The Big Guitar Amp Sim Roundup + Review

[Jeffguitars]

I got another HEY NINETEEN dollar Mic, lol. I ordered the Behringer 75lC 57 clone, also 19 dollars like the Pyle pro. I ordered it because it is a bit darker sounding and It is better suited for bass guitar recording over the Pyle. The Pyle is far more bright. Not a bad mic, just very bright. The Behringer mic is heavier as well and seems better built. So anyway I was doodling around with it. Both guitars and the bass were done with it. I miss using my SCM Nady 1000 condenser on the amp for bass guitar and it's much lower frequency abilities. I will probably add that back in the little box for bass although the Behringer is not bad when using some low eq boost on the way in to help it along.

https://soundcloud.com/user-281809016/hey-19b

[Jeffguitars]

Now, listen to my doodling. You know darn well you can hear the same thing I do, you can clearly, beyond a shadow of a doubt hear the detailed and clear sound and you can FEEL that it traveled through physical reality. and you know what, I DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO A GOOD STUDIO ROOM EITHER DUDE!!!! I am in an apartment. What guitars an amps you have real FENDERS? My God, I have a 99 dollar Acoustic brand BASS AMP to play through. I have SIX ACOUSTIC PANELS surrounding this cheap azz amp and have it miced with a 19 dollar mic. So were you saying people now days don't have access to great studio rooms? SO TRUE, yet my laughable old Pod XT with this 19 dollar mic is giving me far and away more detailed and intimate sounds BY FAR, IT'S NOT EVEN CLOSE, than my BIAS AMP sim with speaker IR could ever hope to.

To be honest. No, i don't hear the 3d sound. To my ears, the sound sounds like a modeled sim.But the parts are slower and you are using much more reverb which will give it much more "space".

Then you either have HORRIBLE ears or you are being dishonest because you don't want to face the fact that you are wrong. I was using ZERO REVERB on the right, and BARELY any reverb on the left. You can show me how you are right by showing me the equivalent using a DI amp sim.

That's sort of what a Pod is. I have one as well. An original 2.0. I think there were some great guitar tones in 70s on American records made in recording studios in LA. The tones were a mix of great analogue gear, good engineers, and great electricians who maintained those amps that probably came from late 60s manufacturing factories in the mid-West.

There were great guitar and OTHER sounds made in ALL great studo rooms then AND NOW. The rooms have nothing to do with ampos, tubes, BASS MID AND TREBLE TONE CONTROLS at all. Great rooms PRESENT intricate, intimate, detailed and pristine sound of instruments or any other sounds made in them. Great rooms DON'T CARE what sounds were made in them, they work as they were designed to for ANY AND ALL SOUNDS. What don't you understand about this simple fact. Do you understand that we could be talking about ANY INSTRUMENT, vocals, acoustic guitars, banjos, ANY sound that is made in a great room and the frequencies are within the rooms designed operating frequencies WILL BE DETAILED, INTIMATE, and pristine. If you hear someone puking in it, you will say, "Wow, that is such a pristine recording of that puking". Can you understand this? A great room gives PRISTINE RECORDINGS OF ANY SOUND.

I could pick a MILLION guuitars or other sounds done in good rooms. It has NOTHING to do with who plays, what guitars, what amps. The sound of the ROOM, the physical reality medium, that is what the sims CANNOT DO. THEY CANNOT DO IT.

Here we go, listen to ZZ.
https://youtu.be/s81_Zvt0C8A
Now tell me when you hear that little guitar on the left at the start, YOU AREN'T SURE THAT IS IN A STUDIO ROOM? REALLY? You CAN'T TELL for sure if that's in a room because it may be the amp or player or style of pickup? YOU DON'T KNOW, CANNOT HAER that this is in a STUDIO ROOM? If Not, then SHOW ME, play the same thing with a sim, ANY SIM. Step right up ladies and gentlemen and do us this classic ZZ Top song using al DI amp sim and show us they we CANNOT tell a difference or that the only difference is the player, the guitar, the pick.... Show us that the PHYSICAL, REAL ROOM makes no difference.!!!

Good lord, I'm sorry, but you know darn well that you can tell that is in a studio room, SO CAN EVERYONE ELSE HERE.

What sim were you using? How about now doing something similar to what I doodled out here, two clean guitars, panned hard right and left, clean and soft, and SHOW ME that a sim can do what this laughable pod XT did with no cab emulation turned on and into a cheap bass amp miced with a 19 dollar mic?

I used Amplitube 4. Stock gain amp, fender champ and a JC-120. sim.

I say without a shadow of a doubt you will get WORLDS BETTER sound if you go to Lowes or somewhere and buy six Rockwool panels, go to Wall Mart and buy some muslin or some material that will let high frequencies through and make the 6 panels. Surround your amp, put one panel in the corner, then stand 2 up on the sides, set your amp on a Milkcrate, put one over the top, fill in with a couple of comforters. I have 2 remaining that I can lean side by side on the front of the box and stretch a comforter over the top and sit on the foot of my bed and use that for vocals or Acoustic guitar.

Now, how many here with just be honest and admit YOU TOO can clearly hear the details and intimate sound of my SQUIER guitar miced with a 19 dollar mic and will be big enough to say, "YES, YOU ARE RIGHT, I can clearly hear a detailed sound that NO WAY should be able to come out of a POD XT and miced with a 19 dollar mic"? "I will admit that there is NO WAY in H E double toothpicks that you could DI that pod xt, turn on a cab sim and do that same doodling and get anything even close to that by BYPASSING the medium of physical reality" Or, you could just post a similar doodle around with your BIG TIME amp sim with speaker IR, paned a couple guitars hard left and hard right, add a touch of verb if you want, (I had no verb on the right side guitar, and just the smallest amount on the left, almost too little to even hear, but it was all from the XT, nothing from the daw, and I SURE AS HECK didn't use a fancy reverb IR.

My point has been made TOTALLY.

1, Amp sims are a GODSEND for live playing. They are awesome as PREAMPS. There are many awesome preamps that don't have tubes, JC120? Used as preamps live you are still going out to a cab and playing the sound out into the physical world, THAT'S GREAT, NO PROBLEM, best thing ever invented for guitar players.

2, using a sim as just a preamp is entirely different than using one to BYPASS ACTUAL PHYSICAL REALITY and record direct. This is where they fail to come close to the real medium of reality. You can MASK this absence to a decent degree by layering guitars to use the wall of sound technique and get by fine, but put these same sims as JUST PREAMPS in a real studio room and they will sound even better yet layered and thick.
3. You can get by alright with Bass DI because it is an omnidirectional sound and covers a lot of frequencies in a low big ball. In other words, a bass guitar does somewhat of the same thing the wall of guitars do, but it is able to do it alone, the big bass ball of sound is able to somewhat mask the absence of the medium of the physical world.

4. Companies making these sims have PULLED a big one over many young guitar players that have never actually heard or looked to hear what REAL GOOD ROOMS sound like. They fall for the phony word, "TONE". TONE is what you get by turning fricking bass, mid, and treble knobs. There are many good TONES that have nothing to do with real amps. Most all these sim makers include models of, well, their own MADE UP amps, and they have GOOD TONE, and you can change knobs and CHANGE that tone to something you like better. They use the word and hope to HINT that they include in that word GREAT TONE the aspect of also having great ROOM SOUND, the physical reality part when they know darn well that they are worlds apart from ever being able to truly sim a physical environment worth a darn. It has NOTHING to do with "TONE".

5, As I have just shown, apartment dwelling, poor players CAN have better. You simply can MAKE a tiny studio room. No, it won't sound nearly as good as a million-dollar room but it will still be better than excluding physical reality altogether.

6. You can destroy all this by simply doing a similar doodle and show me that a sim can be just as good at least as my little 1.5 by 1.5 studio room. And remember, I am using a miserable old Pod XT, what if I were able to use my Bias amp with a good MD421 mic or a several hundred dollar ribbon mic and the best amp sim tech with a small tube power cab? I bet I can do much better than I have done here, and I have NO ACCESS to a great studio room, far from it. But I know what I hear and I have never gotten detailed guitar clean sounds from Bias amp, Amplitube or any other sim, and I have had a ton of them, Vox Tonelab, Boss units, Zoom GT2.99 twin tube unit, and a bunch more.

Anyway, I'll leave you and let you go back to the sim world, yeah, but we all know the real truth. These companies may be able to fool these teenagers who have no idea what a guitar recorded in a great room even sounds like. They can do their YT reviews and use the word "TONE" a hundred times in a 20-minute vid, but we older guys who KNOW what a real good room sounds like, how it's simply magical, delicate, intimate, super detailed, appearing out of nowhere.... We know the truth.

i will look at doing some more comparisons. but qute frankly, to my ears, once track mixdown gets exported toa wave and uploaded to soundcloud, they all sound very similar. even the soundcloud "HD" tracks sound all the same as regular tracks.

BTW.. that Steely Dan record, Gaucho, from which Hey 19 was on, was made in late late 70s and came out in 1980. On the tail end of the FM radio era. It's all that Doobie Bros./Ted Templeman sounds that came out of Southern California. Guys like Larry Carlton and Dean Parks and co were all large part of those tones. It's basically jazzy pop California FM stuff. Great musicianship but it's aesthetically part of the FM radio era. It's all good stuff and I like the music from that era, it's just that f**king electric rhodes piano always up front and center in the mix that sort of gets on my nerves sometimes after a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOuFO8KPnjw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVAgGtvjHB4

[ariston]

Congratulations, you've won the internet. Now, can we get back to amp sims?

[Jeffguitars]

Once more, listen to this Norah Jones track. Listen to how UNBELIEVABLY DELICATE and detailed that little strum is on the left. Put on some good cans and pay attention to it. It has an emotional impact, detail BECAUSE that great studio room allows you to HEAR the details to an incredible degree. Don't those fools know that great studio rooms USED TO SOUND GOOD, but they are now not worth the effort, I mean, now that you can just EXTRACT THAT, THAT https://youtu.be/lbjZPFBD6JU Out of the equation and you can actually use 3 or 4 amps at once? What were those morons who recorded this Norah album thinking? I mean, that studio is behind the times, so is the one Pet Sounds was recorded in, so are those Abbey Road rooms, I mean, who needs that emotional and pristine detail anymore?

And yep, we can get back to amp sims. They certainly have their uses live, I love them for that and I have never even used one of these good ones of today as a preamp like a Kemper. I would love to try one through a cab on stage, I bet it would blow my old Pod XT live out of the universe, lol. I'll tell ya how long ago I started using amp sims on stage, anyone remember the old Johnson J-station? lol. Yep, I used that on stage direct to the PA for a time. I also used a Vox Tonelab SE, wish I still had one of those and they still go for a hefty price on Ebay. Another I wish I had not sold off was the Zoom GT2.9TT twin tube unit. I liked that as well and darn if those things aren't still fetching good money on Ebay, people still want 200 or more dollars for those old things.

But yep, I too like talking about amp sims. Like, can the computer software ones be as good or better than digital hardware units? I mean, the hardware units do have actual analog wiring and solder and such that go with the digital sim. Can something like Bias amp 2 be as good as a Kemper or Axe fx?

[Anderton]

So Great rooms USED to sound good, they still do but they just really aren't as desirable to you because you can use dual tone Amp sims?

[sigh] It's ridiculous that you make up rhetorical questions to dispute things I never said. All it shows is that either you don't read what other people say, or you interpret what they say in ways that clearly were never intended. I have no idea why you choose to do that.

So you have a Kemper there, and your producer says, "hey, can you believe it, we got time in the top studio in NY for your to record your amp in for your album", and you say, nah, this kemper lets me make multiple tones mixed together, I think I'll pass on the great studio room and go direct? REALLY, you expect anyone to believe this?

Of course I do. I choose the most appropriate option to obtain the desired sound. Just because I have access to a studio with a 9-foot Bosendorfer in a beautiful room doesn't mean a Korg Kronos, taken direct, can't produce a more appropriate sound for a particular musical goal.

Now, that's a nice, rational statement, but I expect you to respond with "So you're saying a Korg Kronos sounds better than a 9-foot Bosendorfer? REALLY, do you expect anyone to believe that?" Which of course, would miss the point entirely.

Or another ridiculous comment: " Are you really saying that your 'moving forward' is a move AWAY from a great sounding studio room?" If you actually bothered to read what I wrote, there is no way you could draw that conclusion. I specifically said for classical sessions, I search out specific rooms. (Hint: rosewood panels sound fantastic with nylon-string guitars.)

No one has said high-quality rooms are "behind the times." I don't understand why you make up stuff so you can make comments about something that was never said. Frankly, it's just plain stupid to interpret what's being said here as not valuing the engineering decisions that were made in producing some great music, or not recognizing the value of a good-sounding room. Is a great-sounding room nice? Sure. Is it essential to create music with emotional impact? No.

[telecode]

Once more, listen to this Norah Jones track. Listen to how UNBELIEVABLY DELICATE and detailed that little strum is on the left.

FYI.. I actually know the guy that played on that record. He was in her backing band for long time. I even recorded with him in 90s. Not sure if he's still in her band. Its Kevin Breit. He's been around a long time. It used to be him and his brother, they were called the Breit Brothers in the 90s. They were sort of like the Hooters meets Bruce Hornsby kind of music. IMO, totally out of place musically in the early 90s in a world that was obsessed with Guns & Roses & Nirvana and Canuks were crazy about Rush and Tragically Hip,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH0-0cXHHs4

So Kevin Breit is hard to describe. He's part of the old 90s jazz, new country, rock/folk eclectic Toronto scene. He's a great player but he's a little unorthodox approach to playing. It's that old school guitar sound. Its a lot of vintage amps and vintage pawn shop guitars with a lot of expensive parts put in them. Bottom line, he probably doesn't use amp sims. There is another local guy Colin Linden who is in Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. His approach to guitar is much more traditional and less out there. You might dig them if you like the Norah Jones record.

All these guys are all "Nashville is the center of the universe and where the real natural music is". They are on the opposite spectrum of where people that are into electronic music and experimenting with sound design and computing are.

Anyways, based on your posts, i think that's the type of sounds you like. so you should really be looking more at tube amps and makers of gear that are targeting that more familiar guitar tone market.

[thumperjack]

Plugin Alliance make some of the best amp-sims in the world today.

If you have a couple favorites, let me know and I'll see about adding them to the list.

Brainworx Mega Dual and Mega Single are the best Mesa Boogie Dual/Single Rectifier models I've heard, they modeled all the modes of all the channels, power settings and rectifier settings, and they even modeled the interaction between the channel volumes and master volume, a key part of the tone of the amp.

[thumperjack]

Once more, listen to this Norah Jones track. Listen to how UNBELIEVABLY DELICATE and detailed that little strum is on the left. Put on some good cans and pay attention to it. It has an emotional impact, detail BECAUSE that great studio room allows you to HEAR the details to an incredible degree.

you can create those spatial reference points with a little micro delay in parallel, you can do it with a Zoia or a few modules in Reaktor, no room necessary. Add the tiniest bit of modulation in the right spots and you can even synthesize the musician's movement respective to the mics, it's just nudging the phase ever so slightly to make it come alive, doesn't take much, but your brain can tell when it's missing, sounds 'dead', sounds 'sterile'...needs life, needs movement. On HX stomp run a simple stereo delay in parallel on path B after the cab, 3ms, 66% feedback, mix 31%...amp in the room...

[Jeffguitars]

Sorry, but SHOW ME. The sound I am talking about and hearing is because of DETAIL stemming from the sound not being interfered with by flutter echoes, standing Waves and room noise. A good studio room allows a mic to capture the sound in pristine detail, putting delay on top of a direct recorded signal will NOT give more detail.

But by all means, post a simple recording, doodle around with a couple guitars panned right and left and SHOW ME, because I WANT you to be right. It would mean you would be showing me a way to do what I have dreamed of achieving for 20 years now. Please be right, please, please show me.

[magicmusic]

Once more, listen to this Norah Jones track. Listen to how UNBELIEVABLY DELICATE and detailed that little strum is on the left. Put on some good cans and pay attention to it. It has an emotional impact, detail BECAUSE that great studio room allows you to HEAR the details to an incredible degree.

you can create those spatial reference points with a little micro delay in parallel, you can do it with a Zoia or a few modules in Reaktor, no room necessary. Add the tiniest bit of modulation in the right spots and you can even synthesize the musician's movement respective to the mics, it's just nudging the phase ever so slightly to make it come alive, doesn't take much, but your brain can tell when it's missing, sounds 'dead', sounds 'sterile'...needs life, needs movement. On HX stomp run a simple stereo delay in parallel on path B after the cab, 3ms, 66% feedback, mix 31%...amp in the room...

I try delay 3 ms 66% feedback and mix 31. It produce a room but it sound as the guitar is more distant. I wish a room but the guitar should sound as they is near for lead. I still think the important thing to do on speaker sim is simulate doppler effect. then the mudd i hear on all speaker sims is reduce. I do this with mspectral delay from melda. the delay is modulate at high freq. depend on micro delay setting this can variation alot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OpecAe0olU

[stevenk734]

Any thoughts on amp sim loafers like Two notes Toroedo captor series hardware and tvlheir torpedo wall of sound IRS?

[andrelafosse]

I LOVE the Wall of Sound cabinets. There's a 3D quality to them that I've heard in very few other IR's. And, you can audition and play through their cabinets in real time, which is basically unheard of for IRs.

[Mats Eriksson]

So we're summing up this thread with the following...we can make some verdict...

I’ve been using AmpliTube since it first came out, and first things first: like Guitar Rig, the sound quality has improved over time. If your last memory of either one was from 15 years ago, you’re in for a surprise...

I remember the Fender Twin IRL from 20 years ago, can't say it has improved over time, and not got worse either. Maybe that one doesn't have to be improved ?

...Try following them with EQ that introduces a broad, light boost (a dB or two) around 3.5 kHz. That's a "magic frequency" for increasing definition of just about anything...

As to BIAS AMP 2, I’ve often said that you need to wrestle with most amp sims to get them to do your bidding—the odds of getting a great sound “out of the box” are about luck more than the sim. As a result, the more parameters you can adjust, the better the odds of being able to find a sound you like.

But that said...I was pretty happy with what happened when I dropped IK Multimedia’s Quad Imager into a few presets.

To have a Transient Tamer that was adjustable for different pickups would you need to switch...

All in all, it seems that on most plugins you'll have to use some transient tamer cable, or hi-z input of some select hardware or additional EQ or additional Limiters before or after processing, which leaves me thinking whenever I had a real amp salesman pitch these ones onto me. "yeah, Fender Twin...in order for it sounding good you have to..." and then come up with additional gear to buy in order for it sounding... good. And now with GR6 just hit the shores, them all has been approved in some way or another that we can't even tell or even compare. Guitar sims seems to just have to be approving all of the time, while IRL amps not. Remember that Fender Twin from 1965. Or Marshall Plexi from 1969.

I like sims for noodling around only, alone without backing tracks or real band playing. When I watch TV, practice sessions, so I don't disturb the neighbors or family. Otherwise... I'll pass. Still this upgrade hysteria, and then having to re-do the patches all over again. Beats me. While I don't mind hardware modellers as such, Axe FX, Helix, Kemper and Roland GT1000, the computer oriented downloads still falls a bit short to me, in all instances. And yes, I have read all of the thread by now, including all reviews. I find most of the amp sims and plugins downloadable, may be a learning tool for beginners, that they can try out when they're at home still living with their parents and don't drive them mad, then after a while, it's the other way around, they are parents who'll playing who doesn't like to wake up their babies, or kids. And that they can learn, briefly, all the nuts and bolts.

I can't help but thinking that most, is more trouble than they're worth. You end up just tinkering. Only. With IRL amps, you tinker with the row of knobs for a little while, and the vol knob, and are done.

[Etienne1973]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKMk6fcKbwE

With IRL amps, you tinker with the row of knobs for a little while, and the vol knob, and are done.

Personally I don't have problems setting up sims quickly either. But it's currently still harder to achieve an 'amp in the room experience' with sims. Important for so many guitar players. I think it all comes down to that difference. Feeling moving air at higher volume plus the reflections from the walls coming from all sides.

[Mats Eriksson]

Remember what amp Zappa used in 1975 for his One-Size-Fits-All album? A small battery driven Pignose solid state amp. With a 4" speaker or something. Just miked up. Of course, afterwards, EQ'd, compressed, and whatnot.

https://wiki.killuglyradio.com/wiki/One ... _Interview

read on how to make it sound like he's playing in a hockey rink. Fascinating read.