Beef up guitar with VST?

Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 5:38 pm

So Im brand new to the home recording world. Im playing though an older 12 channel mackie mixer into a tascam US-224 interface. I thought I was golden when someone showed me guitar rig 3 and all of its amp modeling capabilities, but turns out your guitar doesn't sound good when its plugged directly into your computer. I've got a sure SM58 to mic my guitar amp with, which is a Fender Champion with about a 10" speaker. The one pedal I own is some BS Peavy "transtube" multi-effects processor. Basically, I want a good, full guitar sound with what I have. Are there any VST applications that are made to make your guitar sound good while plugging directly into your computer, while not trying to model every cool amp there ever was and half assing it? Also, with my monitor headphones and what I have (I'm using Live), whats a good method for recording a mic'ed guitar while hearing yor guitar with VST effects and the rest of your recordings. THANK YOU.

Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:02 pm

howdy!
hey, i'm not a real big fan of going direct with guitar, but i have a possible solution for micing the amp and getting a full, beefy sound:
record your same rythym parts (or whatever part you want to sound full, ((in my case, all of the choruses))
like 4 seperate times on new tracks. each time you go to record the same part over again, adjust the Eq, maybe the gain, or mic placement a lil bit to get a slightly different sound for the next take.
once you have four tracks of the same part recorded, maybe PAN them as follows: 75R, 75L, 100R, 100L.
it should give you the sweet full, ...fat sound you're looking for.

note: DON'T just copy and paste one track. you'll get better results if you actually record the same part different times.- it's the slight difference in each take that give it the beefy stereo sound.

as far as VSTs....i don't know of any that can be really affective in making your guitar sound way bigger....maybe an exciter plugin?

anyways, hope this helped.

Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:31 pm

Double tracking (or quad) like Jordy described is a great way to get a big sound, if you like the sound of your amp. You could try the line out of your amp, and use guitar rig as a cabinet sim. Or you could use a DI box and plug the balanced output into your recording interface XLR connection, and use Amplitude. Or get a multi effects pedal. Both Alesis and Digi Tech make versatile models, but they don't beat the real thing.

Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:32 am

Hi,
I own all of the major amp sims. I still think the original Amplitube sounds the best... even over Amplitube 2. And I'll sometimes use the Dominion plugin ( http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.php?item=2&subItem=4 ) after the amp sim in the chain to give it a stronger more pronounced and powerful attack. I feel that amp simulation can come REALLY close and I still use it quite a bit, but there really is no harm in going the extra mile of recording with a mic, especially if you have a decent sounding amplifier. Why not try both? Do 2 tracks miced and 2 tracks simmed and mix them together. Smile

I've done this many times as well and always get pleasant results because you have the option to tweak the sim sound to work well with the miced sound. Just more opinions! Experiment and see what you like best!

Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2008 8:04 pm

Try SUMO.

Probably cause you more pain than gain but hey, it's meant to "beef up guitars, pads, synths" etc.

Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2008 8:18 pm

Seems to me that Jordy's post doesn't have anything to do with amp vs. sim. It's just about how to beef up a track regardless of how its recorded. And that is the real point.

I've tried various Line 6 products and Amplitude for direct recording and I have some nice amps and mics for recording as well. If you are starting out I recommend the sims. It's a great baseline. You have to do a very good job with a live amp to beat a good sim. Might as well start out with reasonably high standards. All things being equal (which they never are) I prefer a live amp. But I use sims quite a bit.

Once you have a good quality signal, mix and treatment means a lot. As Jody says, double or quadruple tracking will give a lot of beef (or a lot of mud if your playing is not accurate).

Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008 7:52 am

http://www.voxengo.com/group/freevst/

Check out the Boogex and Tube Amp free plugins.

Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008 8:30 am

boonepeeler wrote:

but turns out your guitar doesn't sound good when its plugged directly into your computer.

Soi, you bypassed the Mackie when you plugged in right? I'm guessing that you can't get decent sound because you plugged your guitar into one of the line channels of the Mackie instead of the guitar input on the Tascam. If you wanted to go into the Mackie you'd need a DI but why bother when you have an instrument input in the Tascam?

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