Guitar FX VST's

[videosonix]

Anyone know any good Guitar FX VST's? In particular, a good distortion/overdrive?
I've been playing around with this using the Blue Cat Audio VSTs, and they are fine for clean sounds like Flanger and Chorus. However, every time I try to use a distortion plug-in it seems to have a lot of background noise. Is this normal?

[pandabot]

Everyone seems to like S-Gear, especially if you're using a real guitar

[Stringer]

I like Tonelib GFX better than S-Gear. It has a noise reduction effect that really works and the amp models and effects are superb. And its cheaper than S-Gear.

[OldTascam]

Originally Posted by videosonix

Anyone know any good Guitar FX VST's? In particular, a good distortion/overdrive?
I've been playing around with this using the Blue Cat Audio VSTs, and they are fine for clean sounds like Flanger and Chorus. However, every time I try to use a distortion plug-in it seems to have a lot of background noise. Is this normal?

I've been using Blue Cat Axiom and haven't noticed unusual noise with distortion effects.

[g4greg]

You don't know what can of worms you've just opened.

Everyone is going to recommend you the ampsim they use and like.

Ampsims are like tight jeans.. what fits you perfectly will be an awful nightmare for the one you recommended it to.

Anyhow. I'm a huge Kuassa fan. And you can try their stuff for free. The Kuassa matchlock is second to none for realistic clean/crunch/breakup sounds. I love it to death. The kuassa creme is a metal monster. It's still my go-to after all those years for anything hi-gain.

IMHO, I'd much rather have a nice ampsim, and then slap my preferred effects like verb, delay or chorus afterwards than have an all in one that has.. OK but not stellar sounds.

Both of them have a noise gate, but you might want to check your guitar's ground loop/pickups if it gets really noisy. And good cable.

[ashcat_lt]

I have a few that I hacked together in JS:

https://stash.reaper.fm/35460/LT_tilt Distortion with one "knob" that goes from horrible to disgusting

https://stash.reaper.fm/35430/LT_Undertaken Octave down + Up fuzz with too many sliders

https://stash.reaper.fm/22614/639 Fairly extreme distortion intended for bass guitar

https://stash.reaper.fm/22613/NSFW Very tame compared to the rest. A boost/treble boost/overdrive

https://stash.reaper.fm/19926/infern...d%20dire%20rat A modded Rat pedal that goes to like 12 (that's 1 more than 11!)

https://stash.reaper.fm/22615/lt%20pedal%20delay Mostly meant to give you infinite repeats the way Boss pedals do. This version is tempo synced only and all the times are actually half as long as it says and it is otherwise just kinda wonky, but it can work really well and sounds pretty good

[zeekat]

Originally Posted by videosonix

However, every time I try to use a distortion plug-in it seems to have a lot of background noise. Is this normal?

What guitar do you have? Regular single coils with a lot of distortion will be noisy, it's a guitar thing not a plugin thing.

[videosonix]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll check these out.

My guitar has dual coil humbuckers and its noise free on stuff like chorus and reverb. It's only when I kick in the distortion that all the hiss appears. Goes down if I reduce the gain and tone on the amp sim, but then it sounds rubbish.

I thought that working in the digital VST realm I would be able to get away from all that annoying noise!

[grinder]

Can you divulge more about Blue Cat Axiom OLDTASCAM?
I have been looking at that for a while.
Sounds pretty good and I consider myself a reasonable judge.


Grinder

[zeekat]

Originally Posted by videosonix

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll check these out.

My guitar has dual coil humbuckers and its noise free on stuff like chorus and reverb. It's only when I kick in the distortion that all the hiss appears. Goes down if I reduce the gain and tone on the amp sim, but then it sounds rubbish.

I thought that working in the digital VST realm I would be able to get away from all that annoying noise!

Ok with humbuckers shouldn't be that bad, altough depending on the amount of gain might still be kinda noisy. Can you upload some example? And post which exact effect chain is used? Hope it's with cab sim enabled, as without it any distortion sounds like peeing on a sheet metal.

[martmix]

voxengo boogex not bad (free)

[jiff 41]

Our own Mr Elwood does a nice one;


http://b.link/mrelwood_AmpEra_0v95b

[Calaban]

Distortion will increase the background noise. That’s just a reality. But you should be able to get it under control.

Check to see if you’re running a cab sim of some kind. Without a cab sim it will sound like an angry hornet’s nest.

But if that’s not the problem, it may be the way your guitar is interacting with your computer setup. Try moving left or right, just turning in either direction might do it. If that fails move back a bit. Just find the position where your guitar makes the least noise.

If none of the above works, try a different distortion plugin. If it still happens, maybe you have some internal guitar wiring problem

After that I’m out of ideas. Good luck!

[OldTascam]

Originally Posted by grinder

Can you divulge more about Blue Cat Axiom OLDTASCAM?
I have been looking at that for a while.
Sounds pretty good and I consider myself a reasonable judge.

I have only been using it for less than a month, but I like it so much I pretty quickly bought the full version. Basically, it just works. There are a lot of (mostly) usable presets and lots of tweakability beyond that. And if you want to use an effect that isn't already in Axiom, you can simply insert a third party VST into its pre or post amp effects rack.

I had tried several freebies. And I tried Tonelib GFX. I wanted to like it, but the quasi-noise gate thing in front of each preset killed tone for me, and removing it generally made everything too noisy.

Here's something (just a stupid little cover) I've been working on recently. Still have some mixing to do...sounds great on my monitors and in my car...not so great on laptop speakers at the moment...but you can hear one of the Axiom presets in the solo that starts at about 1:07. It's my LP Studio plugged through my UR22 MK II interface. I didn't have to clean up anything noise-wise. No fuss, no muss. What I especially like is that I easily found a preset that had exactly the sound I wanted for this.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7zd8h333ir...20-20.wav?dl=0

[Val Diaz]

Black Rooster has a nice Orange amp sim if you dig that sound. Free to download. I use Amplitube, they also have a free version that has a decent Marshall type along with some OD/distortion pedals.

[Magicbuss]

OP correct me if I'm wrong but you are looking for OVERDRIVE PEDAL vst's and not AMP sims, right?

There have been many suggestions for amp sims but none for overdrive pedal FX.

Here are some to checkout. BTW, These are all free.

Tube screamers
Mercuriall Tubes Creamer
Ingite TS-999 and Tyrant screamer
TSE Audio 808

Others
Mercuriall Greed Smasher (Boogie Grid Smasher)
Mercuriall MT-A (Boss Metal Zone)
Ignite ProFET
TSE R47 (Rat)
TSE BOD (Tech21 Bass Driver)
Distorque Audio Plus Distortion (MXR Distortion +)
AXP SoftDrive GV (marshall Guv'nor)
AXP Charbooster (Tube boost pedal)
AXP Softamp GT (Tech 21 Sansamp)
AXP SoftAmp PSA (Tech21 PSA-1 rackmount distortion)
Heptode Deep Crunch and Heavy Tone

Fuzz
Distorque Audio RangeBastard (awesome Treble Booster)
Distorque Audio Face Bender (Fuzz face & Tone Bender Fuzz)
Audio Damage FuzzPlus 3

[jbraner]

A great Tube Screamer plugin.
https://cytomic.com/scream

It's not free- but it's cheap - and you can customise it

[videosonix]

Hmmm. I had been running the amp sim without a cabinet emulation, thinking that wouldn't be a problem. Sounds like that's wrong judging from what you guys are saying. Think I also have a bit of a grounding problem on my guitar. May have to check out the wiring.

[Bevosss]

Originally Posted by videosonix

Hmmm. I had been running the amp sim without a cabinet emulation, thinking that wouldn't be a problem. Sounds like that's wrong judging from what you guys are saying. Think I also have a bit of a grounding problem on my guitar. May have to check out the wiring.

That would be fizzy as hell with any gain applied, like plugging a guitar preamp in direct with no speaker emulation. I think Trent Reznor uses that as an over the top effect sometimes, but generally it doesn't sound like an amp.

[Naji]

Maybe check out Thermionik amps and Recabinet cabs by Kazrog especially for those who are more into metal music
I suppose the plugins are for free now, because I hear nothing about these plugins any more and no emails ls in my inbox anymore, too and no updates!!!

Well plugins for guitar, for me it is the same as with most Vsti plugins, they are just not as good as hardware.
That is why I prefer BOSS pedals and real amps: an old Marshall, AER amp and of course myCry Baby wah here and then.
After recording with hardware amp, you can not change the amp, some might say.
Why should I, when the sound is good, it is good, and this way you won't loos too much time by tweaking around your plugins and lookung for the right amp with a choice of 25 different amps and hundreds of settings.
I also think guitars with single coil like Fender Tele or Strat do not work so well with plugins, with humbucker it might be better, but maybe I am wrong!?

[Bevosss]

Originally Posted by Naji

Well plugins for guitar, for me it is the same as with most Vsti plugins, they are just not as good as hardware.

The Kemper profiles are identical to the recording chain used, you can't pick the difference...even Nebula could clone an amp's tone exactly when I tried that a few years back (minus any gain/distortion at the time, may have evolved since)

Just a matter of time before VSTs catch up, I'm surprised Kemper hasn't done one but I assume maybe they want to keep selling their high priced hardware.

[kstn]

+1 to Mercurial - they made great free tubescreamer and chorus
+1 to AXP amps - he also made great fender frontman vst - AXP FM25

[Naji]

My expierience with Nebula is it's not stable and heavy on cpu, but everyone the way he likes it best of course.
I prefer Rolang GT or BOSS ME stuff, although it is digital, I wonder why Roland does not develop plugins. And BOSS pedals.

[Bevosss]

Originally Posted by Naji

My expierience with Nebula is it's not stable and heavy on cpu, but everyone the way he likes it best of course.
I prefer Rolang GT or BOSS ME stuff, although it is digital, I wonder why Roland does not develop plugins. And BOSS pedals.

Nebula was always a bit clunky GUI-wise and heavy on the processor, although modern cpus/gpus should handle it better. But they couldn't clone the gain, you ended up with a clean version of your amp.

I've used Boss/Roland since the 80s, they almost all still work...damn near indestructable.

Line 6 is pretty up with them now in fx quality. But neither have amp models that compare to a well made Kemper profile, it's a real amp vs a simulation.

Once Kemper or other gets that sound happening in the box and editable/swappable without sending a DI out to reamp it, that's it for me.

[michaeltonight]

+1 for Cytomic the Scream. And the REAPER-included "JS Distortion/Fuzz". I like it quite a bit. I added it to a client's guitar sound and they went bazonkers for the tone, without knowing it was a free plugin.

I'm a big Kuassa Matchlock/Caliburn fan, and also love the Thermionik Amps and FX, even though I don't use their super hi gain models much.

Thermionik includes several pedals that are nice.

[Cue Zephyr]

If you want something heavier:
TSE X50 v1.0.2 (v2+ is $69) https://freevstplugins.net/tse-x50/

Ignite Amps Emissary:
http://www.igniteamps.com/#emissary

You can use a tube screamer emulation like those that have been mentioined earlier in this thread to tighten the low end before hitting the amp sim.

Here's some cabinet IRs you can load into ReaVerb impulse loader: https://bedroomproducersblog.com/201...lse-responses/

[grinder]

Thanks for the run down Oldtascam.

Grinder

[ivansc]

I bought the Plug `n Play VIP bundle for something like $10 or $15 on sale, thinking I wouldnt use much of it but you got a lot of the money. Surprising how usable a lot of the plugins are.

[enroe]

Originally Posted by martmix

voxengo boogex not bad (free)

Yes - and now there is version 3: boogex 3 with a graphic interface
for sculpting the tone.