The Big Guitar Amp Sim Roundup + Review

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Pashkuli wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 10:31 am

Well, that would be a placebo , actually a double placebo (using Tube DI on the input, then Tube amp on the output) as somehow you will be sleeping in satisfaction that you've used tubes.
Yes, BIAS FX is an overrated = (marketing driven) amp-sim. Nothing wrong with that. Their product looks amazing and works.

The heart of the amp-sim is in the pre-amp. Cabs + Mics → there are plenty of great IRs of those (good/bad). You just have to phase them correctly or to the maximum phase match (not 100% possible anyway).
We need "IRs" for the pre-amp throughout the whole freq. generated tones (harmonics) spectrum - profile match.
That is what the most important characteristic of a tone is - the timbre (harmonic content in various combinations of freq., amplitude, phase, attack, decay, sustain, release, tail)!
I'm not really bent up on "classic" guitar tone, and my main guitar is wired stereo, but I like the sag and drive of open power amp tubes, and the sound of a struggling speaker pushing air, which I miss the most about amp sims.
I know what a tube DI does to a sound (recorded bass a lot with a tubetech MP1A) (it's not much but it's something) and i know what a tube power amp does.

So what i'm really after is the best and most FLEXIBLE preamp section of an amp simulator. (So, that's why bias AMP, not bias FX.)

Seems like this could yield a nice guitar tone with a LOT of flexibility without the limitation of a classic guitar mono tube amp.
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Tube DIs are easy to simulate - transformer, saturation, clipper plugins... generating some harmonic content (just subtle but it can be there).
Pushing air has nothing to do with the sound and its processing - it is purely an acoustic experience (tactile). You also do not record with your ears either (as ADC - analogue to digital converters).
The reaction (effect) of the pre-amp to the input signal is the key. Freq. and amplitude are not enough for high-gain odd harmonic content - those will just make it square-wave synth-like.
In fact many heavy distorted guitar of metal (high-gain) renown bands sound like synths (yes, they have phase, chorus effects, etc. in the mix) but the final result is important.
It is quite an effort to simulate a non-linear amplification/transformation with odd harmonic content in the vicinity of 3~4ms latency.

I'd compare it to the human voice and its resonances - timbre changes from soft talk, to public conversation, to fighter's coach motivational speech in the mid-round of the match. That is how pre-amp sims should react as well.

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Anderton wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2019 3:45 pm Speaking of "how tubes react" and guitar tone being so "personal"...the characteristic that some people find desirable can be the same characteristic other people want to avoid. For example, another point Johnny A. made about the amps he uses for his solo gig is that he loves handwired Marshall JTM 45s and was planning on using those. But he found that when feeding in multiple layers of sound (e.g., synched echoes) the KT66 tubes don't recover fast enough--he felt it made the sound smaller, not bigger. So that "sag" and pushback that some people want so badly was something he wanted to eliminate.
By all means, no little caveat to ventilate. But don't you think it depends on whether the delay is put in front of the amp, or miked up after it? I know that Steve Morse does this for the exact same reason, and he mics up his speaker that goes into his delay pedals, and then into yet another amp to avoid the phenomenon. For the exact same reason. He has no reverb built in either after the power amps. There's very few amps that works with pluggin in a delay front of it. Eric Johnson does so with aplomb to use the sag/compression effect as a ducking device and he has very little wet dry mix on his echo units. So it depends on both which delay and which type of tube amp you use, and most importantly where it is put in line. Fx send return or in front?

Me myself would prefer te 4 cable method and use fx/return, then you shy away a bit from the input tubes, and I have plenty of power tube sag without being a liability to the delays.
Last edited by Mats Eriksson on Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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One if the best solutions is a wet / dry setup with the sagging amp as the dry side, delay and mod to an amp with more headroom. Something else more amp sims should incorporate.

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Hey everybody...I have to apologize for being away so long. Rebuilding my computer and going through terabytes of data was a much bigger deal than I expected. The good news is I've re-installed most of the amp sims I need to cover.

Meanwhile, here's an interesting thread that covers why in some situations, analog still outpaces digital. What I like is that the guy is very upfront and non-polarizing - he just covers why analog isn't always better than digital, and doesn't whine about developers being lazy or incompetent or whatever. But, he explains quite well the factors and reasons behind those situations where analog is still ahead of digital. Tangentially, although he doesn't say so, it's also pretty clear from the nerdy tech stuff that there's no reason why digital can't equal or exceed analog...but it's not going to happen next week. Or next month...
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Anderton wrote: Mon Sep 30, 2019 11:42 pm Hey everybody...I have to apologize for being away so long. Rebuilding my computer and going through terabytes of data was a much bigger deal than I expected. The good news is I've re-installed most of the amp sims I need to cover.

Meanwhile, here's an interesting thread that covers why in some situations, analog still outpaces digital. What I like is that the guy is very upfront and non-polarizing - he just covers why analog isn't always better than digital, and doesn't whine about developers being lazy or incompetent or whatever. But, he explains quite well the factors and reasons behind those situations where analog is still ahead of digital. Tangentially, although he doesn't say so, it's also pretty clear from the nerdy tech stuff that there's no reason why digital can't equal or exceed analog...but it's not going to happen next week. Or next month...
No worries! Getting your computer back up and running is no easy feat. I work in I.T. and am so tired of computers when I get home that if something breaks, it's gonna be a while before it gets fixed!! Hahaha!! :-)
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In a more general analog sense that all makes sense but I think most of us by now are quite ok with working in the digital realm. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

The points in this thread are more specifically related to guitar amp sims which are digital Dsp attempting to model not just analog, but specific kinds of analog tube guitar equipment that has certain characteristics. They have come a long way in the last decade and a half on this but they still have a ways to go in terms of that. No doubt there is nothing stopping anyone from making music with guitar sounds that aren’t attempting to mimic classic gear in any way, just make cool sounds. Why not! That’s all good too. But at this point in time people do still get excited about the purring growl of tube amps and players get excited about the feel and experience they have manipulating a live electrical current by waving metal around in front of magnets and hearing it compress and distort through tubes a certain way. There is nothing wrong with forging new sounds for a new era and see what happens but all some people are saying is that they still want to play vintage gear without having to have vintage gear; and while it is truly amazing compared to a decade ago, I think we will be saying the same thing in 10 years when they get it even closer. At this point most people are willing to use modelers as a convenience because they are truly easier to manage in numerous ways then tube gear. And it’s getting close enough that I think a lot have switched over without looking back. The thing is there is still room for improvement on this front so the question remains whether manufacturers will be motivated to keep going in the quest for perfect emulation? Or will the 80/20 rule stop It pretty much here as people get used to the new normal, many people will eventually come along that never played through tube gear and have no idea what they are even missing. That’s already happening. And se la vie, they are making music with a smile with whatever they have.
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And by the way I do not mean to infer that anyone is lazy. This is just economics at work. Supply and demand. Only a relatively small group of people will be asking for closer emus. The vast majority, which is another way of saying the largest collection of wallets; will be hoping for other kinds of features and products and that will drive developer time spent on innovation
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Use what you want, stop trying to tell others what they should/shouldn't use. The rest of it is minutia that doesn't encompass all.

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I didn't tell anyone what to use or not use. lighten up.
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Dewdman42 wrote: Thu Oct 03, 2019 3:56 am I didn't tell anyone what to use or not use. lighten up.
Re-read what you said, and what others have said. My comments are not uncommon.

It wasn't an attack on you, but as a whole, but please, as is evidenced by forum standards, be overly sensitive............it's what forum people do!

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Anderton wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 10:12 pm Interestingly, I've noticed that the people who complain the most about how gear sucks generally don't have links to any of their music. I believe some of the more ardent complainers blame their lack of musical success on supposed inadequacies of the gear.
Love this quote, I think it rings true.
Just make music by hook or by crook.
Currently trying to turn noise into music. :neutral: Is boutique the new old?

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Gear is not what makes the musician. Charlie Parker would constantly pawn his saxophones or get them stolen, and would often play with borrowed instruments, or the cheapest of the cheap instruments so that he still had money for Dr Brown.

Didn’t stop him from making some incredible music.

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The Noodlist wrote: Fri Oct 04, 2019 2:37 pm
Anderton wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 10:12 pm Interestingly, I've noticed that the people who complain the most about how gear sucks generally don't have links to any of their music. I believe some of the more ardent complainers blame their lack of musical success on supposed inadequacies of the gear.
Love this quote, I think it rings true.
Just make music by hook or by crook.
I think it's also that guitarists who obsess about gear and 'tone' a lot tend to be more lead widdlers and not songwriters.

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donkey tugger wrote: Fri Oct 04, 2019 4:28 pm I think it's also that guitarists who obsess about gear and 'tone' a lot tend to be more lead widdlers and not songwriters.
Also valid, music makers nonetheless. Music comes in various forms, not always songs.
Currently trying to turn noise into music. :neutral: Is boutique the new old?

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