Guitar Rig 6 alternative?

[AxxeumUK]

As you may know, GR6 is sooooo expensive. Yes it's worth it, but is there any alternative's you use?

I like Waves GTR3

[Zipede]

I use mainly Amplitube5 for guitars, for effects I still prefer GR6.

[FapFilter]

Use case?
Amps / distortion pedals wise there are several options that are usually considered better, but as a modulation MFX powerhouse it is still amongst the very best in my opinion

[BONES]

I like Linda Rockstack a lot, but it is a bit simple and can be a CPU hog. Or there is the Kuassa Amplifikation 360 thing, which is pretty full-on. There is also BBE Stompboard, although I haven't used it in years.

[Ah_Dziz]

I have and also use the waves GTR stuff for guitars and multi fx chains. I also use just voxengo boogex for guitars quite often. I mostly reach for guitar rig when I want those styles of processing though. I got it as a part of komplete so it wasn't that expensive in that context. You can do plenty with stacks of freeware stacked together (melda free fx, GVST, etc)

[Dirk Diggler]

Scuffham SGear, to me its the most natural feeling and just a pleasure to play and record.
Try the demo, though it's priced about the same of GR, that said, it doesn't have the ton of effects GR does.

[Echoes in the Attic]

As others have mentioned, it really depends on whether it's mostly about guitars, and you want a basic set of effects. Amplitube probably covers it best both in terms of guitar amps and a large suite of effects. But GR6 does have a huge suite of non-guitar focused effects as well so if you wanted that that sort of thing and you had a simpler guitar amp plugin, you might look at multi-effects plugins like MixBox, or performance oriented effects plugins like Infiltrator, Turnado, StutterEdit and others.

[SLiC]

I have GR6, Scuffam, A5 and Line 6 Helix Native...I would say Helix is my preferred option in most cases

[fese]

I am pretty sure that you can get GR6 for hundred bucks or so in one of their 50% off sales (e.g. NI summer sale). That is not really expensive for what it offers (if you really need all those amps and effects, that is).

[cprompt]

As you may know, GR6 is sooooo expensive. Yes it's worth it, but is there any alternative's you use?

If they had called it something like MixRig or something (a bit like IK's MixBox), then I'd say that it's a pretty good collection of plugins. But keeping the name as Guitar Rig then NI are still keeping the focus on guitar players and in that regard, it falls short. The amps are fairly lacklustre, the high gain stuff is not great at all and the promised remodelling of existing amps and the plethora of new stuff that was promised when GR6 was released has failed to materialise.

I like Waves GTR3

Waves GTR3 is really one of the worst ampsims in the world!

[SLiC]

The amps are fairly lacklustre, the high gain stuff is not great at all and the promised remodelling of existing amps and the plethora of new stuff that was promised when GR6 was released has failed to materialise.

Yes, it was yet another realise rushed out and then unsupported....The current emphasis seems to be making everything 'subscription' friendly so I would steer clear of NI currently, but hopefully at some point they will get back to their former glory.

[skijumptoes]

GR6 is great, but the new models can really kill CPU. ...But they sound incredible, was amazed when I got the Komplete upgrade.

Personally I prefer to go the separates route. i.e. add an amp sim, place IR cabinets in their own insert slots and add effects around that as needed. And you can go a looooooong way even on free VST's, that sound excellent.

But as an all-in-one I really enjoy Line 6 Helix - it's a little quiet by default so you need to tweak it a bit... But when you understand how it operates it's really good. It's interface is a little too modern for my liking, but being clean it is easy to navigate - so pros and cons there. Much better on CPU though!

Actually I think Helix is more expensive than GR6. But, I got a copy with a Steinberg audio interface bundle last year so was super cheap.

[BBFG#]

Blue Cat Audio Axiom

[zerocrossing]

I like the Brainworx and the Softube emulations. For unique sounds, I think the Neural stuff is pretty good. To be honest, I’ll mostly use that stuff on synths and samples. I’ve not found anything in software as good as a Kemper or AxeFX. Yeah, expensive, but once you get one you stop looking for new plugins.

[Agreed]

Thread title and OP is premised on price and alternatives for its expense. Hrm. I recall I got it pretty cheap in a sale that extended to upgrade pricing, and I upgraded from - iirc - Guitar Rig 4. I was kind of surprised to see how little had changed or been added in the two versions since, but thinking about it, GR4 was all the way back in 2009 too. Is Guitar Rig 6 multi threaded yet? I was not seeing it when I checked but if someone knows better, correct me please.

Given how much of the Guitar Rig workflow was set up already in like Guitar Rig 2, hard for me to give them marks by the time 6 rolls around and now it has lost its looper but gained a bunch of other effects, some amp models (the more recent ones are pretty nice, and I like the Rammfire also considering it's 11 years old now). The cabinets are better than back in the day, but that was already changed in Guitar Rig 4 and I feel the improvements in the next two versions a decade apart iterated on rather than changed the game for their cabinet simulation, whereas the GR3 --> GR4 change was more significant as it got away from the not-great old modeled cabinets.

I dunno, I feel like many developers both in and out of the big leagues have done a lot to improve and grow in the same span of time, and the competitive landscape is much more diverse and talent-rich now. Guitar Rig is ... A great idea, a lot of great ideas in one place even, with a cool legacy. I was big into amp modeling tech and doing reviews back in the 2000s, and at the time of Guitar Rig 2 and 3 there was seriously not an alternative that offered the same degree and ease of modularity for configuring complex effects chains. (I was also a big fan of Rig Kontrol 3, used that for years 'til it broke!).

From then til now I am still impressed with the synth-style control options and how they can be assigned, allowing for easy LFO-controlled and other-controlled parameters (though these days it's a lot easier to set up DAW automation to handle similar duties, if not do everything so conveniently as within the Guitar Rig interface when it comes to those sorts of sound design angles). It blew my mind in 2008 being able to split my frequencies effortlessly and process different parts with different processing chains, but it is 2021 now, I can actually do that with just about any plugin arbitrarily & quickly with modern tools.

And so on - you know, the competition isn't dumb, they saw competitive angles and adapted. So Native Instrument's really good ideas in Guitar Rig aren't suddenly bad, but they are a lot less "special" and that leaves a lot more room for comparisons when you get into the nuts and bolts of sound quality on amp models, pedal models, cabinet sims. And there, to my ears Guitar Rig 6 has no greater competitive advantage than it ever has, and Guitar Rig has never had the best sounding amp models in any generation I can remember. Just my take, pals. I went to Guitar Rig for creative sound design and fun live performance stuff that only it was good at, but I went elsewhere for amp tones to commit to tracks.

I think they're very much on the right track with the machine learning assisted amp models in GR6, the new ones have a nice sound and feel factor that can stand up better with modern sims. I would love them to expand that quality level to their older models. Which I think they mentioned they would do a while back, and mentioned continued support for Guitar Rig 6... but then so far have not done those things to my knowledge. Well, they have a big tent and a lot going on, and they haven't exactly put their whole weight behind Guitar Rig in a long time now. So I suppose I'm glad it has had some support after almost a decade of relative dust-gathering. But if it had not, or if I had not been able to upgrade to GR6 for a good price, it wouldn't have made a difference in my recordings last year - I didn't end up feeling like it had the edge for any particular thing I was doing, personally, though it is still a lot of fun to play with and set up weird patches and clever effects.