Software has NEVER ACHIEVED Decent Guitar Distortion. Nope.

[Hink]

Greg

[Jason Brian Merrill]

Greg

indeed.

why does he say everything i want to but cant express properly or nicely?

[guitarzan]

Greg

Yeah, I'm pretty much on board with all of that - especially the Hendrix part!! I've read where he used to grab his Strats right out of the shipping box and use them with the nasty factory strings and all.

By the same extension, I'll take the opportunity to once again state that I see nothing wrong with the idea of dynamic convolution and "a better cab + mic" sim, I just don't know that there'd be a huge market for it as a standalone. People who don't trust in sim amps are primarily concerned with the authenticity of the tone stack and gain stage, and secondarily with the cab. Nobody is going to take a "cheesy" sim and expect it to be good by having an unbeatable cab sim. It all starts with the amp, which is why I think (strictly in terms of marketing, not in terms of whether it'd be a useful tool or not) that it still has to be part of an amp sim package, not a standalone.

OK, the even better part of KVR is not all the developers are doing what they do strictly for marketing reasons. Also, I did say that what I thought was needed was a top-notch dynamic cabinet/speaker/mic sim, convolution or modeled (that part is back a ways). The tone seems right for a lot of the present amp/speaker sim choices, but none of them really model the thunk and cabinet sag - except possibly Warp VST, but it has other problems. It could be part of a complete amp sim, but in that case the amp sim part should be bypassible, so people could use their own stomp boxes, preamp, and attenuated amps - just for maximal versatlity. Sure, it's not absolutely essential, but since we're virtually milling around at a VST developers convention, wouldn't it be great?

[Lunch Money]

If it were cheap and unbeatable, I WOULD consider it...! I just keep thinking of things like Antares mic modeler, or full-on amp sims, and the price tags they command. I guess as a niche plug-in with a limited market expected by the developer, it could be worth bringing to the light of day.

Greg

[CapnLockheed]

Maybe I'm missing something hear but what's to stop
you from building your dream sim in something like Chainer.
I do it all the time..separate effects, preamps, amps and such
follwed by a convolution plugin,(SIR, Revolverb, Boogex) and one of the many great cabinet impulses out there....or if you've got your own favorite cabs you can just roll your own impulses.

I've been able to get tones this way that blow the doors
off any single ampsim. Granted it won't give you stiffy
like a roaring full stack......I'm not ready to gig with
a laptop yet, but I've been doing a lot of tracking with sims lately and I defy any purist to pick the Coke from the Pepsi.

Cheers......CL

[Synesthesiac]

pickups, algorythms,impulses, meatspace circuits, wire, wood, etc. all have their individual resonances, if you can predict those harmonic interactions then you do believe in the mystical

But that's not mutually exclusive. I can tackle a problem (ie. trying to record an amp sound) from various angles without that diminishing my respect for the guitar. And I also know when to cut to the heart of the matter. I think that mahogany + maple sounds better than plywood. I think that a Duncan JB pickup sounds better than a generic Cort pickup. I've designed and have begun construction of an entire guitar based on several different tone factors, and selected White Limba (aka Korina) and chambered it, because I believe that the tone of Korina rules. But all of that is irrelevant to the point at hand.

what's not mutually exclusive? i'm not following you. i was addressing your problem solving that involves tracking with one cab sim and then replacing with the goodstuff. i don't believe the core tone is the same.

if you want to treat the guitar sound like a mix, sculpt it after recording, fine, i wanna create the sound then and there which demands that all the elements are there, so kill me. i also partake of the 'creating it in the mix'thing and have been soul satisfied.

Right, but again-- it's not about that. It's about finding a solution to a problem, and I think (and I repeat again) that we already have the solution without having to make a wishlist for it! I don't treat the guitar sound like a mix, I treat the guitar (the instrument) like a guitar and just play the f**ker. I don't understand why people get so hung up on little things when you can get just as much joy and inspiration without being so sentimental and/or voodoo-like about it. How many times do you hear people say, "give so-and-so-famous-guitarist a Samick and a Bandit and they'll still sound like themselves." And in my opinion, a guitarist worth his salt CAN and WILL play well and with inspiration no matter what gear...

dang this quoting thing, bear with me...

so, what we're doing here is problem solving not creating? i guess i'm talking about creating a sound and you're talking about capturing a sound?

well there are many variables in what makes a persons style, like phrasing, favourite sqealy note...maybe its just style that is being recognized in those situations. like that cool thing that scott henderson explains on one of his tapes: he plays, for example, 'happy birthday' but uses totally different notes, but retains melody shape and rhythm of the tune and the tune is still easily recognizable.

playing well and playing inspired does not just depend on gear.

And that being the case, and getting back to the the REAL point (again... it seems to get forgotten), a mere tiny piddly thing like algorithmic vs. convolution cab emulation is during realtime tracking is nothing.

again, i was addressing having that option while tracking, makes a world of difference to me.

but why can't we seek the precious? it ain't a fixation on power,smeagal, but a search for beauty. you know, art.

It's not about seeking the precious, it's about BEING precious. The precious should be in how you feel when you're playing. It's really annoying when people twist your words around to make it seem like you're saying the opposite of what you are. The fact that I like to cut through bullshit and come up with real solutions doesn't automatically mean by contrast that I don't believe in care and attention, or that I don't think good tone is worth pursuing.

if it's about BEING precious now, who are we to call bullshit what another needs to achieve that? again we speak of different things or have differing definitions, but i'll chalk that up to misscommunications/misunderstandings before accusations of word twisting.

peace brother
--

[Lunch Money]

Wow. You might not be twisting my words after all. You just might be clueless. I mean... some of what you said justifies a response, and all that... but I can see already that you lack the basic tools of logical debate, and I only ever get frustrated when that happens, so I'll let it go.

There may be something to what you say, and I'll leave it at that.

Greg

[Lunch Money]

<I should quickly add, before you see this thread, that a capacity for logical debate on a forum does NOT indicate a purely "logical" or "cold" or "calculating" mind that doesn't understand the emotion and passion of playing guitar and being inspired by a good tone and all that... because I KNOW that's the response I'll get if I'm not quick...>

Greg

[Newbie Brad]

Why I oughta pound you! Oh... sorry wrong forum

Actually, I was going to say I didn't review all 100,000 previous pages of this thread, so my apology if this has been said before. But Greg's BetaBugs FeedBug (yay Christian Budde!) did a tremendous job of realfeel and realsound and all it was was... well nevermind but it never got around to having an ampsim filter and it was simple and sounded great. Simple can get it.

[james0tucson]

I can plug my SG into my Fender DeLuxe, turn up the gain towards crunchy, and that's it. It's bone simple. Whether it can be done in software or not, doesn't change the fact that it is too freaking simple to just do it the old fashioned way. Of course, if I sold my Fender (never!), it would be for more than I've ever spent and will ever spend on software, but that's beside the point.

[runagate]

Maybe I'm missing something hear but what's to stop
you from building your dream sim in something like Chainer.
I do it all the time..separate effects, preamps, amps and such
follwed by a convolution plugin,(SIR, Revolverb, Boogex) and one of the many great cabinet impulses out there....or if you've got your own favorite cabs you can just roll your own impulses.

I've been able to get tones this way that blow the doors
off any single ampsim. Granted it won't give you stiffy
like a roaring full stack......I'm not ready to gig with
a laptop yet, but I've been doing a lot of tracking with sims lately and I defy any purist to pick the Coke from the Pepsi.

Cheers......CL

Well, I think it's part what Hume described as the "web of belief" and then the strange fact that people used to the old analog paradigm (gear is expensive as hell, I know I've never owned much, and it takes up a lot of room) just can't conceptualize the kinds of effects chains and what the end-product sound is going to be until they've spent more time with the softare than it would take for you and I to grok it. I know if you handed me an amp, and a compressor and a guitar and all that guitarist stuff it'd take a real good long time to get my head inside all the possible nuances and get anything remotely like what a guitarist would get. The only weird thing is that they get so upset and refuse to try despite the obvious quantum leap in control and repeatability and sound design and on and on.

[james0tucson]

I know if you handed me an amp, and a compressor and a guitar and all that guitarist stuff it'd take a real good long time to get my head inside all the possible nuances and get anything remotely like what a guitarist would get.

People actually see it this way? I'm really surprised by that. The hardest part of it is feedback control... the "nuance" of the tone has a lot of touch involved, but if you're a guitar player you've got touch hopefully, whether you're playing through an amp or an amp sim.

[Synesthesiac]

after calling me clueless and lacking in basic tools of logical debate without respecting me enough to elaborate and to top it off with a dismissal of my points (talk about frustrating!) and then displaying the hubris to prophesy my rejoinder....you are not gonna get much of a response. in fact... that was it.

[james0tucson]

after calling me clueless and lacking in basic tools of logical debate without respecting me enough to elaborate and to top it off with a dismissal of my points (talk about frustrating!) and then displaying the hubris to prophesy my rejoinder....you are not gonna get much of a response. in fact... that was it.

I sincerely hope that wasn't directed at me. I cannot imagine I said anything to engender this kind of message.
I'm serious about the reason why it seems so difficult to get good software emulation of something that's totally simple in real life or whatever.

People have tried and failed to explain definitively why analog distortion is so pleasant from simple systems (like a 2-stage guitar amp, for example), and yet, duplicating this in a digital device or in a signal path on a general purpose computer system seems to be one of the more elusive goals in audio software.

I suspect that part of the problem is that people are still simply motivated to just do it the old fashioned way, and use a tube amp.

One problem I can certainly relate to, is the fact that my amp is big enough to play any club, pretty much any street fair stage, and I'm sure it would be just fine in a stadium gig... which creates a pretty serious problem for playing or practicing at certain times; most times, in fact.

I would appreciate a good alternative, and my first-generation Korg Pandora has never done a thing for me. (Every patch on that has dreadful noise and what sounds like bitcrushed junk, just useless.)

[Lunch Money]

No, that response was definitely directed at me. Here's my own response, which was meant to be directly afterward, but I was kind of slow on the submit button. (ie. the "Thankfully" is in response to the last words of his post, not to yours):

--

Thankfully. In fact, I got more of a response than I wanted OR expected! I'll elaborate, though, despite my better judgement: Look, it's nothing personal. I don't even know you, hence my not going out of my way to be particularly respectful. But I really HAVE been in too many similar conversations that I can see certain elements of this one going nowhere. I don't need to respond to your points, and chose not to, because your own first didn't respond to mine. That was my entire reason for giving up. Not because I "disrespect" you (though, in truth, you have earned neither disrespect nor respect so I dunno how that's a factor) but rather because the conversation was destined to go nowhere fast.

There's no WAY I was going to add more paragraphs to it, because then instead of one point that you still haven't grasped, there becomes an endless string of separate (but seemingly related) points, most of which turn out to be nothing but red herrings. Then eventually I'll start catching your inconsistencies and contradictions (there's a glaring one in your last post, for example) until even I find myself annoyingly pedantic. I'd rather not bother.

And just a hint... I've written entire volumes worth of material on poetry and prose. I am capable of selecting an assortment of sonorous and sesquipedalian syntax for the asservation of my syllogisms....

But I still don't use phrases like "displaying the hubris to prophesy my rejoinder" and expect anything better than light-hearted mockery.

Greg