I remember reading that article and actually tried to find a bunch of the paid mokafix plugins that they used but mokafix is now nowhere to be found on the interwebs. You can find their old free stuff but their cheap paid stuff is nowhere.
Amp sims - Achieving Good Tone
chasedobson
#22
Heh, we must have different taste. My āicepickā tone is what i shoot for, I can get a lot more round w the humbucker in my telecaster - i like those cleans to cut through all the verbs and stuff. 
Artificer
#23
Iāll see if I can dig up or make some examples. Iāve mostly moved away from guitar as a focal instrument in my own recordings, so most of my well-recorded stuff in the last few years has been for other people. Iāve probably still got raw tracks archived somewhere, Iāll post them if I find them.
But honestly, I think examples are beside the point. Itās up to the individual to dig in and find the sound they like. All myself and others are doing are just confirming itās possible. @chasedobson has the perfect example where what one person is going for is exactly what anotherās trying to avoid. Again, I think itās down to experimentation and getting into the gain staging and effects orders to break new ground. Itās a lot of work and time, but it certainly pays off, and every time itās a little quicker and easier to dial in the sound in your head.
Iāll also mention that my results (or perception thereof) greatly increased when I stopped comparing my amp simed stuff to real amps. Treating the sim like a separate amp that has its own quirks and character and can dial in a sound I like and find appropriate is much more reasonable than saying āomg I just canāt get it to sound like my JCM900 or Twinā, which was my initial frustration with them. Once I started treating them like their own thing and figured out how to deal with their limitations (just like I would a real amp) they started being much more usable and musical for me.
aSSerbik
#24
Just fired it up and it is really nice. Iāve had it installed for a few years, but never really messed around with cleans from it for whatever reason. Thanks for the heads up.
I can also recommend a freebie that kind of impressed me for cleans from Blue Cat:
aSSerbik
#26
Shit, I just fired up LeXtac, thanks to that sleepmakeswaves thread, and itās also really good for cleans. And the clean channel in Le456 is also pretty nice. I donāt know if I only dicked around with high gain sounds with these in the past. Or if itās because I have a different interface and running into a DI box first, but both of them sound much nicer from what I remember from a few years back. Sweet.
aSSerbik
#27
Yeah, proper mixing wouldāve brought up the tones more there, but even as-is, you can tell there are pretty good, workable tones that you are getting out of your set up.
Do you feel your new Helix is an improvement over all this?
Yeah, man, they certainly are doing what they are supposed to in the context. I totally get what you mean about that and they probably wouldnāt cut through if you smooth out the sharpness. Itās just such a fine balance to get - a little more to one side, and they are harsh and painful, a little more to the other, and they are dull and lost in the mix. I have a lot of these twinkly parts in high register and Iām having a hard time finding that balance. And I understand itās not just the guitar tone in itself. I havenāt yet fully mastered my reverbs, so kind of struggling with placing conflicting guitar parts in the 3d space (arguable, there shouldnāt be any conflicting parts, but I just gravitate towards writing multiple independent parts that sort of occupy the same sonic spaceā¦sound cool to me when I make them and demo them, but then I drive myself nuts trying mix them properly). Another thing Iām suspecting is that I try to get a too much of the brightness of my mixes from guitars, when really I should be letting mostly cymbals and some other sparkly ear candy provide that and I can get away with having my guitars be a lot duller (so more mid-rangy and fuller). The struggle is real.
Whatās your thought process, then, as far as deciding whether to mic a real amp/cab vs using modelers/IRs for a particular part/project/whatever? Sounds like you have and like both and have the freedom to use either (meaning, sounds like you still have amps/cabs/mics and the opportunity to be loud, if you want).
jbvdb493
#28
The helix allows me to play stuff out live too. Which is something Iāve been wanting to do for a bit.
Like not live shows, maybe one day, but to play through things end to end and switch effects really easily. So for that itās killer imo.
Iād like to a/b some helix vs uad sims, maybe the friedman models or something.
Artificer
#29
Most of the amps I own are āclassicā, as in well known - JCM900, Fender Twin, Fender Bassman, Mesa Mk 4, etc. They have a distinct sonic fingerprint thatās both well known and trusted. I know what Iām going to get when I plug into one and start twisting knobs, and they mostly react in predictable ways.
Amp sims, on the other hand, have an incredibly wide sonic palette, made even wider by being able to do things like stack/chain various amp models or load up different IRs at the click of a button.Thatās exactly why theyāre so hard to get a hold of. While even the āFender approved Twin modelā in Amplitube doesnāt sound like my '69 Twin, it does sound like a guitar going through an amp, and itās sort of like my Fender, and maybe it sounds just like someoneās Fender, but at the end of the day, nobodyās going to mistake it for a flugelhorn - it sounds like an amplified guitar, and thatās usable in a recording. Also, you can radically alter a sound by loading Louie Louie as your IR response instead of a proper cab IR (also works for convo reverbs). You canāt do that with an AC30.
Since weāre on a wub dub bleep bloop forum, Iāll make this analogy. Nobody ever says āif youāre only going to buy one synth, it should be a MiniMoog!ā because thatās terrible advice. Yes, a Moog has a sound, and itās a cool sound, and itās a sound you can probably only get from a Moog, but if youāre going to only have one synth, itās pretty limited. āBuy Serum and download Reaperā is fucking awesome advice, because for the money you get this broad sonic palette that does all sorts of things, including maybe sounding a bit like a Moog. At this point, for recording, thatās buying a Marshall or Fender or whatever versus getting something like GR5 or Amplitube or even some of the free offerings. I want all those options without having to drag shit out of storage and check tubes and caps and spend half the day moving mics around. I want it all and I want it now.
As to when I use real amps? Honestly, very rarely these days. When I play live (maybe once or twice a year?), when I go somewhere to play with other people and they donāt have an amp I can use (two or three times a year?) and when I want to record the room. Reflections are a bitch - they canāt accurately be modeled, only approximated by reverbs. Mostly it just diffuses and we approximate it to a couple of orders, but you lose theā¦finesse of the room, especially really interesting rooms. So sometimes I want to set up a real amp in a real space with real mics and get all that goodness. But not very often. Also reamping shit in cool rooms can be fun, especially if you play it back a couple times to build up the room reflections.
If Iām being totally honest, I donāt have much interest in traditionally amplified guitars or the music thatās made with them any more. I probably donāt have any business telling you guys your business about recording guitars, except I might have some useful technical knowledge or tricks. Iāve got all this shit because I started out in the 80s all punk rock and then metal and jazz and that means you collect things to play, but I donāt really dig that stuff any more. But Iāve got it, and one day I may want it, so it sits around and if I need a guitar sound or want to do something guitarish, Iāll use an amp sim. Itās just easier for the type of things I do.
Fuck, that ended up being heinously long. Iām way too verbose on cold meds. Whatever. You asked. 
Numerical
#30
This isnāt any particular setting or anything, just what was used on something at one time minus any post eq. Everyone likes what they like, the Lecto seems to sound close to my actual amp which is a poor manās dual rectifier anyway. There are so many plugins for all kinds of styles, itās hard to really recommend anything except just to try them all out.
murphybridget
#33
By experimenting with amp sim settings and effects chains, you can tailor your sound to suit your musical style.