Ok, basically I am not a newbie in using ampsims.
I’ve been using them for about 8 years, if not more, so one could say I know my way around.
The problem is, I was never able to get the tone that I was happy with - not for recording anyways.
It is all fine when I’m just jamming, but when I want to record something more seriously, I just can’t get a decent tone out of it.
There’s always something wrong, too fizzy, too boomy, too much gain, too weak tone, too honky, too scooped.
I’ve been told to use equalisers, use less gain, but I did all that.
Let’s break it down, shall we?
1. "Low pas at 6kHz, you don’t need more highs"
Low passing at 6kHz makes the tone very dark and dull, moving the lowpass higher gives “fingernails on a blackboard” sound that I am not too fond of.
2. "Use the IRs we gave you"
I’ve tried plenty of impulse responses - I liked Guitarhacks’ the most - but others told me to use specific ones they gave me. So I did, and the tone was… weird. Not what I was used to. Dark, sometimes honky, sometimes extremely fizzy - or all of the above, I don’t know how is that possible.
3. "Use less gain"
I did that already. In fact I was clipping before, so now I set up my interface to -12dB so my signal does not clip anymore.
Maybe I should turn it down more? Amped Roots still is a high gain monster if I set input and gain knobs in the plugin to minimum.
4. It sounds low quality to me
Yeah, that. I’ve seen some great sounding demos and playthroughs of digital ampsims. Some fantastic sounding covers using them. Even some original songs.
Glenn Fricker from Spectre Sound Studios did some comparisons between ampsims and real things, and the difference was negligible at best.
So I tried exact same ampsims with exact same settings on them, the same IR’s - the results are somewhat lacking.
I am attaching an example below, together with some samples of my playing through several ampsims.
This Glenn’s vid is about ML Amped Roots - the first plugin you will hear in my sample (caution - the language used in this video may be somewhat indecent):
And here are my samples:
ML Amped Roots - all 12 o’clock with stock IR - same as used by Glenn in the video above, except I turned the gain significantly - to 9 o’clock
Ignite Emissary - same as Roots, their own IRs loaded
NaLex Crunchman - emulates Fredman BE-100, loaded with Guitarhacks’ IRs - gain around 6/10, bass 6, middle 4, treble 7, presence 6, power amp 2
Audio Assault Sigma - all 12 o’clock except gain which is kept at 4/10 (around 9:30 o’clock) with their own IR
No post processing, no EQs other than what was already placed on impulse loader.
Simple riff from one of Ahlys’ songs I’ve been transcribing lately, two tracks panned left and right.
Notice how quiet they all are - I didn’t lower the volumes, that’s how all my tracks in Reaper sound like, except for if I import one into session.
Here’s another sample I recorded a few days ago (drums included):
This one is obviously better sounding, but still far from “studio” quality, isn’t it?
I am asking you to have a listen and see if there is anything about my tone I could improve, but most important if this is the way I set up my amps or if this is due to some other issue that needs to be solved.
