I Think I've Finally Found a Good Guitar VST

Bezmotivnik · 06-17-2010, 01:22 AM

After hearing a million crap ones, for YEARS, I finally found the VST guitar sound I was always looking for. On the recommendation of Craig Anderton, I tried the Copper-Top Vox in Amplitube 3, which he found very impressive. It's exactly what I've been looking for for years for a both-pickups, alt.pop Telecaster sound. I think this is the best, most convincingly professional digital simulation I've ever heard from hardware or software, period. Amazing presence and authentic-sounding pro ambiance -- no mud, "rich" sound. I'm with Anderton on this one.

The room and microphone tweaks are easy to bag and though a bit dense, the controls are reasonably intuitive.

Rather to my surprise, a lot of the stomp simulations are useful as well.

EvilDragon · 06-17-2010, 01:24 AM

You did check out ABG Shred, didn't you?

Bezmotivnik · 06-17-2010, 01:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

You did check out ABG Shred, didn't you?

Yes, I did.

EvilDragon · 06-17-2010, 01:45 AM

Just threw that suggestion, as Ken is very particularly fond of Vox, so he did his own brilliant emu.

ThatZenState · 06-17-2010, 02:40 AM

Yeah, I found Amplitube 3 very impressive too. Good variety, nice layout.

JohnnyMcFly · 06-17-2010, 06:00 AM

HAHA Thanks Dragon..Yes I am particular of VOX, and I have to agree with Bezmotivnik and Craig, they did a brilliant job on that Copper top. I also like the one in Revalver...Ours in 1.06 is lacking the smooth brightness of the others, but, 1.5x we addressed that I hope. Just thought I'd mention it but I am also partial to Hiwatt over Marshall, and Gibson over Fender in amps..My favorite amp I ever owned is a toss up between a Gibson GA77 and an old Traynor, well Actually I like Garnets a lot too..I'm gonna pseudo model one of them soon. Go figure I played Metal all my life and love those non-high gain amps? I guess one gets bored of distortion and looks for character outside of it..

KM

audioguytodd · 06-17-2010, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyMcFly

HAHA Thanks Dragon..Yes I am particular of VOX, and I have to agree with Bezmotivnik and Craig, they did a brilliant job on that Copper top. I also like the one in Revalver...Ours in 1.06 is lacking the smooth brightness of the others, but, 1.5x we addressed that I hope. Just thought I'd mention it but I am also partial to Hiwatt over Marshall, and Gibson over Fender in amps..My favorite amp I ever owned is a toss up between a Gibson GA77 and an old Traynor, well Actually I like Garnets a lot too..I'm gonna pseudo model one of them soon. Go figure I played Metal all my life and love those non-high gain amps? I guess one gets bored of distortion and looks for character outside of it..

KM

Man, I miss my old Traynor... nice.

Bezmotivnik · 06-17-2010, 03:29 PM

In general, the problem with guitar modeling is that whoever signs off on the presets is scared to death to have any subtlety in them, like they're trying to impress fourteen-year-olds over the Saturday afternoon din at Guitar Center, so it's all just useless garbage.

It's like every "clean" model is buried under a ton of corny slapback and reverb, etc.

I'm an outcomes-oriented guy. I hate and despise screwing around with VSTs. I hate and despise even being in the studio except to make executive decisions or to perform and leave before my tinnitus starts driving me crazy. Hell is process. My mindset is more of a producer's than an engineer's, in other words.

Being stuck doing my own engineering, I get fatigued to immobility in less than an hour. I don't want to have to dig my way out from under a load of bad, poorly documented preset to hear a sound. I don't want to struggle with an opaque UI, like the awful hardware modelers that have different levels of deep editing that are only accessible by semi-documented combinations of button-pushing.

I want presets, but I want them to reflect the sophisticated standards of high-budget commercial production, not some stoner kid's bedroom.

I especially don't want to have to unmuddy some thick, sluggish sound that is probably buried under an excess of distortion and effects.

For me, as an inexpert and unwilling engineer, it's a lot harder to bring up presence and brilliance out of mud than to attenuate a rare excess of presence, which the mix seems to absorb anyway.

timlloyd · 06-17-2010, 04:23 PM

^^^
It sounds like you might find the Softube amp sims very interesting. They have no effects at all and defy my tube-snobbery by actually sounding really good!

clickonce · 06-17-2010, 04:30 PM

The did a great job on the vox.. definitely my favorite. I've never owned a vox and am only comparing it to other vsts (of which I've tried tons). So I'm not sure how "accurate" the model is.. but I like what it does regardless.

Will have to check out the shred vst mentioned above if it's similar.

Bezmotivnik · 06-17-2010, 05:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by timlloyd

^^^
It sounds like you might find the Softube amp sims very interesting.

Yeah, I've tried 'em. Sub-adequate compared to A3. They just don't have the clarity and presence.

plgrmsprgrs · 06-17-2010, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyMcFly

but, 1.5x we addressed that I hope

What model of yours is the Vox?

JohnnyMcFly · 06-17-2010, 09:09 PM

plgrmsprgrs..
In Shred 1.5x It works a little differently than what is expected...There is a selection menu that allows you to select a head style. So you select the head, in this case it would be the Honken. From there you have 4 styles. These styles are loosely based on time periods. So Modern High Gain, Vintage, Classic, and Super Classic.

In modern High Gain, there really is no VOX equivalent, However, because it has that Vox Tonestack and options, it would be closest to their Night Train. Or perhaps their AC100/50

Vintage is an AC15
Classic is an AC30
Super Classic is the AC30 with Top drive

So, its one head with 4 modes of operation...

All these heads in Shred however, are ISH heads, Meaning..Vox-ish..We may take ideas from the layouts, but we are not a company that tries to model to 100% accuracy..We simply try and get the sound as close as we can. In some cases we may start by modeling the circuit relatively accurately in terms of components, then we'll inject something original into it. One example of this may be "Flabby" distortion, you'll never hear one of our heads do that, At least not any more..

Even if the real world head has a flabby distortion, I'll remove it..I want to play an amp not a freaking BIG Muff..So I never allow that type of distortion to get released...

Clickonce, Honken 1.06 will not be like the IK copper top, they did a lot more in depth Vox modeling than we did in 1.06. Now Shred 1.5x...Thats a whole different story...Man I can't wait to release it..

KM

edit: Here's a post that exlplains a bit further how we're doing this and sheds some light on the whole head styling process
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewto...409&highlight=

plgrmsprgrs · 06-18-2010, 04:39 AM

Thanks for the explanation Ken! I'll have to try it out.

Kyle

timlloyd · 06-20-2010, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bezmotivnik

Yeah, I've tried 'em. Sub-adequate compared to A3. They just don't have the clarity and presence.

Interesting.................I thought the exact opposite; although I have no experience with Amplitube 3. I'll stick with the Softubes

Bezmotivnik · 06-22-2010, 11:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by timlloyd

Interesting.................I thought the exact opposite; although I have no experience with Amplitube 3.

That would explain it.

Try A3 and you'll see what I mean. VAR only matches it in price.

Zero_G · 07-01-2010, 02:24 AM

Bezmotivnik, did you try Guitar Rig 4? I'm currently using it in my mixes and it sounds great, especially for the simulation of tube-like distortion like Marshall and Mesa-Boogie...

EvilDragon · 07-01-2010, 05:35 AM

I pretty much like Softube amps, both Vintage and Metal Amp Room. Very easy to use, and they clean up nicely - also fairly nice and easy CPU consumption, which I can't say for Amplitube 3.

sightlessness · 07-01-2010, 06:15 PM

For rythm tones, I love VANDAL. The Hard Rock preset rocks my world. It has a rectifier preset there. Killer. AT3 is nice, but eats lots of CPU, no matter what. The others for me don't cut it (ED, you are the greatest, but you are not a guitar player...

)