I use these guitar sim packages usually only for the amps. I like the Mecurial stuff better for Marshall JCM 800. I got the Amplitube stuff primarily for the Orange emulations which I couldn't find elsewhere, and the amp is pretty close to what I've heard from an actual Orange Thunderverb 50. I bypass the cabinets, and run them into a Nebula instance with a cabinet preset. That's the closest I've gotten to having an actual amp/cab mic'd up.
I really like the way HO's Nebula samplings of Fender Champ, Twin Reverb, etc. sound also.

 

Montgent no love for TH, Revalver, S-Gear either? Kuassa amps? Softube? Some of these are better than Amplitube, don't you find?

 

I don't like them either for some reason. Tried them all and uninstalled. It may be my weird guitar just plays well with Amplitube and Ignite. It's a Carvin Bolt. I like to use Ownhammer IR's with Nadir and use Amplitube for the amps. The cabinet room does work nice with some of the newer cabs though. Funnily enough, my favorite Marshall in Amplitube is the JH Gold. Also, using on of the Kush Omegas or a preamp plugin before Amplitube turns out the best for me. I'm always going for strange Zappa tones though, so it's super subjective with me. I do love Peaveys ACT concept though and can't wait to see what they do with it in the future.

 

what preamp plug do you add before Amplitube?

 

Of what strange Zappa tones do you speak? Do you play an SG? Did you know his angry wife is selling off parts of his practice studio? So many questions marks! Did you know that one of my nicknames for my daughter is Frank or sometimes Frankie in the hope that some of his greatness might rub off on her, and that her favorite song when she was four years old was Bobby Brown? Didn't think so.

 

LVC Preamped is good, or the Waves NLS or Slate VCC stuff. Really any channel strip with a saturation factor, takes that fizz out of the mix for me.

Strange Zappa tones with my guitar tone knob almost completely down, really need to punch it through then. Or mybe some Ships Ahoy type step filter stuff. Gail died this past year though, but I read somewhere that Lady Gaga of all people has bought his old mansion (which was sold in order to finance paying for the upkeep and restoration of those thousands of reels in the vaults.) Really though, tone wise, Zappa was the man, constantly fiddling and changing it. It's not the guitar you use, it's how you use it with your fingers.

 

Last edited: Dec 2, 2016

I'm extremely disappointed.

The first thing that bothered me with the new amps is: what the hell were IKM thinking when they created those presets? most of them sound absolutely terrible and have an ungodly amount of room sound for some reason.

And once you strip away all the shit they put in the presets, the amps barely sound different than the old amps, despite the new technology IKM are trying to hype. It still has that same terrible digital fizz and unnatural clipping that I thought ampsim manufacturers got over years ago. In fact I kept checking I'm not using the old Fender collection, made sure that there was no flaw in the chain... but the only flaw was the program.

Most of the models are useless and sound exactly the same. I don't know why they keep simulating so many models instead of just putting the effort in a good one.

This is definitely a step back from the Classic British series.

 

dude TH3 Rules...

everybody talking about how Amplitube is amazing while for me it sounds shit, same goes for Bias, everybody is talking about how good it is while for me IT SHIT still a bit better than amplitube, but still shit, and the plugins takes forever to load, and the GUI is laggy as HELL and it is bad maybe it kinda looks good and i say maybe, but it is sill as fuck, one day i heard about TH3 downloaded the demo and i was FUCKING BLOWN AWAY how that shit sounds SO FREAKING GOOD, and it is by far the best amp sim i ever heard, totally sounds analog, not digital, and it just works, it wont get fucked up if you play with the presets like other amp sims and it is perfect! nothing beats it...

TH3 for the president :D

 

I haven`t tried the new ones, but I use IK for more than 10 Yrs. now, and it was always the sim of my choice.

Back than, Native Instruments 3x Combo was the only contender, but amplitube was way better
- than came G.Rig vs aplitube 2 ... again, when it came to cleans and low gain sounds, amplitube 2 ruled
- after that Revalver tryed with some cool Hendrix takes, and it was not bad for the era , but amplitube presented the Hendrix collection, and again ruled over the rest
- Revalver 2-3-4 followed, with successors of G.rig (2-3-4-5...), the other one with the scrolling inrterface that I don`t recall the name now, but Amplitube sonded always better to me, and it was not very heavy on system resources.

The only contender to amplitube is actually BIAS that sounds better (IMO)... pity that the BIAS interface looks lika a web page collage... How much it take to code a good 3D interface in C, instead of that shitty png puzzle ???

Anyway, as for today, BIAS sounds better, but Amplitube has a more pleasant GUI...
So, for shear live playing and browsing sounds and amps, Amplitube rocks for me (I always manage to get a tone that appeals to me)
for recording and fine tuning dynamics, BIAS is my choice. (I like the detailed control of all the stages of the amp, so, it is easier to define a brake up point of the amp ... when I nail a good tone in BIAS, it sounds better than Amplitube, but it takes a lot longer to tune it)

(Here I compared just sounds that are of my interest, like Blues, Rock, Funk, Jazz...)

EDIT:
TH3 was the shitty one, with the scrolling interface, I couldn`t remember the name...
MrLyannMusic just mentioned it in the post before mine

 

@MrLyannMusic I haven't tried TH3, but TH2 didn't impress me too much. Have you tried S-gear? it lately became my go-to for realistic amp sound.

 

i actually downloaded TH2 from the sister site, after i found out TH3 wasn't Fully liberated, and TH2 was "eeh" "hm ok" Big difference between TH2 & TH3,

i saw on a random video about TH3 that the first version had some Serious Preset problems, but it was fixed on a later version of the software...

i really enjoy playing with TH3 give it a try specially on Metal (clean distorted and i mean that the distortion is clean and you can clearly hear the the notes not like other sims)... if i had money or a way to buy stuff online that would be my first buy ever.

check other stuff too probably the only sim worth having nowadays...

 

early prep for adulthood?

 

Face it guys... IK sucks lol!!

 

nothing ever sounded better than amp plugins by UAD2; after i have purchased a few of them, i have trashed, uninstalled & deleted all the rest.. (IK, Merc, Kuassa, PositiveGrid, Overloud , Guitar Rig..) just ditched ALL of them. you really have to hear it to believe.

the only thing that could beat UAD2 is a real amp & decent mic setup

 

Just letting her absorb genious. Zappa was intersperced with Bach and others.

 

absorbing "genious" good..

absorbing the lyrics .... not so sure..


My car is fast, my teeth is shiney
I tell all the girls they can kiss my heinie
Here I am at a famous school
I'm dressin' sharp 'n' I'm actin' cool
I got a cheerleader here wants to help with my paper
Let her do all the work 'n' maybe later I'll rape her

Women's Liberation
Came creepin' across the nation
I tell you people I was not ready
When I fucked this dyke by the name of Freddie
She made a little speech then,
Aw, she tried to make me say "when"
She had my balls in a vice, but she left the dick
I guess it's still hooked on, but now it shoots too quick

Oh God I am the American dream
But now I smell like Vaseline
An' I'm a miserable sonofabitch
Am I a boy or a lady...I don't know which

So I went out 'n' bought me a leisure suit
I jingle my change, but I'm still kinda cute
Got a job doin' radio promo
An' none of the jocks can even tell I'm a homo
Eventually me 'n' a friend
Sorta drifted along into S&M
I can take about an hour on the tower of power
'Long as I gets a little golden shower

Oh God I am the American dream
With a spindle up my butt till it makes me scream
An' I'll do anything to get ahead
I lay awake nights sayin', "Thank you, Fred!"
Oh God, oh God, I'm so fantastic!...

etc.. etc..

Well I guess it beats Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood !

 

Hahaha, there's nothing I love more than a thread with both Zappa and Amplitube in. On the Amplitube end, I haven't tried the new Fenders yet, but I only get the fizziness from the early amp models. Most of the custom shop amps are just fine to me. I can hear and feel subtle differences, but maybe it's just me. I've tried the demo of TH3 that comes with Sonar and I like that too, but I don't like it as much as Amplitube. I do think that the presets have too much room sound on them, but I tend to try to barely use that anyways. Like I said, guitar is so subjective that it's really of no matter. Using a real amp and mic will never be beaten though.

 

@Montgent what is your preference for real amps.. tube yes...of course.. but beyond that I am having a devil
of a time deciding... Fender Twin..? some flavor of Marshall? Vox ? Is it a total waste to spend on lower end gear?
And how to choose a cab? does it really matter? I like a clean sound .. to a nice distortion.. but not a "metal-ly" sound...

I have been researching, and checking used vs. new for some time.. but still can't come to a conclusion about what
to invest the cash into...

 

LOL...She had no idea at all about what the lyrics meant, but for whatever reason just fell in love with the song. She was like three years old and everybody besides myself was speaking Swiss German, and it was just after she began to test the waters of her English power of speech. I think we achieved the drawing that she made me do of her description of what Bobby Brown looked like...brown skin and wearing a stripped shirt and pants that she made me hang up on her wall opposite her bed. She also dug City Of Tiny Lights, and since Adrian Belew is playing a Fender Strat, here is the video that we used to watch...it kind of fits into the thread.

 

A Fender Twin is always a safe bet for anything that isn't metal. I like my Carvin tube amp, but I have a cheapo Crate VTX200S that I like just as much, and it's solid state. A good rule of thumb when buying an amp is that just because something is vintage and classic doesn't mean that all of it's components are in functional shape.