabinets, and they are easily replaced with one of the newer cabinets or an IR. I’ve been though pretty much every amp modeler or capture tech, including the Kemper, AxeFX 3 and Helix, and every single time I am able to get comparable results using Amplitube and it’s models. I’ll go to Tonex for odd stuff that has no model.

But why I like Guitar Rig, is that it’s its own thing. There’s no brand logo, or mention of one. Obviously some of the amps are inspired by real amps, but are not a 1:1 duplication of them. It has its own unique sound. I think that sound happens to be really good. I’m working on a sci-fi game right now and I wanted the HQ’s theme to have a familiar vibe, but also be clearly not from this time, and Amplitube wasn’t doing it for me, but I instantly got what I wanted from Guitar Rig.

Again: there is absolutely no point in speaking uin such a general manner about the GR-amps - the only thing the ICM amps and the older ones have in common is that they are plugins that load into the same host (GR) - they haven't been developed by the same people, they do not at all use the same technology and they certainly are not comparable in the slightest when it comes to authenticity.

So, if you’re the type that’s going to spend their time focused on what a guitar amp emulation isn’t, don’t bother with Guitar Rig. It’s not the most accurate, and it doesn’t even claim to be.

Oh boy, they certainly TOTALLY make that claim. From the link I posted earlier:

So how does ICM affect the sound of the amps? Julian weighs in on the all-important question: “Older modeling techniques would still require an extensive process of tweaking and tuning to get things sounding just right. The algorithm the machine learning system comes up with is so accurate, there’s no need for us to do that anymore. That’s the big difference.”

“In fact, the neural network will pick out aspects of the amp’s character that we might not notice,” he adds. “We’ve even encountered ‘problems’ with our amp emulations, like feedback at certain frequencies for example, only to discover that the real amp actually does the same thing. There’s just no way that we would ever program something like that on purpose, and the reality is that there will be hundreds of other similar imperfections that the algorithm picks up.”

As Julian observes, it’s arguably these unpredictable characteristics that create the real magic of analog gear. “When a piece of equipment reacts in an interesting way to something it wasn’t designed to do, that’s often when things start getting exciting.”

In other words, ICM picks up all the luscious warmth, aggressive punch, distinctive grit, and more that we expect from classic hardware guitar amplifiers, and recreates it with an unprecedented level of accuracy.

They use a neural network , but they also measure (and subsequently model) the components, not just the in/out transfer. So you could probably say it's like a cross between component modelling a la Cytomic and profiling i.e. the best of both worlds. And hence it's certainly not much of a stretch to say that at least from a theoretical/technical viewpoint they mop the floor with all of the competition, which - at best - is in one of these two camps but not both.

Then again I am very suspicious whenever I hear/read such claims and certainly don't take their word for it. But while I can't vouch for the accuracy of their models (due to a lack of access to whatever they exactly modelled), I certainly can say that they absolutely feel, sound and behave like great analog gear.

But since people keep repeating about GR6/7 whatever they said about V5 and older versions, without even just mentioining/aknowledging the sheer existence of ICM, I think NI would have done themselves a big favour by at least calling V7 Guitar Rig X and putting the older models in a "Legacy" folder...

at this point any statement that GR isn't good if one seeks authentic emulations / can't at all compete with the competition / is only great for special FX / yadda yadda, has become a myth that for some reason just won't die. And this thread illustrates this nicely.

[guitarzan]

I had pretty much given up on amp sims until I tried the ToneX Pushed Oldie. While physically modeled amp sims seem to make people happy with their more modern amp models where most everything happens in the preamp anyway, everyone’s PM vintage tweed-type amp models totally sucked. They just don’t even really try to do the vintage output section justice, and that’s where everything happens in the early cruder guitar amps (that birthed Rock & Roll).

ToneX pretty much nails it (free version at that) — plus I can run it on an el-cheapo iPhone SE (just got a mint iPhone SE 2022 to replace my 2020 for $120 - the SE 2020 ran everything fine too, but it needs repair - just the internal mic so the SE 2020 might become my dedicated mini guitar machine)… at 96khz with only 32 frame buffer(!) in AUM with an external Nembrini IR loader (loaded with a killer Far Field 1x12 IR from Jay Mitchell) and rack analog delay, reverb, tremolo, tuner, and still be under 50% DSP load!!

That said, I’ll dump ToneX in a hot minute as soon as the open-sourced NAM (Neural Amp Modeler) is available for iOS (it’s on the list). I don’t trust commercial software for the long run.

[zerocrossing]

Ok, I got to admit that NI Guitar Rig isn't as good as many other plugins when it comes to pure authentic tone. Here I had clearly better results with Tonex or TH-U. But you can get very nice and creative sounds out of Guitar Rig because its stock full with a lot of rather good effects. To me it feels like NI Guitar Rig is actually more like a MultiFX plugin where amp modeling is also an included feature.

That’s how I think about it, though I have to say with v7 I was pretty impressed with the new amps. It still wouldn’t be my go-to if I was looking for a Hendrix Marshall sound, but when you start working with it for ambient or experimental sounds, it’s second to none.

Ok, fair point - I don't have v7. Nice to hear that they improved on the amps then. But still there aren't a lot of ICM amps yet. Are they really on par with e.g. Tonex or THU Rig Player?

If I’m looking for a traditional, realistic types of guitar tones, I’ve still found nothing better than Tonex/Amplitube. I didn’t like THU at all. The captures were OK, but I’ve never liked their models, and mostly I want to use a model, and the interface is terrible, IMO. I maintain that the only thing that’s weak with Amplitube is some of the older cabinets, and they are easily replaced with one of the newer cabinets or an IR. I’ve been though pretty much every amp modeler or capture tech, including the Kemper, AxeFX 3 and Helix, and every single time I am able to get comparable results using Amplitube and it’s models. I’ll go to Tonex for odd stuff that has no model.

But why I like Guitar Rig, is that it’s its own thing. There’s no brand logo, or mention of one. Obviously some of the amps are inspired by real amps, but are not a 1:1 duplication of them. It has its own unique sound. I think that sound happens to be really good. I’m working on a sci-fi game right now and I wanted the HQ’s theme to have a familiar vibe, but also be clearly not from this time, and Amplitube wasn’t doing it for me, but I instantly got what I wanted from Guitar Rig.

Again: there is absolutely no point in speaking uin such a general manner about the GR-amps - the only thing the ICM amps and the older ones have in common is that they are plugins that load into the same host (GR) - they haven't been developed by the same people, they do not at all use the same technology and they certainly are not comparable in the slightest when it comes to authenticity.

So, if you’re the type that’s going to spend their time focused on what a guitar amp emulation isn’t, don’t bother with Guitar Rig. It’s not the most accurate, and it doesn’t even claim to be.

Oh boy, they certainly TOTALLY make that claim. From the link I posted earlier:

So how does ICM affect the sound of the amps? Julian weighs in on the all-important question: “Older modeling techniques would still require an extensive process of tweaking and tuning to get things sounding just right. The algorithm the machine learning system comes up with is so accurate, there’s no need for us to do that anymore. That’s the big difference.”

“In fact, the neural network will pick out aspects of the amp’s character that we might not notice,” he adds. “We’ve even encountered ‘problems’ with our amp emulations, like feedback at certain frequencies for example, only to discover that the real amp actually does the same thing. There’s just no way that we would ever program something like that on purpose, and the reality is that there will be hundreds of other similar imperfections that the algorithm picks up.”

As Julian observes, it’s arguably these unpredictable characteristics that create the real magic of analog gear. “When a piece of equipment reacts in an interesting way to something it wasn’t designed to do, that’s often when things start getting exciting.”

In other words, ICM picks up all the luscious warmth, aggressive punch, distinctive grit, and more that we expect from classic hardware guitar amplifiers, and recreates it with an unprecedented level of accuracy.

They use a neural network , but they also measure (and subsequently model) the components, not just the in/out transfer. So you could probably say it's like a cross between component modelling a la Cytomic and profiling i.e. the best of both worlds. And hence it's certainly not much of a stretch to say that at least from a theoretical/technical viewpoint they mop the floor with all of the competition, which - at best - is in one of these two camps but not both.

Then again I am very suspicious whenever I hear/read such claims and certainly don't take their word for it. But while I can't vouch for the accuracy of their models (due to a lack of access to whatever they exactly modelled), I certainly can say that they absolutely feel, sound and behave like great analog gear.

But since people keep repeating about GR6/7 whatever they said about V5 and older versions, without even just mentioining/aknowledging the sheer existence of ICM, I think NI would have done themselves a big favour by at least calling V7 Guitar Rig X and putting the older models in a "Legacy" folder...

at this point any statement that GR isn't good if one seeks authentic emulations / can't at all compete with the competition / is only great for special FX / yadda yadda, has become a myth that for some reason just won't die. And this thread illustrates this nicely.

Well, all I can say about all that is that there is nothing I can find on YouTube that puts any of the new ICM amps up against their hardware versions. If Native Instruments was really super proud of how close their models are, why not post a bunch of videos showing this off?

Anyway, it’s been a long time since I’ve owned a hardware amp. I have owned a few great ones, also recorded many great ones. I get the sense that NI models are sort of like Fractal models, and by that I mean, idealized. Like the team got to points where the actual amps didn’t sound that great and they tweaked the model to make it more to their liking. I could be wrong about this, but that’s my guess.