AT2 Audio Demos

[Vocalvoodoo]

What do you guys think? From the few I've listened to on the website, I'm VERY glad I purchased AT2. Some of the most true emulations/modling I've heard so far. Now I just can't wait for it to be released!

[Highvoltage]

cool

[AndrewSimon]

The sound demos are very cool.
I can already tell that the THD will be my favorite.
The Marshall sounds cool too, but until we have a working demo it's all speculation.
I hope there will be a demo......

[DotNoir]

I like the demo sounds very much, was blown away by few of them... I'm glad I bought AT1 and qualify for getting the AT2 for free. Can't wait to get my hands on the real thing...

[Sascha Franck]

Get a POD XT instead. Nuff said.

[Mr. Tunes]

I'm excited for this plugin too. Now I just need to get my guitar back

[scottedog]

Nice saturation, sounds like you could even find the "amps" hot spot.
Almost tangeable now! I thinks Squids & crew will breathe a big sigh of relief when it is finally released. Thanks for the demos.

[Vocalvoodoo]

Get a POD XT instead. Nuff said.

How can you say that without even trying the program out? I know the POD rocks, but software can and will catch up to hardware modeling.

[A3ntar]

software can and will catch up to hardware modeling

The software only counterpart of the PodXT, GuitarPort already sounds exactly like it's hardware ( shark DSPs ) brother. Line6's emulation is mostly software/firmware anyways.

[Vervil]

How can you say that without even trying the program out? I know the POD rocks, but software can and will catch up to hardware modeling.

You are missing the point, and point should be what sounds better, right? Have you actually tried POD or Vox amp? POD is software coded for the dsp inside the box, so adventage tonewise can only be better coding, not "Hardware modelling", this is not a real amp, but just another piece of code. And this is same code in their 100 bucks products like guitar port, only starting features are different. So why someone wants to spend double amount of cash on same or (IMHO) less good simulation of guitar amps is a mystery to me.

Not that Amplitube 2 is not good, if reamping inside computer and leaving decisions for mix is THAT much important for someone, and he does not mind carrying computer around if he needs to record on different locations, than why not? But don't think that there is any kind of "voodoo" connected with hardware, if hardware is digital, powered by code executed by dsp chips.

Not reacting because I am into Amplitube bashing or anything, but sometimes I am really puzzles what is someones idea about great tone, if guy says that "POD sounds same as the real amp mic-ed", or that some softsim sounds "great", even if free plugin suite does some things better then commercial product.

On the other hand I am one of the suckers that has bought one of the ZOOM guitar processors in early 90's, so I should probably just shut up and let people do it their own way...

[Vocalvoodoo]

I see your point. I mostly reacted quickly with that post because...well, I don't know. Maybe because Sascha Franck's response had that holier than thou 'tone' along with some contempt prior to investigation, and knee jerk reaction too I suppose. I thought the demos sounded really good. At least compared to GTR, AT1 and GR 1 and 2. Who knows what the actual software will sound like. But you can't acurately say a POD or VOX is better without fully exploring and using AT2 though.

I'm not completely familiar with the POD's, but my assumption would be that since there is actual hardware/circuitry along with the coding in a POD, that probably helps to give a superior sound/tone to straight software. But this is just my assumption.

[Sascha Franck]

You know, while my comment might be too much generalizing, I was expecting something outrageous in terms of amp simulations - and I'm not even talking about great guitar sounds yet, comparing it to the real deal.
AT2 surely seems to be very flexible and the sound demos prove that it might be very useful as well. Yet, what you can hear from it so far will not beat a POD or ToneLab, IMO at least.
Without going into details, all the sounds seem to be too soft. If you ever listened to whatever amp miced with, say, a simple SM57, you will notice that usually the sound will be pretty hard when soloed. Sometimes it'll even sound rather bad because of all the harshness. But that's what makes things cut through a mix. I can't find that kinda harshness in the AT2 demos.
It's been the same when I bought the very first POD. I've been pretty much impressed by it listening through headphones and almost instantly got it with me - just to find out that it won't fit in a mix easily. Useable, flexable, yeah, but for a good result I still need to EQ the living shit out of it while mixing. Now, AT2 surely seems to sound better than my old POD, but I'm almost sure I'd still have to deal with certain manglings quite a bit. I miss all the roughness you'll be getting from a miced Plexi, Twin, Rectifier and whatever. And I think I miss them even more than from the mentioned POD XT.

[scottedog]

And all this judging from some short mp3 demos. Your psychic ears must be better than mine.

[Trojan Badger]

Stunning. At last the fear is gone that AT may not be the way to go. Those demos were as good as anything in the market - well worth the wait.

[Vervil]

And all this judging from some short mp3 demos. Your psychic ears must be better than mine.

You are talking to Sascha, not me, but as I know he has quite experience, and I have similar opinion> No, I don't think it is about psychic ears. If you have enough experience recording, and listening to real amps, live, and mic-ed thru monitors in studio, then it is not that hard to notice certain difference in behaviour. It could be more abstract, and someone may use words like "colder" "more synthetic" etc to describe amp sim, but difference is definitely there. I don't think it is unrealistic if someone with enough experence says that he can get idea how it will sound from the demos, and how will it sound when tweaked. Only difference could be that A2 was very badly tweaked for demos, but I am not so sure.

I thought the demos sounded really good. At least compared to GTR, AT1 and GR 1 and 2. Who knows what the actual software will sound like. But you can't acurately say a POD or VOX is better without fully exploring and using AT2 though.

Yes, it sounds very usable... But not that I would use it for serious recording instead of real amp. If you have played with pod or even Behringer Vamp, you may have noticed that you don't have to tweak much to hear character of simulation. If the modelling is good, you need just to tweak EQ a bit, try few speakers and that is it. If someone needs to tweak amp seriously to get decent tone, then it is very bad for a product, at least for me. I don't want to spend half an hour making one preset.

I'm not completely familiar with the POD's, but my assumption would be that since there is actual hardware/circuitry along with the coding in a POD, that probably helps to give a superior sound/tone to straight software. But this is just my assumption.

No, not really. In POD, code runs on DSP inside, but they have ported code to PC and mac, so Guitar port and toneport are taxing native cpu power to make calculations, so everything is happening inside your computer, just like with any other amp sim.
I think that superiority of Line 6 emulations comes from bigger budget, history of coding simulations and improving them, so I see no reason why some other company like IK Multimedia could not in time make same or even better simulations, it is just that (in my humble opinion) Line6 stuff still has an edge over others, for now. Not that I think it can't be better, I think that their simulations sound artificial too, comared to the real thing.