Is amplitube Metal dated?

[bill45]

Is this still valid? I'm going to get amplitube Slah. I have the German Gain,Metal T1 cab.Should I get the saldano, instead?What are the differences between the T1, T2, and T3 cabinets. Do You like the Orange cabinets for metal? I do like the metal distortion pedals.
My custom shop, demo period has expired.
Thanks, Bill

[hibidy]

It's hard to beat the "metal t" head with the "ambassador" in front for that sound. But I use "recabinet" vs any of the built in cabs nowadays (I know this is a problem with cpu for some) The biggest issue with the soldano for me is it seems to have a problem with clipping inside AT a little too easy.

Yeah, I basically have everything from back in the day

[bronxsound]

Lepoulin lecto sounds very metal too me. more metal than AT metal And being free it's hard to beat.

[bill45]

Thanks guys, Hibidy, How does recabinet compare to the new slash cabs.
I'll try recabinet again. I have the lepou stuff, it doesn't work well in cubase 5.5.3 pc.I mostly, use amp sims with samples. I want to get this library.
He used guitar rig 5 and amplitube metal for this Demo.

[dusted william]

isn't metal built into amplitube 3?

dw

[hibidy]

I have not checked out the slash stuff, sorry.

I find AT cabs in general to be a bit phasy. I do not have that problem with GR 5 btw. This is both x64 and and x86 (I'm currently x86 while I prepare my main system for a much needed clean install)

[hibidy]

isn't metal built into amplitube 3?

dw

It is. Did I miss something?

[dusted william]

isn't metal built into amplitube 3?

dw

It is. Did I miss something?

nope I was missing something

dw

[bill45]

amplitube metal is on sale for $49. Hibidy, are the orange cabs phasy too?

[Agreed]

I have not checked out the slash stuff, sorry.

I find AT cabs in general to be a bit phasy. I do not have that problem with GR 5 btw. This is both x64 and and x86 (I'm currently x86 while I prepare my main system for a much needed clean install)

I've only found some phasey cabs with certain mics - avoiding them seems to fix the phase issue. Note, this is with Amplitube 3, but it does include the AT:M amps, some or all of which iirc even got moved to the new modeling engine when they did the big AT2+X-Gear to Amplitube 3+Custom Shop transition.

Generally speaking, also, the newer the cab emulation, the better it is. You can find some examples pretty easily in AT3 since it includes everything except AT:Fender and of course all the CS stuff. Check a 1x12 from the AT:2 era versus a 1x12 with what you know to be virtually identical dimensions and similar construction from AT:3 and it's a notable difference. Although, in AT3, the ability to move the mics along a z-axis makes it pretty easy to correct for any phase issues just by scooting it a bit back or forward, especially if you're just using one mic. Phase issues become more of a thing if you start mixing two cabs and four mics and two rooms, but you'd sort of expect it to, I think. Dial out one of the rooms, be a little more conservative in your mic selection, and you can multi-cab without issues just like combining carefully tuned IRs (which, as advertised in the AT:Fender era, Amplitube's cabinets are at their root anyway).

It's all the added flexibility features that can give you enough rope to get a bit tied up, but judicious use and all that, y'know?

That said I still do use Recabinet 3.x (forget the version we're at right now, sorry) sometimes, it just has a really nice sound and I like the ability to run the rack effects into a cab, sometimes the lack of a frequency cut-off makes some of the rack effects sound higher-fidelity than you want them to, and they're not all available in pedal form to run up front. Plus you don't really always WANT to run them into the preamp, so it becomes a nice utility feature at that point being able to bypass the cabs and use something else that's quality. But I'm loaded up on cabs in the CS along with the rest, they're really inexpensive and it just seems to make sense to pick up the cab when I get the amp... And the CS cabs sound really good, it's clear that effort went into capturing them well. The AT:Fender Vibratone cab is some kind of magic, top notch rotary simulation, and having a wealth of other cabs to combine it with expands on what it can do in a really lovely way I've found.

[bill45]

Great analysis Agreed, thank you.

[Kaboom75]

It could be missing:-
Soldano
Slash
Engl Powerball

I just use Amplitube free and buy in the newest metal stuff.

[Agreed]

It could be missing:-
Soldano
Slash
Engl Powerball

I just use Amplitube free and buy in the newest metal stuff.

Certainly a valid way to go about it - I figure that's why they put it out there, something nice about being able to nab your preferred models a la carte. I'm only missing the Jet City heads and the Seymour Duncan pedals and I'd have a full collection, I think I bought Slash literally within some minutes of it going live. Lol. Anyway -

Kid you not, one of my favorite CLEAN models in the whole lineup for hosting pedals (which, obviously, I have an interest in!) is the Amplitube Metal Clean amp. I believe it's modeling the Triple Recto in a clean configuration. Headroom forever and a good frequency response for playing nice with real, physical pedals into the audio interface.

I agree it would be pretty awesome if it came with the Soldano and "Anger" amps, but AT:Metal was, to be fair, a product before the CS was even a thing, so I don't really hold it against them not going back and adding new amps that fit the metal bill in. At least they make it so you can buy the Metal stuff a la carte in the CS. Forward-compatibility, I'll take it. :p

The Randall model is great, too, heavy as a very heavy thing and with a really different tone than any of the other high gainers, including that massive high-wattage solid-state Fender Metalhead amp in AT:Fender. Which, in my opinion, totally gets slept on, but that's a different story altogether - I'd love one of those heads, if my back weren't so crap, haha, it's a really neat sounding amp in the physical world and it is well modeled in AT:Fender too. I know it's AmpliTUBE, but they're good at modeling solid state behavior too, I'd love to see them do the ISP solid state head. Now that'd be a challenge. Listening, IK?

[Hink]

I have not checked out the slash stuff, sorry.

I find AT cabs in general to be a bit phasy. I do not have that problem with GR 5 btw. This is both x64 and and x86 (I'm currently x86 while I prepare my main system for a much needed clean install)

I've only found some phasey cabs with certain mics - avoiding them seems to fix the phase issue. Note, this is with Amplitube 3, but it does include the AT:M amps, some or all of which iirc even got moved to the new modeling engine when they did the big AT2+X-Gear to Amplitube 3+Custom Shop transition.

Generally speaking, also, the newer the cab emulation, the better it is. You can find some examples pretty easily in AT3 since it includes everything except AT:Fender and of course all the CS stuff. Check a 1x12 from the AT:2 era versus a 1x12 with what you know to be virtually identical dimensions and similar construction from AT:3 and it's a notable difference. Although, in AT3, the ability to move the mics along a z-axis makes it pretty easy to correct for any phase issues just by scooting it a bit back or forward, especially if you're just using one mic. Phase issues become more of a thing if you start mixing two cabs and four mics and two rooms, but you'd sort of expect it to, I think. Dial out one of the rooms, be a little more conservative in your mic selection, and you can multi-cab without issues just like combining carefully tuned IRs (which, as advertised in the AT:Fender era, Amplitube's cabinets are at their root anyway).

It's all the added flexibility features that can give you enough rope to get a bit tied up, but judicious use and all that, y'know?

That said I still do use Recabinet 3.x (forget the version we're at right now, sorry) sometimes, it just has a really nice sound and I like the ability to run the rack effects into a cab, sometimes the lack of a frequency cut-off makes some of the rack effects sound higher-fidelity than you want them to, and they're not all available in pedal form to run up front. Plus you don't really always WANT to run them into the preamp, so it becomes a nice utility feature at that point being able to bypass the cabs and use something else that's quality. But I'm loaded up on cabs in the CS along with the rest, they're really inexpensive and it just seems to make sense to pick up the cab when I get the amp... And the CS cabs sound really good, it's clear that effort went into capturing them well. The AT:Fender Vibratone cab is some kind of magic, top notch rotary simulation, and having a wealth of other cabs to combine it with expands on what it can do in a really lovely way I've found.

all that is well and good, but there is one key issue (maybe a few) that I brought up before that hopefully IK, NI, recab and everyone else will embrace because it's just plain basic common sense. If I use one mic I have one output/input, if I use two mics I have two inputs, if I use three mics I have 3 inputs...all those inputs may benefit from different processing techniques. For instance when recording (really for monitoring) and when mixing I will use multiple guitar inputs/tracks. I wont always put fx on every track or even (sometimes especially) on a bus, like delay or reverb because it's too easy to wash out the sound. Instead a little reverb on one track is enough while on other tracks/channels I work on the body of the tone. This technique is new to me because for so long I had one amp, one mic, one cab, then along came sims with the same concept is lost (for instance GR control room which why people love is far beyond me). You can have multiple mics but not inputs which defeats the entire purpose. Sure you can open multiple instances and tbh for me that is not an issue at all but for some it's too cpu intensive and it would be nice to have it all in front of you in one window.

Another thing is that there is not a cab sim or an amp sim where moving the mics reflect anywhere close to an accurate picture of what I get when I do the same thing in the physical world. Another thing lacking with mics and speakers in sims is the ability to do beam blocking, something even SRV did with duct tape. Beam blocking is useful with dealing with what many call "the ice pick to the ears" sound. Not always, but it's a technique that has it's place but tbh in sims you do not really get as much of that sound.

But wait Hink, that's good right...I mean you do not need beam blocking because there is less ice pick to the ear sound right? Wrong, with multiple mics often being able to mix in as much of that tone as you like...you know the way it's been done for decades.

I'm sorry and before the day is over I'm sure I'll regret even opening this can of worms but sims have come along way, speaker impulses have come a long way but modeled mics and miking techniques still are not in the neighborhood. FWIW this is not something I noticed until I went back to hardware for my guitar sound (which tube amps have not become obsolete in 60 years ) but it really stands out like a sore thumb now (I feel very limited now with sims and impulses). Companies brag about how accurate their modeling of the mic is compared to the same model of mic yet they leave out something as important as those little miking techniques that make not so subtle changes in the real world unlike their virtual counterparts. In fact using a tube pre into a speaker sim/IR still is disappointing, at first I thought it was the lack of a power amp and power amp distortion but even with an amp that has a line out post output transformer it's still not there yet nor is it when coming out of the line out of an attenuator...it's getting there but it's not there yet.

FWIW AT has the best speaker emulation as far as sims go that I have used and it would only take a few things to make it even more realistic.

[Kaboom75]

I've baught many things that is in the metal pack to go with the latest metal stuff so if it's selling really cheap buy it many of the Slash presets require whats in the the rest of amplitube.