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Playing with your wares inside of your puter
This plug-ins dramatically improved last few years. Even that I tend usually record my tones with hardware, I'm finding now that you can create in a software certain combinations that are out of reach in a material world.
You can choose infinite possibilities between guitar and bass amps, cabinets, stompboxes, rack effects, signal splitters, microphones. And all of this in a matter of few seconds/mouse clicks. Am I still firing up my trusty Twin Reverb and reaching for a couple of Neumanns to perfectly capture nylons? Good questions. Am I gettin' lazy? That's too.
I feel very fortunate that time came that I can easily dial in any imaginable guitar tone thanks to an amp simulator software.
I regularly use a number of guitar amp plug-ins in a recording process and all of them come in VST format. Most of them also offer range of effects, such as overdrive, reverb, delay, wah-wah, ring modulator, gate, compressor, flanger, volume pedal, octave shifter, equalizer, limiter etc. You name it. Oh, and don't forget a guitar tuner also.
By the way, I'm on PCs, custom build with my specifications by OGOGO. :) Yah, that's me :)
Here we go.....
Guitar Rig
Native Instruments GUITAR RIG 4
- looks like we're getting somewhere. That was my first introduction to amp simulation. I started with Guitar Rig 1. It sounded so good that I started to use it (and abuse) right away. Consumed almost all of my CPU and crashed everything the same time. But I sensed the potential and stuck to it. It's still my favorite, number one choice. If I have to live with only one, I'll choose Guitar Rig by Native Instruments. Now it is most stable software from all of them here, I didn't experience crash in version 3 for ages (knock-knock).
Very flexible configuration thanks to including Control Room module for mic balancing, nice defaults to start with, and huge amount of them. Jump, based on the low gain Marshall' Lead 800 is kicking.
Manual is not required, feels at home right away if you have previous experience with hardware. Very cool effects in FX and Vocal folders. Infinite amount of psychedelic sounds and highly addictive for that matter. You want your guitar to sound like a synth? That's easy. Controller assignment is super easy. Presets are good sounding right away w/o much tweaking.
Great Splitter Module for two guitar chains is helpful to create a stereo guitar on a fly, five miking positions and cool Air control for dialing' in ambience.
Rig Controller is optional but essential if you're planning to use it live.
Native Instruments GUITAR RIG MOBILE Audio Interface
- quality guitar sound for your laptop recording or performing setup. Excellent amps and effects, great interface, no latency. And price is right.
AmpliTube
Amplitube 3 Plug-In
- super flexible. Looks to me that AmpliTube, since its launch in 2002, is shooting to the stars and on the way to become the top tier Amp Simulation software, if not No.1 already. IK is also includes Volumetric Response Modeling, known as VRM, seen first in AmliTube Fender. You can move mics in a virtual space. Latest version, #3, contains over 160 modeled hardware - 31 amps, 51 pedals, 46 cabs, and 15 mics in full stereo mode, meaning that you can use it on virtually any instrument and not only guitar. Drag and Drop, and Copy and Paste is fully implemented - way cool!
AmpliTube for iPhone and the Amplitube iRig
for iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad plug interface adapter hardware for guitar input are available.
Amplitube Fender Software Amp & FX Suite for Guitar and Bass
- '65 Twin Reverb sounds excellent. If you're into Fender amps, you should get it. Very few effects included.
IK Multimedia AmpliTube Jimi Hendrix Software Plug-In
IK Multimedia brings them to the world. Like the sound of it but AmpliTube still manages to crash the Sonar Producer. Make sure to freeze it almost instantly. I use both versions Amplitube 2 and Amplitube Jimi Hendrix and both of them with crashing effect. You gotta deal with it for the love of the sound.
On my machine I use it in High Resolution mode and it still leaves me a plenty of CPU to work with .
Ampeg SVX Plug-In Amplitube Legendary Bass Tones in a Plug In Software
- The best sounding bass I ever came across in a software format. Love it.
All of the software in Amplitube series allows you for eight routing options of the signal.
Stomp I/O is optional MIDI controller, very helpful live.
New version, called StealthBoard, is due second quarter of 2010. You can use it with any AmpliTube version you have right away. It also capable to control any other MIDI gear that you have. I'm looking forward to this one.
Studio Devil Virtual Guitar and Bass Amp Bundle
- brainchild of Marc Gallo. British Valve Custom is excellent for dialing Classic Rock tone. You can hear it on my track Torture Device. Boutique Clean is also sounds great. Everything is cramped in one page, so gotta get used to knowing where's what on the interface. After that it's straightforward. Make sure you save your settings before shuttin' it down, otherwise it will revert to default next time you fire it up. Annoying. No multi-amp setup.
Studio Devil VGA+ has an ambience on and off switch.
Waves GTR3 Native Software Only
- Great sounding, with a lot of "undo - redo" options. Very useful. Feels like you're on the Mac, intuitive. LayD pitched delay effect is superb, sooo lush. Ground Control is an optional MIDI controller.
Allows you to dial twelve miking positions and delay for simulating space.
Peavey - Revalver mkIII Amp Modeling Plug-in
- MKIII.V is the latest version. Added some their own Peavey amps and also some Budda models. Drag-n-drop and tweaking' on a circuit level is a fun playground. Try to swap the tubes and you'll hear what I'm talkin' 'bout.. Splitter Module for instant two signal chains is a nice feature here.
Overloud TH1
- people rave about how clean it sounds. Excellent interface and probably the lowest CPU imprint from all. One of the most impressive amp simulators around. TH1 Triode version is scaled down TH1 to just three amps and priced three times less than original.
Line 6 POD Farm Platinum
- never liked their hardware versions of POD - not guitar, not bass. Don't think I'll be spending money on their software any time soon. It doesn't mean I will not change my mind if it's really good but I don't see it's coming unless Line 6 really cares about my opinion. Line 6, you hear me? :) Requires either Line 6 hardware (like TonePort or Pod Studio) or iLok dongle. Too bad, and on top of it iLok version doesn't work in standalone mode. Presets are noisy. P.S. Just recently heard their Citrus, Brit Gain, Small Tweed, Blackface "Lux and AC30 and was impressed. The choruses are impressive also. Nice Dual button for instant two channels operation, option to position amp cabinets in a virtual room. New Version update - Pod Farm v.2 adds A/B/Y box and that's all, no new gear included.
TC Electronic released the Vintage Guitar Pedal Bundle for PowerCore with five effects (Stereo Chorus Flanger, Booster + Line Driver & Distortion, TC XII Proigammable Phaser, Sustain + Parametric EQ, Dual Parametric EQ). Supposed to be available in a spring 2010.
BBE Sound Stomp Ware - BBE collaborated with Nomad Factory on their new collection of eight plug-ins (Compressor, Delay, Tremolo, Fuzz, etc.) and is available. Simple but effective.
Universal Audio partnered with major guitar effects company Dunlop (owner of MXR also). We'll see what happened, huge potential is there.
Softube - Swedish company founded in 2003. Softube Vintage Amp Room - poorly designed interface but inside lays incredibly natural guitar amp sound. Allows precise positioning of microphones.
Kuassa - Amplifikation One. New player in the field that goes after tone and not after particular amplifier. Didn't have a chance to hear it yet. Free version is Amplifikation Lite.
Creative Applications:
Mix 'em up - Here's typical effect chain from guitarist view:
Overdrive/Distortion for libido --> Enhancer down to earth bottom and high harmonics --> Compressor to tight up personality --> Delay/Reverb for ambience. Try it on vocal or synth for maximum effect.Make it real - Some amp sims allow you oversampling which leads to the more realistic sound. In NI' Guitar Rig click the Hi Q button in the right up corner and in IK' AmpliTube check the preferences. You'll be amazed how guitar tones are suddenly sound like coming from the real amp. 96kHz starts to make sense after all.
Make up your room - Choose a mic (dynamic works best for guitar), position it (usually I tend to point mic right at the speaker) and dial in some ambience (be careful not to go overboard here, self restrain is recommended). POD Farm
Condition the sound after Amp Sim with EQ - Highpass (80Hz) and Lowpass (10kHz) filters, notch EQ (sweep it to find the spot) to smooth out the resonance. Then add compressor to massage the tone. In short, treat post Sim sound as you'll treat the real amp recording.
Sync to rhythm can be done perfectly by enabling software synchronization. My favourite feature is dialing left and right channels with different tempo setting on the same effect processor, like stereo delay. Experiment with Chorus rate or Tremolo speed values also for unusual sounds.
Warm up the sound from the digital Synths. Amp simulators work specially good with the lead lines. Quickly go through different presets of any amp simulator and you'll be amazed how good and lively it sounds.
The best thing for me to have amp simulator is that I can set-up a sound that is practically impossible to set-up in a real life. I can have two or three channels of amp simulators with different amps, cabinets, and effects simultaneously and it takes only a few minutes. Creative possibilities are infinite here - combine electric guitars with acoustic ones, use different modulation on two channels to create some stereo madness, split one guitar into two and spread them hard left and hard right, etc.....
Sometimes I use real amps in live performance but running virtual pedalboard to make it easy to carry around and setup. Guitar Rig, AmpliTube, and Waves all include optional hardware controller.
Try to run both setups in parallel live - one is virtual and one is real - you hear the pressure of the real amp and able to add any flexibility of the software.
Or just use tube preamp section of your amplifier, take loop out and run it through countless amp and cabinets options of amp simulator.Stack together two or more amps and dial in different ambience on each one and set up different mics and mic positions. You have a huge field of tone shaping possibilities here. Use it, experiment with it - that's a whole idea for me of amp simulation - dial in new possibilities.
Two bass players separation - use Studio Devil Virtual Bass Amp
Players
HFB - IK Multimedia AmpliTube
Gary Numan - Guitar Rig
Vernon Reid - Native Instruments' Guitar Rig
, Peavey ReValver MK III
UNKLE - Pablo Clements - AmpliTube
I want to pay attention to your Amp until it's OGOGO and dangerous.
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