Yes, I have a real Marshall JCM800 but only use it for gigs.
When I'm at home I prefer my stereo.
Hence the generous use of plugins for simulation.
I don't even use the Marshall for recording, which I know is
probably a bit strange, but with the vast array of plugins
available it's more fun to play with them.
Let's face it, these days real 'single sound' amps are a bit old fashioned
and simulation is all the rage with, for example, Line6 etc...
As the decades progress, the sheer quantity of music styles
requires being able to simulate lots of genres, particularly when viewed
from a 'cover band' approach.
I record direct, and then I can fool around with the amp sounds later.
I use a Radial Engineering JDI direct box (made in Canada, eh!)
into my MAudio Delta 1010 sound card. It's a passive non-powered
box but it's one of the best.
Until now I have mostly been using SimulAnalog's famous JCM900 VST
dll plugin under dssi-vst. (I do wish they would open-source those plugs!)
>
In my case, when I say long sustain, I mean maximally distorted
long sustain for that metal/rock sound, great for soloing.
It was very nice to hear it without any 'buzzy' 'raspy' sounds
common when experimenting with plugins.
It occurred to me last night that many distortion/overdrive plugins
are modelled on semiconductor diode based pedals, not tubes.
Maybe that's why C* Amp and Guitarix sounded good together.
>
Mm, I think the bass response was mostly provided by the
C* Amp simulator, but yeah guitarix probably helped.
I did not go too crazy with either one's tone controls, I more or less
left them in the middle.
>
Exactly. Record clean while listening with whatever amp sound suits you,
and then fool around with the recorded sound later on playback.
In the past, using a dedicated HW FX box and a crappy consumer sound card
meant that my recorded guitar track was 'written in stone' and the sound
could not be changed very much after the fact.
Thankfully we have Linux, Jack, and pro sound cards, eh?
> Btw. instead of
I don't know, seems to me that some of the IR or convolver based
amp sim plugins sound an awful lot like just EQs with very annoying peaks.
I don't know how C* Amp does it, but it sounded pretty good.
>
Yeah, once you introduce a real guitar amplifier at the end, you really have to
turn off all amp sim plugins to avoid them fighting with the amp's natural
sound.
Funny, I read the other day, some years ago Rush's Geddy Lee stopped
using bass amps on stage and went direct into the sound system.
So without any bass amps on stage, for a touch of humour,
he put washing machines in their place ! LOL.