GUITARISTS - what's your favorite amp sim?

register · Post by **register** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 7:30 pm

just wondering what amp simulation guitarists and basses out there are using + rate?
Do you use in studio / home or live too?
I'm a big fan of NI guitar Rig 2 - sounds phenomenal - it has lots of ok sounding amps / pedals, but some are perfect.
Played a gig last night with it, and the sound engineer reckoned our guitar tones from GR2 were too 'clinical' sounding, lacking the punch of a real amp... although he was pretty much the technician from yesteryear.
Admittedly tho, GR2 is awesome on record, but lacks some dynamic for live performance.

So what do y'all rate?

kaffein · Post by **kaffein** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 7:32 pm

For production: Gearbox plug-in + your own I/O, there is nothing better.
For live: Vetta2 or POD pro XT.

Been using line6 stuff for 7 years.

grum · Post by **grum** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 7:51 pm

only tried guitar rig and the powercore one but i think guitar rig is awesome. Not tried it in a gig environment yet though

D K · Post by **D K** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 8:08 pm

from a player and full-time live engineer standpoint (having worked with a lot of folks using the mentioned stuff and more), i'll agree that for live simulation sucks ass next to a decent amp with good tone. recording as well, for that matter, although working in the box has some great options after the source is recorded.
i've tried many of these plugs and simulators(pod etc.) on my basses for live,
after 4 years of seriously messing around with it my personal preference is to toss that crap and use hardware for source. once again, the simulators are great after you track the source imho.
.02

R.J.Dubya · Post by **R.J.Dubya** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 8:24 pm

I own and love guitar rig for the types of simulations you get, but I remember amplitube being amazing souding when I had protools LE a few years back, which came with amplitube LE. That sound was huge, the marshall style distortion I could get in amplitube was more convincing than in guitar rig I think. I still like guitar rig though (and it came with my komplete), good enough for me. But if I was using it on stage, I'd probably want to see what amplitube was like live.

jamester · Post by **jamester** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 9:22 pm

I use Amplitube 1 and Voxengo's Boogex for crafting my own sounds, and NI"s Guitar Combos when I want a recognizable "classic" sound.

Since I'm not into recreating a live rig in my computer (like GuitRig2/Amplit2), this is all I feel like I will ever need for guitar sims...

jerry123 · Post by **jerry123** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 9:35 pm

GuitarRig has the best interface/versatility I've seen but Amplitube wins out for playability/responsiveness in any session I've run. If you get the chance to demo a couple to pluggins with a few players who've never seen such a thing, you get a real honest response and find flaws you haven't noticed before.

itook4lefts · Post by **itook4lefts** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 9:48 pm

dunno about plugins, but i like my vox tonelab

sebovzeoueb · Post by **sebovzeoueb** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 10:35 pm

I use a Pod XT Live for my ukulele and I am very pleased with it.

funkdefino · Post by **funkdefino** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 10:44 pm

I have tried them all and I really love the Mesa Boogie Recto Pre, but that gives you the "boogie" sound. (Which I happen to like)

Second runner up IMHO is the Vox Tonelab. It just sounds morenatural compaired to the rest. Must be the tube... hehe

georgebrazil · Post by **georgebrazil** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 11:24 pm

been playing gtr for many years now.
my 2 cents:

* live gigs --> line6 pod. extremely versatile. amp simulation is top notch.

* computer recording --> either NI Guitar Rig or Amplitube 2 do the job well. now line6 has GearBox which is cool as well.

best,
GB

capta1nA · Post by **capta1nA** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 11:31 pm

I'm a bass player who has never used modeling stuff. I'd rather have real gear personally.

One time we played a gig with this band whose guitar player had a small rack to the side of his amp (marshall half stack maybe?) with a wireless and some sort of pod. His wireless died at some point so he plugged straight into the amp. It sounded SO much better.

register · Post by **register** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 12:02 am

georgebrazil wrote:been playing gtr for many years now.
my 2 cents:

* live gigs --> line6 pod. extremely versatile. amp simulation is top notch.

* computer recording --> either NI Guitar Rig or Amplitube 2 do the job well. now line6 has GearBox which is cool as well.

best,
GB

... is there anything about the tone of pod u find better for performance?
I'm using NI Guitar Rig 2 live at the moment, though we were thinking its sounding it a little too flat, and not punchy enough. Do you think the pod has greater dynamics? The Guitar Rig Tones I usually use are pretty excessive, usually emulating 3 cabs, often fuzz pedal or other distortion. Do you think the pod can achieve similar kinda monstrous sounds?
I love the versatility of Guitar Rig 2, things like being able to assign nearly anything to a pedal function are great.

dj superflat · Post by **dj superflat** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 10:26 pm

the issue for me is that we like different guitar sounds live and on recordings. so while (e.g.) GR2 is great for many recording sounds, it just does not sound like the same way a maxed out amp does live. this also turns alot on what sort of sounds you want, because a truly stressed amp is just really hard to model, clean sounds not so much (in my experience). put another way, guitar through a PA, even if mic'd from an amp, never sound as good as the guitar amp sound, so why should any SW going out through a PA be able to compare?

Nod · Post by **Nod** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 11:07 pm

register wrote:So what do y'all rate?

Don't really rate the software stuff all that much other than as a tool for post-production, tho' Izotope's Trash is pretty cool, and still prefer hardware for the actual tone....Sansamp PSA1 (preamp) into a Rocktron Vooduvalve (FX & Speaker Sim) tracked alongside a miked Marshall 2204 JMP Mk2 with a bunch of other goodies...

Admittedly a laptop is a whole lot easier to cart around but it just doesn't sound the same to me unless you've got some kind of air moving/sound coupling going on...one piece of good advice I was given many years ago stated never to work on a live sound at bedroom levels - as you'll just end up with mush when it's turned up loud...