Guitar VSTs

Armistice said:
OK, I'm not talking amp sims here, not interested in them, I'm talking phasers, and flangers and choruses and delays and the like. stompbox stuff.
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It's hard to talk about VST stompboxes and not think about amp sims because all the modern packages include both things. I cannot think about any VST exclusively with stompboxes.

Anyway I tried Guitar Rig, Amplitube and Overloud TH-1.

Personally I didn't like Guitar Rig and ended sticking to Amplitube. Overloud is still great stuff though.

On a side note, in my opinion all of those VSTs are for recording only though. I never would use them for gigs. But that's me... the minimum perceptible latency simply drives me crazy!

:thumbs up:
 
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I wouldn't accept latency either. Most plugins don't really need to introduce latency as long as your processor has enough ticks per sample to do all of the calculations. It's really only those plugs that actually need a buffer of samples to work with (pitch shifters/detectors, some FIR stuff...) or need to "look into the future" (compressors/limiters with "lookahead" or "pre-comp") that create any real delay.

What can happen, though, is that if your CPU can't do all the calculations that the plugin asks it to before it has to dump the buffer to the DAC, you'll get underruns - clicks and pops and dropouts in the audio - which will make you increase the buffer size, which will increase latency.

That said, I've heard that one or two of the "big name" amp sim packages we've been talking about do add latency for some reason.
 
I sincerely don't think that there will be a time when latency will be totally beaten. At least not in a short term. Pairing a signal digitally processed within a computer with a signal passing through a real stompbox is not a fair competition in my opinion.

In the stompbox we have a dedicated small circuit that takes the signal AS IS and do whatever it has to do with it. There is not ANY latency! Now think about the computer... first of all it is not a dedicated machine, but a general use complicated circuit where all the burden weights over a single brain (the CPU). This "brain" don't know what to do by itself, and for the simplest task depends on a huge step-by-step list – the program (in our case the VST) – that needs to explain to the CPU what to do. It means a lot of time spent along this "conversation".

Finally, we still have before all that mess, the guitar signal being AD converted and at the end DA back.

Thinking this way it's a miracle that the latency isn't even bigger!

:eek:
 
bulevardi said:
Amplitube is nice... however, for distorition not my cup of tea.

I like Vandal aswel (y)
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I'm using the Vandal SE version for a while now.
This software sounds even sooo much better, warmer and realistic ... in comparison than my (hardware) Line6 Spider I'm using, which sounds like plastic.

I just ordered the Vandal Pro version now, not the download but post package on cd, can't wait to arrive.
 
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