Software has NEVER ACHIEVED Decent Guitar Distortion. Nope.

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Lunch Money wrote:
Killvehicle wrote:Uh not quite, the reason a stomp box sounds like shite going direct is cause there are no speakers, if you go direct in with your stopm and THEN apply a cab impulse I think you will see your favorite stomp sounds just like it would in your set-up
Ah. So without sims, you're just putting a stomp-box through an cab? No. There's still the entire AMP to be factored in. A stomp box into a pristine clean channel of a solid-state amp or into a P.A. channel pretty much sounds like crap, too, which is exactly the sound you'd get by putting on a cab impulse into a D.I. stompbox. Units like the TS808, Guv'nor, or good ol' OD-1 are meant to go in front of an amp, more often than not on an already dirty channel.
Pod is essentially software as well, but while the POD doesnt amaze me either, it is a better solution becasue of the fact it has a dedicated input, like any amp would.
Such a weird justification. Anyone who knows anything about using an AMP sim will have an impedance-matched input. Whether it's proprietary like the units by Amplitube, Guitar Rig, TonePort, or GTR (what do you call THOSE, if not dedicated inputs?); or whether it's a simple D.I. running into the soundcard (again, you don't get much more dedicated than impedance-matching), at the end of the day it's just an input. Those are exactly the same as the one on the POD, so I don't know how "the fact it has a dedicated inpu, like any amp" somehow puts it ahead of any other sims. No, what sets the POD apart is the fact that it has good modelling, not a dedicated input. Bizarre.
ANd also has cab modeling. Software sims on the other hand is at the mercy of whatver soundcard or input that the user has, and this can really make the signal going in suffer, which will make the software suffer, and not to mention latency with computers.
"At the mercy of" makes it seem like you don't have the choice. As mentioned already, most of the top-tier software HAS a line of dedicated inputs; but that aside, all it takes is a Hi-Z to line-level conversion... which many people already have, or can easily add. As for latency with computers, unless you've been in the dark ages you'll find that 3ms is a common latency these days. 3ms is undetectable. But, for the sake of argument let's say that you DO notice. There's still the TonePort with its "ToneDirect" system, interacting with Gearbox, which is software. It's not software that's the issue there, either. If, for example, Guitar Rig + ASIO is incapable of the kinds of low latencies that you want, it's still obviously not an impossibility. I seriously doubt that AAllll the guitarists in the world who have done just fine with 2.9 ms latency are ALL wrong about how responsive it is. I personally get get by with anything 6ms or less, though I admit to preferring the "ToneDirect."

Greg
MAn somebody in a mood, Sorry for not mentioning the pre amp in my stomp box, but take any old stomp and use Boogex as the impulse with pre-amp on zero and I think you will see it sounds normal, NOw am I bypassing the pre when they are all zero? I think so but maybe not. A dedicated preamp would be better yes of course, but when I was responding I was thinking of how I used Boogex.. As far as everything else. I dont really buy into that EVERYONE who is ANYONE has good DI's. ANd any old Hi-Z is good... I have a presonus Eureka which is a great DI as well as preamp, and I have my EMU 1820m HI-Z and I have a mackie mixer.. Guess which one is head and shoulders above? The presonus, so I think it makes a big difference. So BIzarre.. :roll:


Latency, yes anyhting under 6ms is quite all right and I can get 2ms, but usually stick at 4ms. MY laptop gets 7ms. Latency is not an issue to me, but Im sure it is ISSUE to others , which is how I responded. Otherwise my set-up allows me everything I want if I ever want to go software and be happy.
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warren wrote:
Jason Brian Merrill wrote::wink:

yes, i had something in my sig about warren. I removed it cause it was retarded of me to have it there.

plz forgive. :oops:
I honestly thought it was funny. But all is forgiven on the other stuff. I apologize too. :)
thx. I will admit im not the best communicator on the net sometimes ;)

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Killvehicle wrote:MAn somebody in a mood, Sorry for not mentioning the pre amp in my stomp box, but take any old stomp and use Boogex as the impulse with pre-amp on zero and I think you will see it sounds normal, NOw am I bypassing the pre when they are all zero? I think so but maybe not. A dedicated preamp would be better yes of course, but when I was responding I was thinking of how I used Boogex..
I'm not sure what you're saying. ;) Most stompboxes can double as a DI, if that's what you're getting at. But not really any better or worse than any other inexpensive D.I.
As far as everything else. I dont really buy into that EVERYONE who is ANYONE has good DI's. ANd any old Hi-Z is good... I have a presonus Eureka which is a great DI as well as preamp, and I have my EMU 1820m HI-Z and I have a mackie mixer.. Guess which one is head and shoulders above? The presonus, so I think it makes a big difference. So BIzarre.. :roll:
Well, it's true that not everyone who has tried using an amp sim in the world has known about getting an impedance-matched signal, and their tone WILL suffer for it. But if you're really serious about recording guitar using sims, yes, I think you WILL end up with a D.I. solution. Even that wasn't my point though, my point was that you seemed to be saying that the POD was at least good comparatively, because it features a "dedicated input." But, so many other software solutions (Amplitube, GR, AND GTR, not to mention the TonePort and the other one that uses the GTPlayer series (is that what it's called?)) have the exact same thing that I wasn't really sure what you were trying to say. A 'dedicated' input for guitar is very common in conjunction with software amp sims.
Latency, yes anyhting under 6ms is quite all right and I can get 2ms, but usually stick at 4ms. MY laptop gets 7ms. Latency is not an issue to me, but Im sure it is ISSUE to others , which is how I responded. Otherwise my set-up allows me everything I want if I ever want to go software and be happy.
Hrm. Coulda sworn you were saying that latency caused by software made it unusable compared to real amps. My bad.

Greg
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Dang, y'all. You're going into "latency time" (ya - I know what it is), and then there's a guy having to fu<k with 20 plug ins in a chain to get a sound?

Sheesh?

Believe me, y'all. It's SO much easier just to stick a mic in front of a speaker and just wail!!!! :D

You keep dickin' with a guitar signal, and you'll mush it out. Gotta hear it breathe, man. Gotta have something sticking a fork in yer butt and make you say "Ouch - stop it Mommy".

Ya - I'm still enjoying some of these little amp sims. In fact, I've become happy enough (and bored enough) with that little "Tube Baby" to where I'm recording most of the "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" album with it. It's not completely that Laney sound, but it's pretty darned close. After I do most of it, though, I plan to redo everything with the Boogie just to see...

Several things, though.

A. This shit is fun.
B. In most serious guitar applications, I'll stick with the Boogie. Just sayin'. :wink:

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Empty Uranus wrote:Dang, y'all. You're going into "latency time" (ya - I know what it is), and then there's a guy having to fu<k with 20 plug ins in a chain to get a sound?

Sheesh?

Believe me, y'all. It's SO much easier just to stick a mic in front of a speaker and just wail!!!! :D

You keep dickin' with a guitar signal, and you'll mush it out. Gotta hear it breathe, man. Gotta have something sticking a fork in yer butt and make you say "Ouch - stop it Mommy".

Ya - I'm still enjoying some of these little amp sims. In fact, I've become happy enough (and bored enough) with that little "Tube Baby" to where I'm recording most of the "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" album with it. It's not completely that Laney sound, but it's pretty darned close. After I do most of it, though, I plan to redo everything with the Boogie just to see...

Several things, though.

A. This shit is fun.
B. In most serious guitar applications, I'll stick with the Boogie. Just sayin'. :wink:
It's not always practical though, that's the problem...I've got a nice stage rig (tube rack system with some fx and exciter times 400 watts into stereo 4ohm 4x12)...it's six inches from the table this laptop is on...and there's a mic...but I live in an apartment and it's not practical. But I don't want the pc to do my processing either, so I like my pod2.0 and xt live...one great advantage is instant precise recall of settings used in a song...kind cool when you don't work on a song for a while or if you go back and do a punch... :wink:

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The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.

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I have just about the best pre-amp/DI combination money can buy and every software guitar sim I've tried will suck the tone right out of it.

Compartively though if I use my Boss GT-8 guitar effects pedal (which sucks ass by the way) and plug that into my pre-amp (A Designs MP-2A) it sounds a million times better than the software solutions. Why? I have no clue. It still sounds terrible with medium to heavy distortion because the GT-8 has some of the world's worst distortion, but it adds just enough color to my guitar tone that I can at least get some decent guitar recordings out of it.

My next step is trying analog pedals and then plugging them into my pre-amp and seeing what kind of tones I can get. I have a feeling something like a TS909 might give me some really good results.

But it all comes down to preference really. I have no problems with people liking their software guitar solutions, more power to them. I would LOVE to get decent results from guitar sims that I liked, it would make life much easier.

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Jeeziz, man, it's not like most guitarists here wouldn't prefer a nice huge tube stack with good mics in the right room. ;) Of course we would!

There's $, and there's also convenience. I have neither.

Greg
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Lunch Money wrote:Jeeziz, man, it's not like most guitarists here wouldn't prefer a nice huge tube stack with good mics in the right room. ;) Of course we would!

There's $, and there's also convenience. I have neither.

Greg
don't forget the noise Greg :hihi:
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.

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Hink wrote:
Empty Uranus wrote:Dang, y'all. You're going into "latency time" (ya - I know what it is), and then there's a guy having to fu<k with 20 plug ins in a chain to get a sound?

Sheesh?

Believe me, y'all. It's SO much easier just to stick a mic in front of a speaker and just wail!!!! :D

You keep dickin' with a guitar signal, and you'll mush it out. Gotta hear it breathe, man. Gotta have something sticking a fork in yer butt and make you say "Ouch - stop it Mommy".

Ya - I'm still enjoying some of these little amp sims. In fact, I've become happy enough (and bored enough) with that little "Tube Baby" to where I'm recording most of the "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" album with it. It's not completely that Laney sound, but it's pretty darned close. After I do most of it, though, I plan to redo everything with the Boogie just to see...

Several things, though.

A. This shit is fun.
B. In most serious guitar applications, I'll stick with the Boogie. Just sayin'. :wink:
It's not always practical though, that's the problem...I've got a nice stage rig (tube rack system with some fx and exciter times 400 watts into stereo 4ohm 4x12)...it's six inches from the table this laptop is on...and there's a mic...but I live in an apartment and it's not practical. But I don't want the pc to do my processing either, so I like my pod2.0 and xt live...one great advantage is instant precise recall of settings used in a song...kind cool when you don't work on a song for a while or if you go back and do a punch... :wink:

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I see your point, but you can overcome it! Those tones you heard on the "Idaho Song" (as all the others - thanks for listening, dude! ), were my Boogie with the master volume on 0. Absolutely as low as it can go. I also experiment with placing pillows (or dead people - whichever is closer by) in different areas around the mic. You can get a trillion different sounds out of mic placement. I've got my cabinet right next to my PC and VS-1880 (which I only pretty much use as a mixer nowdays), so I just tug on the cord a little and get it that way. :D

I SHOULD start recording with the Boogie up some (good god those old 60/100 versions can get louder than needed), just so I can get a little more of the 6L6 sound in there as opposed to relying heavily on the 12AX7's, but such is life.

All people in the world should readily welcome cranked guitar amps at all times of day and night. I mean - what the hell is wrong with people? :D

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Kill and Hink - thanks for the comments, guys. Kill - I kind of laid back on the solos a little bit, because I thought there were too many notes in the rest of the song. :D

I'm a Morse, Iommi, and Blackmore freak, but I love bizarre Holdsworth as well as a big love of somebody like Gilmour (who always maxes out on a few notes). For that one, I kind of went nuts on the structured poop and just tried being odd on the solos. I mean - a song about a Fat Cow in Idaho? Not normal subject content. :D

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Hink wrote:
Empty Uranus wrote:Dang, y'all. You're going into "latency time" (ya - I know what it is), and then there's a guy having to fu<k with 20 plug ins in a chain to get a sound?

Sheesh?

Believe me, y'all. It's SO much easier just to stick a mic in front of a speaker and just wail!!!! :D

You keep dickin' with a guitar signal, and you'll mush it out. Gotta hear it breathe, man. Gotta have something sticking a fork in yer butt and make you say "Ouch - stop it Mommy".

Ya - I'm still enjoying some of these little amp sims. In fact, I've become happy enough (and bored enough) with that little "Tube Baby" to where I'm recording most of the "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" album with it. It's not completely that Laney sound, but it's pretty darned close. After I do most of it, though, I plan to redo everything with the Boogie just to see...

Several things, though.

A. This shit is fun.
B. In most serious guitar applications, I'll stick with the Boogie. Just sayin'. :wink:
It's not always practical though, that's the problem...I've got a nice stage rig (tube rack system with some fx and exciter times 400 watts into stereo 4ohm 4x12)...it's six inches from the table this laptop is on...and there's a mic...but I live in an apartment and it's not practical. But I don't want the pc to do my processing either, so I like my pod2.0 and xt live...one great advantage is instant precise recall of settings used in a song...kind cool when you don't work on a song for a while or if you go back and do a punch... :wink:

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That mic looks like some kind of tequila pump

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Empty Uranus wrote:Dang, y'all. You're going into "latency time" (ya - I know what it is), and then there's a guy having to fu<k with 20 plug ins in a chain to get a sound?
I'm not sure if your talking about my little eXT setup suggestion or not ( http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... &start=255 bottom of page) but more plug ins doesn't equal more latency - the latency is the same with one plug up to the max your CPU can handle.

As far as 20 plugs - well, even mic'ing an amp, you're eventually going to have to use some EQ, compresssion, and probably some stereo delay and/or reverb, limiting, etc. right? Those things don't need to be there while you're tracking but it's just nice to have them going while setting up a rig to get a better idea of what it'll sound like in a more finished form. The best part about plug ins is that you can change it all later without degridation. Oh, and you do realize that in eXT the entire rig can be saved as a seperate VST that can be inserted into any project, right?

I'm not saying it's better than an amp or even the same, but the original topic is about getting a decent distorted tone with software and I say you can. I know some of you on this thread already have Warp VST because it was this thread that reminded me of it, and it was Kingston (way back on page 6) that made me give it a closer look:
Kingston wrote:Thing is, there's a few aspects in that warp sim that others still haven't quite covered. Keep in mind it's an "early VST" licensed implementation of the Hughes & Kettner zenTera technology. Those amps still mop the floor with line6 stuff.

Sure the plug sounds buzzy and aliases like hell, but it does have the zentera components in it (although not in full precision), and for example the plexi model has a certain "thunk" that I haven't heard elsewhere, same with the Mesa model cabinet "sag".

Yes it's outdated, but let's not forget these little bits of greatness it still has. For 50e, it's not an entirely bad deal.
And it's true - Warp, especially the Warp model with the greenback cab - has really great cab emulation, but a rough tone. Layering it with FreeAmp really smooths out the tone, I think. Then with the parametric EQ you should be able to dial in just about anything you want.

Other than Warp all the rest of the plugs are free so I thought someone might want to check it out. I guess tweaking is all part of the fun, to me. :)

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guitarzan wrote:
As far as 20 plugs - well, even mic'ing an amp, you're eventually going to have to use some EQ, compresssion, and probably some stereo delay and/or reverb, limiting, etc. right?
No. NOT if the original sound is good enough. I absolutely use no compression or limiting, nor do I ever use any EQ on my amp. As much as we've gotten so reliable for these little gizmos to correct things in the mix, I still try to keep some of it as real as I can. The less you stomp on something (meaning applying things like that), the more realistic it's going to sound.

Maybe I'm old fashioned in that sense, though I still love the technology. Again - I'll say that I'm really quite impressed with some of these simulators. I've been screwing with a lot of them here lately (thanks to YOU guys :D ), and I've listened to a lot of everybody's sounds as well. Still - I haven't heard a sound yet (my preferences here :wink: ) that I like more than my amp.

I'm a Recording Workshop grad from way back in 1984, and they really pounded into our heads about how important getting killer sounds from the beginning was... Guess I'm just going back to my edumacation on that. :D

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I agree that less is more. EQ, though, is kind of necessary, don't you think? If you leave all your knobs at 12:00 you're missing out on a lot of tonal possibilities.

Also, Pre- gain EQ is a tried, tested, classic (no newfandangledness), and true way to give yourself even more possibilities. Want more crunch and balls? A bit of mid boost (adding raw dB in addition to just changing the frequency content) will getcha there.

So, while I actually agree that ideally it'd be an amp, a mic, and a guitar, I can't figure out why you wouldn't use EQ as part of your tone.

Greg
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