Your favorite guitar amp sim

[Harry_HH]

In 9 cases out of 10 I find the discussion of the accuracy of the software emulation vs. hardware, well, interesting but nonsense.
Namely, most of the present major developers guitar amp/cabinet/effect farms are today so good that you find a good sound in most of the cases. Only if your genre is solo guitar productions, the endless discussion of the nuances of the emulations makes some sense.
Otherwise, in the context, inside the pop/rock/r&b arr., after the eq:ing, compression etc, you dont hear the difference. Of course there are always good sounds and worse sounds, good guitarists and not so good, better and worse productions. But, as said, in 9 out of 10 cases, the guitar sound in the production doesn't depend on the nuances of the emulation but all the other parameters.
Yes, its interesting, but academic - and of course the developers can sell you always "the latest accurate emulation of the ...", in addition to the 800 other emulations you already have in your farm but no time to really utilize all its potential, and then we can discuss if the emulation sounds like the hardware.

[Bombadil]

Also, unless I am very much mistaken, sims are meant to emulate a recorded guitar tone, not actually an amp in the room. Further, only guitarists obsess over these things. If your target audience is Joe Q. Public, they won't be able to hear a difference from the real thing. They'll only know if it sounds good, and that, at least to me, is dependent upon the song, singing, and arrangement over anything else.

[Pädy]

I looked at that whole system when I was looking for a new interface last January. It just looked like a deep hole that I'd be continuously tossing my money into, so I passed. I know it is a great system, but.... my wife would divorce me. Got a Fireface 802 instead. Happy as Larry!

I hear you

But there is yet another argument for the UAD platform, and that is latency. Playing a native guitar amp plugin in a real world production scenario will give you a least 5 to 10 ms round-trip latency. Which of course is totally playable - I've done it for years. Which is precisely why I originally couldn't believe that lowering the latency down to 1.5 ms would make much of a difference. But it so does. I finally sit - so to speak - on top of the sound again. A massive difference when it comes to judging the feel and responsiveness of an amp sim. For me this is one explanation why hardware modellers like Line 6 and many others with their age-old algorithms often still get prefered over much better native plug-ins like S-Gear and others, since they inherently have better latency than any native system.
So in that regard UAD is a best of both worlds scenario.

Btw, I'm in no way affiliated with Universal Audio - just a happy user.

[Bombadil]

While I can do near zero latency with the FF802, it doesn't have any amp-sims within the hardware, just reverb, delay, and compression. If they upgraded their software to include a couple of decent models that would just work in the zero latency environment (software monitoring turned off in Logic), I'd be pleased. For recording acoustic instruments or vocals, it is fantastic. As is, though, with A3 or Scuffham, in non-zero latency mode, I can get by with about 5ms latency. RME makes some pretty good stuff!

[bill45]

The eleven rack can be had very cheap.

[chokehold]

My fav of all time is still Grind Machine.

I've always criticized high-gain sound in software amps ever since I started with Steinberg Warp VST (anyone remember that?), and I still criticize high-gain sound in software amps today. It just sucks. Except in Grind Machine. Granted, it's pretty easy to overdo things and end up with a fizzy bunch of highs, but if you use it right - it melts your face off. I've come across not a single software amp sim since I started using them in the early 2000s that could punch you in the nuts when you palm-mute like Grind Machine can. Tune your paddle down, crank the "depth" knob up in GM, feel your hair fly back.

Unfortunately, being the best at high-gain sound makes it somewhat weak in other areas. If you're into blues or jazz, it's probably in your own interest to not try it, you'd likely be disappointed. I find it hard to get a "nice" clean or crunch tone out of it. Also, I noticed that deactivating the cabinet simulation and using a 3rd party IR seems to sound strange, not pleasant and definitely not very desirable. So I figure there's probably something going on internally that's not tweaked towards using other IRs.

That makes it kind-of a sealed-package one-trick pony, but in the good way.
There's a free version (limited but nag-free) available as a demo, if "heavy" is you then give it a try.
(No, they don't pay me to constantly be in love with it. I'd accept offers tho... )

As for amp sims in general, I recently uploaded a fairly extensive sound comparison between a real Peavey 6505 and a bunch of 6505/5150 sims. I didn't even record the amp with a microphone, just loadbox to line-in, and I also didn't use the cabinets that came with the amp sims. I did this to even the playing-field a bit by having the same cabinet IR on all amps, real or emulated.

The conclusion I personally took away from the whole thing was that I still prefer a real amp, no matter what. A software sim will do for input monitoring, but I won't ever do another metal mix without dem real t00bz. Can't even jam anymore without firing up ol' Peaves, just amp-to-loadbox with an IR already feels so much "more real" than any given sim. Plus, if I plug the speaker in... *sigh*

If you're into this sort of stuff, here's the comparison vid. See description for SoundCloud link with downloadable uncompressed WAV files, should be easier to compare them side-by-side in your host of choice.


FWIW, I'm quite happy that I bought the new ReCabinet after I made the vid, and I'm also quite happy that it cost me close to nothing. No matter how much EvilDragon likes it the 5150-ish results it came up with were ... let's say "not flattering". I tried both models, once with settings identical to the real 6505 and once with "whatever sounds best" settings. And don't get me started on BIAS.

[bharris22]

I have been rediscovering Vandal lately. It is very responsive, IMHO, and holds up well even though it is an older program . . . .

[EvilDragon]

FWIW, I'm quite happy that I bought the new ReCabinet after I made the vid, and I'm also quite happy that it cost me close to nothing. No matter how much EvilDragon likes it the 5150-ish results it came up with were ... let's say "not flattering".

Gotta try it with some Rosen impulses. It's the shit. That and TSE X50 v2 is my go-to for 5150 types of sounds.

I never managed to get Grind Machine anywhere out of "fizzy as fuk" zone. Tried all sorts of things. Just didn't work out between us.

[incubus]

Hate almost all of them (you knew "that" guy would show up eventually )

Kuassa Creme isn't bad if you know how to use an eq both before and after (yep, both) Has more meat than most.

Rosen impulses are ... ok. I have two and they are usable. Again, MUCH eq is needed.

Tried the plugin alliance ENGL ones and they were good and didn't need as much eq, but nothing earth-shattering over the Creme.

AT is ok for some of the cleaner stuff. That's only about 5% of my stuff so it's not critical.

Not worth going into everything else and why they suck, everyone is different so if you are rockin' with 'em, who am I to tell you why you shouldn't

[Silaris]

In addition to Amplitube 3 (including the Fender, Orange, Ampeg and Mesa Boogie expansions), I also use Studio Devil Amp Modeler Pro, Studio Devil Virtual Bass Amp Pro and Scuffham S-Gear 2.5 fairly often to record guitar and bass tracks.

I find all of the said products useful for the genre of music that I write, Neo-Soul, and do not have a particular favorite.

[Deep Purple]

Not forgetting that there's quite a bit that needs to go on in the chain to get to a good sound from a sim anyway.

Impedance matching (or deliberate mismatching depending on how you look at it) from guitar to your audio interface is the start point. Might need to put a DI box or another piece of hardware in the chain to get the full signal from guitar to interface.

Correct gain staging too - far too often forgotten.

Then the cab and the room...who other can of worms there, but post-amp head getting it to feel like a miked up amp is very hard. Good IRs are probably the way to go.




With the mention of high gain I'm really surprised there's not been more discussion of Ignite Amps.

[Vasya Mishchenko]

With the mention of high gain I'm really surprised there's not been more discussion of Ignite Amps.

Yeah, man, Emissary by them rocks a stun out of most jaws I think!

[Chris-S]

Correct gain staging too - far too often forgotten.

Dry input level reaching 0 db when strumming the guitar very hard, would this be correct?

[Deep Purple]

Correct gain staging too - far too often forgotten.

Dry input level reaching 0 db when strumming the guitar very hard, would this be correct?

Not necessarily. Gain staging is about considering every gain stage, so you wouldn't determine correct gain staging just from one input. The idea is that you don't fry the signal at any point in the chain.

[Tubeman]

The tse sounds really good, it reminds me of my engl e530 with some nice impulses, quite acid.

The axe fx2 or the kemper seems indeed great, but pricey alternatives.

what about this one ;



sound start at 1,10, no fizz, nice notes definition

Sounds great. Where can you download it?