Looks like NI have gotten something right!!! GR2

[Hink]

I just traded Rob Papen's BLUE for a Pod v2.0 (not the XT)

Can't wait till it arrives.

ouch.. pod 2?

podxt is much better from what i hear... 2 is definetly not on par with guitar rig 2.. but still a nice little unit

I'm happy with 2.0

[Amberience]

I'd be happy to show some examples, but I don't have time today. I'll try to get some up tomorrow, if you like.

As for a lack of dynamics, are you kidding? So long as you don't max the gain out then there's plenty of nuance to the Vetta/PodXT. Even on the Uberschall model I can still get a completely clean sound with a gentle strum.

The only problem with posting examples is that I don't have web-space, and I have ADSL (Fast downloads, slow uploads) so it's going to be a pain to do it. If you are serious about wanting examples then that's fine, but if you're just being a wise ass then please say so before I waste my afternoon on it tomorrow.

I'd like examples, but not MP3's. Lossless would be the best way.

As for the Pod v2... well, I have a VOX Valvetronix also, which is my main guitar amp modeller. Sounds gorgeous to me in so many ways. The Pod will only be for a more mobile solution, and I'll use it as an effects device before the amp also.

The VOX effects are good, but you there is no real modularity to them. The Pod might help me with that. I'll be able to compress and have a delay at the same time, or an autowah and compress at the same time.

I'm not what you'd call a "real" guitarist anyway. I couldn't name you the worlds greats (I could name you my personal greats) and I couldn't whack out Highway to Hell to impress my teenybopper friends.

I just love noise, any kind that has some f**king soul to it.

[Lunch Money]

I'm sure you could wack out Highway to Hell with one afternoon and the tablature. Piss-easy song, technically. Tricky to do it with the same conviction as Malcolm Young, though.

[Lawnmower Of The Damned]

The Vox has some great sounds in it. For high-gain I'd still go with Line 6, but the Valvetronix is great for clean and mildy-driven stuff.

As I said earlier, I only really played around with the high-gain stuff in GR2. Perhaps it's much better for clean sounds, but I haven't had enough time to check it out though.

Either way, I'll still end up buying it because it's bundled in with Komplete 3, which looks very tempting.

[fritzman]

Hm,

I tried GR2 for an hour or so and while it can do some serious stuff I'm not really convinced yet. I was mainly checking the heavy stuff for now and the only thing that brough me near to sounds I really like is Mezone in front of an amp. The hi rez switch helps a lot.
What bothers me most is that I didn't find a way yet to use it with really low latency. While it used only 15% CPU I had frequent drop outs which I normally don't have at that latency with that CPU usage while using other plugins.
Gotta check this out more.


Best wishes, FRitz

[cheul]

Reminder : would you please tell the GR components you used Lawnmower ? I'm interested in your Hi-Gain settings. Thanks.

[Lunch Money]

If you're using it in the studio, I would imagine you track using lo-rez and then switch to hi-rez for render, no?

I'm always amazed at the number of people on this forum who do high-gain. To me, a proper "metal" sound can be done with medium gain, so I don't know why there's such a fuss over ultra-rectified super-chugga sounds. At risk of hurting feelings, I think that people who go for extra-high-gain don't really understand metal technique. Too much gain and your 'chugs' turn into harmonic-laden 'clangs'. Then again, maybe I'm completely wrong and that's what the doctor ordered after all.

Ultimately that's what a lot of my concern boils down to, though-- there's pretty much NO good "high gain" sound even on a real amp that sounds right without the proper technique. So unless people are reviewing the medium- and low-gain simulations, which are where the true test of an amp sim will lie, the rest is going in one ear and out the other for me.

Album "high-gain" sounds are at least partially the result of the producing and engineering (ie. layering, particularly with slightly different sounds each time) and simply cannot be replicated in realtime with one guitarist playing one guitar through one amp.

I'm rambling, so I'm not sure my point is getting across. I'm not meaning to offend anyone, I'm just saying that testing a "high gain amp" isn't a fair comparison because not even a real amp (never mind a sim) will produce that sound right out of the box. It's something that's a combination of technique, note choice, guitar, and engineering. The amp (or amp sim) just ain't gonna do it.

And if you go into a store thinking, "I'm gonna try that triple-rectifier and prove that asshole wrong" (fair enough!) you can't forget that part of what makes that experience so impressive and powerful is the sheer volume levels.

And then, assuming that either in the bedroom or in the music store, you get this "gut-wrenching" powerful metel (sic) sound, how's it going to sound in the mix? A lot of great hi-gain "chugga" tones are laden with bass, which doesn't always translate well into a full band setting in a recorded track. Unless you take care to use a mid- and hi-range bass guitar tone instead of using it with a more conventional tone, you're going to end up with nothing but dreadful muck. And then that impressive "hit you in the guts" tone that you worked so hard for isn't going to amount to jack.

Greg

[Aleatoric]

[mod edit: why ]

[Frippertronix]

Looks like Reason.

[Lawnmower Of The Damned]

No offense taken Greg. When I say high-gain I don't mean just turning up the gain knob. I keep the gain knob a little higher than most rock'n'rollers, but not by too much. It has more to do with the way the high-end sounds (As the majority of thump in metal comes from the bass and drums, this point confuses most garage metal bands). As a matter of fact, I cut most frequencies below 85 hz on my guitars and knock a few db off until I get up to 120 hz. Never under-estimate the power of a great bassline, even when playing death metal. When set up that way some double-tracked chugging with a seriously thumping bass can create some very high-impact metal sounds.

As I said earlier, a lot of it comes down to the way the treble section of the amp sounds. How far can you boost treble before it starts to be unpleasant to your ears? Does the high-end sound "fizzy"? Do palm-mutes sound with authorty, or are they just muffled?

These are the sorts of questions I ask myself when listening to "high-gain" tone. GR2 handled all of the above much better than GR1, but it still came out behind my Vetta.

Oh, and I mainly just flipped through the pre-sets. With the 30 minute time-out I don't really have enough time to come up with a fully polished patch. I'm the kind of guy who likes to tweak for hours, if not days!

[fritzman]

No offense taken Greg. When I say high-gain I don't mean just turning up the gain knob. I keep the gain knob a little higher than most rock'n'rollers, but not by too much. It has more to do with the way the high-end sounds (As the majority of thump in metal comes from the bass and drums, this point confuses most garage metal bands). As a matter of fact, I cut most frequencies below 85 hz on my guitars and knock a few db off until I get up to 120 hz. Never under-estimate the power of a great bassline, even when playing death metal. When set up that way some double-tracked chugging with a seriously thumping bass can create some very high-impact metal sounds.

As I said earlier, a lot of it comes down to the way the treble section of the amp sounds. How far can you boost treble before it starts to be unpleasant to your ears? Does the high-end sound "fizzy"? Do palm-mutes sound with authorty, or are they just muffled?

That pretty much sums it up to quite some extent so that I simply agree in this context. Thanx Greg for your insight but I know very well what I'm talking about when I say heavy stuff. I was sitting several years before my open tube amps with a soldering iron while hunting great rock and metal tones.


Best wishes, FRitz

[Niksounds]

Try Grig2 in HI RES MODE

not in default mode mans...

It's usable!

Too much words and not time spent turning the knobs !

In hi res mode is really usable!

[pitchdrifter]

Is it just me or are most presets removing any hint of dynamics from the sound, the input gain usually way too high and almost nothing of the actual guitar sound's quality making it out of guitar rig (as in, moving the guitar's pickup position around is hardly and often not at all audible in what comes out of guitar rig)?

I intitially was totally turned off by gtr2's sound, but then gave it another go and started lowering the input gain and removing a bunch of compressors and gain units from most of the presets. This way they sound way better, not just distorted dynamic-free noise anymore. The last of the issues I mentioned still remains, although not as bad as with all the compression and gain boosters in place.
Has anyone else come across this? I am using it in hires mode btw.

Markus

[fritzman]

Is it just me or are most presets removing any hint of dynamics from the sound, the input gain usually way too high and almost nothing of the actual guitar sound's quality making it out of guitar rig (as in, moving the guitar's pickup position around is hardly and often not at all audible in what comes out of guitar rig)?

I intitially was totally turned off by gtr2's sound, but then gave it another go and started lowering the input gain and removing a bunch of compressors and gain units from most of the presets. This way they sound way better, not just distorted dynamic-free noise anymore. The last of the issues I mentioned still remains, although not as bad as with all the compression and gain boosters in place.
Has anyone else come across this? I am using it in hires mode btw.

Markus

Yes,

most of the presets are very demo-stylish. I would do it the same way if I would make demo presets for an amp sim thingy. You have to get reasonable sounds with any poor sounding guitar ranging from lo output twanging single coils to X2N equipped metal axes.
Tweaking the presets is essential if you know how to get the tone you're after. HiRes helps the tone a lot.


Best wishes, FRitz

[pitchdrifter]

Well I understand that the presets have to appeal to the biggest possible range of people.
Just makes me wonder if they think that someone who spent $100 on a guitar and uses no preamp of any kind will shell out 500 euros for an amp sim software.. I find that unlikely (judging from the compression used in most presets you probably could use any line input and no preamp and would end up with almost the same sound but more noise).

What about the mangling of the sound btw? I.e. the problem that except pitch and amplitude (assuming all the sound squashing was removed in a given preset) little character of the original guitar makes it through? I've not tried amplitube or podxt yet, but I know that e.g. tubifex preserves the original sound (or timbre/coloration of the signal you send into the ampsim) a lot more.

Is there anything I'm overlooking? I'm not trying to duplicate setups btw, just to preserve the character of the guitar a little more. I'm currently trying to figure out whether to stick with tubifex, go for gtr2 or at2.

Markus