A nice story from the studio today. A friend of mine, and a much better guitarist as myself, came in to scoff at the new Cubase 6. He’s a Logic user and let’s everyone know it.
He left with a slightly different story to tell, and one about the new amp simulator plug. We compared the two side by side, OK mine is on a PC and his logic amp simulator is on his laptop, but I can’t imagine that makes that much of a difference. The difference is however like night and day. The logic amps all sound similar, or perhaps they are using two or three models and some EQ. The speakers are flat compared with Cubase’s. I also notice an uncomfortable ‘high frequency’ in the logic.
The effects are down-right gawdy in the logic, but the Cubase one’s hold there own and at least in the presets sound very musical. I need to experiment more. The main difference is in the gui, steinberg have got it right having all the controls in the plug. Logic you have to switch windows, between effects and the amps - That gets right on your nerves.
Musically Steinberg’s amp settings are all somehow real - and very playable, that’s where the better guitarist thing comes in. My friend was apparently having fun with it.
Steinberg, I have waited a long time to be able to enjoy this moment. Thank-you!
Cubase 1 : Logic 0
byebye
Nathan
ps. How about some funkier effects?
pps. Steinberg, the amp sim looks good but did it have to be So effing ing Big.
Impressive! I haven’t tried them yet, but I really do like Logic’s amp sims - better than Guitar Rig 4’s, and maybe not as much as Amplitube 2’s. Now I can’t wait to try them!
It is big , but you can make the GUI smaller using the arrow at the top centre of the case, Or you can switch to a generic editor by using the pull down menu top right side (once in that editor there is a similar button which brings back the amphead interface).
I am not a guitarist, but I have been finding the amp rack really sweet for further processing recorded guitar sounds.
I didn’t open the VST Amp Rack for quite while, maybe because as a fussy guitarist for over 35 years I’ve accumulated good instruments and gear so didn’t feel the need. The previous amp simulator didn’t do anything you couldn’t live without.
I was pleasantly surprised. This thing sounds great - and the layout is an absolute joy to work with. I can see this getting some use.
Curteye - I plugged my 175 in (for me that’s a test of an amp in the physical domain), and it was a joy. I would never have bothered doing that with the old Amp Sim. Trying it with a couple of semi hollows too, a 335 and a 345, the amps responded pretty well as you would expect for each instrument. This is warmer, cleaner tones we’re talking about rather than rock tones. They didn’t obscure the timbre of the instument the way some sims do.
I don’t think I’m going to be selling any amps just yet, but this certainly looks at first glance like a very useful addition to Cubase and I’ll be tinkering with it more.
I’m so excited about the new amp sims! I’m just wondering how the CPU is compared to, say, Guitar Rig 4, which I can’t run as many instances as I’d like for a proper, big mix.
I realize the sound is going to be rather subjective, so I won’t worry about that now.
Didn’t surf the presets much either, but it was so easy to dial in tones there was no real need.
As you say sound is subjective, but it’s certainly a vast improvement on Amp Simulator and any of the whole troupe of modelling boxes that live in my store room
I spent a half an hour after installing last evening messing with the Amp rack… It does sound good. GR4 may have some more ecclectic patches, but for musicality, this new one is great. I’ve not checked out logic, but my friends with Digital Performer 7 will be crying, as the amp sim there bites.
Is it possible that something in your signal chain is doing SRC on the fly? That’s an easy way to get aliasing artifacts- i.e., if your ADC is feeding 48k into the DAW running at 44.1K (or vice versa) because you don’t have any filtering going between the sample rates.
In my painfully unhumble opinion:
NI GuitarRig < VST AmpRack < Amplitube
For comparing VST AmpRack to Amplitube, a dedicated specialized and if you so wish standalone AmpSim, what the hell did I expect? I expected that result but VST Amp Rack is closer than I’d thought … also it’s not really close!
For GuitarRig … NI makes lots of cool stuff. GR is not among them. It’s harsh, hollow, unresponsive and basically just a waste of time. It was a part of Komplete. Otherwise I would never touch it.
VST Amp Rack is a cool little CPU saver, and what comes out is fun to play with!
suggest you try with Fender Twin / Deluxe type amp simulations… guitar rig has fender twin sim and vst amp rack has twin and deluxe blackface i think… not near my cubase right now.
you can’t get the jazz sound you want right away… you gotta do the old school guitarist tweaking the amp to get the sound thing just like with any real amp
----- weird I found Amplitube harsh, brittle and tinny as opposed to Guitar Rig…
Guitar Rig is amazing… you have to spend time tweaking things just as you would any real guitar rig… don’t expect to get the sound you want with the basic presets. NI aren’t mind readers and haven’t made their presets to match what your favorite guitar sounds
GR amps / fx are made to emulate the amps and fx…not your preferences of guitar sound or mine or anyone else.
it’s up to YOU to do the work to get it where you want it…trust me the sounds are there
Awrite … since it’s free!
I’ll take it for a more serious test drive.
But the default presets sucks? There is no TONE to begin with?
VST AmpRack seems to have more potential?
Ah yes sorry, I missed that it had its own name. Out of interest, this morning I compared the Amp Rack with the old amp simulator, and I guess you have to ignore the cabinets, because they are worlds apart, but I found the existing Amp Simulator still had a good range of sounds that I couldn’t exactly match with the Amp Rack. The new one seems to offer a smoother touch response. But maybe it’s just something new and shiny. And maybe I should do some more work and stop playing around pretending to be a much better guitarist than I actually am…
I gave the Amp Rack a test drive earlier this week and I was very impressed.
There’s only one thing that puzzles me: why no spring reverb?
There is a reverb pedal in the effects, but spring isn’t one of the algoritms.
Considering that all the old amps had a spring reverb (if they had reverb), I find it strange that it’s missing in an otherwise wonderful plugin.
That’s such a good idea. I never thought about it. Steinberg where’s the twang?
And it should make that noise when you move the window to fast!!!
Just the thought of that sound takes me back to a track by The Tubes, I think on the ‘Completion Backwards Principle’ album - ‘I don’t want to wait anymore.’ They don’t have bands like that anymore.
Out of interest, this morning I compared the Amp Rack with the old amp simulator, and I guess you have to ignore the cabinets, because they are worlds apart, but I found the existing Amp Simulator still had a good range of sounds that I couldn’t exactly match with the Amp Rack. The new one seems to offer a smoother touch response. But maybe it’s just something new and shiny.