The combination of the STOMP boxes from GTR3 plus the
amp modelling from Digi's Eleven is the best right now (IMHO)l.

jeff

Try! I'm super curious. My wife got me Amplitube2 w/ Jimi Hendrix ed for my birthday and I wanted to complete it with a bass sim. Amplitube's SVX or Wave's GTR3?. I found the SVX sounds great to my ears, but with Waves you get an SVT sim plus a bunch of others. Later I'll install the demo and report my findings but I'd like to hear other people's opinions as well.

Mark

I had tested out Amplitube's SVX, but felt that Waves GTRS bass sounds where better. Or at least I liked them better. It was a definite bonus that it came with all the other emus too. hartke , Mesa, countryman DI

LOL and its a GTR sim too.. . I don't think the GTR tone is that great but I use them for scratch tracking with bands.

But have used the bass stuff in mixes.

Well... I did a bunch of A/B comparisons today. I have no idea what the fuss is about (GTR3). I felt the Bass sims were good, but the guitar sims were pale in comparison to the Amplitube 2 sims. Not even close in my opinion. But I guess that's why there's demos. So, while I did dig the bass sims it's just not worth it to me as I already have Amplitube 2 and I can get SVX for $219. Even if I didn't already have Amplitube 2, I wouldn't get the Waves GTR3. The guitar amp models just didn't sound or feel good to me. I just hit uninstall.

Mark

I find Guitar Rig from NI much better than GTR3 or Amplitube.

Agreed! But I don't see much fuss. It's usually 3rd or 4th among the other gtr sim reviews I see. I liked GR2 and Amplitube2 better.

I have amplitube 2 and Guitar Rig 3 and must say I prefer GTR3....at first listen I wasn't overwhelmed, but it's been a slow grower. To me more of the tone of the guitar seems to get through.

For me, the fact that the Waves GTR3 Guitar Tool Rack allows stereo setup with two different amps and fx without straining the CPU makes it the most appealing.

I spent all Saturday night comparing demos of some of the guitar sims with a Custom Les Paul into a Daking DI into ProTools LE on a Duo 2x2GHz Intel mac. My primary focus was the sound of the amp sims dry, so I usually turned off all fx. My non-professional impressions were:

Waves GTR3 Software Edition ($380): without the special interface, and only humbuckers, I thought the sims generally sounded pale in mono. Maybe 1/3 of the amps were immediately useable for pop/rock. Using the Guitar Tool Rack in stereo was much closer to the "real thing" than anything else I tried. It was conservative on CPU resources, and the fx were generally better than most other packages. On their own, these sims do not sound as good to me as miking a real cab. In the mix, combined with real guitars, for variety, and for some special circumstances, I do think these are usable in commercial pop/rock (and other) productions. I'll keep my amps, but I'll buy this for variety and flexibility. I found that panning the stereo track narrow still preserved space and sounded much more "real" than the mono tracks.

NI Guitar Rig 3 ($339): I thought had the best sims in mono. If it could do stereo amps, it would be my pick. But it's already hard on CPU; it was the only one that required at least 256 sample buffer. Maybe 2/3 of the dry sounds seemed usable, which is pretty good. All of these sims suffered most with clean sounds, imo, because you can hear the attack of the note, or lack thereof, better than with distorted sounds. I liked that the tuner was integrated into the main window with everything else so I could easily check tuning. It was strange that they had presets mainly for Strat and LP Bridge pickup. This caused the middle position to sound muddy on the presets. Fortunately, tweeking usually solved the problem and cleared up the mud.

Digidesign Eleven LE ($395): I wanted to like this because it was the lightest on CPU and consumed the least screen space when open. I didn't care that it has no fx--I use others anyway. But I thought only maybe 1/4 of the sounds were useable, most struck me as fairly generic, almost like an old POD (I haven't used the newer PODs).

Amplitube LE 1.0x: I don't think it's fair to compare this scaled-down, old version of the software. I thought the sounds were on par maybe with Digi's Eleven.

Marshall JVM410 direct output: all of the sims sounded a little more alive to me than using this output, which I would hope to be the case. This output is okay for quickies, but not for primary tracks on a finished production, imo.

Marshall JVM410>4x12 cab w/Celestion Greenbacks>Royer R121>Daking: Again, I think the attack of the note immediately distinguishes reality from fantasy. The real thing is something like 10% more lively to me--which is a huge compliment to the plugins.

If you put a PSP Vintage Warmer plug on top of them (the "Heavy Rhythm Guitar" preset with the low end rolled down works well), I think any of these programs are useable. I wouldn't want to use any of them without VW, or something like it--maybe the Cranesong Phoenix TDM plugin, or several other alternatives. I used to like only Amp Farm, and even that was just for fun. Since I've sold my TDM system, I plan to replace it with the Waves GTR3.

Any objections?

Only that you used Amplitube 1 instead of 2. Is there a demo of 2 you could throw into the mix? People seem to think it's a big improvement.

Oh, thanks for the head's up on that. I will try it and report back at some point. You can't beat the 2-for-1 price right now, esp. for crossgrades.

Another Option:

Vintage Amp Room by Softube

Isn't it possible to run GTR3 in stereo by applying a splitter tool, putting in a different amp in path A and path B and than panning those out? Or am I missing something?

He's talking about GuitarRig 3, but yes GR3 can be split out into stereo just as you've described.

Whoa, it must be too early in the morning where I am. I absolutely meant to write GR3 not GTR3 my bad...

This sounds promising. But how does one apply a 'splitter tool' (what's a splitter tool?), and where are these A & B paths? Neither Guitar Rig 3 or PT references mention it. Is the splitter something that happens within the program, or does this require multiple instances of the plug-in?

Sure, it's easy. You select "components" and than go to the "tools" menu second from the right on the list of attributes (amps, dist, mod, etc) and than drop in a "split" tool and it gives you two stereo paths that can have discrete effects and feature a seperate pan control.

Thank you! That really does put NI GR3 over GTR3 for me. But now it's a tie between GR3 and Amplitube 2. To me, NI sounds maybe a little warmer, or 'softer' in general, and Amplitube is a little brighter, harder, and ready for the average pop/rock mix. However, I've found it easier to brighten guitars up than to make them warmer (do other's disagree about this?--I'm no expert.) OTOH, Amplitube is less demanding on the CPU, the interface seems slightly more intuitive, convenient, even fun, and there's a nice crossgrade offer now. Both are reasonable anyway (no doubt due to the apparent fierce competition in this area), so I might get both.

BTW, I did like Vintage Amp Room. It's limited, and I thought a little thin sounding, but the amps have real character, less generic than any of the others I've tried. Something for those who 'have everything'.

Hey guys, a little late in the discussion, just kinda wanted to throw my 2 cents in. Amplitube, Guitar Rig, and SVX are all pretty good. I mean, I would personally say that all three would get the job done...in a crunch. Don't get me started with the Line 6 system, as the drivers are wack and the DI unit that comes with it is really just not up to par (which is why we sell it in Accessories instead of Pro Audio over here at Guitar Center).

There are a couple of things that really stick out for me when it comes to Waves GTR. One of those things is first and foremost, the sounds its capable of creating, and the quality of the PRS DI and even the Ground controller. Everything is of a strong build w/good drivers and is very easy to use (as long as you're not a complete moron). Also, I am very fond of the layout, and its really fantastic that Waves now has signed artists who use GTR in the field that build presets for the software just like the rest of their plugins.

The part about GTR that really gets me going is plain and simple - the routing options. Now, what prompts me to say this is that my band was recently working on our album, had all the guitars tracked in DI form in ProTools 7.4, and we set up the GTR amps and everything sounded pretty good. But it wasn't quite enough. So, we tried just a standard reamp situation, which was ok, but still, it didnt quite give me the true fullness we needed for the album. So heres what we did -

we used the full GTR3 processing, while simultaneously sending the DI out of my interface into one of the amps (which happened to be a Roland Jazz Chorus JC120 ) through two separate channels. We set up a 6 stomp processor on one of the output DI channels, and left the other one clean (we did this to automate distortion etc). That amp is in stereo, so one input gave me the GTR effect pedals, and the other input took the analog pedals that we normally use. Here is where the setup gets cool - it then came to mind that, hey, we should beef up the guitar just a little bit before we record it - SSL Channel on the Effect Loop insert on the JC120 (yes, levels were adjusted as to not blow up the amp, and yes, the channels were completely independent of one another). So, now we have three tones, an analog, and a digital, both being processed by an SSL through the amp... and dont forget the instance of GTR3 running at the same time. So here go four mics (sm57/md421 per stereo channel on the cabinet), and also we took the stereo Direct Line Outs from the JC120 (which is post guitar preamp), recorded that back into ProTools and on each of those channels we set up a separate Cabinet model insert, which gives us...8 fantastic sounding guitar tones to blend together to get something amazing.

Now tell me that you can do that with any of the other software amp modelers. fuuck

Yes, personal experience and opinon, I just haven't given enough props to Waves yet for giving us such an awesome product that can be simple enough to run live at concerts, but complex and editable enough to use in a studio to create upwards of 8 different (performance identical) recordings while doing a single pass-through the song. Me Gusta.

I'm going to be getting the GRT3 soon. I'll post some thoughts on how I think it compares to Roland's VG99. Any other VG99/GTR3 users out there?

i have to say, none of these sims to me sounds as good as the fractal, of course there is a big price diff, but we are talking about amp sims so....

just my 2 cents

Have you tried the Roland VG99? I dare anyone to hear the difference between that and a real amp! Of course, I WILL say that the Roland sounds best through a SPEAKER, ie good monitor (I use a powered Mackie SRM) and NOT an amp. Tube amps **** up the sound to much. Recording direct is GREAT for all the clean sounds, models (acoustics etc) and some of the dirty sounds.

I heard the GTR3 at Logic/Waves demo in LA and it sounded AMAZING! BUT, it was through a house speakers WITH subs, so course it was in essence "amped". Both the Roland VG99 and the GTR3 responded amazingly well to the guitar's volume....of course the Roland's sound comes from it's proprietary synth pickup, which of course has reached a wonderful of near perfection!

2¢:

as far as plugs go Digi 11 is up there IMO. have that, GTR3 and Fractal. embarrassed to say i haven't had the time fire up the Fractal, but i find some sounds on 11 more realistic than GTR3.

the GTR3 pedals are cool and very usable.

i actually checked out the VG99 and the POD X3 Pro etc, the Fractal for me blew them both away for the sounds. i liked alot of the cool stuff the VG99 could do, very interesting, but adding the pickup was not going to happen for me.

the fractal is actually far and away the best sounds direct i have heard from anything, amp sim plugs, or hardware.

I'm still yet to be impressed by any of these amp modeler plugins. Sure you can get decent clean tones with these tools and maybe some nice effects, but if you're looking for good hi-gain tones, you'd better get a real amp and mic the bastard up.

A lot of people won't. That's why it's important to have ONE guitar totally dedicated to your synth stuff. I have TWO actually (one is being made)..... shit, you need 10 guitars MINIMUM as it is! THAT's my story and I'm sticking to it!!!

I'd say for the most part you're right. Even the Roland could use a little more "life" in the high dept. But, in the mid gain, yeah, you've got some love there!

I MUST try the GTR3!!!!!!!!!! The website and video give me a MHO every time I watch!!!

its 2011, im sure someone knows if the waves interface beats your typical di box/preamp combo. also debating on buying pod xt or something line 6 related. any thoughts? ****ing tones man