Do we really need amp sims?

[telecode]

Thinking that way.. do we really need guitars? I just load up a synth

For heavily distorted sound - you don't need guitar... you can start from a synth tone and the result will be the same.

I wonder why is there no "synth metal" (or at least, it is rare - some dnb records come to my mind)

yeah. its possible. if you are doing static power chords with very little dynamics or hand or pick movement. but you can't get those particular electric guitar nuances with a midi controller and VST.

But i think the real question is what you are trying to achieve and what your goals are. are you doing an experiment to see what sorts of sounds you can do with software or are you trying to get a particular sound for a particular song? its like me if i needed to get a old synth sound -- yeah, i could try to load up Reaktor and spend hours experimenting with blocks, or i can load up a VST of that particular synth i want and tweak a few knobs and get it done in 5 mins and move on.

[telecode]

Thinking that way.. do we really need guitars? I just load up a synth

....

this was the 80s where the electric guitar was used to emulate a synth.it was a particular type of sound and i don't think those players still use it that much as its out of style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udp8ozk ... grCuJ1h2hY

[telecode]

one of the better more recent guitar tones i have heard lately. not a fan of the drums .. but the tone he got (not sure if its Sims or something else ) is great. what VST effect would you use to shape the wave to give the sound of the riff (not the solos)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yxGfPumm-M

[telecode]

Alright, let's put it to the test.

You said you could get tones as good as AmpliTube and Neural DSP.

Here are some audio clips. Let's hear how close you can come, and how long it takes you:

AmpliTube Joe Satriani:

Neural DSP Nolly: (h/t Geeky Gear Guy)

^^ this makes the AT 4 sound a lot better than NeuralDSP

[Monsum]

Alright, let's put it to the test.

You said you could get tones as good as AmpliTube and Neural DSP.

Here are some audio clips. Let's hear how close you can come, and how long it takes you:

AmpliTube Joe Satriani:

Nice playing and impressive sound of the Amplitube.

[JO512]

Alright, let's put it to the test.

You said you could get tones as good as AmpliTube and Neural DSP.

Is that your playing? Pretty nice! And those are pretty good tones. I won't argue with that.

To exactly match a tone can take hours and hours of fiddling. And I don't have your guitar or your playing skills. And the IRs contribute a lot of the character of the sound. If I don't have the same IRs, it will be nearly impossible to get the same tone. And if you are convinced that your amp sim is great, and you want to prove me wrong and put me to the test, your confirmation bias will see to it that whatever I show you will never meet the standard. And taste in tone is highly variable. There is no objective way to measure good tone. I am not going to play that game! Sorry! It will eat up a lot of time and almost certainly result in frustration.

I don't want to get into a pissing contest. I just wanted to share what I am finding interesting in case anyone else might feel inspired to explore along similar lines.

What I am looking for here, for my purposes, is getting tones that I find at least as pleasing as those from these amp sims. Not necessarily the same exact tones, but equally satisfying tones. And further, I am interested in having enough control that I take the tone where I want it to go without hunting through tons of presets, amp models, and so on.

Suppose a particular amp sim produces a high gain sound that is too loose in the bottom end, or maybe too rattly in the top end, and no adjustment of the knobs quite takes care of that. I might fiddle and fiddle with the available knobs and maybe never quite solve the problem satisfactorily. If, on the other hand, I am using tools that give me control over the sound at a more basic level and I know what causes that looseness, I can address it quickly and easily and to whatever degree I desire. I am not limited to the available controls in that particular amp sim.

And sure, as far as speed goes, it is quick and easy to just select a preset and go. Someone else has already done all the work. Doing things the way I am experimenting with means spending some extra time experimenting in shaping basic tones. But once you find some, you can save the FX chain for later use. And the process of learning how to get that tone in the first place leads to an understanding that means that you can more quickly make changes that give you exactly what you want.

To each his own. If you are fully satisfied in your experience with amp sims, by all means use them. Personally, I feel rather limited by them.

And I wonder if the whole effort to simulate amps might be a little strange anyway. What was the purpose of an amplifier and a cabinet in the first place? Is there a similar need inside the box, in the digital world? Perhaps questioning the effort to replicate the tones produced by old technology could lead to experiments in new directions.

[JO512]

I am no DSP expert

That is correct.

Clearly. Thanks for pointing that out.

[JO512]

Thinking that way.. do we really need guitars? I just load up a synth

I find it hard to get the same level of variability and expressivity that is natural to a guitar in a synth. The new MPE stuff is pretty interesting though. But I still haven't heard any MPE sounds that are quite as satisfying as electric guitar. It is probably just a question of good sound design though.

[JO512]

I've been playing with waveshaping, EQing, and impulse responses and have come to the conclusion that I can get tones that rival amp sims, overdrive/distortion pedal sims, and so on, with nothing more than a good EQ, a simple waveshaper, a compressor, and an IR loader with some decent cab IRs (many available for free).

An amp sim is more or less that. Though you probably want a waveshaper that responds to level changes - that’s more or less how the Blue Cat guitar amp emulator works. Even the cab responses in that are comb filters and EQ.

That's part of the beauty of this approach. If you want to change parameters in the waveshaper based on level changes, you can add that functionality pretty easily. You could even do many things that amps aren't capable of.

I haven't experimented with comb filters here yet. I'll have to try that!

[JO512]

I like this approach because, to a certain extent, it allows you to circumvent the confirmation bias that accompanies amp sims (i.e. 'this plug-in looks like an AC30, so it must sound like an AC30') and focus entirely on the sound.

I agree. There is also the very interesting phenomenon that what the plugin looks like influences your perception of the sound quality. If the plugin is beautiful, it really seems to sound better! I have noticed this again and again. I think the visual aesthetic experience puts you in a certain state of pleasure that leads you thinking that it is the sound producing that pleasure, when part of it is really just that beautiful image you are looking at. And we are to some degree being fooled that this object we see on the screen is actually making the sound, when it certainly is not.

Ugly amp sims, even if they sound good, are less likely to succeed in the marketplace, I suspect.

I am tempted to buy those Neural DSP plugins partly just because I am so in love with how they look! They have some great designers/artists! They do sound rather good too! Not very flexible though, especially with respect to arranging the signal chain, pedal order, and so on. Obviously, you can rearrange however you like if you use multiple instances with parts of the chain disabled. Anyway, I need to chill with the plugin buying and work with what I already have, maybe thinning the plugin collection some if anything.

Have you tried using a tunable filter bank to approximate the resonances of a cabinet? Given that IR convolution based cab sims are basically just static filters it could possibly yield a more dynamic resonant cavity response.

I've experimented with building Reaktor ensembles in which I have a number of filters in series or parallel and put various amounts of feedback through them, sometimes filtering or otherwise altering the feedback signal. So far, I have been able to get some fairly boxy cab-like sounds, but I haven't really loved the tones I've been able to get this way. I probably need to understand better just exactly what a cabinet and speaker is doing to the sound.

One thing you neglected to mention is the use of reverb to simulate room tone, an essential component for more realistic amp sounds.

Yes, some reverb is essential.

[Burillo]

I've been playing with waveshaping, EQing, and impulse responses and have come to the conclusion that I can get tones that rival amp sims, overdrive/distortion pedal sims, and so on, with nothing more than a good EQ, a simple waveshaper, a compressor, and an IR loader with some decent cab IRs (many available for free).

I am no DSP expert, but it seems to me that in the end, all distortion/saturation in the digital world is ultimately just waveshaping, even if you achieve it by simulating circuits in amps or pedals or whatever. A waveshaper likely does everything we need here. And doing it directly is probably much more computationally efficient than simulating a bunch of capacitors and inductors and so on.

If you just push your guitar signal into a waveshaper with no modification, it will sound pretty bad. To get nice distortion tones, I've found that you need to do some EQing/filtering before the clipping stage, most importantly to diminish a lot of the low frequencies, as heavily distorted low frequencies contribute a lot of mud and "flubberiness", if you will. EQing again after a clipping stage can be used to bring back some bass, some highs, or whatever else was cut before clipping.

I've been getting good results just using a two or four pole bandpass filter before clipping the signal fairly aggressively with a simple waveshaper like MWaveShaper or the waveshaper in Trash 2 and then bringing some bass and highs back up and maybe cutting some mids a bit in certain places. I can get tones this way that sound to my ear as good as those produced by amp sims in Amplitube, Neural DSP's plugins, and so on. And I have so much more control! And everything is much more intuitive, as I can see what I am doing with my EQ. Often, the controls on amps and amp sims are a bit of a mystery to me and a matter of trial and error. And some of those knobs do so very little! Doing things with a modern digital EQ makes it all so much easier to understand. You can see what you are doing to the signal.

Much of the good tone seems to depend on having good cab IRs after the distortion and EQing. And of course, then you might like some delay, reverb, and so on. And you can add compression at any stage you like if you want it. You can even simulate sag with a compressor. A dynamic EQ or multiband compressor can be useful as well.

Has anyone else experimented along these lines?

I feel quite liberated by this, honestly, as I am tired switching from amp sim to amp sim, tweaking knob after knob, trying demo after demo, emptying my wallet for plugin after plugin, trying to find the tone I am after. Now that I think I've basically understood how to do the most important things to the signal in a simple way at a basic level, I don't need to spend so much time fiddling, not to mention being suckered by all the fancy marketing and packaging that goes with all the guitar plugins.

Some of those plugins are downright beautiful, Neural DSP's especially! That imagery is so good that it makes your guitar seem to sound better! And some have great presets if you want to just have it all done for you. But if you want much more control over your tone and can live without the gorgeous imagery and the fantasy that you are using a classic tube amp, I suggest experimenting along these lines.

The last thing here I'd like to do is to liberate myself from IRs. I've experimented with EQing instead, and I can get somewhat decent results sometimes, but IRs add that boxy, resonant cavity sound that you can't get with EQing alone. They give the tone a special voice-like character. Adding some feedback to resonant filters can get you closer to a cab sound, but things start to get a bit complicated there.

I hate going through hundreds of IRs scattered across different folders, trying to find something that fits in the mix! And buying IRs is such a leap of faith. You don't know what you are getting! I'd like to have a way to shape the cab tone just how I want it in a way that is as direct and intuitive as using a graphical EQ.

Generally, i would agree to a point. I've gotten good guitar sounds out of un-guitar things. there are amp sims that were made entirely with complicated networks of waveshapers and envelope followers (mostly SynthEdit/SynthMaker creations), and some people swear by them.

that said, using amp sims is just easier. it can be frustrating to not be able to get good sound out of amp sims, because it's a skill like any other. once you find the one you know very well and that "clicks" with you (for me it's Kuassa A360), there's just no point in trying to use waveshapers etc. to get guitar sounds when it takes much less time to load up something you like.

w.r.t IR's, you might want to look into MCabinet - this is probably the closest to what you're looking for, and was created as a way to break free from limitations of IR's.

[JO512]

w.r.t IR's, you might want to look into MCabinet - this is probably the closest to what you're looking for, and was created as a way to break free from limitations of IR's.

I'll look into that! Thanks!

[Rockatansky]

Yes and no. I've been experimenting with replacement methods for quite a while, here's an example of what can happen with a fairly simple sequence of basic (EQ > Gain > Clip > EQ) processors before an IR cab sim. And that was just a quick and dirty experiment to prove a point. If you know what you're doing, it's quite likely that you'll get something equal to (or even better than) an amp sim plugin by piecing together arrangements of individual processors, at least eventually. The question is much rather - is it worth your time? You'll need to put a lot of work in, compared to trusting someone else's expertise and just loading up their one plugin. I think the 'do we need' question has to be answered from various perspectives. Consumers will probably not care about what was used on a track at all, 'as long as it rocks'. Engineers may prefer tools with simple interfaces, like amp sims, as their primary choices, because they're streamlined to a specific use and fast to get results with. More elaborate solutions (like self-made amp sim module sequences) may still be interesting though, if the simple solutions fail to fulfil their (or the clients') expectations. Full-time musicians may find simpler interfaces beneficial, because they help them keep their tone consistent between gigs, because they will usually feel familiar compared to a hardware amplifier, and because they don't distract the musician with tedious configuration possibilities. Just-for-fun musicians on the other hand may prefer tools and practices that provide them macro control over everything and anything, because it helps them waste time and procastinate making actual music. Me personally, I'm just curious a.f., so I just waste time with these things, both the actual amp sim plugins as well as the component sequences. If I want to capture a performance, I have a bunch of real amps right here. Everything else is just toys and playtime. I'm thankful for those though, either way, because they save me a fortune in tubes. So sure, we need amp sims, they do an OK job and they fill a gap. But nah, we don't need amp sims, because nothing feels like a real amp. Even if you just dropped 2.5K on that AxeFX and now need to justify your insensible purchase by rave-posting through the forums.

[telecode]

i think its a cool topic. i would be very interested if there was a way to feed a clean wave file into lets say Serum or Reaktor to get a custom amp sim sound. i am not sure how do you make something similar to below with just a keyboard controller and VSTs. the below is AT messa boggie, tube compressor and delay played with a copper slide.

https://soundcloud.com/telecode101/slide-junk

[telecode]

But once you find some, you can save the FX chain for later use. And the process of learning how to get that tone in the first place leads to an understanding that means that you can more quickly make changes that give you exactly what you want.

My feeble understanding of amp sim tech is, that FX chain is useless without the same audio interface and same guitar and same fingers/style. Different guitars sound different on the same preset. In my use of AT 4, I enter the guitar I used and the pickup position as the same setting using a different guitar with different pickups sounds completely different to my ears and requires tweaking.