The Big Guitar Amp Sim Roundup + Review

[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.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqw_LpMBxTY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbrIgaLHxnA

"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.

Have you not read the post you are responding too? THIS HAS ZERO, ZILTCH to do with WHO MAKES the sounds or WHAT THE SOUND ARE EVEN. IT IS THE ROOOOOOOM. So the Lou Reed songs are also Giants in recording? I have told you, I could have chosen from among THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of recording. IT'S THE ROOOOOOMMMMM SOUND, it has nothing to do with the guitar, the player, the amp. If you use a bad amp with a crappy player, guess what you will get with a great studio room? You will get a PRISTINE, DETAILED recording of a bad player with a crappy guitar and amp, but the RECORDING OF THAT BAD PLAYER will be PRISTINE, DETAILED, CLEAR, and have the FEELING of the physical space it was made in. My god, and someone told me I don't need to yell with the typing?

Let me see if I can put this in other words. Now get this, a STUDIO ROOM DOES NOT CEASE TO FUNCTION because the sound made in it is from a crappy guitar, a man farting, hogs grunting, horrible out of tune singer SCREECHING!!! The good studio room will PRESENT WHATEVER SOUNDS WERE MADE IN IT in a pristine, detailed and intimate way, YOU JUST WON'T CARE FOR THE MATERIAL, but you would say, "Gosh, that's a PRISTINE RECORDING of a man puking. Listen to the detail of his agony, every detail, his spitting, his grunting, the detail and pristine quality of the recording is AMAZING"

And now to your sample, I'm sorry, but are you kidding with that? THAT SOUNDS DIRECT RECORDED, TOTALLY LACKING a 3d, physical reality. (And I LOVE YOUR PLAYING and think that should be done the honor of being recorded in a REAL PHYSICAL environment. That will be a killer song I would love to hear when it''s done).

Now, listen to my doodling. You know darn well you can hear the same thing I do, you can clearly, beyond a shadow of a doubt hear the detailed and clear sound and you can FEEL that it traveled through physical reality. and you know what, I DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO A GOOD STUDIO ROOM EITHER DUDE!!!! I am in an apartment. What guitars an amps you have real FENDERS? My God, I have a 99 dollar Acoustic brand BASS AMP to play through. I have SIX ACOUSTIC PANELS surrounding this cheap azz amp and have it miced with a 19 dollar mic. So were you saying people now days don't have access to great studio rooms? SO TRUE, yet my laughable old Pod XT with this 19 dollar mic is giving me far and away more detailed and intimate sounds BY FAR, IT'S NOT EVEN CLOSE, than my BIAS AMP sim with speaker IR could ever hope to.

What sim were you using? How about now doing something similar to what I doodled out here, two clean guitars, panned hard right and left, clean and soft, and SHOW ME that a sim can do what this laughable pod XT did with no cab emulation turned on and into a cheap bass amp miced with a 19 dollar mic?

I say without a shadow of a doubt you will get WORLDS BETTER sound if you go to Lowes or somewhere and buy six Rockwool panels, go to Wall Mart and buy some muslin or some material that will let high frequencies through and make the 6 panels. Surround your amp, put one panel in the corner, then stand 2 up on the sides, set your amp on a Milkcrate, put one over the top, fill in with a couple of comforters. I have 2 remaining that I can lean side by side on the front of the box and stretch a comforter over the top and sit on the foot of my bed and use that for vocals or Acoustic guitar.

Now, how many here with just be honest and admit YOU TOO can clearly hear the details and intimate sound of my SQUIER guitar miced with a 19 dollar mic and will be big enough to say, "YES, YOU ARE RIGHT, I can clearly hear a detailed sound that NO WAY should be able to come out of a POD XT and miced with a 19 dollar mic"? "I will admit that there is NO WAY in H E double toothpicks that you could DI that pod xt, turn on a cab sim and do that same doodling and get anything even close to that by BYPASSING the medium of physical reality" Or, you could just post a similar doodle around with your BIG TIME amp sim with speaker IR, paned a couple guitars hard left and hard right, add a touch of verb if you want, (I had no verb on the right side guitar, and just the smallest amount on the left, almost too little to even hear, but it was all from the XT, nothing from the daw, and I SURE AS HECK didn't use a fancy reverb IR.

My point has been made TOTALLY.

1, Amp sims are a GODSEND for live playing. They are awesome as PREAMPS. There are many awesome preamps that don't have tubes, JC120? Used as preamps live you are still going out to a cab and playing the sound out into the physical world, THAT'S GREAT, NO PROBLEM, best thing ever invented for guitar players.

2, using a sim as just a preamp is entirely different than using one to BYPASS ACTUAL PHYSICAL REALITY and record direct. This is where they fail to come close to the real medium of reality. You can MASK this absence to a decent degree by layering guitars to use the wall of sound technique and get by fine, but put these same sims as JUST PREAMPS in a real studio room and they will sound even better yet layered and thick.
3. You can get by alright with Bass DI because it is an omnidirectional sound and covers a lot of frequencies in a low big ball. In other words, a bass guitar does somewhat of the same thing the wall of guitars do, but it is able to do it alone, the big bass ball of sound is able to somewhat mask the absence of the medium of the physical world.

4. Companies making these sims have PULLED a big one over many young guitar players that have never actually heard or looked to hear what REAL GOOD ROOMS sound like. They fall for the phony word, "TONE". TONE is what you get by turning fricking bass, mid, and treble knobs. There are many good TONES that have nothing to do with real amps. Most all these sim makers include models of, well, their own MADE UP amps, and they have GOOD TONE, and you can change knobs and CHANGE that tone to something you like better. They use the word and hope to HINT that they include in that word GREAT TONE the aspect of also having great ROOM SOUND, the physical reality part when they know darn well that they are worlds apart from ever being able to truly sim a physical environment worth a darn. It has NOTHING to do with "TONE".

5, As I have just shown, apartment dwelling, poor players CAN have better. You simply can MAKE a tiny studio room. No, it won't sound nearly as good as a million-dollar room but it will still be better than excluding physical reality altogether.

6. You can destroy all this by simply doing a similar doodle and show me that a sim can be just as good at least as my little 1.5 by 1.5 studio room. And remember, I am using a miserable old Pod XT, what if I were able to use my Bias amp with a good MD421 mic or a several hundred dollar ribbon mic and the best amp sim tech with a small tube power cab? I bet I can do much better than I have done here, and I have NO ACCESS to a great studio room, far from it. But I know what I hear and I have never gotten detailed guitar clean sounds from Bias amp, Amplitube or any other sim, and I have had a ton of them, Vox Tonelab, Boss units, Zoom GT2.99 twin tube unit, and a bunch more.

Anyway, I'll leave you and let you go back to the sim world, yeah, but we all know the real truth. These companies may be able to fool these teenagers who have no idea what a guitar recorded in a great room even sounds like. They can do their YT reviews and use the word "TONE" a hundred times in a 20-minute vid, but we older guys who KNOW what a real good room sounds like, how it's simply magical, delicate, intimate, super detailed, appearing out of nowhere.... We know the truth.

[andrelafosse]

Humbly offered as an exercise and experiment.

https://soundcloud.com/andrelafosse/turning-time-around

mp3: http://altruistmusic.com/wordpress/wp-c ... around.mp3

WAV: http://altruistmusic.com/wordpress/wp-c ... around.wav

[telecode]

Humbly offered as an exercise and experiment.

https://soundcloud.com/andrelafosse/turning-time-around

mp3: http://altruistmusic.com/wordpress/wp-c ... around.mp3

WAV: http://altruistmusic.com/wordpress/wp-c ... around.wav

is this a sim or mic'ed amp? which sim?

[telecode]

Now, listen to my doodling. You know darn well you can hear the same thing I do, you can clearly, beyond a shadow of a doubt hear the detailed and clear sound and you can FEEL that it traveled through physical reality. and you know what, I DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO A GOOD STUDIO ROOM EITHER DUDE!!!! I am in an apartment. What guitars an amps you have real FENDERS? My God, I have a 99 dollar Acoustic brand BASS AMP to play through. I have SIX ACOUSTIC PANELS surrounding this cheap azz amp and have it miced with a 19 dollar mic. So were you saying people now days don't have access to great studio rooms? SO TRUE, yet my laughable old Pod XT with this 19 dollar mic is giving me far and away more detailed and intimate sounds BY FAR, IT'S NOT EVEN CLOSE, than my BIAS AMP sim with speaker IR could ever hope to.

To be honest. No, i don't hear the 3d sound. To my ears, the sound sounds like a modeled sim.But the parts are slower and you are using much more reverb which will give it much more "space". That's sort of what a Pod is. I have one as well. An original 2.0. I think there were some great guitar tones in 70s on American records made in recording studios in LA. The tones were a mix of great analogue gear, good engineers, and great electricians who maintained those amps that probably came from late 60s manufacturing factories in the mid-West.

What sim were you using? How about now doing something similar to what I doodled out here, two clean guitars, panned hard right and left, clean and soft, and SHOW ME that a sim can do what this laughable pod XT did with no cab emulation turned on and into a cheap bass amp miced with a 19 dollar mic?

I used Amplitube 4. Stock gain amp, fender champ and a JC-120. sim.

I say without a shadow of a doubt you will get WORLDS BETTER sound if you go to Lowes or somewhere and buy six Rockwool panels, go to Wall Mart and buy some muslin or some material that will let high frequencies through and make the 6 panels. Surround your amp, put one panel in the corner, then stand 2 up on the sides, set your amp on a Milkcrate, put one over the top, fill in with a couple of comforters. I have 2 remaining that I can lean side by side on the front of the box and stretch a comforter over the top and sit on the foot of my bed and use that for vocals or Acoustic guitar.

Now, how many here with just be honest and admit YOU TOO can clearly hear the details and intimate sound of my SQUIER guitar miced with a 19 dollar mic and will be big enough to say, "YES, YOU ARE RIGHT, I can clearly hear a detailed sound that NO WAY should be able to come out of a POD XT and miced with a 19 dollar mic"? "I will admit that there is NO WAY in H E double toothpicks that you could DI that pod xt, turn on a cab sim and do that same doodling and get anything even close to that by BYPASSING the medium of physical reality" Or, you could just post a similar doodle around with your BIG TIME amp sim with speaker IR, paned a couple guitars hard left and hard right, add a touch of verb if you want, (I had no verb on the right side guitar, and just the smallest amount on the left, almost too little to even hear, but it was all from the XT, nothing from the daw, and I SURE AS HECK didn't use a fancy reverb IR.

My point has been made TOTALLY.

1, Amp sims are a GODSEND for live playing. They are awesome as PREAMPS. There are many awesome preamps that don't have tubes, JC120? Used as preamps live you are still going out to a cab and playing the sound out into the physical world, THAT'S GREAT, NO PROBLEM, best thing ever invented for guitar players.

2, using a sim as just a preamp is entirely different than using one to BYPASS ACTUAL PHYSICAL REALITY and record direct. This is where they fail to come close to the real medium of reality. You can MASK this absence to a decent degree by layering guitars to use the wall of sound technique and get by fine, but put these same sims as JUST PREAMPS in a real studio room and they will sound even better yet layered and thick.
3. You can get by alright with Bass DI because it is an omnidirectional sound and covers a lot of frequencies in a low big ball. In other words, a bass guitar does somewhat of the same thing the wall of guitars do, but it is able to do it alone, the big bass ball of sound is able to somewhat mask the absence of the medium of the physical world.

4. Companies making these sims have PULLED a big one over many young guitar players that have never actually heard or looked to hear what REAL GOOD ROOMS sound like. They fall for the phony word, "TONE". TONE is what you get by turning fricking bass, mid, and treble knobs. There are many good TONES that have nothing to do with real amps. Most all these sim makers include models of, well, their own MADE UP amps, and they have GOOD TONE, and you can change knobs and CHANGE that tone to something you like better. They use the word and hope to HINT that they include in that word GREAT TONE the aspect of also having great ROOM SOUND, the physical reality part when they know darn well that they are worlds apart from ever being able to truly sim a physical environment worth a darn. It has NOTHING to do with "TONE".

5, As I have just shown, apartment dwelling, poor players CAN have better. You simply can MAKE a tiny studio room. No, it won't sound nearly as good as a million-dollar room but it will still be better than excluding physical reality altogether.

6. You can destroy all this by simply doing a similar doodle and show me that a sim can be just as good at least as my little 1.5 by 1.5 studio room. And remember, I am using a miserable old Pod XT, what if I were able to use my Bias amp with a good MD421 mic or a several hundred dollar ribbon mic and the best amp sim tech with a small tube power cab? I bet I can do much better than I have done here, and I have NO ACCESS to a great studio room, far from it. But I know what I hear and I have never gotten detailed guitar clean sounds from Bias amp, Amplitube or any other sim, and I have had a ton of them, Vox Tonelab, Boss units, Zoom GT2.99 twin tube unit, and a bunch more.

Anyway, I'll leave you and let you go back to the sim world, yeah, but we all know the real truth. These companies may be able to fool these teenagers who have no idea what a guitar recorded in a great room even sounds like. They can do their YT reviews and use the word "TONE" a hundred times in a 20-minute vid, but we older guys who KNOW what a real good room sounds like, how it's simply magical, delicate, intimate, super detailed, appearing out of nowhere.... We know the truth.

i will look at doing some more comparisons. but qute frankly, to my ears, once track mixdown gets exported toa wave and uploaded to soundcloud, they all sound very similar. even the soundcloud "HD" tracks sound all the same as regular tracks.

BTW.. that Steely Dan record, Gaucho, from which Hey 19 was on, was made in late late 70s and came out in 1980. On the tail end of the FM radio era. It's all that Doobie Bros./Ted Templeman sounds that came out of Southern California. Guys like Larry Carlton and Dean Parks and co were all large part of those tones. It's basically jazzy pop California FM stuff. Great musicianship but it's aesthetically part of the FM radio era. It's all good stuff and I like the music from that era, it's just that f**king electric rhodes piano always up front and center in the mix that sort of gets on my nerves sometimes after a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOuFO8KPnjw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVAgGtvjHB4

[Anderton]

Anyway, I'll leave you and let you go back to the sim world, yeah, but we all know the real truth. These companies may be able to fool these teenagers who have no idea what a guitar recorded in a great room even sounds like. They can do their YT reviews and use the word "TONE" a hundred times in a 20-minute vid, but we older guys who KNOW what a real good room sounds like, how it's simply magical, delicate, intimate, super detailed, appearing out of nowhere.... We know the truth.

I don't know why so many people are so interested in slavishly following what was considered great sound decades ago. Sure, it's still a great sound. But IMHO the best use for amp sims is creating sounds that no amp or room can make, at least not without incredible effort and expense.

I'm not interested in reproducing amps, tubes, and rooms with amp sims, because I already have those. I AM interested in producing sounds I haven't heard before. I'm surprised that anyone would dismiss these tools as being useful only for teenagers who don't know any better. I've been playing guitar professionally for over 50 years, including time spent in some of the finest studios in the world. I've played Carnegie Hall. I helped engineer an album that was on the charts for two years. I'm not a teenager sitting in my bedroom. I want to look forward, not backward.

If a room sound is the most important thing to me - which it was for an award-winning classical recording I engineered - then I'll look for a studio with the desired room sound. Otherwise, I'll fire up the sims, and have a helluva good time coming up with entirely new sounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nhXh39tZPs

[andrelafosse]

is this a sim or mic'ed amp? which sim?

That's part of the experiment! I'll come clean eventually...

I'm curious what other people think, especially Jeffguitars.

[andrelafosse]

I don't know why so many people are so interested in slavishly following what was considered great sound decades ago. Sure, it's still a great sound. But IMHO the best use for amp sims is creating sounds that no amp or room can make, at least not without incredible effort and expense.

Virtual analog DSP: Using technology that was unimaginably powerful half a century ago... to struggle to emulate the sound of technology from half a century ago.

(Incidentally, I really appreciate Craig Anderton spending some time around here!)

[telecode]

is this a sim or mic'ed amp? which sim?

That's part of the experiment! I'll come clean eventually...

I'm curious what other people think, especially Jeffguitars.

Well, my guess is, its sim. it sounds too clean and close to be an mic'ed amp.

[telecode]

I AM interested in producing sounds I haven't heard before.

^^ Exactly this. The ability and idea that you can mix and match weird combinaitons of virtual guitar amp and pedal sims on the fly in seconds I find to be a very useful and limitless tool. What I was using GR5, I used their splitter and cossover effect plugin feature a lot to double up the sound and get a fuller sounding sound.

[guitarzan]

I don't know why so many people are so interested in slavishly following what was considered great sound decades ago. Sure, it's still a great sound. But IMHO the best use for amp sims is creating sounds that no amp or room can make, at least not without incredible effort and expense.

I'm not interested in reproducing amps, tubes, and rooms with amp sims, because I already have those. I AM interested in producing sounds I haven't heard before. I'm surprised that anyone would dismiss these tools as being useful only for teenagers who don't know any better. I've been playing guitar professionally for over 50 years, including time spent in some of the finest studios in the world. I've played Carnegie Hall. I helped engineer an album that was on the charts for two years. I'm not a teenager sitting in my bedroom. I want to look forward, not backward.

The thing is, an amp sim that isn't
"reproducing amps, tubes, and rooms" isn't an amp sim — it is a multiFX, which is fine.

simulation
sim·​u·​la·​tion | \ ˌsim-yə-ˈlā-shən
: the imitative representation of the functioning of one system or process by means of the functioning of another.

[Anderton]

As your definition says, a sim is an imitative representation. That's different from reproducing.
Amp sims aren't amps, but based on the definition, they clearly are an imitative representation of amps...hence, they are indeed amp sims.

[telecode]

my take on amp sims is, they are sold in two categories. attempts at a replication of a legendary real amp. and an attempt at re-interpreting a well know and familiar real amp but modernizing it.

the sim is obviously not and can never be the original amp. it can sometimes be better than the original. think of a great sounding 60s era tube amp that hasn't been maintained. its still a great sound but its all crackly or unreliable. the sim version replica could be an improvement.

I think GR 5 is am attempt are reinterpreting amps but giving them a synthesizer type features and qualities that would never have been possible in real amps. maybe possible is not the right word. anything is possible. but it would be a PITA to integrate LFO's and other stuff into a real amp rig .

[Anderton]

I think GR 5 is am attempt are reinterpreting amps but giving them a synthesizer type features and qualities that would never have been possible in real amps. maybe possible is not the right word. anything is possible. but it would be a PITA to integrate LFO's and other stuff into a real amp rig.

Excellent point. I wouldn't recommend GR5 to the "tubes 'n' Teles" crowd, but it's ideal for anyone trying to integrate guitar with EDM, and I've often recommended it to those kinds of players.

[Jeffguitars]

Humbly offered as an exercise and experiment.

https://soundcloud.com/andrelafosse/turning-time-around

mp3: http://altruistmusic.com/wordpress/wp-c ... around.mp3

WAV: http://altruistmusic.com/wordpress/wp-c ... around.wav

is this a sim or mic'ed amp? which sim?

That sounds like a sim or a room that is lower mid-grade to make it sound about the same quality as a sim. Remember I said BAD rooms are even worse than sims. A sim gets rid of a bad room but also get's rid of a good room. Good or bad depending on the room.

[Jeffguitars]

Anyway, I'll leave you and let you go back to the sim world, yeah, but we all know the real truth. These companies may be able to fool these teenagers who have no idea what a guitar recorded in a great room even sounds like. They can do their YT reviews and use the word "TONE" a hundred times in a 20-minute vid, but we older guys who KNOW what a real good room sounds like, how it's simply magical, delicate, intimate, super detailed, appearing out of nowhere.... We know the truth.

I don't know why so many people are so interested in slavishly following what was considered great sound decades ago. Sure, it's still a great sound. But IMHO the best use for amp sims is creating sounds that no amp or room can make, at least not without incredible effort and expense.

Come on, t5hink about what you are saying. So Great rooms USED to sound good, they still do but they just really aren't as desirable to you because you can use dual tone Amp sims? You can mix amps sims, so million dollar rooms aren't up there with that, are you kidding with this? So you have a Kemper there, and your producer says, "hey, can you believe it, we got time in the top studio in NY for your to record your amp in for your album", and you say, nah, this kemper lets me make multiple tones mixed together, I think I'll pass on the great studio room and go direct? REALLY, you expect anyone to believe this?

I'm not interested in reproducing amps, tubes, and rooms with amp sims, because I already have those.

A great room has NOTHING TO DO with amps, tubes, or anything else. They just work as they are supposed to on ANY SOUND made in them, that's right, farts, hogs grunting, puking sounds, the great studio room doesn't care what sounds are made inside them, whatever the sound, they will allow you to hear every detail of those sounds in pristine quality. You aren't interested in reproducing great rooms with an amp sim? That's because YOU CAN'T reproduce a great studio room with a sim, that's why you aren't interested. I assure you, if you could get the sound of great studio rooms with a sim you and everyone else would be shitting in high cotton. We would all be loving it and doing it all the time.

I AM interested in producing sounds I haven't heard before. I'm surprised that anyone would dismiss these tools as being useful only for teenagers who don't know any better.

I said that sims are useful as all get out for live playing when used as preamps. I said they can also be useful and more desirable over a BAD ROOM,, (though I have never liked them over a bad room either when I had both, I took a 3rd choice, I would just STOP RECORDING until I decided to try some more acoustic treatment or like I have done now, make a small amp room type thing.

I've been playing guitar professionally for over 50 years, including time spent in some of the finest studios in the world. I've played Carnegie Hall. I helped engineer an album that was on the charts for two years. I'm not a teenager sitting in my bedroom. I want to look forward, not backward.

If all this is true then you know darn well that great studio rooms SOUND JUST AS GOOD NOW AS THEY EVER HAVE. Are you really saying that your "Moving forward" is a move AWAY from a great sounding studio room? Sorry, but that's just nonsense. Great studio rooms DON'T HAVE A SHELF LIFE. The finest recordings are still made in them for a reason, wouldn't you say? So say, the rooms that Steely Dan recorded in, or The Beach boys did Pet soyunds in, or the finest rooms in Ney York, you are going to sit here with a straight face and say, moving forward is to just stop using those great rooms? Great rooms, DON'T SOUND WORSE Now DAYS. How can I even begin to take a comment like that seriously? I live near Nashville. I guess I should head over tomorrow and tell a few of these million dollar studios that hey, their great rooms that sound just like they did 30 years agao, just like they did last year when million seller tracks were recorded in them that, "Hey, you know, why don't you move forward, don't you realize that the new Pod or Axe fx can do multiple "TONES" at once?" " Mean, move forward, these studio rooms are just, well, behind the times".

If a room sound is the most important thing to me - which it was for an award-winning classical recording I engineered - then I'll look for a studio with the desired room sound. Otherwise, I'll fire up the sims, and have a helluva good time coming up with entirely new sounds.

Yeah, that Steely Dan guitar sound, all delicate, intimate, detailed..., and those modern guitar sounds cut in those Million dollar studio rooms in NeW York, YUCK, when I got my axe fx? ha. And don't get me started on those "Dark side of the Moon" guitar sounds from Abbey Road studios, uhg, why don't these people move forward with their sound, hey, they could be mixing TONES from 3 or 4 amps at once and just direct recording it, so easy, yeah. Why do these fools pay so much money to record amps in these old style great rooms, don't they realize that those rooms don't sound as good any more?