Do we really need amp sims?

[telecode]

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.

I quite like the distortion sounds one get can from NI Monark -- much more than amp sims. Its just that you can't get the rhythms of electric guitar playing using a midi controller keyboard.

[lfm]

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.

+1

That goes for all sorts of guitar pedals as well - Hendrix this, Hendrix that - and whatnot. Make believe that this would give you Hendrix sound or something.

[jamcat]

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.

No, none of it is my playing. I used audio examples of presets from the AmpliTube Joe Satriani product page. Maybe it’s Joe Satriani playing. I don’t know.

My objective was to find clean, drive, crunch, and lead tones from the two ampsims you mentioned, to see if your technique can replace ampsims across a range of typical guitar tones.

Unfortunately, Neural DSP doesn’t provide audio examples, so the Geeky Gear Guy clip was the best I could find that gave pure examples of a range of Neural DSP tones.

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.

The clips I found are simply to provide a point of reference so we know where the bar is set. It’s easy to lose track of that when you’re immersed in what you are doing. We’ve all experienced it. It’s true for guitar tones or mixing.

I don’t expect exact matching of the tone or the playing. Just an example of those types of tones with your technique. We could process your dry examples with the presets from AmpliTube and Neural DSP for a direct comparison.

I am not trying to prove you wrong, though I am skeptical. You made the claim, so it is up to you to prove it, not for me to disprove.

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.

This is understood, which is why I would like to hear these tones. You are making a direct comparison with statements like “at least as pleasing as those from these ampsims.” So I’m just providing a reference for that. We can talk about guitar tones all day, but the proof is in the pudding.

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.

If you can address it quickly and easily, then the speed of creating the desired tone shouldn’t be an issue. But if you spend all day trying to create a slightly driven blues tone that breaks up on hard dynamics, then it’s not going to be a good alternative to an ampsims that can do it by just loading the right model. And that’s assuming that you can create a dynamic tone like that to begin with, which again, I am skeptical about.

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.

The reason I’m skeptical is because what you’re talking about has been done many times. This was the earliest technique people tried. A very early plugin from Steinberg was Quadrafuzz that used 4 bands of waveshaping pretty much exactly as you describe. If it had been adequate, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

The reason for ampsims is convenience. But that requires the ampsim being an adequate stand-in for an amp. There is a lot of history behind many amps, and that is a big part of it for many people, too, just like modeling certain historically significant synths. Maybe that doesn’t matter to you, but for others, it’s what it’s all about.

We could start a whole thread about how we really just need a sine wave generator and a filter plugin for synths.

[Gamma-UT]

I am not trying to prove you wrong, though I am skeptical. You made the claim, so it is up to you to prove it, not for me to disprove.

Do you realise how ridiculous you sound?

I think it's pretty obvious OP was talking about getting tones they like.

I didn't see any claim of "I can get any arbitrary tone".

You want to use amp sims, go ahead. I don't think the OP is breaking any laws by deciding they can get what they want from a chain that doesn't involve a simulator emulating a branded product.

[jamcat]

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

Yes, it seems that way to me too. I think it is down to mostly technique though. Joe Satriani or whoever is playing the AmpliTube examples is a lot better of a guitarist than Geeky Gear Guy.

Neural DSP should have provided audio examples on their site that put their ampsims in the best light, as IK did, because right now, the best comparison I could assemble suggests that AmpliTube is vastly superior to their product.

And I spent quite a bit of time trying to find useable solo audio of Neural DSP for a comparison that wasn’t a mix or a YouTube video of a guy talking about it instead of just playing.

[jamcat]

I am not trying to prove you wrong, though I am skeptical. You made the claim, so it is up to you to prove it, not for me to disprove.

Do you realise how ridiculous you sound?

I think it's pretty obvious OP was talking about getting tones they like.

I didn't see any claim of "I can get any arbitrary tone".

You want to use amp sims, go ahead. I don't think the OP is breaking any laws by deciding they can get what they want from a chain that doesn't involve a simulator emulating a branded product.

Those aren’t arbitrary tones. These are the 4 or 5 workhorse tones that most guitarists need.

The thread title is “Do we really need ampsims?”

If you can produce them all without an ampsim, then the answer is “no.” Otherwise, the answer is “yes.”

[JO512]

Alright, let's put it to the test.

I'll share a few examples. I am not going to attempt to emulate your examples, as so much of what is going on there is in the playing, which I can't reproduce. I really don't want this to become about my shitty guitar skills. I found a dry guitar sample here:
https://www.kemper-amps.com/forum/index ... our-tests/


Here is the dry sound with the same reverb and compressor/limiter I'll have on all the examples.
https://soundcloud.com/user-260326741/w ... XcyZF8fn0S

Here are some examples where I have an EQ, then a waveshaper, then an EQ, then an IR, then reverb, then a touch of compression/limiting. These are all ultra simple setups.

https://soundcloud.com/user-260326741/s ... lieuzASm3V

If someone could provide a dry track of some nice metal playing, that would awesome!

[JO512]

By the way, the one above that says Nolly in the filename is using one of the Nolly cabs, with everything else turned off. It is a little dark for my taste. I should have adjusted the EQ to compensate.

[JO512]

I used NI's Sunburst Kontakt library to make a simple metal riff. I then set up two amp tracks, one with my compressor->EQ->waveshaper->EQ and another with the default preset in Nolly with the cab disabled. I then routed these to another track with the Nolly default preset's cab followed by a bit of reverb from Raum. So both "amps" are fed into the same cab. When the Nolly amp is engaged, the whole thing is identical to the default Nolly preset. With my "amp", I tried to get as close as I can, within reason, to the Nolly amp.

The riff plays twice in three different octaves, with the first in each pair being Nolly, the second mine, like this:

nolly.jpg

[JO512]

Here is what it sounds like:

https://soundcloud.com/user-260326741/s ... YhPqgDiAYU


I'd say it's pretty close!

[telecode]

Here are some examples where I have an EQ, then a waveshaper, then an EQ, then an IR, then reverb, then a touch of compression/limiting. These are all ultra simple setups.

These wave shaping sounds sound very synthetic to my ears. Maybe its the style.

[JO512]

Here are some examples where I have an EQ, then a waveshaper, then an EQ, then an IR, then reverb, then a touch of compression/limiting. These are all ultra simple setups.

These wave shaping sounds sound very synthetic to my ears. Maybe its the style.

How about this one? Any more natural?

https://soundcloud.com/user-260326741/t ... gc9ylNPEac

Also, what did you think of the metal riff example in my last post, where you can hear the "real" Nolly amp sim in close comparison to my waveshaping? Did those sound synthetic, one more than the other?

[BONES]

If you just push your guitar signal into a waveshaper with no modification, it will sound pretty bad.

OTOH, if you just push your guitar into an amp-sim, it will sound pretty good. Question answered, thread done. Move along, nothing more to see here.

[telecode]

Here are some examples where I have an EQ, then a waveshaper, then an EQ, then an IR, then reverb, then a touch of compression/limiting. These are all ultra simple setups.

These wave shaping sounds sound very synthetic to my ears. Maybe its the style.

How about this one? Any more natural?

https://soundcloud.com/user-260326741/t ... gc9ylNPEac

Also, what did you think of the metal riff example in my last post, where you can hear the "real" Nolly amp sim in close comparison to my waveshaping? Did those sound synthetic, one more than the other?

I think this sounds more like a Amp Sim now and maybe more real in amp sim terms. I think you are onto something. But I also am not sure if it's a worthwhile endeavor. Amp sims aren't that expensive. You can get free ones. You can get them fro $10.

What might be more interesting tool is to make a creative alternative to using amp sims that competes with them in creative space. Kind of like what 80s MIDI guitar was to regular electric amped guitar. The MIDI guitar was an alternative creative tool that allowed you to explore possibilities further. Not an attempt to replace or mimic Marshall or Fenders amps. Whether it was good, bad, cooler or cheesy is not relevant. What is relevant is that it provides an alternative to regular electric guitars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC6nBphg7qU

[ijiwaru]

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