Your fav Amp Sims as of 2023?

[Britishboxer]

Here are mine

Quick Note; While there are now Sims (full dial-able sims) with a true effects loops (between preamp and amp while others have pre post effects) we have moved into native Captures with the free NAM, Tonocracy etc, as well as one Knobs which are a bit more packages with matching cabs, effects!

From what I seen heard and on the net!
Marshalls! Full Sims, that you can actually dial in, some true effects loops (between preamp and amp) while others have pre post effects)

STL Tones Howard Benson Tonality, if not the best for you but you have to have top tier Marshall JMP Plexi this one is a must anyway in your arsenal! in addition to the actual sim its been crafted by a producer to sit in any mix, wether you like Howard Benson's work or not is not even a matter of state, the sim is technically robust to record with.

Polychromedsp Nunchuck Marshall SIM, crazy tones, super extra features no other sims offer!. this comes down to either having an insane state of the art beyond NDSP sim features or both, you like the tones!, and they cover enough marshall tones., but again, like the Howard Benson if its about tone its a collector, tools as well they are must haves.

Kuassa; Calliburn, Creme, Vermalion, Matchlook
Mercurial; AmpBox, Everything, Including Spark.
NDSP; Cali and Nameless
Audio Assault , many Marshalls!

Marshall Sims that could use a push before entering your DAW (such as external or software compressor to eq and or SD1/Ts9)

Softube; All Marshalls-Marshall Suite
Nembrini; MRH159, MRH810 and preamp
Plugin Alliance; Friedman, B100, SUHs 100w,

Marshall One Knobs and capture solutions

Bogren Digital Bad Boy with Eugue Valoverta, as well as their other Marshalls int he suite!
IK Multimedia Amplitude, Tonnex

Other Sim types
NDSP; Boogie, Omega, Gojira, Nameless, Soldano, Cali.
Nembrini; 8180, MRH159 , MRH810 some pedals
Softube; All Marshalls-Marshall Suite, Metal + Vintage Suite, Celestion speaker shaper, Tube Tech set, acoustic feedback, Tube delay, Saturation Knob, Transient Shaper.
Plugin Alliance; Friedman DS-40, B100, SUHs 100w, Fuches TrainII. ENGL Savage, Diezel
VH4, plus Ampeg and 90% f all their other plug$ including Brigade Flanger etc.
STL Tones: Howard Benson, add Soundtoys decapitator and you basically beefed it up to have all their best tones., then LIBRA IR Loader.
JST Tone Forge: all guitar sims, especially use the Jeff Loomis

IK Multimedia Amplitude, Tonnex
Kazrog's 5150, very good, so is TSE but its PC (I think)
Overloud TH-U with out any of their total garbage IRs!
UAD important to mention they are very up their quality wise and dimension D, their brigade and other focused with guitar stuff are great!

In addition to the amp sims I have a whole arsenal of DIs, Pres, Comps, ODs based on KLONE, RAT, SD-1, DS1, TS9, many colouring plugins like (Soundtoys decapitator, Kush, etc etc) as well as Tube type simulations (EL34, AX7 etc), modulation effects, both pre and post on the stereo bus like to widen chorus the guitar tracks and sends to bus tracks for time based effects.

I tried everything out there and these are the sims I like the most, AmpLion, Scuffman and some others deserved to be mentioned as well..

Im very curious what others found, I can normally tweak all the amps to match, EQ match, using tons of IRs in Libra, recently checked out the facial IR loader but not too sure I want to bother investing in this, not even a demo set of IRs, Celestion's Speaker Shaper is possibly the best there is if they sort the bugs, then Libra or celestial speaker shaper depending on your sweet spot, but Mikko2 is hot, its just so dam expensive yet the demo is great as is.

[imrae]

I get on well with the old Kazrog Thermionic amp sims and still use them. A real shame they were discontinued and replaced by just one updated amp.

For cabinet simulation I really like MCabinet , it's a good balance between importing IRs and creating/customising the desired response.

[martinjuenke]

The Waves stuff is pretty overlooked and underestimated. No bells & whistles, but simply working.

[diroxe7660]

That sure is a lot of amp sims!

I started the year thinking ToneX / NAM would be the be-all end-all for amp plugins but have since mostly gone back to regular amp sims after trying out about 250 captures across 4 modellers.

I'm using IK's MixBox for bass (SVT classic) and sometimes guitar (Flexi). I'm mostly using VtarAmps Tourmafrost from clean to hi-gain and sometimes MegaFuzzie ThreadLead for Dual Rec or Swedish chainsaw tones.

MCabinetMB for IR and MAutoDynamicEQ to play whack-a-mole with resonances.

[riker86]

For a long time I used
Guitar Rig back in the day
IK Multimedia - Amplitude
Dabbled with Kuassa and Overloud
Used the Poulin free ones a lot and the Ignite Emissary which are awesome.
Neural DSP became my mainstay when it came out.

BUT then I discovered Polychrome DSP, which was developed by that Thomas McRocklin who was "that kid" in the Steve Vai video. This has been my main plugin of choice for this year. Definitely worth checking out.

[zerocrossing]

The Waves stuff is pretty overlooked and underestimated. No bells & whistles, but simply working.

I recently watched a high-gain amp shoot out video where a bunch of amp sims were presented along with a real amp. The Waves PRS Archeon ended up getting the most votes for the question, "what's the real amp?"

The weird part for me is, I have never even heard of it.

[zerocrossing]

I use 3 mainly.

Amplitube 5 Max. It's really the best overall amp simulation in my opinion. Some of the models aren't my favorites, but there's so much in there that I find great that I don't really feel I'm missing anything. It's got a pretty good UI and decent flexibility. If it has a weak spot, it's that it is missing more experimental effects.

Guitar Rig 7. They've really upped the modeling quality since v5, and though I don't really feel like it sounds all that much like the amps that it seems like its modeling, I can't deny that it sounds very good, and has a ton of great effects, including experimental stuff. If I want to get trippy in a unique way, Guitar Rig is my go-to.

Helix Native. The main reason I got this is because I purchased a db Instruments 4e dual axis pedal, and I wanted a device that I could plug it into and get great sounds that could be manipulated in real time with this expression pedal. I had been using an AxeFX 3 prior, but I was sick of hearing that stupid fan. I feel I get equally good results with the much cheaper HX Stomp XL, though it's not quite as flexible. Still, it does hold its own with interesting features and great sounding models.

[zerocrossing]

BUT then I discovered Polychrome DSP, which was developed by that Thomas McRocklin who was "that kid" in the Steve Vai video. This has been my main plugin of choice for this year. Definitely worth checking out.

So I saw someone demo Polychrome and I wasn't that into the sound the guy was getting... maybe it was Ola, who I enjoy but his music isn't quite my bag. Anyway, this post reminded me to give it a spin myself, and I was very impressed. I love it because it's sort of a unique thing, and not another 5150 emulation or something. I think I'd buy it just for the acoustic models, which sound pretty cool to me.

My criticism of it is that the demo limitations are pretty stupid. No free usage period. It starts cutting out as soon as you dig into it. Super annoying. Why so few presets? No! There's lots of presets, you just don't get to hear them until you buy it. Also, the init is beyond ridiculous, with a ton of effects and what-not on it. First thing I'd do is create a more neutral place to start off from.

Tweaking is pretty easy and straight forward, though not much in the way of flexibility. Not too many pre amplifier stomp effects, though they're all good. No pre amplifier modulation or time based effects of any kind. If you like doing something like having a bbd or drum delay in front of your amp, prepare to use a separate plugin. The octaver is good too.

Overall great, though. Nice feel. It seemed like my Steinberger's Sustainiac was kicked in, even though it wasn't. I hope my ATC-X sells before the October sale is over so I can grab it before it goes back up.

[stoopicus]

I'm split between:

- Kuassa (several for guitar, but primarily Cerberus for bass; I keep coming back to Cerberus)
- Amplitube 5 Max (great selection of high quality sims, other effects are decent too)

[Agreed]

Nembrini (often my first choice because of the ease of use and simplicity of working with his sims, but there isn't one for every sound you might want to do... yet!), Neural DSP (state of the art IMO, pricey but the quality delivers), Amplitube (my most reliable amp sim over the years, easy to mix), Softube (they did a great update this year and Amp Room has never been better than right now), and Guitar Rig 7 Pro (their ICM stuff is competitive with others, older models not so much, effects still really fun and more of them than ever in 2023 with still-industry-leading routing and control capabilities somehow, even though they have been the same capabilities since like 2007).

I have many others, always been really into the tech, but those are the ones I go to over and over.

I also have got a Digitech GNX4 recently, which has pretty dated amp model quality but still packs so much in terms of feature set that it's a blast to use, nearly 20 years after its release. Built in drum machine with different sounds and many patterns, 8 track recorder / looper with its own control interface that's pretty easy to use, and USB connectivity still makes it easy to load midi/mp3/wav for performance usage (2 gig CF card limit, but that's plenty to put a tracklist together).

Amazingly the editor software still works on Windows 11 even though it's from the Windows XP era - with it, you can actually get some workable tones from the amp modeling side of things, with a whole lot of tweaking of the "X-Morph" on the amps & cabs side of things. But some of the effects are still not things you can easily get the same sound from elsewhere. For example, its Whammy function kicks ass, never used another modeler that has one this good to this day, and other algorithms on it have character as well. I intend to use it with my synths as much as with guitar, just seems like it'll be a lot of fun in stereo. I had to try it because the price was next to nothing and it still had the factory stickers protecting the USB slot and advertising the Mp3 Demo (Just hit play!), but I actually enjoyed messing with it so much I've kept it on my desk since and had quite a lot of fun with it, "warts n' all."

[diroxe7660]

I recently watched a high-gain amp shoot out video where a bunch of amp sims were presented along with a real amp. The Waves PRS Archeon ended up getting the most votes for the question, "what's the real amp?"

Do you happen to remember the link? Thanks!

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

For "amps", I'm really only using TONEX these days. It's BY FAR the most authentic sounding solution in software. I've done a lot of captures of various tube amps I own, including a big Vibrolux Reverb set over the weekend, and it's frigging spot on with the real things. Nothing else in software presently touches a good TONEX full-capture (amp+cab) IMO.

I'm not even really using it in Amplitube. If I need pedals before, I'll use hardware or plugins. If I need delay/modulation after, I'll use plugins.

I might still load up Axiom to mess around, or like the Mixwave Benson, which is also nice (but I have Chimera TONEX captures). But really, I'm all TONEX these days.

[zvenx]

For me, #1 Thru 10 is Tonex.
rsp

[kevinsparks]

I'm still happy with Mercuriall. The Bogner and ENGL can cover a lot of ground.

If i want crazy fx, Guitar Rig 7 is loaded, and the newer amp models have improved enough that it feels like a fair compromise on tone to get all of the other options that come along with it.

Slightly off topic, but it's worth looking into a hardware solution for guitar recording. I really like those Vox Valvenergy pedals, and the Amp1 Iridium has been a dream come true for me. The limitations and physical knobs speed up the workflow, instead of clicking around on the 100+ models in something like Amplitube

[bitman]

I don't use vst modelers but being a Boston spaz I couldn't let Rock Guy go.
I like it a lot but you have to be one of those.