I'm recording a less than stellar band at the moment - a real nightmare ampwise really. I can't reamp normally as my stuff doesn't get the sound they need which is pretty ballsy metalish..

So I got the 10 day demo of Amplitube. Do people really USE this?!?!? Maybe I'm doing it wrong? I'm using it on the di'd guitar track loaded into Nuendo - tried several presets, eq combinations, stomp boxes and the like and all I can come up with is

Do people really USE this?!?!

I hear people showing love and hate for it both so I expected something I could use but I can't get any good metal sounds from it. They all just sound hollow or something. Haven't ever used something like this before so maybe I'm missing some critical point somewhere?? I hear guitar stuff all the time I know is sampled - but this isn't even coming close so I'm thinking it's something I'm doing. Is there some special combination of voodoo to get a good sound from this?

I've never been a big fan of Amplitube or any plug-in dostortion really.

When i do have to use a plug-in, i find myself going to the old Sansamp PSA-1 quite a bit.

IMHO:

Amplitube - not so good
Rock Amp Legends - awful
Amp Farm - pretty good
Sansamp - also pretty good
Guitar Rig - awful, and way to DSP hungry
Eleven - Very interesting, but i havent heard it enough yet.

It's like any other tool with a lot of tweakable parameters. You have to spend a good bit of time to learn how to get the best results out of it. But you can get pretty good results. Not as good as the real thing, but in the context of a mix it would often be hard to tell the difference in many cases.

I never cared for the Amplitube sounds. Thought it always sounded like a fake amp distortion plug-in. Perhaps I just turned the wrong knobs...

On that note though - I have gotten good results from Eleven and have heard (not personally constructed) good sounds from Waves GTR 3.

I didn't play with it all that long, maybe an hour or so, but I kinda expected I'd have found something by now.

I really just need to break down and buy something with tubes and rectifiers in it! I'm trying reamping now thru the POD II <sigh> into my amp and seeing what I can come up with there at least I can crank it up and move some air and see if that helps. Then there's the Uber Metal pedal laying around here somewhere but I've never gotten a useable sound out of that thing either.

Anyway, thanks guys, I guess I'll ditch and amplitube and carry on as usual.

To make amplitude work for me I have to stay the **** away from the presets and layer sounds....

Eleven is a godsend. What a kickass plugin.

I agree. Eleven sounds great!

Do they have a demo vers? I'm not averse to buying something at all but I wanna see it in action. I don't care if it's crippleware I just wanna get my hands (mouse) on it and drive.

Ah - it's a protools plug. Damn. Oh well - thanks though for the replies.

It's a pro tools plug in

The distortion isn't good on amp sims, IMO. Nothing real or pleasing sounding at all. However, my use with them is like this: Guitar, to good analog guitar preamp for distortion/overdrive, into a Reddi, into your converter, and then bypass the amp sim and only use the cabinet IR. Sounds a hell of alot better and very authenic sounding!

Try Metal Amp Room from Softube
Softube

.

ask brent mason...

.

Brent - Do people use amplitube? Really?

Ok.... try this.

You said you were using Nuendo... this will work if you are using Nuendo 4.

Download the attached zip. Drag the "guitar stuff" folder to your VSTplugins folder (freeware - no cracks, no viruses).

Then... import the track archive with all 3 tracks. I only used the free plug-in for one setting. Everything else is stock nuendo.

I have tons of these, but I am only giving up 3.

Gtr 1 is kind of a pushed clean thing.
Gtr 2 is a marshall... and can be almost any marshal.. try turning off the SD-1 for a clean ac/dc type thing, and try varying the gain on the amp sim for different effects.
Gtr 3 I think is kind like a Soldano.... maybe a Mesa...

Either copy the track settings to your guitar tracks... or just drag the DI onto this track to check it out. I have no idea what kind of music you are working on... so I just gave you a few I use when writing....

EQ to your taste... When in a mix... I have fooled many a great ear with these...

Fractal Audio Axe-Fx

.

luv yer sig...zappa's church of C.A.S.H. was the best (church of american secular humanism)...

.

Thanks for the plugs! I'm using Nuendo2 - had it forever and too cheap to upgrade. I rarely use it and only for things like what I'm doing with these guitars. Will these work with Nuendo2? I'm wanting a Mesa/Soldano type of sound so #3 may work good for me if I can get it to work under N2.

Thanks again!

I liked Amplitube...v1...I mean, it's not an AMP, if that's what you're expecting...but, I had one picky dude comment that out of all of my Egtr tracks he really loved the tone of this ONE--it was an AMplitube custom built BF Fendery sound. Most of my tracks ARE real amps, damnit!

...anyway, point is, you can get decent stuff from it. WavesGTR sounded good. I've done good clips with one of those Line6 GuitarPorts.

None sound as good as a half way decent amp (even at low volume)...but, they were good enough that when my quick demos were inspired enough, I just kept them.

After trying it on guitars (with little success), I use it sometimes on bass and find it quite effective. I only tweak the default preset, it gives a nice "amp feel" and clarity on di bass but the result is more pronounced on synth bass.

In the end, really not a key plugin but in some situation can be useful. For guitars, I stick to my little Marshall, even the di out gives a nice sound.

agreed, sort of.

amplitube- sounds passible with tweaks, but lay out sucks.
Rock amp legends- awfull, dont bother.
Amp Farm-over rated, but still good.
SansAmp-under rated, but still good
Guitar Rig, WHOOPS ASS! sounds good,the lay out is like reason NOT dsp hungry (if in stand alone)
Eleven- sounds good so far, but still pretty new to me.



also, did you try amplitube metal?
AmpliTube Metal

I just got the new Amplitube Fender last week and also bought a SansAmp PSA-1 recently (hardware). Played with both yesterday, and I actually think the Amplitube Fender sounds best of the two (mainly doing Twin Reverb) ...

But maybe most of the others here are talking about heavily distorted amp simulation? I have a feeling the cleaner amps are easier to simulate?

In the real world I also prefer a Twin Reverb and use an overdrive pedal (Fulltone or T-Rex) for distorted sounds. And so far none of the amp plugins can compete with this. But adding the same hardware pedal before a clean plugin amp works great.

Nevertheless of all the amp plugins I have tried Amplitube is the best, but still maybe not good enough ... ?

Agreedheh

i was utterly underwhelmed and pissed off when I wasted a lot of time with this setup on some DI tracks

Neither Amplitube or Sansamp do anything for me. I've gotten Guitar Rig to sound decent and Eleven sounds pretty cool so far (though I haven't really tried to use it on a project yet). But I couldn't rely on any one of these amp modelers in place of a real amp. I have Marshall, Boogie, Fender, and Roland amps in my studio. So I always compare them to the real thing and the plugs just do not compare.

Man, I use Amplitube al the time. I may not be the king of guitar tone, but with my combo set the way I want it, a mic in front and back phase reversed and then adding the Amplitube track to those two mics(this is for heavy guitars), I feel like I never go wrong...ever. I even used to use it by itself too and it was fine, not ideal, but good enough for EP's, more than just demo's at least. Hmm maybe my settings are different than most, but I love what it adds to the mix with everything else. That's just me.

Also, I don't just run it as a plug-in, I always send a line out and then into My Focusrite ISA Channel strip. It's the most full-featured unit I have and I get what I need that way. Once mixed with the mics, it sounds amazing, really.

Another vote for guitar rig here....

I think Amplitube is the best sounding amp modeler I've tried. I also have a Pod XT, and I've tried Guitar Rig, but couldn't get a pleasing sound out of it. Hated the layout as well.

Compared to the Pod XT, I think Amplitube fits better in the mix, sounds less compressed with high gain settings, and stacks better when layering multiple parts.

Like I said there's lotsa love and hate both for it. Personally I deleted it...

I'm a guitar player myself and no matter how hard I tried I could never get a good tone out of any amp sim plug. The feel on the instrument sucks and even worse they are very uninspiring. With a bit of practice and a decent amplifier it's easy to get a good guitar sound, I can't understand why someone who's not an amateur should use a software instead of the real thing.

I've gotten decent tones out of Revalver MKIII. Certainly better than what I've gotten out of Amplitube 2.