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Commisaur
Metal newbie

Joined: Thu Apr 04, 2013 1:16 am
Posts: 269
PostPosted: Tue Apr 13, 2021 10:55 am 
 

For the recording of my new album, I plan on plugging my guitar directly into my Scarlett Solo USB interface and then I plan on applying amp simulators to my recorded guitar

Any recommendations on what Guitar Amp simulators I could buy that are good for metal?

In particular I want an amp simulator that will make the guitars in my new album sound really perfect without any muddy murkiness.

Here is a link to what I have written so far for my new album that I want to recording using an amp simulator (the guitars in the following tracks are MIDI guitars by the way):

https://www.reverbnation.com/2957282/album/272605

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Prigione Eterna
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:43 pm
Posts: 161
PostPosted: Tue Apr 13, 2021 11:45 am 
 

The biggest names are IK Multimedia's Amplitube and NI Guitar Rig. They have free versions, too which, albeit limited, are fully functional.
There are other good brands, but these are the most renowned.
They also have genre-specific stuff, something like this: https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/metal/

If you want to try something completely free, lots of good ones around, but these are probably the best:
https://www.igniteamps.com/#software
https://www.osirisguitar.com/lepou-the-king-of-free-amp-sims/
for amp sims,
https://www.tseaudio.com/software/tse808
for overdrive/distortion stompboxes,
https://www.igniteamps.com/#nadir
as a cab simulator (comes with its own IRs, but there are lots of free cab IRs around, some specifically suited for metal, just do a quick search and you'll likely find more than you need).
Most of these emulate real models.

While I don't use software amp sims myself, I've tried pretty much all of these over the years and I think unless you have something ultra-specific in mind (like, I don't know, Celtic Frost's tone, which is hard to replicate with software), you should be able to achieve a good tone.

If, like myself, you hate to tweak and want something as straightforward as possible, there is very foolproof stuff like this:
https://plugins4free.com/plugin/1884/
They also have paid ones which are good for metal: https://www.audio-assault.com/plugins.php

Hope that was useful. Good luck with the album, sounds promising from the MIDI tracks.

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~Guest 881392
Metal newbie

Joined: Sat May 23, 2020 4:06 pm
Posts: 84
PostPosted: Wed Apr 14, 2021 6:48 am 
 

Over the years I've tried a lot of stuff, and I have to say that so far the best company has been Neural DSP by far. I have Guitar Rig, BIAS, lots of free stuff, etc but I come back to Neural again and again and again. Their GUI is easy to use and their tones are really quite good. Check out their website to find out what might suit you the best, and try them out.

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Commisaur
Metal newbie

Joined: Thu Apr 04, 2013 1:16 am
Posts: 269
PostPosted: Wed Apr 14, 2021 12:49 pm 
 

Thanks for the recommendations!

I also wanted to add that I’m willing to pay good money for an amp simulator. $700+ is my budget

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Lord Diabolus
Metal newbie

Joined: Fri Jul 26, 2019 6:22 am
Posts: 31
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Wed Apr 14, 2021 1:01 pm 
 

Commisaur wrote:
Thanks for the recommendations!

I also wanted to add that I’m willing to pay good money for an amp simulator. $700+ is my budget


Personally, I feel for most amp simulators you are paying for air and I haven't seen much groundbreaking in the realm of simulations

Here is a sound example I achieved with a budget of exactly $0 few days ago, searching for that "Mesa" sound. The only piece of gear I used was early 90s ZOOM 9150 tube preamp I've owned for probably good 15 years.

https://vocaroo.com/1dmU7Qw1llMZ

with some "modern" metal riffing:
https://vocaroo.com/163a8FNZo12M

Zoom 9150 unit with 12AX7 tube (this preamp unit costs around $100 bucks) with the highest possible gain setting driven through Ignite Amps TPA-1 power amp simulator (free) driven through four different carefully selected Mesa 4x12 with Celestion V30 speakers IRs (free Zeta IR-pack) through NadIR (free)

No EQ or anything, just the raw sound. Honestly, it sounds better than some of the Mesa simulations on youtube and some of the expensive Mesa simulations I've tried of my friend's, but this is just my opinion.

Basically it's not full simulation because the preamp does have some tube gain. But the point is that you can get very good tones for metal with a very low budget. It is better to put that money on play somewhere else than some extensive AMP simulation libraries, even something like TH-U is a huge letdown in my opinion and I've played with my share with amp sims. The best results have been through trial and error and using a very different "approach" to dialing that tone. Good luck


Last edited by Lord Diabolus on Wed Apr 14, 2021 3:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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interstellar_medium
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Mar 12, 2020 9:41 am
Posts: 926
Location: Russia
PostPosted: Wed Apr 14, 2021 1:29 pm 
 

For one-click stuff, I really like the presets on this free one:
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/extrem ... yrzanowski

Its built-in gating has been super wonky in my experience, though.

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jebuscrust9
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Tue May 19, 2020 5:16 pm
Posts: 2
Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Apr 16, 2021 9:47 am 
 

My favorite amp sim is amped roots, to my ears the punk preset sounds really good. I think learning just a little bit about eqing could help get rid of "muddy murkiness", like the sneap c4 setting helps get rid of a lot of mud especially when palm-muting and having a good high & low pass can do a lot to tighten things up.

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Jasper92
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2012 10:39 am
Posts: 877
Location: Netherlands
PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:10 am 
 

Seconding NeuralDSP. In my opinion one of, if not the best amp sim company right now. I own the Fortin Cali sim and the Plini suite (selling that last one). And demoed the new Soldano SLO and that is going to be my next purchase with them.
Also invest in some good IR's. I think those are more important than the amp sim and I think cab IR's have improved the most in recent years. That's where the improvement in feel and sounds come from in my opinion. If you want something old school, the Audiority VS8100 also is a favorite of mine.
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hakarl
Metel fraek

Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 1:41 pm
Posts: 8816
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Thu Apr 29, 2021 5:38 am 
 

I'm pretty new to amp sims and all that, and when I decided that I need something like that, I basically just stumbled upon some good stuff and decided that it sounds great.

I have ML Audio and York Audio cab IRs, which I found to sound really good with an actual amp, such as the Marshall DSL20 head I have at home. The ML Audio Mars Silver cab IR is a really good and versatile IR that does metal extremely well, but sounds very rich and balanced and lends itself excellently to clean tones and effects. York Audio has the usual V30 stuff, but they also have a model of an old Marshall cab with some interesting Celestion speakers, MRSH M20, which I thought sounded really interesting, especially with a bright guitar (strat).

I wanted a JCM800 amp sim, and I found a pretty good comparison of numerous different sims for that amp, compared with the actual real thing (well, it's the new mini version, but close enough). Here's the comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAZFLYvKrIM

Some of the amp sims there are free, such as the Poulin Hybrit. It sounded very close to the real thing, in my opinion. Only the sustained chords behave a bit oddly, but it's not really noticeable if you aren't actively comparing the two. Sounds great, basically, and it's free. I'm really impressed with the amount of punch and clarity this thing has going on at the same time.

Poulin has others too. The Engl model sounded pretty stuffy. They got the gain structure right in theory, but it sounds really overboard. Might be good in a mix, because it nails that weird thing that some Engls have going on in the mids. The Recto one sounded really good to me, and then there are some more modern amps that I don't recognise that also sounded great.
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~Guest 1195014
Metal newbie

Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 9:18 pm
Posts: 227
PostPosted: Fri Apr 30, 2021 9:00 pm 
 

Two I have tried and can second the recommendations with some remarks:
- The Poulin pack is free and really good for being free. There's a few different amps in there so I recommend playing around with each of them to see which one you like best. You will need a cab simulator with them, and the only free one I have found that seems straightforward to use is the Mercurial cab sim which does have some interesting options.
- As for paid options, I do agree Neural DSP stuff is really good, and the big plus is that you can have a free trial on all of their stuff which is great, as there are really a lot of options. I would really highlight the cab part again, though - at first I just didn't like the sound that much, and I realised the default cab/mic simulation settings were the main problem, so make sure to play around with those as well.

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Headless420
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Sep 27, 2006 5:22 pm
Posts: 431
Location: United States of America
PostPosted: Tue Aug 17, 2021 4:25 pm 
 

if you can afford 700 bucks just save up for a used Axe FX 2.

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thrashinbatman
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 6:31 pm
Posts: 1534
PostPosted: Wed Aug 18, 2021 1:42 pm 
 

For a while, the free stuff was the way to go. Commercial amp sims have finally surpassed that stuff. My recommendation is either Brainworx, Neural DSP, or STL Tones. All of them make fantastic tools, the choice just comes down to which amps you want sims of.

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slammingbrutality
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Tue Jun 22, 2021 3:34 am
Posts: 13
Location: United States
PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 2022 1:26 pm 
 

While there aren’t nearly as many options for customization as Helix or Amplitube, the best high gain tone I’ve ever achieved (and the one I use for recording) is using the TSE X50II amp sim. The best 5150 clone ever.

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