KVR Audio

tykey · Post by **tykey** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 1:59 pm

I've been tooling around with Amplitube 2 for three days now and I think it is a fantastic recording tool,with limitless possibilities if you are willing to go beyond the presets.It will never replace the thrill of cranking a Marshall,but it sure beats trying to find the one good speaker in the cab,fiddling with mic placement, and listening to the tape op tell you how he once found Ozzy asleep in his own vomit for the nth time.It lacks "feel" though;the sense of "pushing" the input of the amp is lost. This is an important part of the experience for me, and so I dug deep into the toy box to see if I could address the issue.
I took a VHT Valvulator that I rarely use and placed it in line between the guitar and my Pro Tools Digi 2 input and the difference was night and day.The valvulator is a tube buffer/splitter/line driver/power supply which can be had for $150 if you look around.You get the same feel as when plugging into a tube head, with huge gains in dimensionality.Palm muting which previously sounded unconvincing, now sounds full and propulsive and the clean sounds are glassy and chimey.Amplitube 2 sounds better across the board.So if anybody out there actually grew up playing real amps as opposed to Pods and plug ins, this might be a way for you get nearer to the Tube Tone On Tap ideal.
Now, why can't I type in the letter "h" in the save dialog box within A2?

popmoney · Post by **popmoney** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 2:11 pm

Thanks for that tykey.

AndrewSimon · Post by **AndrewSimon** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 3:51 pm

Not news for me but a very good point.
"The first tube is always the most important one".
Kuddos for the low price of doing this, I will have to look into this.
Others to mention "the brick" , "U5" or even some of the ART DIs but at this price (if it's as good as you say) it's a clear winner.

pabothecat · Post by **pabothecat** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 4:29 pm

I use a similar setup. I have an Elecro Harmonix Blackfinger tube compressor plugged into a Radial Pro DI passive direct box into my mbox. The passive di did wonders for eleminating unwanted noise and therefore getting better tone. The blackfinger gives the signal a little extra oomph.

I know lots of interfaces have a Direct in for guitar and bass, but with my experience they are really lacking. At a bare minimum, you should use a quality DI box with transformer just to kill all the noise. All that noise is fighting for the same bandwidth as your guitar signal. A tube pre would be icing on the cake.

pabo

tykey · Post by **tykey** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 8:53 pm

By the way, is anybody having Pro Tools LE crashes when using Amplitube 2? It usually happens when navigating presets, but it has also happened without any GUI changes.

Sickle · Post by **Sickle** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 9:06 pm

pabothecat wrote:A tube pre would be icing on the cake.

Not tube, but my old BOSS GL 100 works pretty good for this.

Democritus · Post by **Democritus** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 9:15 pm

I used to plug my Les Paul direct on the mic input of my SB Live Platinum...
Now I use a Behringer Tube Ultragain in between and the sound changed a lot. Much better definition.

scottedog · Post by **scottedog** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 9:31 pm

tykey wrote:By the way, is anybody having Pro Tools LE crashes when using Amplitube 2? It usually happens when navigating presets, but it has also happened without any GUI changes.

Yeah I had a problem with that. PT would crash if I used the down arrow to scroll presets. Just click on the empty space first then you can scroll with the arrows.

hao nao · Post by **hao nao** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 12:23 am

good to know, tykey et al. -- because I have been tempted by AT2 and currently have a Behringer Tube Ultragain Mic100 (which contains a 12AX7), and have been wondering if I would need to get some kind of "non-coloring" pre-amp or DI box (if such a thing even exists)

pabothecat · Post by **pabothecat** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 2:32 pm

I am using protools on Mac OSX. Protools doesn't crash, but AT2 will stop outputing any sound. If i reload at2, everything is fine. I think this happens when i use the up down arrows to scroll presets, but i will have to investigate further.

Veron · Post by **Veron** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 8:32 pm

Is anyone having success using AT2 with DP4 ?
The examination goes fine, but when it says "Gathering info Amplitube 2",
it crashes. One thing that is bothering me is that the examination went fine,
but while the examination, there was an error that said I didnt have the
protection device pluged in. But it was pluged in the Power Mac G4 USB port.
So I pressed "retry". And after that the examinaiton finished without problems.

So I have a feeling that this maybe caused by the dongle.
It would be nice to hear from DP users too.

Or maybe I'll just make a new thread.

Frippertronix · Post by **Frippertronix** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 11:42 pm

A little tube overdrive works well too, just not too much so it doesn't fuzz out too much. I've been using an Engl rackmount preamp and I think I'm getting pretty "ampy" results. I was up far to late last night tweaking, at any rate.

metalifuxx · Post by **metalifuxx** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 5:41 am

I use the Behringer Tube Ultragain Mic 200 (with pre-amp type/input selector) into an M-audio Mobile Pre instrument DI with a Les Paul. I play around alot with the various input modes and pre-gain on the behringer while trying out and tweaking amp sim presets, also trying different tone/volume pickup combos with the Les Paul. I can get a lot of different tones from one preset just by tweaking guitar/pre amp controls.

My friend just bought one of the Behringer (hughes n kettner clone) red box DIs, and uses that with his Brunetti amp (http://www.brunetti.it/) into his behringer tube rack stuff, and swears its the best tone/dynamics he has ever gotten going DI. He got one of the behringer DI red boxs to try and get close to the now beloved (recently listened to analag 4track tapes, and is kicking himself in the ass because he ebayed it) Hughes N Kettner Access preamp. Hughes N Kettner does not make this anymore and its very rare to find one. He sold it within a day on ebay. No bid wars or anything, this guy did an instant buy for $1000. We were listening to old four track tapes with the DI recording output (patented hughes n kettner red box di output built in) and couldn't believe our ears of how crunchy and heavey (clear, no mud) this thing got just directly into the four track. If anyone comes across one of these, I highly suggest buying it, no wait tell me so we can buy it back. But if anyone has a tube amp with a cab/line out, try the red box with the cab emulation or use an impulse. You will be presently suprised.

I'll see about getting some of these 4track recordings onto the computer from the Access pre-amp used, and try and get a thread up and see what you all think.

Hey Frippertronix, would love to hear what that Engl sounds like, I know they make some pretty high gain guitar amps. My friends buddy Martin runs this amp shop ( http://www.motorcityamps.com/mca.htm ) that deals in Diezel, Brunetti, Hughes & Kettner, Cornford, Fuchs, ENGL and Egnater, and I'm always hearing about awesome amp tones.

metalifuxx · Post by **metalifuxx** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 5:51 am

@Fripper: Which Engle Pre is it also

kemik · Post by **kemik** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 7:12 am

tykey wrote:I've been tooling around with Amplitube 2 for three days now and I think it is a fantastic recording tool,with limitless possibilities if you are willing to go beyond the presets.It will never replace the thrill of cranking a Marshall,but it sure beats trying to find the one good speaker in the cab,fiddling with mic placement, and listening to the tape op tell you how he once found Ozzy asleep in his own vomit for the nth time.It lacks "feel" though;the sense of "pushing" the input of the amp is lost. This is an important part of the experience for me, and so I dug deep into the toy box to see if I could address the issue.
I took a VHT Valvulator that I rarely use and placed it in line between the guitar and my Pro Tools Digi 2 input and the difference was night and day.The valvulator is a tube buffer/splitter/line driver/power supply which can be had for $150 if you look around.You get the same feel as when plugging into a tube head, with huge gains in dimensionality.Palm muting which previously sounded unconvincing, now sounds full and propulsive and the clean sounds are glassy and chimey.Amplitube 2 sounds better across the board.So if anybody out there actually grew up playing real amps as opposed to Pods and plug ins, this might be a way for you get nearer to the Tube Tone On Tap ideal.
Now, why can't I type in the letter "h" in the save dialog box within A2?

Can you post a few clips so that we could hear ourselves?

Amplitube 2 made better.