Guitar Rig, Amplitube, Logic 9 amps, Rock Amp Legends... what amp modeler is really the best?

[lagavulin16]

GT3's Ultrasonic has some sounds that come close to AT's MH-500, but I'd still give the nod to AT.

[Melkor]

Do any of you know off hand which fender amps GR3 is based on?

Specifically the "Tweed Delight" and "Tweedman".

I think its based on the Fender Champ and Fender Bassman respectively.


Im demoing Gr4 now and it absolutely rips.
Im Lovin It

[burbank]

I have tried Waves GTR Solo, Amp Designer, Pod Farm, Amplitube Demo, NI GTR 3 Demo, and my favorite is by far Amp Designer.

The models in Amp Designer do take a lot of tweaking to get sounding good, like the presence has to be turned turn to zero on the Tweed models for them to get that warm tweed sound. The only disadvantage I found with Amp designer was that the Fender Twin and Marshall simulations were lacking, but the Boutiques and the Tweed were stunning - I mean really really amazing, the Fender Bassman is 99.99% like a real Fender Bassman - called the large Tweed:




and the small Tweed Amp is amazing as well. Combined with Pedal designer - you pretty much can make any tone you want with just the Large Tweed, Small Tweed and Pedal Board. Don't forget there are 15+ other amps, that are all different - Amp Designer becomes a very powerful tool.

Other standouts include:

Small Brown Face Combo - incredible rich clean sound
Small British Combo - Clean and sweet sound

Stadium Stack (Hi-Watt) - smokes the GR3 Hi-Watt - really clean and powerful sound

The most interesting amp is called Studio Amp - which is a emulation of a rare boutique - 3 stage gain, a very unique sound that can go from clean to dirty. There is no software equivalent of this amp.



^^Terrific find ^^

Summary:
Some amazing Tweeds and Boutiques. Surprisingly the Fender Twins and Marshalls sound like s*** though.


Other observations:

Waves GTR - Has the best Fender Super Deluxe - called Drive amp I have ever heard. Problem is the GUI sucks and all the amps sound quite dull.

Pod Farm - Terrible outdated sound, the highs are really really harsh on all the amps, I think they need to update their algorithms for the entire program, and the mic emulation is a joke. Even Garageband amps sound better.








So I would give Amp Designer 8/10, Waves GTR 7/10, Amp Farm 6/10.

Amplitube was buggy and NI GR was very average, had a great Citrus amp, but used too much CPU.

[lagavulin16]

I use Logic but wasn't impressed with the amps, maybe I was too reliant on the presets. I'll try your suggestions this evening.

[burbank]

I use Logic but wasn't impressed with the amps, maybe I was too reliant on the presets. I'll try your suggestions this evening.

The presets are very poor - far too much presence and treble. Something strange about Amp Designer is that the Amps very sensitive to the amount of presence and most of the clean amps need presence to be set at 0 to get a decent sound out of them or else they sound harsh. The Tweed especially, since the real Tweeds didn't even have a presence knob.

Also it is essential to use a really good guitar cable or else the amps sound noisy. Waves GTR and Pod Farm have some kind of hidden noise gate built in them that eliminates most of the noise. But Logic's Amp Designer seems to be made for the very wealthy mac users - meaning you need Fender Platinum cable, noiseless pick-ups and an Apogee Duet to get the best out of it - but it is worth it - simply because it is the best sounding and very sensitive to velocity.

[lagavulin16]

burbank: While I'll be happy to try any of your Logic presets out, I'm just not feeling them. Too many of the Logic 9 and GR3 amps simply sound too "direct" for me. I'm also getting very few sounds that make me go WOW in the presets - which is consistent with what you said. I tried lowering the presence but it isn't hitting me like Amplitube is.

[buscemi]

I actually think Amplitube presets are over the top too, so give some tweaking a chance there too and you might enjoy it even more. It doesn't have to always be the two-amp-parallel-routed-delayed-and-thick type of sounds that some of the presets can hit you with. Although, the "pure amps" presets in AT2 are a good start if you don't feel like building from scratch.

[lagavulin16]

I actually think Amplitube presets are over the top too, so give some tweaking a chance there too and you might enjoy it even more. It doesn't have to always be the two-amp-parallel-routed-delayed-and-thick type of sounds that some of the presets can hit you with. Although, the "pure amps" presets in AT2 are a good start if you don't feel like building from scratch.

I have a loop recorded in Logic and I have all three plugins running, I'm just switching around and bypassing them as I go. The Amplitube presets aren't all great but the ones that are great are GREAT and really hit me. It seems to hit on about 33% of them. GR3 and Logic are more like 5-10%.

I also find Amplitube does the best job of making my 7 string bass sound like a guitar (when I'm playing the guitar octaves on up). The harmonics ring, there is just so much color in the amp models.

I should really be recording my favorites from each sim - even if I buy Amplitube I've found a lot of sounds from all three I like.

[hibidy]

clips or stfu!



I'm numb to sims right now........a......b........a..........b.....b/with/"this"......a/with/"that".........I can't keep up anymore

I still think AT/whichever has the best overall sound, though I'm still messing around with GR4. I really don't like some of the FX in gr4 though, some are good, but some are awful! I'm so confused........

[susiwong]

Folks, get real.
Factory presets will never get you a true impression of what an amp(sim) can do. For FX, maybe, to a degree, for amps - no way.
Fortunately the player is responsible for at least 1/3 of the tone, the other thirds being guitar and FX/amplification.
I always enjoy sitting there with a friend, often passing around a single guitar, same amp, cab, settings. You wouldn't believe how different the two of us sound, me having a fairly light touch, wrist resting on the bridge, and him coming from the SRV school, playing from the arm.
You won't sound your best with a preset made by a different player.
Better learn an amp from scratch, without FX, see what it can do for you.
Start with a simple one, a Deluxe or something, 2 or 3 knobs, no rocket science. Only after you really know this amp learn another one.
It's easy, it's fun and you really get to know your options.
Ymmv,
susiwong

[DRS]

Folks, get real.
Factory presets will never get you a true impression of what an amp(sim) can do. For FX, maybe, to a degree, for amps - no way.
Fortunately the player is responsible for at least 1/3 of the tone, the other thirds being guitar and FX/amplification.
I always enjoy sitting there with a friend, often passing around a single guitar, same amp, cab, settings. You wouldn't believe how different the two of us sound, me having a fairly light touch, wrist resting on the bridge, and him coming from the SRV school, playing from the arm.
You won't sound your best with a preset made by a different player.
Better learn an amp from scratch, without FX, see what it can do for you.
Start with a simple one, a Deluxe or something, 2 or 3 knobs, no rocket science. Only after you really know this amp learn another one.
It's easy, it's fun and you really get to know your options.
Ymmv,
susiwong

+1

I've been doing exactly this in GR4 and getting pretty excited with the sounds i'm getting out of it.

[shanecgriffo]

i have Amplitube JH edition and the X-gear module so there's a couple extra amps included, also bought TH-1 recently.. between the 2 of them i have all the sounds i need really.. they are both great and have offered plenty of ''ooh nice'' inspiring sound moments.. guitar rig is probably up there fx wise just with all the crazy stuff, i also have podfarm but rarely use it now.

[lagavulin16]

Folks, get real.
Factory presets will never get you a true impression of what an amp(sim) can do. For FX, maybe, to a degree, for amps - no way.
Fortunately the player is responsible for at least 1/3 of the tone, the other thirds being guitar and FX/amplification.
I always enjoy sitting there with a friend, often passing around a single guitar, same amp, cab, settings. You wouldn't believe how different the two of us sound, me having a fairly light touch, wrist resting on the bridge, and him coming from the SRV school, playing from the arm.
You won't sound your best with a preset made by a different player.
Better learn an amp from scratch, without FX, see what it can do for you.
Start with a simple one, a Deluxe or something, 2 or 3 knobs, no rocket science. Only after you really know this amp learn another one.
It's easy, it's fun and you really get to know your options.
Ymmv,
susiwong

You might be right - but Amplitube has some great presets. I like having presets that sound great and then modifying them to get them better... or learn from them to build my own. More than anything, Amplitube is the only one where I can close my eyes and believe it's a miked amp as opposed to a plug.

[mikebeck]

Fortunately the player is responsible for at least 1/3 of the tone, the other thirds being guitar and FX/amplification.

Agreed. Aside from playing style (which I, too, think makes the biggest difference), the pickups and signal going into the computer can make any amp sim or bank of presets either shine or sound awful.
I've revisited some of the patches I'd dismissed a long time ago, and now, with a better guitar input, it's amazing what I was missing. Some of that was user error, and some of it is from upgrading to better equipment.

[zerocrossing]

Do any of you know off hand which fender amps GR3 is based on?

Specifically the "Tweed Delight" and "Tweedman". I'm trying to do a head to head competition and I'm not sure which are which. I'm assuming one is the '57 Deluxe. Also, what is the "Twang" based on? I'll keep googling and see if I can find a list.

I can say this much - Amplitube is actually sounding a lot better than I thought it would. Comparing the GR3 Tweedman or Tweed Delight to the '57 Deluxe isn't much of a contest. GR4 may be another story.

Considering you can get Amplitube Fender for 169, SVX for free, and then probably either Hendrix or Metal for free (if not both by the time the group buy is done) I may have to just go ahead and pull the trigger.

Do it. For fun I just did a long a/b comparison of the GR4 Fenders and the Amplitube Fenders and it's really no contest. I also took a track I had been working on with GR4 (some Knopfler patch that used a Marshall and a Vox cab) and tried to recreate it with Amplitube 2 and in no time I had a very similar "on the on the verge of breaking up" sound but so much better. The NI sims sound positively tame and cowed in comparison.

Really for straight ahead guitar amp fun I don't think better than Ammplitube exists so far in the software world. Take what I say with a grain. I disliked the Waves and Revalver sims. I liked the Overloud stuff but not enough to buy it, and loved the Amp room stuff but find it not a ton better and a lot of money especially considering you don't get a single stomp. (if you're asking why I got GR3/4 it's because I got it for $179 total incl. upgrade and wanted the effects)