Rate amp modellers for home recording

Which Amp modeller would you recommend for rawk!!

  • Amplitube

    Votes: 19 20.4%

  • Guitar Rig

    Votes: 28 30.1%

  • Line6 Toneport

    Votes: 34 36.6%

  • Vox Tonelab

    Votes: 12 12.9%
  • Total voters
    93
aidan_m

aidan_m

Budding Rock Star!
Howdy all, I've seen the mike shootouts but anyone have thoughts on amp modellers - specifically with rock sound in mind. Which one has a sweet distortion sound? Where can i get pre-sets for these??

Which would you rate?

Line6 Pod?
Guitar Rig?
Amplitube?

Any others I should think about? i'm using Pro tools 7.3 MP
 
modelers I have:
POD 2.0
J-Station
V-Amp 2
Digitechs (several)
Rocktron Utopia

judging strictly by how they sound without regard to whether the interface is clumsy or great, the best sounding one, hands down ..... not even close ..... is the Utopia and in second place ...... believe it or not, I think the V-Amp.
I don't like my POD at all ..... the J-Station is good for bass ..... the Digitechs are ....... well, .... hmmmmmmmmmm .............. they're not horrible but I absolutely never even turn them on anymore so that must mean something.

Also, I have a substantial collection of tube amps but often a modeler is just so easy and quiet!
 
Nothing beats a real amp, of course but if you can't crank up one at home, I'd go for Amplitube 2 or Revalver MkII or III, that's about to be released.

Everybody says amp sims suck and even though a real amp is a real amp, I can tell you I've fooled some vintage gear snobs into thinking they were listening to a real amp when they were actually listening to Amplitube 2.... :D
I think sims have their place and they do get the job done but again, if you can mic a real amp, go for it.

Oh, one little tip though. I've noticed a BIG difference between using an amp sim along with the pedals that come with it and using an amp sim with real pedals. I got a Keeley compressor, RC Booster, Damage Control Womanizer, MXR gate and BOSS EQ in front of my interface and I can tell you they make my tone so much better than if I used an amp sim alone.
 
Micing amps is not an easy thing

Give someone a stellar room, stellar mics and stellar mic pres. Without some stellar skills its going to sound like phased out, muddy garbage. Like a lot of amp sims actually, which kind of points to the problem.

"hang a 57 and run" is not all that likely to give you a good result
 
I've heard some pretty convincing tones come from Amplitube. However, that was with a lot of tickering, EQ, and even some third party cab impulses put on it. If you can deal with all the customization, you can get some acceptable and great sounds that would probably be good for layering or demos.
 
I own the following:

Line 6 POD 2.0
Johnson J-Station
Behringer Bass V-Amp (which also has sims for guitar)
Line 6 Tone Port

I also own 2 tube amps, 4 SS amps and 1 "hybred" (ss with tube preamp)

While I prefer to use real amps - I often record late at night, so I can't always crank the volume - and sometimes, it's just easier to use the sims. So - I use the sims fairly often.

Of the sims I have, I like the J-Station the best (although with enough tweaking any of them can provide realistic sounds. The more I work with various gear, the less I like the POD (and I use to think it was a decent piece of gear).

I've never tried Guitar Rig or Amplitube - so I have no opinion (although I've read of people who thought Amplitude worked well.

I've read good comments on the Vox "Valvetronic" pedalboard (I tried one briefly and liked what I heard) - and have read good things about the Utopia (our own Lt. Bob speaks highly of it) - and if you read his posts, I think you will see he appears to have significant knowledge and experiance.
 
Hardware packaged, software driven amp sims are always going to be at a slight upgrade disadvantage. They do thave the advantage that the initial price can lead to better research, but thats often pushed out for the hardware placebo effect.

Have a look at the Studiodevil. The free version is great, might be WAY too trebly for some people, but it is authentic

http://www.studiodevil.com/home/

The neat thing about amp sims is that, because of the educational research nature of the modelling side, the freeware is every bit as good or better than the payware in terms of the simulation of behaviour

One BIG spot people are getting wrong on the plugin side is not realizing they need to get in with a direct box. Plugging a passive guitar pickup into a line input isnt going to do much

Another one is blanket statements.

Man of the amps out there are just cheap crap. To think you can beat that with a sim is ridiculous.

Another is application. Are you just trying to make the guitar louder? then you dont need a sim or an amp.

Trying to get the sound of an amplifier working in its linear range without the coloration or phase issues of a microphone? This is no problem for an amp sim.

Modelling the behaviour of a tube stage being driven into its linear range? THIS is the holy grail. Where it all gets tricky. Many actual, high dollar tube amps fail this as badly as most amp sims
 
Myriad_Rocker said:
I'll one up you...Egnator ORIGINAL MTS unit.
Click to expand...


You win, you win! :D

That's next on my list. I want some of the egnater modules, and the preamp rackmount thingy. Did they make a power amp like Randall that runs one side with 6L6's and one side with EL34's? That is my dream guitar rig. :D
 
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lenMCHC said:
not to be a complete jerk, but i think that sounds like hot garbage.
Click to expand...

I like the jcm900 plug A LOT!
I think it's damn useful, especially for freeware!
Having said that, I am NOT trying to get an authentic simulation of a particular amp. I'm just trying to get a decent guitar sound in the hard rock/heavy metal style.
 
beezelbubba said:
I like the jcm900 plug A LOT!
I think it's damn useful, especially for freeware!
Having said that, I am NOT trying to get an authentic simulation of a particular amp. I'm just trying to get a decent guitar sound in the hard rock/heavy metal style.
Click to expand...

That's cool man, i was just giving my 2cents..
personally, i have some amp sims, an few digitech pedals, a pod and 4 good tube amps.
and almost never turn to the digital stuff, worst case scenario is DI, and digitech to seperate sources, till i can re-amp the DI and get the amps cranked.
 
Thanks for all the info people.. Am messing about witht guitar rig2 and aplitube 2 at the moment. Anywhere i can download user presets for these? Have hunted high and low in google-land but no joy..

Cheers!
 
iZotopes Trash is a pretty good one as well. A bit less intuitive than Amplitube, or Guitar Rig. But, its definitely worth checking out.
 
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