Guitar Rig 2 is uninspiring

[Myriad_Rocker]

In fact, it's a total buzz kill. Am I missing something here? I don't want to have to tweak for countless hours to get a respectable tone. I just want to use it so I can write songs. I'm not wanting to use it for recording at all with the exception of some scratch tracks.

Anyway, I came home today and had this riff in my head. I stepped into my studio and plugged in my guitar and fired up the demo. I started searching for a distortion sound that I could use....I kept searching....and searching....you get the point. I settled on a preset called Distortion Farm. Now, I know what you're saying...you have to tweak the presets. But I don't want to. I want something that I can just fire up and go and not have to worry about the tone totally KILLING my creativity. I got so focused on the sound I was getting that I couldn't focus on the riff that I had in my head earlier.

So...with that being said. Are there some modelers out there that get better tones so I can write songs without being distracted so much by the HORRID tone?

[travelin travis]

i know exactly what you're saying. i haven't found anything out there that isn't a buzz kill. i just got a valve junior but i'll be damned if the thing isn't loud! i love loud but i can't do that for a while. looks like an attenuator is what i need. i've tried pods, behringer, tonelab, amplitube, guitar rig, blah, blah, etc. i use guitarsuite and some saturation plugins on my machine. i just figured if i'm going to be uninspired i might as well be uninspired for free.

[Halion]

IMHO, programs like Guitar Rig are not for guitarists, they are for engineers. Guitar amps play such a major part in tone, yet they only have a couple of knobs, and that's for a very good reason. Let the engineer mess with it. If you are you're own engineer, just track your riff with any sound that's remotely like the tone in you're head and then leave the plugin alone. That's what works best for me. I use my small line 6 amp for idea, since it has for "presets", I just use one for clean, one for mild/heavy distortion and one for buckets of distortion. They don't sound all too great, but they get me in the ballpark really really fast.

[Myriad_Rocker]

Originally Posted by Halion

IMHO, programs like Guitar Rig are not for guitarists, they are for engineers. Guitar amps play such a major part in tone, yet they only have a couple of knobs, and that's for a very good reason. Let the engineer mess with it. If you are you're own engineer, just track your riff with any sound that's remotely like the tone in you're head and then leave the plugin alone. That's what works best for me. I use my small line 6 amp for idea, since it has for "presets", I just use one for clean, one for mild/heavy distortion and one for buckets of distortion. They don't sound all too great, but they get me in the ballpark really really fast.

Guitar Rig doesn't even compete with Line 6. That's how bad it is. I used to own a Vetta 2 and it was a God send compared to Guitar Rig.

[amra]

The only computer based amp sim I used was Amplitube, and it was a noticable step down from modelers. IMO, those things are something you use in a pinch to do scratch tracks or something.

What kind of music do you play? Different hardware modelers are best at different types of distortion, is why I am asking....

[Myriad_Rocker]

Originally Posted by amra

The only computer based amp sim I used was Amplitube, and it was a noticable step down from modelers. IMO, those things are something you use in a pinch to do scratch tracks or something.

What kind of music do you play? Different hardware modelers are best at different types of distortion, is why I am asking....

It could be anything really. All kinds of rock and metal for sure. I don't really want to have to buy hardware. If I was going to get Guitar Rig, which I'm not, I was just going to get the software version.

[amra]

Yea, i don't really know of anything that will get you a good metal type distortion that doesn't require hardware.

Here is a track that my bass player and another friend of ours did at my house one saturday, just messing around. The drums are all programmed in Cubase, and the guitar was tracked with a V-AMP Pro:
"Blood War"

[IronFlippy]

I found guitar rig to be quite limited too. I fooled around with it for a while, thinking that maybe I was missing something, but that wasn't the case, unfortunately. Now if I want to record direct, I just plug guitar into my Rat, then into my mixer and use convolution reverb to simulate speakers. Unfortunately, the only free convolution reverb plugins have a significant amount of latency, so I'm forced to record without it, then add it in later.

On the other hand, I found amplitube to be decent if tweaked, but you said that that wasn't what you were looking for. If I were you, I'd try out the simulanalog Guitar suite plugins. I think they sound better than the commercial plugins, although the user interface is somewhat lacking.

http://www.simulanalog.org/guitarsuite.htm

[beezelbubba]

Originally Posted by IronFlippy

On the other hand, I found amplitube to be decent if tweaked, but you said that that wasn't what you were looking for. If I were you, I'd try out the simulanalog Guitar suite plugins. I think they sound better than the commercial plugins, although the user interface is somewhat lacking.

http://www.simulanalog.org/guitarsuite.htm

Agreed!The JCM900 rocks!
As far as Guitar Rig goes, I assume there must be an online community uploading their own patches?Just a guess.Might be worth looking into what others have accomplished with it.

[c7sus]

Everybody should own an attenuator. I have become convinced of that.

[marshall409]

+1 on the simulanalog jcm900. the fender twin aint bad either. in fact, everything in their guitar suite is pretty awesome.

i dont bother with guitar rig anymore unless i want to use some of the automation effects or something else thats not easier to do with non guitar oriented plugins. all though, i did eventually find it to be useful back when i sued it for "real" tones. as usual with modelling, clean tones are much easier to find than any sort of mid gain stuff. for that, id go for the simulanalog stuff right away.

AND ITS FREE!!

Adam

[Myriad_Rocker]

I'll have to try that simulog or whatever it's called.

I downloaded the demo of Amplitube and it's MUCH better than Guitar Rig was.

[IronFlippy]

I think you'll like guitar suite. The progression from guitar rig to amplitube added the ability to do low gain crunch decently. It still sucks the life out of your guitar though. That JCM900 plugin in guitar suite is amazing. It's very articulate and warm, lacks the crappy fuzziness associated with modellers, and best of all, lets the guitar's sound shine through.

[Monkey Allen]

I haven't seen Guitar Rig, but I know how much it costs...a huuuuuge price for something that doesn't suit guitar players, judging by some of the comments.

[legionserial]

Originally Posted by Myriad_Rocker

Anyway, I came home today and had this riff in my head. I stepped into my studio and plugged in my guitar and fired up the demo. I started searching for a distortion sound that I could use....I kept searching....and searching....you get the point. I settled on a preset called Distortion Farm. Now, I know what you're saying...you have to tweak the presets. But I don't want to. I want something that I can just fire up and go and not have to worry about the tone totally KILLING my creativity. I got so focused on the sound I was getting that I couldn't focus on the riff that I had in my head earlier.

Could you not spend some time tweaking, and create your own preset so that you can just fire it up straight away to record something quickly? I don't know much about guitar rig or modellers in general.

[Myriad_Rocker]

Originally Posted by legionserial

Could you not spend some time tweaking, and create your own preset so that you can just fire it up straight away to record something quickly? I don't know much about guitar rig or modellers in general.

That might work if I had the time to waste on that kind of junk. I don't want to spend outs in front of a computer tweaking presets in order just to come out with ONE somewhat usable preset.

[surfmaster]

http://www.bteaudio.com/software/Juicy77/Juicy77.html

another really nice gainy amp sim that i use a lot

edit: from the website

No complex drop down menus, no nested parameter screens, instantly dial in any sound from sparkling clean to gritty crunch to full on juicy saturation.

[Ironklad Audio]

I downloaded the demo of Amplitube and it's MUCH better than Guitar Rig was.

ditto

i've given most of the amp simulator programs out there a whirl, but the original amplitube still sounds the best to me

The SimulAnalogue Suite works good for clean tones. I've never had any luck whatsoever with any distortion on amp sims, always sounds bad and definitely uninspiring.

Using the Twin amp on SimulAnalogue along with (a little) of the TubeScreamer plugin, and some wet reverb after that can get a decent overdriven/blues tone.

[steveuk]

Hi all, I have to admit I like guitar rig2/1 and amplitude2/hendrix..but you have to drive them with a good preamp,with some compression..before it goes into the card, I do have an old digitech pedal board which I use from time to time as preamp, both these proggies have a good sound and if driven well I defy anyone to spot the difference between these and a real rig once recorded, it does depend on the type of axe you use, if it is pretty toneless because its ply then maybe more compression would help,IMHO both theses progs are useful and even without tweaking the presets you CAN get a good sound and real sounding crunch..add some reverb and you can even get feedback.......