Amp-Simulator: Overdrive-Sims drain amp of volume and tone!

Wavelength · 07-28-2019, 10:16 AM

Hi All,

Been really trying to obtain a good sound (mild overdrive with sustsin) to no avail. Everytine I load an overdrive/distortion pedal-sim it destroys the tone and severely cuts back on the overall volume and leaves the sound void of tone. Can someone please chime-in and help me to understand what I am doing wrong? It doesn't matter if I'm using all-in-one simulators (i.e. Amplitube4 or TH-U) or chain-simulators (paid or free individual and separate components). I have studied this for awhile but can't find a solution.

Thank you for your time.

Gear:
Dell Latitude E-6530 laptop
16 gigs RAM
i5 Intel Processor
Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 audio interface
Reaper DAW
Guitar: Gibson Les Paul with Classic 57 pickups.
Guitar cable: 12 foot Prolink Monster Standard 100

karbomusic · 07-28-2019, 10:19 AM

I'm not sure I understand, volume is just a matter of turning the output of the SIM up post overdrive and for devoid of tone and similar terms, posting a sample would really be best.

msundh · 07-28-2019, 10:24 AM

I don't use distortion pedals, only sim amps. Kazrog in my case.
I find it easier to get an smooth distortion that way.

Wavelength · 07-28-2019, 10:51 AM

KarboMusic, thank you for your reply. Working on uploading a sound sample. Good point!

Wavelength · 07-28-2019, 10:55 AM

Msundh, thank you. Yes, I tend to agree. But some amp-sims with built-in overdrive sound really cheesy, fizzy and rob tone. Finicky stuff for sure. Working on it!

karbomusic · 07-28-2019, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wavelength

Msundh, thank you. Yes, I tend to agree. But some amp-sims with built-in overdrive sound really cheesy, fizzy and rob tone. Finicky stuff for sure. Working on it!

That reminds me of the difference between monitoring an amp/overdrive in a room with your ears vs what it sounds like with a mic up in the cone then coming out of monitor speakers. I'm not saying that a SIM can't sound like you are stating, just that they start sounding much closer when both are being heard through studio monitors.

That said, I can probably whip up some loose sim/amp comparisons, only because I was recording something as an unrelated test with both the other day.

Wavelength · 07-28-2019, 11:18 AM

Karbomusic, I will send a detailed sound sample later. Starting recording it but have to go out for a bit. Can I send via private message (if yes, how do I send you a private message?). Thank you karbomusic.

karbomusic · 07-28-2019, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wavelength

Karbomusic, I will send a detailed sound sample later. Starting recording it but have to go out for a bit. Can I send via private message (if yes, how do I send you a private message?). Thank you karbomusic.

Sure PM is not problem. I'll send you a quick one since some say that when they send one to me the first time it for some reason gets blocked. I have to head out to and may not be home until 10PM EST FYI.

zeekat · 07-28-2019, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wavelength

But some amp-sims with built-in overdrive sound really cheesy, fizzy and rob tone.

Hope you don't forget to use a cab sim, or pick a variety of cab sim you like, seems to be one of the key components IMO.

Glennbo · 07-28-2019, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeekat

Hope you don't forget to use a cab sim, or pick a variety of cab sim you like, seems to be one of the key components IMO.

I don't really use amp sims, but I mess around with them to see what I can get out of them. Normally I monitor guitar through a low power amp, speaker, Sennheiser 421, REAPER, and studio monitors so I hear what I'm going to end up with.

I agree that cab sims are a huge part of making an amp sim sound more genuine, prefer to use IRs made from real guitar speaker cabs. I've done some side-by-side comparisons to see how close I could get an amp sim to sound like my real setup, and they can get close enough that you'd need to do A/B comparisons to identify what the guitar sim lacks. In a mix, prolly never notice.

JayJSE2 · 07-28-2019, 10:52 AM

If it's cutting the overall volume by a noticeable amount, then you might be putting too much gain into the pedal.

Also, some pedals affect tone like that on purpose, for instance, I don't tend to like tube screamer pedals except when I'm using the bridge pickup of my strat or tele in order to smooth out the high end attack.

Crowzilla · 07-28-2019, 11:05 AM

If you could describe the tone you are after a bit more, it would be helpful. For example you could name a player, band, song etc. what has the type of tone you would like to get.

In the meanwhile you mentioned a “mild overdrive with sustain” and that in mind you could try to add a compressor pedal in to your chain. That is how a cleaner overdriven sound could be made to sustain more. But first you should check whether you are running your overdrive pedal in to the clean channel of the amp or if it is boosting the dirty channel? If you try to get a more bluesy driven sound, you might want to point that overdrive pedal in to your clean channel and then use the pedal's drive to have that overdriven/mildly distorted sound that you can shape to your liking with the amp's eq.

If you have put that overdrive pedal in to the distorted channel, then it is trying to just boost what is already there, that is the amp's distortion and it does not add more volume, like it probably would on the clean channel, just more distortion.