Big "Real Amp" Sound

I love using Guitar Rig because of the versatility, but I have yet to find a way to use it that matches the energy and true sound of an actual amplifier. I've gotten close, but it's still not the same.

I have Fender Deluxe Stratocaster that I run in to a Line 6 distortion modeler and then a Boss DD-20 and then a Peavey Classic 50. It sounds awesome. There's so much warmth and fullness, energy and responsiveness that comes out of that signal chain.

When I record I plug the Strat straight in to an RME Fireface UCX. I usually start with the Tweedman and use the control room cabinet. It sounds good, but flat, thin, and electronic. There's definitely a big difference between that and my amp. I know it's not the same circuitry that gives me the sound on the amp, but is there anything I can add to the signal chain that will get me closer? I was thinking of getting a compressor or a channel strip and plugging in to that before the Fireface.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. It's so frustrating to have the perfect tone but not be able to capture it in a recording.

 

I think I know what you mean, for some reason the amps in Guitar Rig have too limited headroom which means the guitar start to saturate and get compressed too easily no matter how little gain you use. What I do is insert any of the Lepou plugins or the Ignite Amps TPa-1 before and use Guitar Rig only for Cabinet simulation and effects, this 'trick' makes my tone bigger and more natural if I can say. By the way why don't you use a Mic and record you Guitar straight from your Amp?

 

I also use that trick of using one of the Ignite plugins before Guitar Rig in the signal chain, and it does help somewhat. As far why I don't record the amp directly, I like having the freedom of being able to change just one note if I need to, without the hassle of recreating the amp recording setup. And even when I've tried to mic my amp I still can't accurately capture the fullness and range of the amp. Maybe that's lack of skill on my part. I just wish I could get my recordings to sound as good as my amp.

 

I totally agree with you RedFoxGambit, I to I'm frustrated at the lack of a true valve amp tone when using Guitar Rig. I can never get that lovely warm valve crunch and believe me I've tried, time and time again. Some of the amps just sound plain bad with really harsh highs. I though it was my pick-ups but I've just tried S-Gear 2 (www.scuffhamamps.com) and their amps sound better 'out of the box', with none of the excessive harsh sounding treble; they still don't produce that illusive valve sound, though.

I've come to the conclusion that I will never get the sound I'm looking for using Guitar Rig, which I like by the way, or any other computer based software for that matter. Computer based software gets close, but sadly - no cigar! I have a powerful Intel i7 laptop with 8GB of memory and I use the NI KA6 interface, but no matter what I do I just can't get that 'valve sound' I'm looking for. I think it comes down to a few things, such as, dedicated audio processing power and the actual software being used, I could be wrong? Maybe in the future things will change but I want/need that valve sound now for recording purposes.

I can't gig anymore, so I thought that a software based solution would be that perfect answer for me, so I sold my stuff and bought Guitar Rig as I also wanted to get into home recording, as well. I really wanted Guitar Rig to be the answer but I've come to the conclusion it's not. I'm also annoyed at the lack of updates from the company, it seems as though Guitar Rig has been forgotten about?

Also, why should you have to spend a lot of cash buying hardware to make Guitar Rig sound better! You shouldn't have to do that and I doubt it would work anyway. The only products I've found that get close to reproducing that valve sound we all love is from a dedicated hardware unit; either the Kemper Profiling Amp or the Axe-Fx II XL, both sound fantastic, but are expensive. Because of the outlay, I've spent months looking at reviews and listening to videos. Both units can reproduce that gorgeous warm crunchy valve sound. The Axe-Fx does it by using software modeling, it models every component in a circuit, transistors, capacitors, etc., but it's very laborious and subjective. The Kemper on the other hand 'listens' to an amp and then reproduces the sound automatically using a 'special' profiling algorithm that Christoph Kemper spent over two years writing, which I think, personally, is a better way of reproducing the sound of an amp, let the computer do the work, not some poor computer hack, although saying that I'm very impressed by what they've managed to produce over the years. The Kemper has an A/B audio comparison function, ever wonder why a modeller doesn't have one? Another massive problem with the Axe-Fx is that it's hideously over-priced here in the UK - gobsmackingly over-priced! Plus, their customer service stinks, so they're not getting my hard earned dosh. I really like this guy; Tony McKenzie (www.tonymckenzie.com), he does great, in-depth reviews, and when I say in-depth I mean it, he takes things apart to look at the build quality of the product! Look how Fractal Audio responded to his honest review of the Axe-Fx. Tony McKenzie on Fractal Audio: http://www.tonymckenzie.com/axe-fx-II.htm

Kemper Profiling Rack - Inside And Out Review:


The Kemper is cheaper and gets better with every software release, listen to the new pitch effects they're fantastic.

NAMM 2014:


Type 'Kemper pitch shifter' into YouTube for more demos, the new Formant shift function is nice:


Musikmesse '13: The Ducking Option:


I've got a lot of expensive NI software and hardware but sadly I've given up on Guitar Rig because of the lack of software releases and improvements, I'm going to bite the bullet and buy the Kemper Profiler amp rack version, which also comes with free lifetime OS updates. To get the best out of the Kemper you need professional studio quality profiles; the Amp Factory (www.theampfactory.com) has had some good write-ups so I will probably download a profile bundle from them. The Kemper can actually go beyond what an analogue amp can do, want a Fender Champ cranked to 20, no problem! It also fixed a problem with a Cornford amp where the bass response went flat, check it out in this Andertons video, jump to 40 minutes:



I wish Guitar Rig was a lot better but I get the impression that NI are just happy with the status quo, but I for one I'm not. Maybe they don't have enough people to fix bugs, update or improve Guitar Rig? If that's the case then they really needed to get their finger out and do something about it because I have constant crashes caused by some database bug? If Guitar Rig 6 Pro ever does make an appearance - which is well over due - then it will have to be unbelievably spectacular for me to upgrade, but I doubt it will be. A few added amps and effects is not going to sway me, I'm talking about realistic valve amp sounds.

Well that's my two cents worth and I hope it helps. I wish didn't have to go down the hardware route but it seems like it's my only option to get that gloriously warm crunchy valve sound!

Cheers.

 

I was aware of the Axe FX and hear good things about that but this Kemper profile amp modelling sounds pretty good, the idea of formant shifting is nothing new i think but they say it's been never implemented as fx for guitar players which may be true though I don't think it will take too long for other companies to use that concept. For now I will stick to Guitar Rig, for sure it's not the most realistic Guitar Amp simulator out there but it cost me a fraction of what a Kemper unit cost here in the UK.

 

I agree, Guitar Rig is a great concept, I love using it and it's really good value for the price, although, as we all know, it does have it's limitations sound-wise. The Kemper on the other hand just blows me away by the way it can reproduce that lovely warm crunchy valve amp sound with ease and the on board effects are great; all your favourite amps in one box! It's expensive, the price on average is about £1279 (July 2014) from most stores, but, Studioxchange (http://sxpro.co.uk/kemper-rack?gclid=CLuPsJSE478CFULmwgodngkA-A) are selling it for £1,219 as we speak, which is an excellent deal and you can pay via PayPal and you also have the Kemper 45-day satisfaction guarantee. Thomann are good as well and have a Kemper bundle on offer for £1,250 (http://www.thomann.de/gb/kemper_pro...le_2.htm?sid=a222bc5864e92f436d495c000f6cea73).

I never really wanted to buy another hardware solution after selling all my other gear, plus that brand new hardware has a habit of going out of date very quickly, but, saying that, it looks like my only option. I'm really, really tempted it go for it, it's my birthday next week and I've got some expensive stuff to get rid of on eBay which will cover the cost - so that's a couple of good excuses for being totally frivolous. I'm going to have a good think about it over the weekend, as they say you only live once!

Kemper Factory Presets


Cheers.

 

I'm basically using Guitar Rig as an effects rack for synths... It's really not good as a proper guitar amp compared to other (sometimes even free!) options like TSE, Ignite, LePou, AcmeBarGig... Oh and yeah, S-Gear 2 and Kuassa stuff absolutely rocks!

 

I've just got KOMPLETE 9, so basically that's what I will be using it for, which is a pity as it's main function is to be a guitar rig! It really needs a major upgrade to keep up with the competition. I'm really impressed with S-Gear 2, not many amps but what you get sound very good.

 

Well it's my birthday today - and - I haven't bought the Kemper! I had a good think over the weekend and decided that I can't justify spending nearly 1300 quid on a piece of hardware that will date quickly and could breakdown, usually just after the guarantee runs out! If it was cheaper I might have gone for it, but it would have to be round about half the price. I decided to stay with a software solution and I've nailed it down to two products.

S-GEAR 2 (www.scuffhamamps.com)
I'm really impressed by S-Gear 2 (UK) and I've been using it over the weekend. It's the brainchild of Mike Scuffham, who previously worked for Marshall and developed the well respected JMP-1 preamp. When you load it up straight away the tones out of every amp are fantastic, . Lovely and warm sounding with none of that harsh sounding treble you get with Guitar Rig. Even when you turn the treble and middle down doesn't seem to cure it, you can still hear it? You always have to stick a tube screamer in front to warm things up a bit and get a half decent sound. There are just five amps: The Duke (Robben Ford's tone); The Stealer (Marshall, red Park 75 head); The Jackal (Soldano); The Wayfarer (Fender Deluxe/Twin/Hot-Rod) and the Custom '57 (50s Fender tweed). Also, it's very responsive to playing dynamics and also to different pick-ups. I could create a pre-set in Guitar Rig which I was happy with, then I'd change the pick-up selection and everything turned to mush, just dull and muddy? The FXs are limited though, analogue delay, analogue modulation, algorithmic reverb and cabs (high resolution stereo convolver). But, for what it is, the price isn't too bad.

If you want a good demo of what S-Gear 2 can do, checkout 'My Twangy Guitar' (www.mytwangyguitar.com), he uses it these days, I think he used POD stuff in the past, if I remember correctly. He also does guitar lessons if you're interested, he really knows his stuff. The guy is a great guitar player and knows a thing or two about tone, listen to his orange Chandler Tele, he really gets an exceptional tone out of it. He lives in San Francisco which I visited years ago, just wish I knew about him then, but no YouTube in those days! I'd love to go and watch one of his gigs, rock 'n' roll! I could listen to him all day long, he's got his own YouTube site, as well, check these videos:



This is a good one as well:


Information on his orange, spruce top, hollow bodied, Chandler Tele: .

One thing with S-Gear 2 is that there's a problem when you use the VST in FL Studio. When you first load it up it sounds absolutely terrible and the CPU load is in the red! There's absolutely no information whatsoever in the manual or on the website as to why this is the case, which I found baffling, surely, someone must have had the same problem? It turns out there are, but I had to spend a lot of time searching the internet for a fix. I eventually found the answer; it turns out that the S-Gear convolver is optimised for fixed size buffers, so you have to go into the FL Studio wrapper settings and turn on 'Use fixed length buffers'. FL Studio will then flag-up latency problems and they also say that this option shouldn't have to be used with a properly written plug-in! I was really miffed about this as I also found out that this problem is a few years old, so I complained in a strongly worded email to Scuffham Tech support - which turned out to be Mike Scuffham, oops! Mike apologised and said that it was mentioned on the 'known problems page' but had been "unpublished during our recent website update", ugh, unpublished! I think he needs to change his web design company. Anyway, hopefully that little nugget of information might help someone.

OVERLOUD TH2 (www.overloud.com)
The other guitar amp simulator I'm looking at is TH2 by Overloud (Italy) and from the videos I've heard, didn't sound too bad. If you're into djent then this package would probably be a better choice, but it's a lot more expensive. The juries still out on this one as I haven't properly tested it yet.


CONCLUSIONS SO FAR
The main reason I didn't go for the Kemper was because of the price and because the sounds out of S-Gear 2. It's a very good amp simulator, one of the best I've heard anyway, and one I could probably live with for now. Is geared towards vintage Fender sounds but I just love that tone! If you want to crank things up a bit it does have The Jackal (Soldano). Unless, of course, I go for TH2, who knows! But, at the moment S-Gear 2 is my favourite and for the heavier sounds I'll use amps like the Van51 in Guitar Rig, as they're not too bad. For now, as it stands, I can live with S-Gear 2, plus I'm saving a shed load of money - which is nice

It just gives me hope that one day, just one day, someone will create a really good valve amp simulator that will run on a laptop, here's hoping, the champagne is on ice!

 

Check out Kuassa, too. Vermillion is amazing for that combo amp tone!

Regarding high gain, Wayfarer in S-Gear 2 provides that quite well, since its second channel is actually a Mesa Boogie. It's good to push it further with a stompbox (I recommend TSE808 from TSE).


BTW, S-Gear 2 runs extremely well on my laptop A dualcore is all you need, really.

 

Yep, I've tried loads of VST's in the past some good, some indifferent, it was all a bit hit and miss. Since I've been using Guitar Rig I haven't really bother with them. I remember liking the Le Poulin, Kuassa and the Nick Crow (nickcrowlab.blogspot.co.uk) stuff, to name a few, maybe it's time to go over them again. The really good ones you have to pay for, like Kuassa. If you're into synths, LuSH-101 by D16 Group gets good write-ups, but is very expensive. That was the main reason I splashed out on Guitar Rig, you get a lot for your money in a great package.

OVERLOUD TH2 UPDATE
As for TH2, I didn't get on with it at all, Guitar Rig is a lot better with a slicker UI. I don't know if my NI KA6 audio interface is incompatible with it, but I had to really crank up the input signal just to get some volume out of it. My KA6 works okay with every other amp sim I've tried, but this one, I'm not sure what's wrong, the input signal was nearly on full? Also, the output of most of their presets seemed to be in mono, coming out of the left channel only or the channels were unbalanced. I also wasn't impressed by the sounds it produced or the noise gate, either.

VST's
I'm going to go over all the VST's I've downloaded in the past, and there are a lot to go through. I also want to see if they've been updated and check out if there are any new ones out there, which is going to take ages! I'm also going to mess about in Guitar Rig, yet again! I'll tweak the advanced options on the amps, variac, sag, response and bias, for example, and also the mixer settings in Control Room Pro, I'll also try out different mic settings and combinations. I'll also try out different positions with an EQ component, I quite like the Custom EQ. I've done all this in the past and this is what I find annoying about Guitar Rig; too much tweaking and messing about trying to take away those nasty harsh highs to get a nice warm amp tone, arrrgh! I've got better things to do, like playing the damn guitar. The easiest way is to stick the Skreamer in front of every amp to take the edge off and smooth out the sound, but I don't want to really do that all the time.

I've also got more options running Guitar Rig in FL Studio; I can use the built-in Fruity effects plugins which are excellent. Then there's all my new KOMPLETE 9 stuff to mess about with, such as, Solid Bus Comp, Solid Bus EQ, Solid Bus Dynamics and Transient Master to name a few. Then maybe one day I'll get some warm amp tones I'm really happy with. If I can match the tones from S-Gear I'll be happy and I'll save myself some money. That's why I like S-Gear, it just sound great is soon as you plug in!

Anyway, keep on rockin' in the free world

 

Have you tried Guitar Rig as standalone or another DAW, just saying since plugins sound different loaded in different DAWs because of the use of different audio engines, I'm not saying FL has bad audio engine since I have never tried it but there are some inexpensive DAWs out there that you can try to see if sound quality could be improved further. Anyway I'm glad to know you're getting closer to the sound you're looking for

 

Hi, I usually use Guitar Rig in standalone mode mainly and I've found no discernible difference in audio quality when running in a DAW; I've used Reaper in the past but now use FL Studio. In Guitar Rig the main amps I like to use are the Marshall's and I've noticed that the sound isn't that great. For the last few days I've been tweaking and messing about with Guitar Rig again and I've used different guitars with single coils and humbuckers. The only way I can get a decent sound when using the Marshall presets is to put the Skreamer in front to act as a sort of pre-amp and smooth out the harsh treble. Without the Skreamer you try your best to find a sweet spot but you end up rolling the treble and middle back too far, which then just kills the sound, it sounds muffled and dead. I can't seem to get rid of it using any other means, and I've tried, I've spent hours tweaking the EQ on the amps or in the EQ in Control Room Pro. I've also tried adding an EQ component(s) in different positions in the signal chain, all to no avail. It seems to mainly affect the Marshall's as other high-gain amps aren't as bad, such as, the Van51, High White, Hot Solo+ and Ultrasonic. I've noticed it excess treble on the Twang Reverb as well, which I wasn't really expecting as it has a lot of headroom before it breaks-up.

TWANGY!
I was messing around with the low-gain amps like the Tweedman and the Tweed Delight trying to get a sound like Twangy gets in his YouTube videos. I was quite pleased with the results and I got a half-decent vintage Fender sound. I thought I would do an A/B comparison between S-Gear 2 and Guitar Rig. I used 'Sultan of Tweed' preset which uses the '57 Custom amp against Guitar Rig's Tweed Delight preset. The Tweed Delight, after a bit of tweaking of course, was okay, but sounded a bit muffled, the opposite problem when using the Marshall presets! The '57 Custom sounded so much better, more real and alive with a hint of valve amp warmth and crunch, but obviously not in the same league as Kemper or Axe-Fx. I can't really understand it as Guitar Rig 5 Pro features a subset of Redwirez BIGBox cabinet IR collection, and Redwirez IRs are used by the PRO Convoler in S-Gear 2, as well?

S-GEAR 2
I've been really impressed with S-Gear 2, you can play any style of music with it, from vintage to djent. If you want a nice classic Marshall sound just pick the 'Plexmonster' preset, straight away you got a good sounding amp and the classic Fender sounds are superb. There are tons of options to shape the sound of each amp, as well, too many to mention. Not only do you have the usual bass, middle and treble knobs, but you got things like, OD voicing, SAG, presence frequency selection and a hi-cut filter, to name just a few. The Wayfarer is probably my favourite amp, although all the other amps are great in one way or another. In my opinion 'The Wayfarer' is the best sounding virtual amp simulator I've heard and it can do anything from clean sounds to heavy saturated distortion. It's a bit like the Van51 in Guitar Rig which is a great Peavey EVH 5150/6505 clone; a very impressive amp. But, the Wayfarer is a lot better, you get classic vintage Fender clean sounds, Fender Deluxe and Twin Reverb sounds, along with Fender Hot-Rod sounds (Lead I), and, aggressive modern amp sounds (Lead II), think American high-gain amps. It's an extremely versatile amp sim, if it existed in the real world it would be a classic! What I also like with S-Gear 2 is that the amp controls actually work and they work very well. You're not there for ages tweaking the controls trying to get a good sound, if there's too much treble you can easily control it and the sound doesn't become muffled or muddy.

Mike Scuffham really knows his stuff; he creates his virtual amps by modelling every component in a real valve amp circuit, resistors, capacitors and thermionic valves, for example. It's the same software model Fractal Audio uses to create their amp sounds on the Axe-Fx, it's very laborious but the sounds that are produced are excellent. S-Gear 2, in my opinion, is the best sounding virtual valve amp simulator and FX you can put on a laptop and the best on the market today, but there's still a long way to go to get that thump and that lovely warm crunch that a real amp produces.
Although it's not quite the sound I'm looking for it doesn't disappoint and I can live with it for now. I'd use Guitar Rig for the effects along with KOMPLETE 9 in FL Studio. I've got a few days left with the trial version of S-Gear 2 and I'm very tempted purchase it, it's very impressive, at £75 ($118, August 2014) the price is not that bad. It's a real joy to use, I would recommend it to anyone, especially if you're starting out and don't want to spend a lot a money. I would love to have a Kemper but it's too expensive and the Axe-Fx, well, what can I say, it doesn't even get a look in - the price is astronomical in the UK and the customer service is very bad.

Fingers crossed, one day we might get a realistic virtual "valve" amp on a laptop, how good would that be - the holy grail

 

Hi Guys,
Just an update, I decided to purchase S-Gear 2; it costs £75 (Aug, 2014) and it's an absolute bargain. You can try a fully functional copy for 15-days (www.scuffhamamps.com), give it a go and compare it to Guitar Rig, you will be amazed. I can't begin to explain how good S-Gear 2 is, it blows Guitar Rig out of the water, the sounds are spectacular, and it's not just the amps, the FX are very, very good. It acts and sounds like a proper valve amp, for instance, turning the volume down, prefect, unlike Guitar Rig, crackle, crackle, mmm, It even has that warm valve crunch and thud, as well and I'm just using headphones and a laptop, very impressive. It's also extremely easy to get the sound you want from S-Gear 2, I would have to mess around with Guitar Rig for hours/days trying to get a decent sound, but I could never get rid of that harsh scratchy treble when using some amps, like the Marshalls. The low gain amps are not too bad, but still not as good as the amps in S-Gear 2, I'm afraid.

I was dead-set on buying the Kemper Profiling amp (£1,279 - Aug, 2014) because I missed that 'valve sound' so much. But, after playing though S-Gear 2 for a couple weeks, every day it just impressed me more and more and it became apparent that I could live with this amp simulator, it was that good. And, after reading some very interesting interviews with Mike Scuffham, I realised, and, I can happily report, that software amp modelling will only improve in the future, yipee! I also saved myself £1204 in the process, which is very, very nice It will probably never replace a playing through a real amp, I mean, how do you model the real world feel and thud of playing through a Marshall stack moving all that air? But, I've never heard S-Gear 2 through a decent cab or a PA, so who knows what will happen in the future. It's hard to tell which is the real amp using the A/B function on a Kemper, so, eventually, will S-Gear 2 or the like ever be as good? Watch this space! As it stands, I would have no problem using S-Gear 2 in a live situation, the amp sounds it produces are superb. It's also very, very stable, which, obviously, is extremely important when playing live. I've never had a crash, everything works and it works very well, unlike Guitar Rig I also spoke to Mike Scuffham personally, yes, personally, imagine trying to do that with the guy who runs NI! He's a good egg by the way and extremely passionate about his product. I asked about the future of S-Gear and he said that at the moment he's making the 'Live' view a priority and will be adding more amps of course. I think a Vox AC315/AC30 clone is on the way by all accounts. Mike also usually gives it his own little twist as well, like the 'Bright Contour' control on the Stealer amp, very handy. You can brighten up the amp but it still sounds lovely and warm, no harsh scratchy treble here! Check out the Wayfarer as well, it's mental, I absolutely love it.

If you're interested in how Mike Scuffham goes about modelling a virtual guitar amp, resistors, capacitors and thermionic valves and the like, and how to create a simulation of a design using the electronic circuit simulation tool or SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis) tool read these interviews:
http://soundbytesmag.net/virtual-amps-for-rookies-special-guest-michael-scuffham-from-scuffham-amps
http://www.guitar-muse.com/interview-with-mike-scuffham-of-scuffham-amps-3971

I've had it with Guitar Rig, the lack of updates to fix the crashes and the functionality, and the attitude of the company means I will now use S-Gear as my main amp simulator. I always got the feeling that Guitar Rig was not a priority at NI. Anyone remember the Rig Controller? What's happened to that, and why did it get pulled? Too expensive maybe, couldn't compete with the competition like the Behringer FCB1010 MIDI controller pedal? Also, what's happening about the update, users are totally in the dark over it. New users are really angry when they find out that there's a live view but there's no NI Rig Controller available and there's absolutely no information about a replacement. Will there ever be a replacement, who knows, NI don't care because they haven't bothered to tell their customers.

Things that annoy me when using Guitar Rig; start it up and it doesn't load your last preset properly, but it has the 'Save' button highlighted, but you can't save any changes? The stupid square brackets appear [...] in the preset setting, that means you have to re-load the preset by double clicking on it, why? The component presets don't load up as well. If you change a component setting you can't overwrite the previous setting because the last component preset hasn't automatically loaded up. That means if you have made a lot of changes, you have to save it as something else, then delete the old setting, then rename the setting with the old setting name - what a total rigmarole! Why can't you just overwrite a previous setting? When you left click on a knob and move it, the value should appear, but sometimes it doesn't, obviously another bug, but it's been like that for ages, still no fix. And, don't talk to me about the preset database!

I get none of the strange behaviour of Guitar Rig when using S-Gear, for instance, hover over a control knob and the value setting appears, you don't have to move it an all the controls are clearly labelled. The last preset will load up on start-up; want to save a preset, just click on 'Store' twice, the blue light shows when a change has been made, all simple stuff. You might not have all the bells and whistles that Guitar Rig has but it has enough for most guitarists, I can get any amp sound I want out of it, from ultra clean to djent sounds, if you're in to that. It only has five amps at the moment, more are coming, and it comes with a delay, a chorus/flanger, reverb and cab emulation, but, again they all sound fantastic, and S-Gear is only going to get better in the future.

I was going to keep this brief, but I probably won't be back, who knows. Guitar Rig would need a total re-write from the ground up for me to even look at it again. Personally, I think that there's no way that NI would do that because I don't think NI have enough resources. I'll just use it in my DAW for the FX from now on.

I hope my experience helps anyone looking for a virtual guitar amp package, S-Gear 2 is simple the best I've ever used and I've tried most of them.

Anyway, I'm off for another jam because I love using S-Gear 2 so much, it's a total joy to use - I just can't stop playing

Right, a bit of Jimi I think!

Cheers.

 

I can also share this frustration, GR5 sounds flat and very processed. I'm now testing S-Gear and even though not perfect the valve sound is coming through. Ive just downloaded some guys presets from the forum and, way better than GR5. Truly disappointed with GR now have been using the product since GR3.

I love the mesa sound within S-gear, thats the main sound I look for, intact looking at a duel rectifier now on eBay, you can get good USB mics now so this maybe the next step for me.

 

I'm extremely happy with the new kid on the ampsim block: Kazrog Recabinet 4. IMHO it beats even S-Gear 2 as far as amp emulation is concerned. So much that I'm an early VIP adopter, so I get a whole slew of amp model updates for the next two (or was it three?) years. And the first five amp update packs are looking absolutely terrific:

Marshall:

• Stock JCM 800 (2204)
• Stock Plexi
• Stock JTM45
• Stock 1978 JMP
• Soldano Modded 1979 JMP
• Jose modded 1979 JMP

Fender:

• 1959 Bassman
• Blackface 65 Deluxe Reverb
• Early 60s Champ
• EVH 5150 III

Mesa/Boogie:

• Mark IIB with graphic EQ and loop mod
• Mark IIC+ with graphic EQ
• Mark IV
• Dual channel Dual Rectifier (as opposed to the 3 channel version in the Recabinet 4 factory pack, very different sound)

Others:

• Vox AC30 (vintage UK model with top boost)
• Vox AC30 (vintage UK model without top boost)
• Friedman BE-100
• Soldano SLO-100
• Bogner Uberschall
• Supro 1690T Coronado

Absolutely love it!

 

Hi all, since I was last here I've been using S-Gear 2 exclusively and I'm still absolutely loving it. It really is a joy to use, and, another great plus, is that it has never crashed - the valves/tubes have never even flickered once It's extremely reliable and I would have no problems using S-Gear 2 live with a nice compact MIDI foot controller. And the sounds, well, they're just fantastic - lovely and warm, with that gorgeous valve crunch.

I would never go back to using Guitar Rig; it just sounds horrible to me these days, harsh and clinical. If you have to mess around for hours/days with an amp sim, trying to get a decent sound out of it, then in my opinion it's not fit for purpose. And, I would definitely never play live with it, I just don't trust it - those bugs are still not fixed!

As for Recabinet 4, I will have a good look at it when I get the time. I've just download the VST trial version (periodic white noise) because there's no stand-alone version, which is a bit of a disappointment. I've had a quick listen to the demos and in all honesty I prefer the sounds out of S-Gear 2, but it's early days. And from the demos it's clear that it's aimed at producing your modern high-gain onomatopoeic "jdent" sound. Another thing is that it's a bit pricey as well for my liking, £165 quid ($250) for the Recabinet 4 Suite - VIP 3 Year Subscription! I think they should have come up with a totally new name for this major release. It's a little confusing to call it 'Recabinet 4' because it now features cabs + preamp and power amp sections or 'Thermionik' as they like to called it. Make your audiences' ears bleed with the 'all new' Therm-O-Cab! Sorry, I got a bit carried a way there

At present, S-Gear don't charge for incremental versions or major new releases - God bless Mike Scuffham! Version 2.5 is scheduled to be out in mid-Jan, 2015 and will introduce a free ultra fast and accurate tuner, courtesy of Sonuus UK, whoopee!

Keep on rockin'

 

ill give it a bash its a duel rectifier sound I'm after, can you trial this?

 

Hi, yep, the VST trial version of 'Kazrog Recabinet 4' has periodic white noise included for free!

 

Now own it, First impressions is good but annoying is VST only plus its still not that great, think S-Gear is better. Might just bite the bullet and buy a mic and the duel rectifier.