UAD Guitar Sims worth the money?

[martinjuenke]

Well,
I already have
Logic Pro Sims
Softube Sims
Waves Sims
NI Guitar Rig.

Do I get anything I do not have already when I buy
UAD Guitar Sims?

I'm lost...

[Junolab]

Tonex?

[Cuauhtli]

Nothing special imo but you can demo them...

[escalona]

The only special thing for me is all the CPU it needs...

[Uncle E]

If you're looking for classic sounds, I personally don't think any of the ones you mentioned come close. The current UAD sims don't do modern high gain, though.

[Ah_Dziz]

I'd say no. That's just my opinion. Maybe if you're already using some uad hardware and you want to monitor in real time through their stuff it would be handy.

[jens]

If you're looking for classic sounds, I personally don't think any of the ones you mentioned come close.

Personally I can't actually agree - if you want full-on distortion they can be nice, but if the breakup-edge is supposed to be somewhere within the dynamics spectrum of your playing, they tend to sound dull, lifeless and one-dimensional (i.e. not like any respectable real amp, be it of the tube, hybrid or transistor variety). This becomes progessively pronounced the higher up in you dynamic-structure the breakup is supposed to happen (i.e. the cleaner your sound is supposed to be).

They are imo not really much of a competition for most of the other stuff mentioned.

I'd rather compare them to some of the PA/Nembrini stuff though, since they're single-amp plugins and not suites like the other stuff mentioned here. And yeah - same thing - no competition.

(Full disclosure: I own all four of them)

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Here's my take:

1. The Dream - pretty good, not great. The Volume knob scaling is way off. Like 3 on a real Fender is more like 1.2 on the plugin [hardly on - Fender knobs start at 1, not zero]. But the spring is ok and the tremolo is nice. Sounds much better with third-party cab sim IR's, which brings in some missing bass.

2. Ruby - I like Vox amps, but this one I don't love. Something about it feels off. Third-party cab sim IR's help a lot though. Ok I guess. 2.5 stars.

3. Woodrow - my least favorite and I love a good 5E3. For some reason, they didn't model the channel interactivity properly. They claim they did, but that's only because according to the modelling approach, you're always plugged into both channels via a Y-cable. This is beyond bizarre. The 5E3 plugged into a single channel has channel interactivity from the unused channel. When you jumper a 5E3, you typically don't use a Y-cable, you plug into Bright 1 (typically), then run a patch cable from Normal 1 to Bright 2. They didn't do any of the most common stuff with the amp and I think it suffers for it.

4. The Lion - by far my favorite of the bunch. They didn't do anything too weird here. The switchable bright cap values would've been all I'd have asked for and they provided. I don't even feel a burning desire to use third-party IR's with it. It's pretty much plug and play.

...compared to others, the Mixwave Tweed is much more like a 5E3. I still probably prefer NeuralDSP to UA for amp sims overall. And I've got a bunch of tube amps here, so I can be a little snobby about this stuff. So take that for what it's worth. Maybe I'm being too hard on UA because of my experience with the real amps and their quirks. Maybe my experience with the real amps and their quirks makes my opinion valuable. Hell, even I don't know! As always, demo and make up your own mind.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

And of course, I should add: I'm a big ToneX guy. I really prefer to play good captures of real amps to sims. But there's something nice about sims and being able to turn knobs that respond the way you expect.

[Uncle E]

Tonex is awesome. I just got done capturing an early 60's AC30 and the captures sound like the real amp.

You're right that Woodrow doesn't sound like a proper 5E3 but it's great for all kinds of other Tweed sounds. It's actually my favorite of the four.

[martinjuenke]

Thanks, guys!
Your comments saved some money for me...

[jamcat]

I have all 4 UADx amps. I think they compare quite well to TONEX, on a limited basis. TONEX is really hit or miss, and you're stuck auditioning an endless list of presets. Maybe you'll get lucky and find a sound that works. When you do, it can't be beat. But for all the other times, the UADx amps work really well.

In one particular track, I use a TONEX Marshall Super Bass capture. I was able to quickly recreate this tone with UADx Lion, and I was quite impressed with how close it sounded. I think TONEX was ever so slightly more dynamic, but I could be totally happy with using Lion instead. And if I wanted to tweak the tone, I think Lion would be the better option, because TONEX tone models fall apart if you push them much beyond their unity settings. I actually replaced a couple AC30s I had from TONEX with UADx Ruby because of that, and also a Fender-style amp with Dream.

I wouldn't be surprised if UA used machine learning to create these ampsims.

[jamcat]

Tonex is awesome. I just got done capturing an early 60's AC30 and the captures sound like the real amp.

Did you upload them to Tone.net?

[Uncle E]

Thanks, guys!
Your comments saved some money for me...

If you really want to save money, download the free Tonex CS. It comes with 20 amps and you can choose 20 more.

[Uncle E]

Did you upload them to Tone.net?

They're for a commercial library.