Your fav Amp Sims as of 2023?

[kevinsparks]

Hello,

what is the best cab sim out there? I have tried the amplitube 5 cabs, and they seem to be much better than IRs (even if they are based on IRs as for as I understand it). Is it worth trying other cab sims like guitar rig, wall of sound, amp room, positive grid or is amplitube 5 the best there is?

Yes, it's worth trying some others if you're not happy with Amplitube. Wall of Sound is probably the most similar. ML Mikko gets a lot of praise. Personally, I like Amplitube's cab sim the best, but I've moved to MConvolution and a handful of Ownhammer IR's since I use hardware amps more often, and it's faster.

[LunarKitten]

Yes, it's worth trying some others if you're not happy with Amplitube. Wall of Sound is probably the most similar. ML Mikko gets a lot of praise. Personally, I like Amplitube's cab sim the best, but I've moved to MConvolution and a handful of Ownhammer IR's since I use hardware amps more often, and it's faster.

Thank you so much! Do you ever mic real cabs? How do these solutions compare?

[kevinsparks]

Yes, it's worth trying some others if you're not happy with Amplitube. Wall of Sound is probably the most similar. ML Mikko gets a lot of praise. Personally, I like Amplitube's cab sim the best, but I've moved to MConvolution and a handful of Ownhammer IR's since I use hardware amps more often, and it's faster.

Thank you so much! Do you ever mic real cabs? How do these solutions compare?

I used to mic up cabs a lot. 9/10 times the cab sims or ir's would be just as good or better, with the added benefits of being easier and faster. The IK room mics also sound better than any of my attempts irl.

Some people will prefer a real cab because of the speaker dynamics, but I've never thought that was significant enough to care. Good luck finding what works best for you!

[Agreed]

I've been using the now-free Tonocracy a lot to make and load captures because its capturing interface is utterly precise and the results are extremely consistent. I wish other software had the same kind of extremely robust calibration as this does - it just isn't the same getting your levels within a "yellow range" on an unmarked gain meter, or even trying to calibrate manually with a multimeter (as it is very difficult to calibrate as such with only "practical guitar clips" as opposed to a tone generator as Tonocracy offers, basically set it to peak and get those matched is about as precise as I've managed, very hard for me to try to estimate even RMS based on voltage readings alone).

By way of comparison it is simple and straightforward to get your levels matched down to 0.1dB with Tonocracy, which means extremely consistent captures, with really great level consistency than others at this time. That isn't to say that the quality is inherently superior, rather it is seemingly quite comparable.

ToneX is still doing amazing quality captures for me, and I strongly prefer the Amplitube 5 software ecosystem as it has far more effects and such that I've bought over the years. I'm just wishing it could calibrate so well now that I've seen how good that can be and how easy

[acousticglue]

I think Guitar Rig Pro 7 is very good now, I have made some wonderful cleanish presets with it. None of my own IRs even

[LunarKitten]

Some people will prefer a real cab because of the speaker dynamics, but I've never thought that was significant enough to care. Good luck finding what works best for you!

Thank you. I will have to compare for myself. I personally agree that IR's seem to be a bit static.

[Scoops]

I have Tonex and GR6, but don't use them at all any more as I am only playing bass now
For that I use a Reddi/Fabfilter combo. This works great!

[LunarKitten]

I have Tonex and GR6, but don't use them at all any more as I am only playing bass now
For that I use a Reddi/Fabfilter combo. This works great!

Sorry, but what is reddi? So you play in a DI and just EQ it?

[Scoops]

I have Tonex and GR6, but don't use them at all any more as I am only playing bass now
For that I use a Reddi/Fabfilter combo. This works great!

Sorry, but what is reddi? So you play in a DI and just EQ it?

Yep, Reddi is a tube driven DI

[musicdoc]

A big advantage of the Helix is that if you have the hardware, you can take that tone with you anywhere. Or if you have a song where you worked out a particular guitar sound you can just hand it off to the guitarist and it’s all ready to go.

[bmanic]

Lately I've been testing the new update from TH-U (a few months ago updated) with their Fluid IR cabinet technology and I have to say I'm quite impressed. You can now "gain stage" into the cabinets and get a very different response depending on how hard you drive into it.

It even works quite nicely for your own cabinet impulses.

I'm actually having a lot of fun exploring the old cabinets included in TH-U for each amp. There's a lot of different tonalities to be found within these alone.

[electro]

ToneX is still doing amazing quality captures for me, and I strongly prefer the Amplitube 5 software ecosystem as it has far more effects and such that I've bought over the years. I'm just wishing it could calibrate so well now that I've seen how good that can be and how easy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAL9AEWkoDM

[electro]

Lately I've been testing the new update from TH-U (a few months ago updated) with their Fluid IR cabinet technology and I have to say I'm quite impressed. You can now "gain stage" into the cabinets and get a very different response depending on how hard you drive into it.

It even works quite nicely for your own cabinet impulses.

TH-U has some great FX to go with the new fluid models

[Naillerz78]

I only use Amp sims for *practice* I don’t know about mixing tracks.
Went down the Sim rabbit hole during covid - must have tried and tested 100 stand-alone and vst sims. And gave myself tinnitus (probably). Tried every recommendation from forums etc.

Recently revisited my collection and thinned down to these

Guitar Rig 4 (HotPlex, fender & Vox models) has great patches and the tape deck for practice

ToneLib GFX (free I think) very responsive and fun sounds

Revalver 4 ( RedHot Orange AD30 model) great classic rock tones !! R4 has the VST loader .

Waves GTR3 - some fun patches in there ( Elliot’s big tone is very cool )

VSTs - lePou Hybrit still stands up as a great Marshall model ,it’s as good as any Imo.

Worst experience was Overloud THU - shocker, such a time waster, weird tones, terrible GUI.

These are all very old now but tbh the modelling hasn’t changed that much , moreso the effects.

These all have the basic flavours and realism for me.

[electro]

Worst experience was Overloud THU - shocker, such a time waster, weird tones, terrible GUI.

Its the best one on that list.