I find that I like to send to the sim only to those parts of the guitar output that I want it to mess with.
In practice, that means that after I get my guitar DI to a track, I usually use some kind of filter (invariably ReaEQ) before I hit the sim (usually pod farm, but I just discovered the lovely LePou stuff.)
In a way, that pre-sim ReaEQ works tonally as a second pickup stage of the guitar, before it hits the "amp." This gives the sim something nicer to work with. That's what I would define as the basic "instrument" that gets recorded.
Then on the other side, post-sim, it's another stage altogether. The first thing to touch it is another ReaEQ, to filter and shape the sim's output. That filter functions in part as a grill-to-mic gap between the "raw sim" out and what a virtual mic actually captures.
The way I see it, it's only at roughly this point that I actually have my "sound," what in a traditional recording scenario corresponds to what ACTUALLY GOT TRACKED. What the "mic" captured. (Or the cat dragged in.)
One thing I've started doing that I like is not having any fx on the track I'm recording (other than maybe a ReaEQ), then send that to one or more secondary "tracks" which have fx galore, automation, etc, but no audio of its own (receive-only "channels".) IOW, separating the track from its fx chain(s). I don't know how common that is. But there seems to be more control and freedom that way.
To some extent, the actual guitar *track* gets reduced to data, for downline plugins to process, same as a MIDI track is to its VSTi's.
God I love digital audio!
Last edited by Marah Mag; 11-23-2010 at 04:36 AM.
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