KVR Audio

YnJ · Post by **YnJ** » Sat Aug 23, 2025 8:21 am

I thought it was a guitar at first. Even until I looked up the live performance of the song I wasn't sure. It's pretty cool sounding, the way he uses the synth though

mumpcake · Post by **mumpcake** » Sat Aug 23, 2025 6:01 pm

Yeah I was watching the video and was like "why aren't they cutting over ro the guitar player?"

stoopicus · Post by **stoopicus** » Sun Aug 24, 2025 12:38 am

Yeah that was interesting and well done for live synths in '86.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Sun Aug 24, 2025 12:42 am

YnJ wrote: Fri Aug 22, 2025 7:50 am
Uncle E wrote: Thu Aug 21, 2025 9:38 pm Including the solo on Life's What You Make It? I don't know much about them but that sounds like a real guitar to me
That's because it is. They used both acoustic and electric guitars in addition to synths. On a few tracks they would use a guitar sounding synth instead though, which at least I personally mistook for a guitar at first. They do this on the solos on Such a Shame and I Don't Believe In You

Magic Russ wrote: Thu Aug 21, 2025 8:11 pm Or then there are the ones more like "I Don't Believe In You" which is a basic overdriven guitar with a fair amount of delay and reverb, with a couple of staccato notes and slow bends
The solo starts at 3:42

My high school girlfriend was obsessed with this band (who were occasionally brilliant, but just as likely to be corny as hell) and I always thought this was a pretty good synth guitar solo. The great Rodger Powell (@1:35):

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Sun Aug 24, 2025 12:51 am

Just found out that two of my favorite guitar sounds of all time, Jane's Addiction Nothing's Shocking and Alice in Chains Facelift, were both recorded using the same Bogner-modified JCM800. Also found out that Dave Navarro played Les Paul's on the album, which blows my mind because he shredded so hard.

stoopicus · Post by **stoopicus** » Sun Aug 24, 2025 12:57 am

zerocrossing wrote: Sun Aug 24, 2025 12:42 am My high school girlfriend was obsessed with this band (who were occasionally brilliant, but just as likely to be corny as hell) and I always thought this was a pretty good synth guitar solo.

I thought their first two albums were pretty good at the time but even then both were a mixed bag, like you could cherrypick one great album out of both of them. I certainly liked "Talk Talk", "Such a Shame", and "It's My Life".

YnJ · Post by **YnJ** » Sat Aug 30, 2025 9:15 am

Uncle E wrote: Sun Aug 24, 2025 12:51 am Just found out that two of my favorite guitar sounds of all time, Jane's Addiction Nothing's Shocking and Alice in Chains Facelift, were both recorded using the same Bogner-modified JCM800. Also found out that Dave Navarro played Les Paul's on the album, which blows my mind because he shredded so hard.

Can't you shred on a Les Paul? I was thinking of Alex Skolnick as he uses what looked like Les Pauls to me, after a quick google search I found out they were actually ESPs. I don't think I have ever played a Les Paul, I'm mostly a super strat guy, Jackson and Ibanez

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Sat Aug 30, 2025 2:53 pm

Sure, it just shocked me. He played an Ibanez in the Mountain Song video:

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Sat Aug 30, 2025 3:37 pm

Uncle E wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 2:53 pm Sure, it just shocked me. He played an Ibanez in the Mountain Song video:

Everybody has their own opinion.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Sat Aug 30, 2025 3:48 pm

I got in on that error bundle from UAD where you could add it to your cart, even though the bundle was somehow hidden for "special people," (WTF?) and used a coupon to get an even better price, so basically I now own all the UADX guitar amps. I've tried them before and my initial take was that they weren't so special, not for the price they were asking, but now that I had them, I took some time to kick the tires. I'm rescinding my original take, and upgrading my opinion of them to very good. I've only made it through the Marshall and Fender flavors, so far, but as soon as I backed off the input gain, they sprang to life and sounded excellent.

I mostly write this to remind people that it's easy to form an impression from bad data, due to user error. My only complaint, as usual, is that they are amp-cab-mic emulations only. So you will need to supply your own separate plugins for pre and post processing.

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Sat Aug 30, 2025 4:19 pm

It may have helped me that my initiation into Tonex and UAFX was the pedals, so the gain staging was correct from the get-go. I’m pretty sure YnJ will like the Anti and Knuckles pedals.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Sat Aug 30, 2025 6:59 pm

Uncle E wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 4:19 pm It may have helped me that my initiation into Tonex and UAFX was the pedals, so the gain staging was correct from the get-go. I’m pretty sure YnJ will like the Anti and Knuckles pedals.

It’s definitely trickier to get a good sound out of a plugin, due to the increased amount of variables. Whether or not that effort is worth the time is up to you. If you have something that’s working for you, it’s easy to see why you would just dismiss it software, but if you don’t, it’s the answer to a lot of problems.

I’ve been doing this since 1979, and I can confidently say that I’ve never had a better studio guitar tone, including effects. I’ve had some great guitar gear, too. I think the effort is well worth it. Just the variety of things I have access to is mind blowing.

stoopicus · Post by **stoopicus** » Sat Aug 30, 2025 11:37 pm

I do think some amp sims are easier to use than others in terms of getting a good tone though. I have never had a hard time getting Kuassa's sims to sound good, for example, while I have found UAD to be a bit more work. You can get them to a good place too but my initial take on them is usually that they are kind of muddy. I actually think it's their cab sims and not the amps.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Sat Aug 30, 2025 11:43 pm

stoopicus wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 11:37 pm I do think some amp sims are easier to use than others in terms of getting a good tone though. I have never had a hard time getting Kuassa's sims to sound good, for example, while I have found UAD to be a bit more work. You can get them to a good place too but my initial take on them is usually that they are kind of muddy. I actually think it's their cab sims and not the amps.

That's exactly what I thought, until I realized I had to bring the input setting down to "Line," as I was feeding it what was effectively a line level signal, and then it brighted right up. Huge difference. Try it.

stoopicus · Post by **stoopicus** » Sun Aug 31, 2025 12:07 am

zerocrossing wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 11:43 pm
stoopicus wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 11:37 pm I do think some amp sims are easier to use than others in terms of getting a good tone though. I have never had a hard time getting Kuassa's sims to sound good, for example, while I have found UAD to be a bit more work. You can get them to a good place too but my initial take on them is usually that they are kind of muddy. I actually think it's their cab sims and not the amps.
That's exactly what I thought, until I realized I had to bring the input setting down to "Line," as I was feeding it what was effectively a line level signal, and then it brighted right up. Huge difference. Try it.

Unfortunately I can't now, I was demoing back when they were still separate Brainworx plugins and you could do that. Now there's no demo I am aware of and they don't show up on my UAD plugin list so I apparently never bought them (which doesn't surprise me, as mentioned I didn't really like them).

It's also weird because the ones I was using now appear to be only supported in UAD-2 (i.e. require an Apollo).

Real amps vs modelling and plugin amps