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Old 09-17-2018, 10:20 AM   #41
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Originally Posted by karbomusic View Post
Chicken.

More seriously, I asked because if it is a problem for the "result" then there should be no excuses when being asked to try. This means means we have one very important qualifying question to answer....

Is this about the player while he/she is playing or the final result. That distinction matters a LOT to most of the replies in this thread and keeping them mixed together means most of the value here is nil.

Lastly, there were plenty of comments in the thread about how SIMs sound, seems to me like that can be heard in production no?
Listen to all my songs and pick out the ones with real drums vs the ones with Superior Drummer being played live from a set of V-Drums. One of them has the word "real" in it's title and one of them has the word "fake" in it's title, so I wouldn't be surprised if you guessed those correctly. One of them is more stealthy though, and I recorded the front half with one kit of drums, and the back half with the other, while trying to match the sound as close as possible, for my own entertainment purposes. The others are a mixed bag of whether it will be real drums or sampled drums.

I know plenty of drummers who would scream and kick if they had to play a sampled kit. I look at it as though I can make music on it, if hitting it makes a sound. In an isolated test, it becomes more easy to identify what's real and what's fake, and that's exactly what I claimed that I believe I could do.

Somewhere, I have a short clip I recorded when I got Guitar Rig with Komplete Elements (and I well know Guitar Rig is NOT the best of sims), but what I did was to try and approximate several of my mainstay patches I've created and stored on my preamp/pedalboard with amp and speaker.

In 100% isolation, I have back to back clips of the exact same line being played, first through the real amp and speakers, followed by the simulated amp and speakers. In my test clip, the two sound very similar, because I personally dialed up the simulated sound to match as close as possible the real sound.

In a mix, I would be pressed to identify which was which. In isolation, it becomes easier to identify, but again does NOT sound BAD, just less GOOD.

I'll keep searching for the clip I made. It has three sets of A/B comparisons starting with clean, then going to crunchy, then going to fuzzy.
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Old 09-17-2018, 10:22 AM   #42
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Has anyone actually thought that?

I don't think I've ever heard anyone have that misconception.
In this very thread, and yes, quite often
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Old 09-17-2018, 10:27 AM   #43
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You can always let me know which tracks in which songs in my sig are sim or amp
I'd like to know what the very first guitar that comes in on the very first song is. The one that pretty much just keeps repeating the same note or chord. Its got a "hardness" to it that I have trouble getting in amp sims sometimes
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Old 09-17-2018, 10:28 AM   #44
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With digital distortion, aliasing is always present, oversampling or not. It's just a matter of how much of it is audible. Oversampling doesn't magically make aliasing go away completely. It only helps to reduce it in the audible frequency spectrum. And it introduces errors from upsampling/downsampling, creating distortions of it's own. Quantization noise is always there too, also being a question of how audible it is (I never see anyone talk about this...the nasty decay of amp sims, for example). But there are real audible problems with both since for digital distortion in amp sims we are talking about heavily compressed audio, bringing up greatly the noise floor (the supposed inaudible aliasing, errors, intermodulation distortion, quantization noise).
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Old 09-17-2018, 10:29 AM   #45
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I heard somewhere that Marshall is offering a plugin...................
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Old 09-17-2018, 10:34 AM   #46
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Of course, if you are using an active guitar, then it is a moot point anyway since the preamp does the loading.
Or any engaged pedal or pedal/device that isn't true bypass. Outside of my fuzz face comment there should be an expectation that the input impedance is "right sized" or one could just use their tone knob to get the same effect. Meaning enough impedance isn't a sweet spot we need to be in the middle of per se, it's something that once we have enough of, that's all there is to have.
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Old 09-17-2018, 10:34 AM   #47
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Again, just no. Just no. 16x oversampling deals with that extremely well (that's 768 kHz if you track at 48k).



You don't hear it?



Amazing.
No offense to anyone involved in that recording, but the guitar tone sounds phoney/digital to me. That kind of sound doesn't interest me at all. This is the kind of thing that I like and cannot get from amps sims: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug7oyobYONk I prefer vinyl mix versions, but I figured someone would cry about vinyl noise, so I linked the above version. But here is a vinyl version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBqOCaAO8m8 Sounds organic, yummy, and fat, not anemic and fake.

Do you hear those upper frequencies, lower frequencies, dynamics, the grind without nasty artifacts, the smooth transition from grind to clean without artifacts, and the room sound? Show me a sim that can do that. I can very much get in that territory with an amp and microphones (in a bedroom). I cannot with any sim.
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Old 09-17-2018, 10:35 AM   #48
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When I did the Aliasing in Compressors and Amp sims video it was pretty funny to find out that nearly nobody could tell the difference between aliasing and IMD....even funnier that in the first few amp modeller plugins, the way people could correctly guess that they were fake was that they didn't make IMD. And go back in history and a lot of the reason people could tell transistor amps from tube amps was that the transistor amps often didn't make the same sort of IMD
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Old 09-17-2018, 10:36 AM   #49
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I'd like to know what the very first guitar that comes in on the very first song is. The one that pretty much just keeps repeating the same note or chord. Its got a "hardness" to it that I have trouble getting in amp sims sometimes
Face Deface? Let me look because I forgot.
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Old 09-17-2018, 10:44 AM   #50
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Oversampling doesn't magically make aliasing go away completely.
Sure, but it makes it go way below the noise floor (like -120 dB or lower if it's a good algorithm). No way you're compressing your shit that hard to bring that low level of aliasing back in to the mix, no way.

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And it introduces errors from upsampling/downsampling, creating distortions of it's own.
Not if it's a good algorithm.

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Quantization noise is always there too, also being a question of how audible it is (I never see anyone talk about this...the nasty decay of amp sims, for example).
Not with 64-bit float internal processing, which will give you a ridiculously finer amplitude resolution compared to practically any uncompressed audio file format (which is what you're ending up with - nobody's listening to 32-/64-bit FP raw WAVs on their devices!).

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Do you hear those upper frequencies, lower frequencies, dynamics, the grind without nasty artifacts, the smooth transition from grind to clean without artifacts, and the room sound? Show me a sim that can do that. I can very much get in that territory with an amp and microphones. I cannot with any sim.
It sounds good, sure, but not something impossible for ampsims methinks. Just gotta gain stage properly and hit the ampsims at the correct level, for starters (not all ampsims expect the input signal at the same level - many say "oh hit it as close to 0 dBFS as possible" - wrong). Not my cuppa tea, tho.
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Old 09-17-2018, 10:53 AM   #51
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In this very thread, and yes, quite often
Which post number do you think says that?
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Old 09-17-2018, 10:55 AM   #52
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I'd like to know what the very first guitar that comes in on the very first song is. The one that pretty much just keeps repeating the same note or chord. Its got a "hardness" to it that I have trouble getting in amp sims sometimes
I couldn't remember but I just pulled up the original project... the amp choice surprised me because I stole that 'basic' riff idea straight from The Jackson Five (the ocatve on 16ths flavor) - for whatever reason, I switched from amp to SIM - I don't remember why but it was purely mix related. Here's the exact chain for that intro guitar. Yes, I used a JCM800 for something I'd never usually choose one for. FWIW, I hate the JCM for the other parts of the song, bad idea.

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Old 09-17-2018, 11:00 AM   #53
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Here too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFlNo1NjAEQ Hear that almost clean grind, upper frequencies, and room? Yummy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRo3u04vY1E Hear that grind and upper frquencies and the fatness?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpoMzsDL7z4 Again, hear the grind and upper frequencies?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9TunCtR3dQ Here too, and we're talking near clean. It sounds very organic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdSWaIvyQ3o Hear the fatness, grind, and upper frequencies?
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Old 09-17-2018, 11:14 AM   #54
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And go back in history and a lot of the reason people could tell transistor amps from tube amps was that the transistor amps often didn't make the same sort of IMD
Some big things on the differences in solid state and tube amps is how the signal is shaped (clipped) and compressed. Solid state amps sound rather sharp, less compressed, and without any significant reaction to what is being played. And for whatever reason (maybe intermodulation distortion screwing with phase), solid state amps tend to sound distant in the mids. Cranking up a solid state amp has no major effect other than causing the speakers to compress, where the opposite happens with tube amps (but obviously, the speakers do still compress).
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Old 09-17-2018, 11:22 AM   #55
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Sure, but it makes it go way below the noise floor (like -120 dB or lower if it's a good algorithm). No way you're compressing your shit that hard to bring that low level of aliasing back in to the mix, no way.



Not if it's a good algorithm.



Not with 64-bit float internal processing, which will give you a ridiculously finer amplitude resolution compared to practically any uncompressed audio file format (which is what you're ending up with - nobody's listening to 32-/64-bit FP raw WAVs on their devices!).



It sounds good, sure, but not something impossible for ampsims methinks. Just gotta gain stage properly and hit the ampsims at the correct level, for starters (not all ampsims expect the input signal at the same level - many say "oh hit it as close to 0 dBFS as possible" - wrong). Not my cuppa tea, tho.
When you compress the snot out of a signal (which amp sims do), you are bringing the noise floor way up in relation to the signal, and the artifacts are audible.
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Old 09-17-2018, 11:28 AM   #56
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But isn't the point that you would only ever hear the guitar in a mix anyway? So it kinda doesn't matter what it sounds like in isolation.
To be honest about 90% of the time I hear guitar it's in isolation.

I assumed the ones who don't like sims were talking about isolation, hence my comment about it being unrealistically difficult to actually blind test.

I only use amp sims, or at least the vast majority of the time. It's funny to think that everyone's favourite guitar tones they know are from a miced amp, almost never directly from the amp except when they're playing it themselves. Maybe in very small venues but it's unlikely to be the great guitarists of the world playing those.

When I'm playing guitar I want it to sound more like a recorded miced amp than an amp in the room. I think that's mostly because I got into playing the guitar in the amp sim generation. If someone had played a real amp for years they might understandably be very picky about that familiar sound.
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Old 09-17-2018, 11:37 AM   #57
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There is also the idea that each amp has a different input impedence, so it will load your pickups down differently. The hardware versions of the Helix can model this (in that the guitar input can be set at different impedences), but you do need some sort of special hardware to do it. Of course, if you are using an active guitar, then it is a moot point anyway since the preamp does the loading.

I feel like all of this discussion is kinda beside the point anyway. The OP asked which plugins they might use to get a good sound similar to hardware modelers, not whether or not they should use "fake" amps at all.
What we're really talking about with impedance is higher frequencies being rolled off with an impedance mismatch. We have talked about this in another thread in which I demonstrated that you can connect a guitar directly to a line in and mostly mitigate the effects of an impedance mismatch using eq. Yes, there was still a small difference between connecting to a hi-z input and a line input, but according to myself and another person who commented, the small different wasn't enough to really worry over. It also flew in the face of 'gainstaging' for the amp sims. As long as you get a clean signal to them that is hot enough to get them to do their thing, that is all that really matters. Here are the audio files from that thread:

https://app.box.com/s/qkq40ugs1qis901oxmvk
https://app.box.com/s/h18p18a44wwt9z2zuvc4

In each clip, there is both a hi-z and a line input used for comparison.
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Old 09-17-2018, 11:38 AM   #58
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When you compress the snot out of a signal (which amp sims do), you are bringing the noise floor way up in relation to the signal, and the artifacts are audible.
As if real amps don't compress the signal. That's what distortion IS. You "compress the snot out of a signal" if you don't hit the ampsim at the right level, yes. Not if you hit it at the right level. And of course, gotta trim your input in the ampsim after you hit it with the right level, because not all pickups provide the same output (driving an ampsim with a vintage Strat pickup at ampsim's expected input level then driving it with the EMGs at that very same level situation - you gotta adjust with ampsim's own input gain to compensate). Some (not all) ampsims equate 0 dBFS to 1V peak-to-peak, but hot pickups WILL drive a real amp with more than 1V peak-to-peak. Hence input gain on ampsims, to compensate.

This is all true and I do hear and feel a difference when playing through an ampsim. Get the input level on the audio interface to the best SNR (=as loud as possible without clipping), then trim afterwards so that ampsim gets its feed at correct level (this varies by ampsim used, as mentioned not all expect 0dBFS=1Vpp). Versus just plugging my guitar straight into audio interface, no gain adjustment on the audio interface = much quieter recorded signal = more noise, less sustain, ampsims don't react as they should (=as a real amp does).

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Some big things on the differences in solid state and tube amps is how the signal is shaped (clipped) and compressed. Solid state amps sound rather sharp, less compressed, and without any significant reaction to what is being played.
Well, that's wrong, too. Solidstates do hard rather than soft clipping (=more compression, not less) due to the way they use diodes (IIRC), but even that's old by now, as there are solid states which do soft clipping too and do have response more similar to tubes (including the volume knob on your guitar). Technology advances, you know.

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Old 09-17-2018, 11:53 AM   #59
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When I'm playing guitar I want it to sound more like a recorded miced amp than an amp in the room. I think that's mostly because I got into playing the guitar in the amp sim generation. If someone had played a real amp for years they might understandably be very picky about that familiar sound.
That's an interesting comment. For one, most of the stuff people hear in the final result sounds more distorted than it ever actually was. It also sounds far more processed than the original was and the guitarist had little or none of that polish in their cans while recording. This has driven both preset design in real gear (which is sort of cart before horse) and sims as well as built a few generations of musicians who don't actually know what the source sounds like.
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Old 09-17-2018, 11:56 AM   #60
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As if real amps don't compress the signal. That's what distortion IS. You "compress the snot out of a signal" if you don't hit the ampsim at the right level, yes. Not if you hit it at the right level. And of course, gotta trim your input in the ampsim after you hit it with the right level, because not all pickups provide the same output (driving an ampsim with a vintage Strat pickup at ampsim's expected input level then driving it with the EMGs at that very same level situation - you gotta adjust with ampsim's own input gain to compensate). Some (not all) ampsims equate 0 dBFS to 1V peak-to-peak, but hot pickups WILL drive a real amp with more than 1V peak-to-peak. Hence input gain on ampsims, to compensate.

This is all true and I do hear and feel a difference when playing through an ampsim. Get the input level on the audio interface to the best SNR (=as loud as possible without clipping), then trim afterwards so that ampsim gets its feed at correct level (this varies by ampsim used, as mentioned not all expect 0dBFS=1Vpp). Versus just plugging my guitar straight into audio interface, no gain adjustment on the audio interface = much quieter recorded signal = more noise, less sustain, ampsims don't react as they should (=as a real amp does).



Well, that's wrong, too. Solidstates do hard rather than soft clipping (=more compression, not less) due to the way they use diodes (IIRC), but even that's old by now, as there are solid states which do soft clipping too and do have response more similar to tubes (including the volume knob on your guitar). Technology advances, you know.
Nowhere did I say that real amps don't compress the snot out of a signal. The point being made is that with sims, the noise floor (and dsp artifacts) come way up and become audible. Real amps don't have those artifacts to 'come up' into audible levels.

Sold state amps clip harder (sharper...the clipping shape), but they do not compress more as the volume is increased, as tube amps do.
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Old 09-17-2018, 11:58 AM   #61
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As if real amps don't compress the signal. That's what distortion IS. You "compress the snot out of a signal" if you don't hit the ampsim at the right level, yes. Not if you hit it at the right level. And of course, gotta trim your input in the ampsim after you hit it with the right level, because not all pickups provide the same output (driving an ampsim with a vintage Strat pickup at ampsim's expected input level then driving it with the EMGs at that very same level situation - you gotta adjust with ampsim's own input gain to compensate). Some (not all) ampsims equate 0 dBFS to 1V peak-to-peak, but hot pickups WILL drive a real amp with more than 1V peak-to-peak. Hence input gain on ampsims, to compensate.
I remember a thread somewhere on some forum that was similar but you know what? In guitar world we just plug the goddamn thing in and turn knobs until it sounds good, doesn't really matter what that is. Half the problem with this thread is that overanalyzing breaks the proverbial spell.
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Old 09-17-2018, 11:59 AM   #62
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The point being made is that with sims, the noise floor (and artifacts) come way up and become audible. Real amps don't have those artifacts to 'come up' into audible levels.
Well, noise floor comes up on real amps as well? Ground loop, hum, as well? Those things aren't a problem with ampsims (well unless your audio interface is poorly grounded), so in fact they're quieter than real amps from my experience (again, when hit at correct level).
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Old 09-17-2018, 12:03 PM   #63
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That's an interesting comment. For one, most of the stuff people hear in the final result sounds more distorted than it ever actually was. It also sounds far more processed than the original was and the guitarist had little or none of that polish in their cans while recording. This has driven both preset design in real gear (which is sort of cart before horse) and sims as well as built a few generations of musicians who don't actually know what the source sounds like.
I think one problem for me with amp sims is that sim designers are shooting for a 'finished sound'. That isn't what I want, the same as for drums. I want natural sounds to shape as I prefer. In other words, I want the lows and highs fully intact, not severely rolled off for a 'finished sound', and that is what we get with cab impulses. With impulses, trying to get back those lower and higher frequencies is an exercise in futility. So then, the problem for me is that I am not only working with a finsihed sound for a final mix. I am also spending many hours just playing and writing, where I need a 'full experience' type sound, not just a finished sound. To me, that matters very much.
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Old 09-17-2018, 12:07 PM   #64
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Well, YEAH, that's kinda the point with ampsims, you get the final sound, as a "miced cab" kind of thing... But in some ampsims you can totally disable that (cab, power amp...) and send it to an actual cab and mic that, if you want. Why bother, though, the point of ampsims is to have it all ITB for those who wish to work that way. But yeah, I've seen people do the hybrid approach. And you know what, it works
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Old 09-17-2018, 12:12 PM   #65
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Well, noise floor comes up on real amps as well? Ground loop, hum, as well? Those things aren't a problem with ampsims (well unless your audio interface is poorly grounded), so in fact they're quieter than real amps from my experience (again, when hit at correct level).
We're not talking about analog noise (where DI guitar also has a number of noise issues). That is another topic. We are talking about dsp artifacts with amp sims. But since you brought it up, for whatever reasons, some hum does not bother me on the same level that digital artifacts do. Single coils are gonna hum and buzz a bit, but once I get to playing, it just doesn't bother me unless there is a major problem such as a ground loop, which can be a problem for digital too. And with digital artifacts, we are talking about an integral component of the tone, not just some low level noise that fades behind the sound of using a real amp. I hear it as being hashy, grainy, etc., within the overall sound, and it really does bother me. Another thing that really bothers me is the grainy decay of amp sims from grind to clean. It sounds like a diode where the voltage goes from above the threshold to below. And it seems to me that some amp sim devs try to mitigate these artifacts with filtering, taking away from the upper frequencies. But I very much want those upper frequencies.
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Old 09-17-2018, 12:18 PM   #66
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I think one problem for me with amp sims is that sim designers are shooting for a 'finished sound'.
Yea, as you know, that problem has been around for decades. Even before SIMs, any box that had presets all had whatever presets that had the most wow factor to make the sale - most everything I've ever purchased, I usually hard delete the presets as my very first step. I also have to wonder how mixing "sounds like a record preset" from multiple products for each instrument actually works in a mix - dunno, just seems like it's asking for weird results.
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Old 09-17-2018, 12:22 PM   #67
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But isn't the point that you would only ever hear the guitar in a mix anyway? So it kinda doesn't matter what it sounds like in isolation.
Agreed. Most guitar players are not engineers and are not involved in the mix. They are used to hearing their guitar sound in isolation.

As someone else suggested, at the end of the day it's about what works for you in any given situation. I say use whatever you got if it sounds good. That said I still reiterate all of the advantages to using amp sims over actual amps because of absolute recall and easy re-amping.

I read somewhere a while back that Satriani uses a wall of amps in a room that is so loud he has to wear earplugs when tracking. I also read somewhere else that he had used amp sims on some of his records. For me I don't have the resources to use the real thing so I'm glad that plug-ins have gotten to the point where they work well within in a mix.

Another thing it's being left out of this conversation is the guitar itself. Everything begins there so if you're not getting the guitar sound you're looking for that may have something to do with it as well.
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Old 09-17-2018, 12:25 PM   #68
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Yea, as you know, that problem has been around for decades. Even before SIMs, any box that had presets all had whatever presets that had the most wow factor to make the sale - most everything I've ever purchased, I usually hard delete the presets as my very first step. I also have to wonder how mixing "sounds like a record preset" from multiple products for each instrument actually works in a mix - dunno, just seems like it's asking for weird results.
I'm not even talking about presets. I'm talking about the frequency spectrum. Try to push the upper frequencies, for example, with an amp sim and you won't get anything pretty. Do the same with an amp and it gets rich and bright, going as far as way too much if you wish. Same goes for the mids and lows. I think this is mostly a problem with using impulses, which are static snapshots of a speaker. If you do the same without an impulse in the chain, things can get very bright, for example (as with an amp and a capable speaker).
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Old 09-17-2018, 12:26 PM   #69
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Single coils are gonna hum and buzz a bit, but once I get to playing, it just doesn't bother me unless there is a major problem such as a ground loop, which can be a problem for digital too.
Side comment: You know what I hate about hum noise etc. in guitars? It interacts with the actual tone and screws it all up. It's super noticeable in the most important spot... any where a note needs to decay such as fades, which are almost often used/needed somewhere. The buzz is never in tune which makes it worse as it butt-fcks the notes it is interacting with, drives me farking mad - Can you tell it bugs me? That problem is the same regardless of amp/sim, just noting the phenomenon - aka it isn't the fact the noise is there, it is it's interacting with the actual notes.
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Old 09-17-2018, 12:29 PM   #70
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Sure, but it makes it go way below the noise floor (like -120 dB or lower if it's a good algorithm). No way you're compressing your shit that hard to bring that low level of aliasing back in to the mix, no way.

Not if it's a good algorithm.

Not with 64-bit float internal processing, which will give you a ridiculously finer amplitude resolution compared to practically any uncompressed audio file format (which is what you're ending up with - nobody's listening to 32-/64-bit FP raw WAVs on their devices!).

It sounds good, sure, but not something impossible for ampsims methinks. Just gotta gain stage properly and hit the ampsims at the correct level, for starters (not all ampsims expect the input signal at the same level - many say "oh hit it as close to 0 dBFS as possible" - wrong). Not my cuppa tea, tho.
Yes to all of that. Too much is made comparing apples and oranges in my opinion. All amp sims are not created equal. I would have some particularly harsh reviews of some of the most popular ones in fact. That said even with a good plug-in gain staging is paramount and it's been my experience that you can't go strictly by their meters. Digital clipping on the input or output of an amp sim is very different from analog saturation in the real world.
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Old 09-17-2018, 12:35 PM   #71
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Interestingly, I have traditionally found it more difficult to get good realistic CLEAN sounds out of an amp sim than the grungy ones. But again using the right plug-in with the right gain staging makes all the difference in the world assuming you have guitar with decent pickups to begin with.
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Old 09-17-2018, 12:42 PM   #72
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I remember a thread somewhere on some forum that was similar but you know what? In guitar world we just plug the goddamn thing in and turn knobs until it sounds good, doesn't really matter what that is. Half the problem with this thread is that overanalyzing breaks the proverbial spell.
Yup.

Give me tones I like any day compared to perfectly accurate models of noises and sags when the air conditioner is kicking on or some dust gets in the pots
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Old 09-17-2018, 12:47 PM   #73
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Interestingly, I have traditionally found it more difficult to get good realistic CLEAN sounds out of an amp sim than the grungy ones. But again using the right plug-in with the right gain staging makes all the difference in the world assuming you have guitar with decent pickups to begin with.
I've come to the conclusion it's hardest to get the tone one has fawned over the most or something like that - not saying it isn't legit, it's just that that is the thing they've listened closely to, lived with and gotten extremely used to over the years - where some other sound they are less experienced with as far as how natively ingrained it is - I think that is a bad and a good thing. IOW, if you don't know enough about it, you can't get close enough to exploit it, if you know too much about it, you'll never be satisfied and waste an awful lot of time on stuff nobody actually cares about.
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Old 09-17-2018, 12:53 PM   #74
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No offense to anyone involved in that recording, but the guitar tone sounds phoney/digital to me. That kind of sound doesn't interest me at all. This is the kind of thing that I like and cannot get from amps sims: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug7oyobYONk I prefer vinyl mix versions, but I figured someone would cry about vinyl noise, so I linked the above version. But here is a vinyl version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBqOCaAO8m8 Sounds organic, yummy, and fat, not anemic and fake.

Do you hear those upper frequencies, lower frequencies, dynamics, the grind without nasty artifacts, the smooth transition from grind to clean without artifacts, and the room sound? Show me a sim that can do that. I can very much get in that territory with an amp and microphones (in a bedroom). I cannot with any sim.
No offense taken You are the first one describing sound on my song as phoney/digital, though. S-Gear is IMO the best amp sim on the market (i own TH3, Revalver, Guitar Rig, Mercuriall stuff, Amplitube misc stuff). I also have Kemper. I was using tube amps for at least 30 years (Marshall, Fender, Egnater etc.)

I think you should compare sound of this song to similar style of music at least before making conclusions. ZZ Top has very little in common with a production i had in mind (Eric Johnson).

I understand you are a guitarist using tube-amps? Can you show me any of your recordings - i am really interested to hear your sound.

IMO Blind tests are the only ones which really count. I bet you would have trouble spotting what is real amp and what is Kemper profile for example. This has been proven many, many times, i won't repeat it.

Thx!
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Old 09-17-2018, 01:07 PM   #75
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@zabukowski

Just wanted to compliment you on another great video... S-Gear is the only simm I have kept (including having the Kemper and the Fractal) and your video does S-Gear more than justice. Great job!

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...
IMO Blind tests are the only ones which really count. I bet you would have trouble spotting what is real amp and what is Kemper profile for example. This has been proven many, many times, i won't repeat it.

Thx!
absolutely... this has been shown for many years
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Old 09-17-2018, 01:10 PM   #76
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The new Kuassa Caliburn does nail the three Marshalls (JTM45, JCM800, JCM900) really well IMO (Mercuriall Spark does too, albeit except JCM800 it does 3 other Marshalls), but at a higher CPU cost). And it's dead simple to use, too.
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Old 09-17-2018, 01:13 PM   #77
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@zabukowski

Just wanted to compliment you on another great video... S-Gear is the only simm I have kept (including having the Kemper and the Fractal) and your video does S-Gear more than justice. Great job!
Thank you

You can read more about it here:
https://www.scuffhamamps.com/news/21...-zabukowski-ej
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Old 09-17-2018, 01:15 PM   #78
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I wish Mike would get on with v2.9 already... No matter, though, I still find Thermionik overall better (although not by a lot) than S-Gear.
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Old 09-17-2018, 01:55 PM   #79
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I think one problem for me with amp sims is that sim designers are shooting for a 'finished sound'. That isn't what I want, the same as for drums. I want natural sounds to shape as I prefer. In other words, I want the lows and highs fully intact, not severely rolled off for a 'finished sound', and that is what we get with cab impulses. With impulses, trying to get back those lower and higher frequencies is an exercise in futility. So then, the problem for me is that I am not only working with a finsihed sound for a final mix. I am also spending many hours just playing and writing, where I need a 'full experience' type sound, not just a finished sound. To me, that matters very much.
You might like the Helix then (or at least, like it more than others). It pretty much requires high and low cuts to get anything usable. Way more high frequencies in particular than I have ever heard out of a real cab. To that end, I wish it would sound more like a polished, final result, but it's easy enough to correct for. I actually really prefer the modelers to sound like a polished result, though. I get perfectly reproducible sound on stage and it always sounds great.

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Interestingly, I have traditionally found it more difficult to get good realistic CLEAN sounds out of an amp sim than the grungy ones. But again using the right plug-in with the right gain staging makes all the difference in the world assuming you have guitar with decent pickups to begin with.
I always had the same issue. There are 50 million things that will give a good distortion sound, but only a few amps and cabs that ever really gave me the clean sound I wanted. I suspect it is because there's no distortion to cover up the details, so you can really hear when something isn't "right."
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Old 09-17-2018, 02:07 PM   #80
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I've come to the conclusion it's hardest to get the tone one has fawned over the most or something like that - not saying it isn't legit, it's just that that is the thing they've listened closely to, lived with and gotten extremely used to over the years - where some other sound they are less experienced with as far as how natively ingrained it is - I think that is a bad and a good thing. IOW, if you don't know enough about it, you can't get close enough to exploit it, if you know too much about it, you'll never be satisfied and waste an awful lot of time on stuff nobody actually cares about.
With both guitars and keyboards I used to search for the sound I was hearing in my head or that I associated with the recording I liked. After years of wasted time I realized that I was chasing rainbows and that it was more important just to find good sounds and do something with them. The digital age allows almost limitless experimentation. In my humble opinion it doesn't matter how you reach the end result. If you like the way it sounds it's good. Doesn't matter how you got there
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