Help crit guitar amp plugin I'm developing!

[chrisj]

Some of you know that I've been working for a long time on trying to get a decent guitar cabinet model in plugin form, so I could record stompboxes direct.

I've tried a bunch of stuff, and some of it was half good (quote "hell of a turd polisher" unquote) but didn't really set the world on fire.

Well, something just happened. I was working on a plugin to mimic multiple tubes in series, in order to do a guitar preamp plug to go with my cabinet plugs. I stuck some of them on, and sure enough they clanged honked and tweeted each in their own way, sounding sort of like busted radios. I was way unthrilled, when I'd just put a lot of work into a guitar pre that had some nice things going on with it.

So I threw out the turd polishers- and GOT CRAZY with experimentation for a bit- and I hit on something.

I want to know if this is as big a deal as I think it might be. I'm not sure but I think I might have accidentally nailed the DI guitar thing, mostly through getting the preamp part right, but also through some completely strange filtering tricks that nobody else is silly enough to do.

What you're going to hear is DI guitar through an API pre's hi-Z input, a Strat copy with Lindy Fralins. Then the distortion hits and that is the plugin. At the end it alternates between the DI clip and a low-gain version of the plugin, repeatedly, showing the clean sound. There's no amp or speaker of any kind and also no reverb, ambience, or other processing. The whole thing takes about the CPU of DUY Tape, probably less when I get it refined, way the hell less than my convolution plugs. There is no convolution of any kind, and no latency at all, not even one sample. The sound can be altered from what you hear by having the bass filled out, and having the treble softened in a way that's very similar to going to another speaker, but there's no actual speaker modeling at all, it's just the particular 'voice' of this guitar amp plugin.

http://www.mediafire.com/?4zjzogviyv5

How does this sit for those of you with experience recording real amps with real mics into real boards in real studios? I know I got a huge, huge jump in bigness and realness, but I need to know if there's anything else to work on before it hits the streets. I want to make the best guitar amp plugin in the world. I don't care about mimicking lots of different other amps, I want a specific unique voice that is MUSICALLY EFFECTIVE and I think this is a step in the right direction and might be a lot of the way there...

[Paul Hammond]

Originally Posted by chrisj

How does this sit for those of you with experience recording real amps with real mics into real boards in real studios? I know I got a huge, huge jump in bigness and realness, but I need to know if there's anything else to work on before it hits the streets. I want to make the best guitar amp plugin in the world. I don't care about mimicking lots of different other amps, I want a specific unique voice that is MUSICALLY EFFECTIVE and I think this is a step in the right direction and might be a lot of the way there...

Chris,

Having extensive experience in both recording high quality amps of all makes and utilizing just about every amp modeling software out there, I would say you are on the right track. I do think both real amps and plugins are entirely different though and should be used appropriately depending on the situation. The distortion to my ears doesn't sound like tube distortion but reminds me of the amp modeling in Apple's Garage Band program - which I like a lot for certain things. With eq and the proper delays/ambiance the sound of your plugin would work in certain tracks I work on. I still mainly use amp model plugins for demos and the real deal
for professional releases, however, sometimes amp models get out on the professional releases because they work within the track in an immediate sort of way. I also tend to record any DI tracks that are going to be modeled through a Radial DI into an API 312 or ALTEC discrete preamp to a vintage Blue Stripe 1176, old Allison Research Gain Brains or occasionally a Neve 2254 or RCA BA6A - barely touching the threshold of compression. Any of these combos helps my end result dramatically. If I am in a pinch I will use a 70's mxr dynacomp in front of the DI. So the basic sound of your plugin seems to be usable to me. Best of luck with your work.

[chrisj]

Yes, this is very stripped down- there are a lot of things like compression, EQ, verb that would help this in a mix, I'm trying to get a totally raw material that works like a proper amp track would work.

Several people have said they could use a less bright top-end: I was trying to demonstrate the opposite of a dull definitionless sound like I hear with some amp sims. This feedback is going to affect the final product's voicing. Are there any situations where you would NEED more brightness or is it the same thing, you'd always be looking for less edge on the top (assuming we're talking about normal guitar tracks and not some sort of special FX)?

[chrisj]

Here is another file where I'm pushing things in the direction people wanted. There's more low-end (bigtime 'speaker cabinet swing' will have to come from something else though, this is a small combo plug) and three different takes on where the high-end could be. Assume that each of these will be within the range you can get with the treble control (including the first, edgier example). Which of these three settings seems the most right? Is the third take too dull?

http://www.mediafire.com/?4fwf1sdlzv1

[chrisj]

More work- this took a sharp right turn in the direction of more convincing speaker sounds, with much more rejection of the fizzy ratty stuff.

http://www.mediafire.com/?emxs9eem0tx

[AlphaDingo]

My 2 cents: Much better. Less fizzy, not as soft sounding compared to the first example. Distortion plugs all seem to be to soft and mushy sounding compared to real amps and pedals.

[chrisj]

Maybe you'll like today's work then- I keep fighting between my own tastes which are much like yours, and other guys who hate it sounding bright and ratty. The brighter parts of this one are pushing towards that 'loud little tube amp' quality I wanted so much, but I think it's avoiding the ratty sound a bit.

In this case the highs are being spread out in a particular way and I'm also changing my 'tube aura' stuff so it engages more when the tone is cranked up and mellows out as you turn the tone down. Also, I'm compensating for a tendency for the bass to get more overdriven as the tone is turned down- so this is turning into a proper little teeny tube combo amp in behavior. This is with the tone control changing about. Same ol' lame guitar weedle. (with all this work on plugins I have no time to practice! So much for rockstar dreams )

http://www.mediafire.com/?av0n0peh9nd

[AlphaDingo]

Sounds good. Still a bit more of the fizzies than I like but better than the previous example.