Guitar Rig Alternatives

[nebulae]

no dessert for you tonight

That's probably a good idea...I'm still jumping off the walls from the sugar high from last night.

[nebulae]

Another Pod X3 vote here.

I keep wanting to buy this, but then I wonder how much better the amp emulations are than my original Pod v.2. I do most of my effects processing in the box so that all my LFOs, phasers, chorus, delays, are all timed in Live, so as a result, all I'm looking for is good amp emus and excellent distortion. Is the X3 that much better?

[slirak]

I've owned Yamaha's DG Stomp (pod-alike, better sounding, unfortunately not produced anymore) and a TonePort, now I use Amplitibe 2.

The TonePort basically sounds like an XT (or more like an X3 since you can combine two amps) and is nice, but there's four things wrong with it:

1) It does NOT have its own DSP, it uses your CPU instead = resource hoggery. Not as bad as GR3/Amplitube, but it doesn't sound half as good either.
2) You have to record the amp sim 'wet'. Sure, you can get the plugin version for an additional fee, but then the issue in paragraph three below kicks in....
3) It's a USB interface. Though its monitoring setup allows for near-zero latency monitoring through the amp sim (but NOT the plugin), it still has pretty bad recording/playback latency which means it's a bad choice if you need to monitor through Ableton (like if you wanna use the plugin version) or wanna play softsynths in realtime.
4) The mic inputs aren't too good.

So I decided to get a good sound card and get soft. After quite a bit of testing and comparing, I ended up with Amplitube 2 and I'm very happy with that choice.

When I compared Guitar Rig 3 and Amplitube 2, I first thought GR3 sounded better, but it was harder to get the sounds to fit in a mix. I then realised that basically every GR3 preset had the room (or whatever it's called) parameter turned up quite a bit - and that basically no Amplitube preset had the corresponding parameter turned on at all... Turned out that setting was what made GR3 sound better - and what made it hard to fit in a mix. Setting the parameter similarly in both plugs evened the sonic score pretty much.

I found GR3 to be better for really heavy sounds and for off-the wall stuff, while Amplitube 2 was more dynamic and transparent - I could hear more of my guitar's tone and my (lack of) playing technique.

Anyway - I found that with comparable presets and settings, Amplitube and GR3 used up just about the same amount of CPU.

When it comes to picking an interface, two important things are latency of course, which mean you should avoid USB/USB 2, and that the interface has a true high impedance (1 MOhm) instrument input.

[Tarekith]

Another Pod X3 vote here.

I keep wanting to buy this, but then I wonder how much better the amp emulations are than my original Pod v.2. I do most of my effects processing in the box so that all my LFOs, phasers, chorus, delays, are all timed in Live, so as a result, all I'm looking for is good amp emus and excellent distortion. Is the X3 that much better?

I thought the X3 was a lot better sounding than the XT I had, which honestly surprised me. I can only imagine how much better it sounds than the previous generations then. I'm not a metal guy, so I really don't use the heavy distortions that much, but the other amps sims sound great to me. I used to have a Fender Bassman, and the sim in the X3 sounds spot on to what the original sounded like.

[JAMM]

apple garageband now has some nice stompboxes and effects.
I tried it and the sound was nice and loud. Better then many guitarrig presets.

greetz, Jamm

[Pasha]

apple garageband now has some nice stompboxes and effects.
I tried it and the sound was nice and loud. Better then many guitarrig presets.

greetz, Jamm

The bottom line is going upwards... Apple is trying to set something here, very close to
the free ride of a pusher... play with this toys.... than buy the bigger brother...
Evil Apple... Long live to Live!

[terragong]

oh i like the new one...great to tube- warm -things up...

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/fender/features/

[Machinesworking]

I like Guitar Rig, but maybe because I use a Marshall JMP-1 as a pre and for most distortion, I've never been that big on solid state or digital distortion. The amp sims and FX are pretty cool IMO.

[gerard]

Another Pod X3 vote here.

I keep wanting to buy this, but then I wonder how much better the amp emulations are than my original Pod v.2. I do most of my effects processing in the box so that all my LFOs, phasers, chorus, delays, are all timed in Live, so as a result, all I'm looking for is good amp emus and excellent distortion. Is the X3 that much better?

I had a POD XT PRO and then I bought the X3 bean and it sounds way fuller, phatter, better, awesomer, now I'm exxxagerating, ... seriously it sounds way better. The sounds have more depth to them and the modulation possibilities with the 2 cores are endless I think.
It's really a cool thing, but I hate the Line 6 workflow. So I bought Guitar Rig3. Its clean sounds are awesome but for distortion it's not quite as good as the Pod.

I hope NI puts some more GAIN in GR4!!!!

[LoopStationZebra]

Yet another Pod X3 vote.

I was very skeptical, but after 3 days of ownership I'm totally sold. I picked up the X3 Live, and it's rock solid. The array of on-board effects and manipulation possibilities is incredible. I'm constantly discovering way cool new tones - and combinations of tones. Which leads me to...

The dual tone aspect is very nice. It's great having this incrediblydirtyechoplexedupthewazoofilteredmadness tone low down on one channel, and a supercleanyetmassivelyreverbed tone front and center on the other channel. I would have thought that the separation of tones would have been muddy at best, but nay. They are both crystal clear and distinct. The ability to get these MASSIVE tones full of the most unGodly noise is great fun.

The MIDI interface is perfect as well. I've set up dummy clips that can control the tempo of the X3, automate the EQ/volume, ramp up the feedback on any delay, change patches, etc etc.

And the best part? It's all happening outside of Live and my MacBook. No CPU hit. Love that. I'm Sooooooo over anything that requires more of my precious CPU power.

[ashtonron]

Not really an alternative.. but I really like redopter.

I am not really using heavy distortion, but love just adding a touch and this fits nicely for me..

http://www.d16.pl/redoptor