The Big Guitar Amp Sim Roundup + Review

[telecode]

I'm kinda surprised no one wants to talk about AcouFiend, it's really quite cool.

sure. go ahead. it looks interesting. can you use it with any sim or just bluecat products.

viewtopic.php?p=7738656#p7738656
he already did - in depth. we just derailed it with nonsense

Oh. i didnt even notice it was this thread. Cool software. Its $80 for a plugin. You need to really need a quality feedback plugin to want to buy it. i think if it gets bundled in another package, it would be more tempting.

[dbender]

Blue Cat recently added it to their Axe Pack

[Blue Cat Audio]

sure. go ahead. it looks interesting. can you use it with any sim or just bluecat products.

It works in front of any amp simulation, or even on a real amp.

[Anderton]

Its $80 for a plugin. You need to really need a quality feedback plugin to want to buy it.

Remember that it also works with other instruments (feedback synthesizers are fun), and also, it can track your guitar for synth sounds if you set minimum delay before the onset of the "feedback," and set the mix to feedback sound only. Because it doesn't do pitch-to-MIDI conversion, it feels quite responsive. If the feedback could have different waveforms, this would be even cooler.

I haven't tried it with drums yet, though...

[Blue Cat Audio]

If the feedback could have different waveforms, this would be even cooler.

That's an idea... But since you can process the feedback signal alone, you can already transform it quite a bit with a waveshaper for example.

I haven't tried it with drums yet, though...

This might be fun... But I am not sure if it would work since there is not much sustain on drums.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Remember that it also works with other instruments (feedback synthesizers are fun)

With a bit of distortion, synths can indeed sound almost as good as guitars!

[Anderton]

If the feedback could have different waveforms, this would be even cooler.

That's an idea... But since you can process the feedback signal alone, you can already transform it quite a bit with a waveshaper for example.

Yes, that works fine, as does putting the waveform through an amp sim. It would just be easier if you wanted something like sawtooth wave feedback on guitar.

As to drums, since AcouFiend works with chords, I was thinking to try it on a mixed drum track with cymbals and such. We'll see what happens!

[fxz895]

Ye sims are cool.
No back pain and it sound great through your headphones.
For home practise its perfect.

[Jeffguitars]

"I can't reproduce the sound on this record. The digital modelling must be bad." It's such a bizarre conclusion to draw. I wouldn't be able to reproduce those sounds even with the original equipment; we're talking about some of the best recordings ever made here.

I'll happily agree that software doesn't ship with equivalent IRs, but I'm quite confident that if you could recreate the setup and captured an IR from it, the result would be satisfactory.

I said NOTHING about digital modelling is all around bad. I said it can be GREAT for live use.

*snip*

I'm sorry, but the attempts to conflate the issues is an attempt to cloud the fact that some don't want to face. One more time, it is the ACOUSTIC SPACE

*etc*

Yes, I did actually understand the first time that you were referring to the cabinet-in-a-room part of the system. Sorry if that wasn't clear. No conflation was needed; your position is just as ridiculous when taken in context.

Stop repeating that rooms are not EQs. Acknowledge that delays and filters are deeply related and that the vast majority of room behaviour is in fact a filter. Explain what you think is missing from the model. Don't expect people to respond to your impossible test standard: reproducing unspecified details of an unknown recording setup.

Apologies for directness, but I do find these long, unstructured and repetitive posts with UNNECESSARY CAPITALS to be quite rude in their own way.

Sorry, but when you start turning your comments to my writing style it becomes obvious you are losing the debate. Your arguments continue to be vague and repetitive and you are simply trying to use the same arguments with more nuanced words, hence my need to continuesly make direct points using capitalization. So, YES, I DO NEED to emphasize points so that the readers get a clear indication to pay attention to the direct points you and some others are dodging or continuing to attempt to cloud the issue. So on with more then .

Now, impossible test standard, WHAT? There have been THOUSANDS of great recordings in great rooms for decades, and I simply ask anyone here to show me that you can get the same quality of recording that has been done THOUSANDS OF TIMES over the decades, now get this, with HUNDREDS OF combinations of amps, mics, players. Once again, the one common thread is that the rooms ARE GOOD STUDIO ROOMS. Now get this once again, the SOURCE SOUND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT WE ARE HEARING. Ready for this?. You could record the sound of someone PUKING. NOW, record them PUKING in a great studio room, maybe the Stealy Dan room, maybe the NY studio room the Lou Reed recordings were made in, the room PET SOUNDS was recorded in, how many hundreds more examples do you want?. Now, record that puking sound in any one of those great rooms, now record the same puking sound in, say my horrible little bedroom with no treatment, comb filtering, standing waves, dreadful acoustics. ARE YOU TELLING ME BECAUSE IT'S THE SOUND OF PUKING THAT YOU OR I COULDN'T TELL INSTANTLY which recording was made in the great room and which one was done in my combfiltered bedroom with some ir spaces slapped on top of it?.
It would take me ( and you too or you have the worst ears in history) TWO SECONDS to know which recording was done in the great room AND YOU KNOW IT TOO.
It would not matter AT ALL if the puking sound was recorded with an RE20, a U87, or if the PUKER was female or male.
Now, go listen to some sound effects CD's and tell me if you can't tell if they were recorded in a combfiltering, standing wave 10 foot bedroom or in great rooms or outside where sounds waves do not bound around with combfiltering. YOU KNOW THE ANSWER and so do I.
My test, asking you to play me some DIRECT RECORDED GUITAR and to show me that it will sound JUST AS GOOD , just as intimate, just as immediate as the thousands and thousands of recordings made with hundreds of different mics, amps and players is not legit?. NONSENSE. I am not asking you to sim THE TONE of that recording. You could take a JC120 with any guitar and mic you want, or any number of other amps, mics, or players and record them IN THAT ROOM or any other good studio room and it would still sound GREAT. The ROOM SOUND IS STILL THERE. They don't create great rooms just for a Fender amp recorded with a U87. They make great rooms to RECORD ANY SOUND with supreme detail and intimacy.

So my challenge is as legit as they come. SHOW ME that you can record some clean guitar, DIRECT, ELIMINATING THE medium of physical reality and yet you can slap an Ir reverb on it and all of a sudden you have the sound, the medium, the physical space of a great studio room. YOU CAN'T, NO ONE CAN because it simply isn't possible.
What a PHONY argument to claim you don't have that exact room, that player, that mic, and you know this and so does everyone else reading this. Lou Reed didn't have the same mic, player, amp in his recording. But what he did have SOUNDED GREAT IN A DIFFERENT GREAT STUDIO.

I am not asking you to SIM THEIR TONE, you know, the amount of bass, or that high pitched Vox amp sound with a certain mic. I am asking you to SHOW ME A GREAT recording OF A GREAT STUDIO ROOM using a SIMULATION OF IT. YOU CAN'T. You can scramble, you can conflate all you want. SIM THE ROOM, the material has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. It can be the sound of PUKING, female puking, male puking, a HOG grunting, a chorus of FARTS, the sounds recorded DO NOT MAKE THE SOUND OF A GREAT STUDIO ROOM WORSE. You will simply have a PRISTINE sound of farts, puking, or hogs grunting, you will hear every detail, it will appear out of nothingness, no combfiltering, no standing waves.
You know ALL THIS as well as I do. A great room MAKES ALL SOUNDS made in them detailed, intimate, 3dish, pristine, OR THEY WOULDN'T EVEN BUILD GREAT STUDIO ROOMS.
So let's get this DIRECT QUESTION to you. Are you saying you could NOT tell the difference between the sound of PUKING recorded in a great studio room played along side the same puking recorded in a combfiltering, standing wave 10 foot untreated bedroom?. You can and so could anyone here or you have the worst ears ever and should be NOWHERE near a recording situation.

[Anderton]

For those who lack the patience or interest to read through the entire exchange, here's the bottom line:

1. Physical rooms have a specific sound.
2. Virtualizing physical phenomena is challenging.
3. Whether that challenge has been met adequately is in the ear of the beholder.

[Anderton]

Finally...in my opinion, in the list of factors that create an emotional experience in people who listen to music, the room sound is pretty low on the list.

[JeffLearman]

Thanks, Craig, for this great round-up of all the major players in amp sims! I didn't read the entire thread, but I would really appreciate your impression of modern speaker emulation.

I'm a bit out of date because some years ago I focused more on live keyboard playing, and haven't kept up. But what I remember is that speaker emulation is crucial to a good sim, and at least at the time, it seemed as though speaker emulations were all done using convolutions.

Convolutions are crazy great stuff, btw. In theory they can exactly reproduce any linear system, simply by recording the system's response to a "step input" (a pulse.) They're great at capturing the tone color of a speaker or mic. But what they don't do is change with volume. (They're not supposed to!) Guitar cabinet speakers, on the other hand, sound dramatically different as you turn them up. And as we all know, they generally sound better when cranked up nicely. Tubes are the same way: they're nonlinear devices and nobody would even consider trying to emulate one with a convolution.

How well do modern speaker emulations capture the nonlinearities of great speaker cabinets? Or do they sound the same no matter how loud the signal is? (This is an easily testable thing, when using the speaker emulation alone, in a DAW.)

As a keyboard player, I've spent some time comparing Leslie sims. One thing most of us agree on is that we'd rather play a mediocre organ sim with a great Leslie sim than vice versa. The impact of the speaker sim is huge (and not just the rotation.) IMHO the same is true for amp sims, and my experience is that speakers was the weakest element.

[Jeffguitars]

You won't, because YOU CAN'T, it's flat out that simple.

Yes. you can't. No one ever said amp sims can replace tube amps of yester yore or high end $2000+ tube amps. The amp sim is a different tool than a tube amp. You use it differently. What an amp sim does do is it allows you to quickly and easily record electric guitar into a DAW and you can get very very good results. The sounds you can get are going to be much more versatile than what you are limited to with your regular amp. Your Fender Pro is always going to sound like a Fender pro, unless you buy a Marshall stack.

FWIW.. Steely Dan were a professional rock group and legendary group that recorded in the most expensive recording studios at the time. They also had at their disposal high priced engineer, Roger Nichols , who had 30+ years experience with the equipment in those studios. They had much more fire power when making those records than Joe Shmo today who tinkers with a DAW in his 1 bedroom. Different times, different folks.

And again, right in the first sentence we see either an diliberate or misunderstood comment.
"Yes. you can't. No one ever said amp sims can replace tube amps of yester yore or high end $2000+ tube amps. The amp sim is a different tool than a tube amp. You use it differently."
Again, THIS HAS NOTHING to do with a guitar PREAMP. There are wondersful sounding amps that are NOT tube and plenty of wonderful sounding amp sim PREAMPS. IT IS THE GREAT ROOMS and MICS INTERACTING in those rooms that amp sims CANNOT DO!!! Put a great amp sim through a good power amp section, tube or not, put it in a great studio room and record it into a good mic in that great room and YOU WILL GET A GREAT RECORDING of that space that a DI sim cannot do and will not be able to do in our life times. It's that simple. I understand some wanting to defend amp sims, but I see the same SUBTLE attempts to cloud the issue, when will the dreaded "TONE" word start being tossed in? Let me make this clear again. WE ARE TALKING THE ROOM, a real studio room and the interaction of that room with a good mic and speaker. It's the room that these amp sims CANNOT simulate because in the end they are simply 2d digital copies that will NOT IN OUR life times be true 3d. They can't be and the sims just cannot give you that real 3d acoustical space, they just can't. I WANT THEM TOO, I want someone to show me this so I can finally have what I have been after all these years.

Thats all fine and dandy, but I am talking about the 99% people who are out there making music today who don't have access to a "great" studio room and don't need that access due to the genre of music they are making. (Check out YT vids on how Fatrat or Duskus make their music, just headphones, a laptop, interface and lots of stems).

If you did have access to a great room, you wouldn't be using sims to begin with. Also, a shitty low to mid priced guitar and real amp are going to sound just as shitty in a high end studio. i am not defending amp sims. i am simply stating that they are a different tool to use to make music and they actually give great results for what they are and where their price point. i made CDs in the 90s with rock groups in pro studios with engineers (they were not high end studios, just regular run of the mill studios catering to no name rock bands but they were real studios in the music business at the time) and my guitars sound much better today using sims than they did on those old tapes and CD's made in the 90s using real amps (some were my own regular touring amp and some where amps that studio had at their disposal).

you are using particular recordings by some legendary artists as your measuring stick. you should be using recordings make by regular run on the mill no namer bands and compare what todays guitar technology can do, which costs peanuts to what those bands were using, and compare those results.

"Thats all fine and dandy, but I am talking about the 99% people who are out there making music today who don't have access to a "great" studio room and don't need that access due to the genre of music they are making. "

Then we have zero disagreement. My point is very very simple and straight forward. I am staying as absolute fact that direct recorded guitar, BYPASSING the medium of the physical world will NEVER IN OUR LIFETIMES be able to sim a quality recording in a good studio room. That is as simple and direct a statement as can be made. I have already said sims can be used if people don't have a good studio room to record in. I have said this numerous times, but those who record direct will need to mask the elimination of the physical world in a good studio room. PERIOD. You can do that somewhat by distortions and wall of sound multiple guitars layered. That can somewhat mask over the absence of a good studio room.

"If you did have access to a great room, you wouldn't be using sims to begin with. "

Again, we agree, and why is that?. We'll it's obvious why, because ANYTHING --puking sounds, guitars amps, farts, hogs grunting, ANY SOUND made in a good studio room will be detailed, pristine, 3dish, immediate, appear from nowhere....
So of course anyone with a good studio room would use it over direct recording ANY DAY if they have any sense. I have been explaining the reasons for this and explaining that SIMS CANNOT get you the detailed and pristine sounds that are made and recorded in a great studio room. That is as far off as a Star Trek holodeck. I have asked those who claim the real studio room can be simmed with their direct recorded guitar and an Ir or two, to PROVE IT. and then they come back with answers that show them to not know what the heck they are talking about or show them to be avoiding the challenge with nonsense answers intentionally. I am not talking about what guitars, what players, what styles, what amps. ANY SOUND made in a good studio room will be pristine and intimate. They say, "you are choosing Stealy Dan". No I'm not, they just happened to be who was on my mind because I had been listening to them. I mentioned a Lou Reed song, but it could have been anyone of thousands upon thousands of clean guitars recorded in great studios. How many guitars have been recorded in great studio rooms has their been in the last 50 years, MILLIONS?. I could have chosen any of them, the players, the amps, the bands, non of that matters. If the sounds were made IN A GOOD STUDIO ROOM, they will sound detailed and pure.

"Also, a shitty low to mid priced guitar and real amp are going to sound just as shitty in a high end studio."

And here we have it. This is FLAT OUT WRONG, I'll let you tell me whether it is your understanding that is lacking or your integrity. I just explained that even PUKING SOUNDS, ANY SOUNDS, FARTS, HOGS GRUNTING, CRAPPY GUITARS AND AMPS, any sound made in a great studio room will be DETAILED, AND PRISTINE. You may not like the TONE of that crappy amp and guitar, but the crappy sound WILL BE DETAILED AND PRISTINE. We are not talking about WHAT A SOUND IS, WHETHER IT'S pleasing to you, only that a great studio room will PRESENT that crappy sound to you in a detailed and pristine way. You know as well as I do that you would instantly be able to tell the sounds of puking recorded in a great studio room and puking in a horrible bedroom with combfiltering and standing waves apart. The difference would be obvious. In fact, the studio recorded one should make you feel more disgusted because the detail in it and the pristine quality of the recording would make the puking sound more REAL to you. We are not talking about WHAT the sound is, we are talking about a great studio room vs bypassing a great studio room.

"you are using particular recordings by some legendary artists as your measuring stick.".
NO I AM NOT. I am using, GREAT STUDIO ROOMS as my measuring stick. So you still do not understand. I could have used ANY of thousands upon thousands of recordings made in great studio rooms. What players, what amps, what guitars HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. Studio rooms, great ones, are DESIGNED so that ANY sound made in them, it doesn't matter WHAT SOUND, ANY sound made in them will be pristine, detailed, intimate, close, real... This has nothing to do with what sound, what player, what guitar, what amp. Think about this, do you really think that when they design a great studio room that they will says, "WELL, this room has great low bass absorption, but if you play a crappy iano in it, and it sounds old and horrible and out of tune, well, then the room loses its ability to absorb lower frequencies"?. Come on, this is common sense here. Great rooms DON'T CARE WHAT SOUNDS are made inside them, they treat the sounds the same, puking, or a great guitar player, they present sounds in a detailed and intimate way, with a purity of the room.

Not sure why you posted the links. Wall of sound thick distortions cam SOMEWHAT mask or hide that a great room is ABSENT. put this same guitars through a bank in a GREAT STUDIO room and they will be WORLDS BETTER. TThat doesn't mean they shouldn't have used what they had, it's just that would be MUCH better in a great room, but you said this also above.

Once again, anyone who claims they can sim a great recording room, good gracious, you have your amp sims and it files, SHOW ME.

[telecode]

You won't, because YOU CAN'T, it's flat out that simple.

Yes. you can't. No one ever said amp sims can replace tube amps of yester yore or high end $2000+ tube amps. The amp sim is a different tool than a tube amp. You use it differently. What an amp sim does do is it allows you to quickly and easily record electric guitar into a DAW and you can get very very good results. The sounds you can get are going to be much more versatile than what you are limited to with your regular amp. Your Fender Pro is always going to sound like a Fender pro, unless you buy a Marshall stack.

FWIW.. Steely Dan were a professional rock group and legendary group that recorded in the most expensive recording studios at the time. They also had at their disposal high priced engineer, Roger Nichols , who had 30+ years experience with the equipment in those studios. They had much more fire power when making those records than Joe Shmo today who tinkers with a DAW in his 1 bedroom. Different times, different folks.

And again, right in the first sentence we see either an diliberate or misunderstood comment.
"Yes. you can't. No one ever said amp sims can replace tube amps of yester yore or high end $2000+ tube amps. The amp sim is a different tool than a tube amp. You use it differently."
Again, THIS HAS NOTHING to do with a guitar PREAMP. There are wondersful sounding amps that are NOT tube and plenty of wonderful sounding amp sim PREAMPS. IT IS THE GREAT ROOMS and MICS INTERACTING in those rooms that amp sims CANNOT DO!!! Put a great amp sim through a good power amp section, tube or not, put it in a great studio room and record it into a good mic in that great room and YOU WILL GET A GREAT RECORDING of that space that a DI sim cannot do and will not be able to do in our life times. It's that simple. I understand some wanting to defend amp sims, but I see the same SUBTLE attempts to cloud the issue, when will the dreaded "TONE" word start being tossed in? Let me make this clear again. WE ARE TALKING THE ROOM, a real studio room and the interaction of that room with a good mic and speaker. It's the room that these amp sims CANNOT simulate because in the end they are simply 2d digital copies that will NOT IN OUR life times be true 3d. They can't be and the sims just cannot give you that real 3d acoustical space, they just can't. I WANT THEM TOO, I want someone to show me this so I can finally have what I have been after all these years.

Thats all fine and dandy, but I am talking about the 99% people who are out there making music today who don't have access to a "great" studio room and don't need that access due to the genre of music they are making. (Check out YT vids on how Fatrat or Duskus make their music, just headphones, a laptop, interface and lots of stems).

If you did have access to a great room, you wouldn't be using sims to begin with. Also, a shitty low to mid priced guitar and real amp are going to sound just as shitty in a high end studio. i am not defending amp sims. i am simply stating that they are a different tool to use to make music and they actually give great results for what they are and where their price point. i made CDs in the 90s with rock groups in pro studios with engineers (they were not high end studios, just regular run of the mill studios catering to no name rock bands but they were real studios in the music business at the time) and my guitars sound much better today using sims than they did on those old tapes and CD's made in the 90s using real amps (some were my own regular touring amp and some where amps that studio had at their disposal).

you are using particular recordings by some legendary artists as your measuring stick. you should be using recordings make by regular run on the mill no namer bands and compare what todays guitar technology can do, which costs peanuts to what those bands were using, and compare those results.

"Thats all fine and dandy, but I am talking about the 99% people who are out there making music today who don't have access to a "great" studio room and don't need that access due to the genre of music they are making. "

Then we have zero disagreement. My point is very very simple and straight forward. I am staying as absolute fact that direct recorded guitar, BYPASSING the medium of the physical world will NEVER IN OUR LIFETIMES be able to sim a quality recording in a good studio room. That is as simple and direct a statement as can be made. I have already said sims can be used if people don't have a good studio room to record in. I have said this numerous times, but those who record direct will need to mask the elimination of the physical world in a good studio room. PERIOD. You can do that somewhat by distortions and wall of sound multiple guitars layered. That can somewhat mask over the absence of a good studio room.

"If you did have access to a great room, you wouldn't be using sims to begin with. "

Again, we agree, and why is that?. We'll it's obvious why, because ANYTHING --puking sounds, guitars amps, farts, hogs grunting, ANY SOUND made in a good studio room will be detailed, pristine, 3dish, immediate, appear from nowhere....
So of course anyone with a good studio room would use it over direct recording ANY DAY if they have any sense. I have been explaining the reasons for this and explaining that SIMS CANNOT get you the detailed and pristine sounds that are made and recorded in a great studio room. That is as far off as a Star Trek holodeck. I have asked those who claim the real studio room can be simmed with their direct recorded guitar and an Ir or two, to PROVE IT. and then they come back with answers that show them to not know what the heck they are talking about or show them to be avoiding the challenge with nonsense answers intentionally. I am not talking about what guitars, what players, what styles, what amps. ANY SOUND made in a good studio room will be pristine and intimate. They say, "you are choosing Stealy Dan". No I'm not, they just happened to be who was on my mind because I had been listening to them. I mentioned a Lou Reed song, but it could have been anyone of thousands upon thousands of clean guitars recorded in great studios. How many guitars have been recorded in great studio rooms has their been in the last 50 years, MILLIONS?. I could have chosen any of them, the players, the amps, the bands, non of that matters. If the sounds were made IN A GOOD STUDIO ROOM, they will sound detailed and pure.

"Also, a shitty low to mid priced guitar and real amp are going to sound just as shitty in a high end studio."

And here we have it. This is FLAT OUT WRONG, I'll let you tell me whether it is your understanding that is lacking or your integrity. I just explained that even PUKING SOUNDS, ANY SOUNDS, FARTS, HOGS GRUNTING, CRAPPY GUITARS AND AMPS, any sound made in a great studio room will be DETAILED, AND PRISTINE. You may not like the TONE of that crappy amp and guitar, but the crappy sound WILL BE DETAILED AND PRISTINE. We are not talking about WHAT A SOUND IS, WHETHER IT'S pleasing to you, only that a great studio room will PRESENT that crappy sound to you in a detailed and pristine way. You know as well as I do that you would instantly be able to tell the sounds of puking recorded in a great studio room and puking in a horrible bedroom with combfiltering and standing waves apart. The difference would be obvious. In fact, the studio recorded one should make you feel more disgusted because the detail in it and the pristine quality of the recording would make the puking sound more REAL to you. We are not talking about WHAT the sound is, we are talking about a great studio room vs bypassing a great studio room.

"you are using particular recordings by some legendary artists as your measuring stick.".
NO I AM NOT. I am using, GREAT STUDIO ROOMS as my measuring stick. So you still do not understand. I could have used ANY of thousands upon thousands of recordings made in great studio rooms. What players, what amps, what guitars HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. Studio rooms, great ones, are DESIGNED so that ANY sound made in them, it doesn't matter WHAT SOUND, ANY sound made in them will be pristine, detailed, intimate, close, real... This has nothing to do with what sound, what player, what guitar, what amp. Think about this, do you really think that when they design a great studio room that they will says, "WELL, this room has great low bass absorption, but if you play a crappy iano in it, and it sounds old and horrible and out of tune, well, then the room loses its ability to absorb lower frequencies"?. Come on, this is common sense here. Great rooms DON'T CARE WHAT SOUNDS are made inside them, they treat the sounds the same, puking, or a great guitar player, they present sounds in a detailed and intimate way, with a purity of the room.

Not sure why you posted the links. Wall of sound thick distortions cam SOMEWHAT mask or hide that a great room is ABSENT. put this same guitars through a bank in a GREAT STUDIO room and they will be WORLDS BETTER. TThat doesn't mean they shouldn't have used what they had, it's just that would be MUCH better in a great room, but you said this also above.

Once again, anyone who claims they can sim a great recording room, good gracious, you have your amp sims and it files, SHOW ME.

I posted the links to those lesser known bands because I think you are using Steely Dan stuff way out of context. As I explained, Steely Dan records are an anomaly in recorded rock & pop/jass music. They are examples of excellence in recording. But they don't represent the mass of recorded music that was made in real recording studios in 70s onwards. Most recorded music did not sound like that. Quite a lot of very average sounding music was made in those real recording studios. You should be comparing amp sims for the home recording market to that kind of stuff.

below is a sample of something i am tinkering with. (forgive the crappy timing - its very rough -- but listen to guitar sound variantsons). Sure, i could spend $1000 on sound isolation and drywall and make a quiet sound booth in my basement and use try to record using sm57s. but i am limited to the amps (fenders and peavey combos) and guitars i have (unless i start going and renting Marshall stacks). all i can do is try to play around with the eq and effects and gain on the amps to try to get different electric guitar tones, but i think in the end, its all a excersize it futility. any way you flip it, its all gonna sound more or less like a tele or strat going through a fender twin type sound. because that's the gear i have at my disposal. with sims, i have access to a tool that can give me something above and beyond the limitations of what the gear i have can do. is it going to sound like thats Pete Townsends on Who records or Jimmy Page on Zep. hell no, but it expands the sounds you can use because you are not limited anymore to the gear you actually have.thats why i think sims are great. and they will probably only get better.

https://soundcloud.com/telecode101/f-grove-v1

[Jeffguitars]

Here is some doodling I just did with my two new toys. I used some of my Virus money to get an Art MPA II, and a NINETEEN DOLLAR Pyle pro SM57 clone, cheap as they get. So here is my POD XT, you know, the fizz master, the now joke of the sim world, not even close to the stuff like Bias amp 2 (which I have as well) XT in to 30 dollar Tube MP, then in to MP3 input of the 99 dollar Acoustic brand amp, miced with a NINETEEN dollar mic (hence the name "Hey 19 Test" in honor of Steely Dan) then pre amped with the Art MPa II. I hear a couple clicks and pops so I am hoping there is nothing wrong with my new MPA, but I noticed the other day the lights in my apartment were flickering while recording this doodle so I am hoping that's all it was. Now, NO WAY can anyone tell me they DO NOT hear the actual physical space, the medium of physical reality, even with my cheap Pod XT and 19 dollar mic, the detail is OBVIOUS, and I have never been able to come close to that with a DI guitar signal. As I type I see the Sound clod link above which I will check out as soon as I post this. I hope beyond hope that the poster will show me a sim that actually is able to sim a detailed, delicate, and intimate sound. I bet he is using a sim that makes my old Pod XT look SILLY, and a speaker sim, correct? I don't even have the cab model turned on in the XT for this doddle, only the amp model, I believe was the Fender Delux, (don't that "TONE" blow you away? lol. But I clearly hear the detail from my squier guitar, nasty old Pod XT with no cab model in to my 19 dollar mic.

https://soundcloud.com/user-281809016/hey-19-test