Hello guys,
What plugins do you recommend for a totally FREE and high-quality guitar setup, from amp sims to ir loaders and cabinet irs? I've tried many, but can't decide.
Considering cabinet irs, there are tons of free impulses over the net. I'd like to have just a bunch to choose from, instead of being lost searching through a thousand folders and a million files. Which do you recommend as the best quality to get a good and realistic tone (clean, crunch, high-gain)?

Thanks in advance!

 

I use Amplitube and guitar rig. I like Guitar rig the most. This is just me.

 

This is very personal, its like imitate an ID.
I suggest that you invest in you! Develop taste and compare tool is what will make you a special guitarist that can contribute to good music.
The other will be only a bad imitation from idols...

 

Thanks for the replies guys. But I'd like to hear opinions about freeware. Mainly cabinet irs, as there are many. And getting a good result can take ages (even when you have your own personal tone) if you have 100 options to choose from and little idea about the quality/usefullness of the impulses. Amp sims seem easier (the usual suspects like LePou, Ignite, Mercuriall). But when it comes to cabinets, I'd like to begin with a few quality ones (freeware). Thanks anyway.

 

It appears you already have the range of the freeware pretty much covered, LePou LeCab is the one that immediately comes to mind, there are some others out there that are free indie sims, such as simulanalog guitar suite but no cab sims,

If I'm not mistaken ,cab sims pretty much just host the IR's anyway...
of which there are several free dumps of those to be found, as you said

here is a link for some further exploration, but it contains your usual suspects too, so you may have seen this page already

http://bedroomproducersblog.com/201...best-free-guitar-amp-simulator-vstau-plugins/

for myself I like the dry sound I get from my pre already, and just add verb or vst effects
as needed, but I don't do so much distortion so a clean sound is simple to achieve

seems like most of the LePou sims are geared more towards the distorted/metal sound

for free you are pretty much stuck with sifting through the mass of free IRs,
or finding reviews of them

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2015

Red Wire Impulses have a free set of Marshall 1960A IRs that are pretty good.

http://www.redwirez.com/free1960g12m25s.jsp?ref=home

 

This video i find informative about IR loaders

 

1- As a fellow guitarist, I encourage you to actually spend money on it. Buying amp sims is quite cheap nowadays. Right now there is a 50% off deal on Recabinet 4 (50$), which is my favourite ampsim VST. It's about to be upgraded to version 4.1 very soon which will include new features, new amp models, original amp-specific controls, FX, etc. It also has a really nice selection of cabs.

About IRs, my favourite ones are Rosen Digital's. They sound amazing and they are only three impulses per cab, which defeats the need of browsing through endless folders. They are far from free (8$/cab or 35$/6 cab pack), but I just buy a cab per month or so and it doesn't hurt the pocket that much

2 - If you're dead set on free stuff (which you shouldn't considering how cheap the stuff I mentioned is!), then your best bet are LePou and Ignite amps. I have no experience with Ignite, but it's quite loved. LePou is tried and tested stuff that covers a good range of tones. I used them before discovering TSE x50 and Recabinet 4.

For free impulses, look for "sperimental pack", Guitarhacks and Catharsis impulses. Ownhammer also has a couple of free libraries (Marshall 1960 and Bogner Ubercab, both with V30s) which are top notch.

Hope that helped!

 

Last edited: Sep 7, 2015

How about the king app for IRs?
Nebula is THE KILLER, but you must have CUDA resources..
Nebula have a free version too!

 

Can Nebula free load irs not made for Nebula specific format? I've installed the free Nebula a couple of times, but never really got into it, as it ate a good amount of my CPU (yeah, it's a killer in both senses!!)

 

Same experience with nebula. It's so processor hungry.. they all but stipulate using certain video cards with
an onboard processor so this plug can steal more power from them...

if I'm wrong about it...someone edumacate me !

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 8, 2015

For free impulse loaders, my favorite is LeCab from Lepou, but its 32 bit only. Nadir from Ignite Amps is 64 bit, but it only loads two IRs,
LeCab can load 6.

As for impulses, I fckin love Alu's Sperimental Pack. The Framus IR is godly. There's also ASEM Recto, Fender Champ 25 SE 1x12, orange_2_mics.

I don't own Nebula Pro, but I don't know if there are any impulses for Nebula free aside from Ownhammer's.

Amp sims, Shattered Glass has Ace for the sparkly cleans, Roxolder's JCM800 Hot Preamp for crunch, and the current freeware king IMO, Ignite Amps Emissary for heavy palm mutes that feels like bashing your head in to a wall, but awesome.

Pedals are where it gets a bit hard to be purely freeware. There's TSE 808. I still like Mokafix's pedals, they're not really freeware, but AFAIK Mokafix is defunct. Wah, the free ones from Pod Farm and Amplitube are decent.

 

hello jennyblack,
many good suggestions here, depending on the sound you need, one more I like Vadim Taranov amps. heres the old page
https://pvdhp7.wordpress.com/page/3/
many are upto date as of may 2015. and his new blog he switched to
http://pvamps.blogspot.ru/
myself, I like his work better than poulin for metal. and quieter than ignite. but i'll mix n match from any of them for layers

there are several good suggestions for cab sim too. i'll throw in one more.. both of my DAW have cab sims, and IR simulators. cheesy but you should atleast look and see if you have them, for options.

and if your a guitarist I love real amps too no simulator can equal a chest shaking tube amp. or the soul in a vintage combo. the idea is that simulators should sit better in a mix than a real amp. unlike that bass player dude whos rig just crushes everyone

heres the link for freeware that folks have been putting together here at audiosex, gotta promote our own
https://audiosex.pro/threads/starting-out-with-0-aka-the-freeware-directory.14835/

best wishes

 

Taking notes of all suggestions so far, guys! Many thanks!

 

Wow! I had downloaded the old ones from Vadim Taranov some time ago, but the updates look killer! Hope they sound as nice as they look. Downloading!

 

maybe i missed it but TSE has some good free ware

 

Try http://audio-assault.com/downloads.html Grind Machine Free.

You can turn Acoustic Pianos, guitars, and all sorts of stuff into that dinstinctive metal sound.

http://www.voxengo.com/product/boogex/ < FREE guitar EQ, amp, cab, reverb AIO.

 

Last edited: Sep 10, 2015