Choices for DIY clean amp & cab sim

[patricks]

Hi all,
Just signed up to the board and looking to tap into the collective wisdom

I'm in the process of planning a direct rig, mostly for recording. I'll be using OD/distortion pedals for my dirty sounds, so I'm looking for a good clean amp/cab sim so that I can run delay/reverb in front of it. I'd love your opinions on these options:
1) Sansamp GT2 clone from Tonepad (I've heard good things about the dirty channels, but mixed-to-poor reports on the clean tone)
2) Combination of an amp circuit (Ruby, Little Gem, English Channel or Umble) plus Condor cab sim from runoffgroove
3) ROG amp circuit before reverb/delay, followed by a Condor cab sim

A few more questions on top of these...
- Tonepad recommends running reverb/delay after the GT2; since it's a cab sim, is there any functional difference between putting reverb/delay after the cab or splicing in an effects loop so I can put the time-based effects after the amp but before the cab?
- Putting a Condor circuit after an English Channel or Umble would be much easier than cobbling together a combination of preamp + tone stack + power amp + cab circuits, but would these amp circuits colour the sound too much to use after reverb/delay?
- If I'm using OD/distortion pedals for my dirty sounds, do I need an amp sim in there as well, or could I just put a Condor at the end of the chain?

That's a lot to start with, so thanks in advance to anyone that reads it all the way through, let alone responds! 

[J0K3RX]

Hi all,
Just signed up to the board and looking to tap into the collective wisdom

I'm in the process of planning a direct rig, mostly for recording. I'll be using OD/distortion pedals for my dirty sounds, so I'm looking for a good clean amp/cab sim so that I can run delay/reverb in front of it. I'd love your opinions on these options:
1) Sansamp GT2 clone from Tonepad (I've heard good things about the dirty channels, but mixed-to-poor reports on the clean tone)
2) Combination of an amp circuit (Ruby, Little Gem, English Channel or Umble) plus Condor cab sim from runoffgroove
3) ROG amp circuit before reverb/delay, followed by a Condor cab sim

A few more questions on top of these...
- Tonepad recommends running reverb/delay after the GT2; since it's a cab sim, is there any functional difference between putting reverb/delay after the cab or splicing in an effects loop so I can put the time-based effects after the amp but before the cab?
- Putting a Condor circuit after an English Channel or Umble would be much easier than cobbling together a combination of preamp + tone stack + power amp + cab circuits, but would these amp circuits colour the sound too much to use after reverb/delay?
- If I'm using OD/distortion pedals for my dirty sounds, do I need an amp sim in there as well, or could I just put a Condor at the end of the chain?

That's a lot to start with, so thanks in advance to anyone that reads it all the way through, let alone responds!  

What you are asking is not the preferred way of running direct and also it is quite confusing. First you start talking about running OD/distortion pedals for your dirty sounds and then a amp/cab sim so that you can run delay/reverb in front of it?? Then you want to run a amp (Ruby, Little Gem) into the condor cab sim? Then you want to run a amp into delay/reverb then into a cab sim? Then you start talking about splicing an effects loop into the Sansamp GT2 clone so you can put the time-based effects after the amp but before the cab?

My head is spinning but would love to help you if you could just figure out what you want and take one thing at a time

BTW - Welcome to the forum...

[patricks]

Hi there, sorry that came out all mixed up, I probably tried to cover too much in one post.
Basically, I'm looking for the best way to put together a DIY direct setup. I should have just opened with that, huh?

So, all the confusing variations in the original post were because I was trying to think through the different versions of a traditional setup, i.e: time-based effects in front of a clean amp or time-based effects in the amp's effects loop.

[patricks]

OK, I know where I went wrong now. I thought that I needed to re-create each part of a real amp & cab (preamp, power amp and speaker cabinet) at the end of the effects chain but that's not the case.
I think I'll stick to using cab sims in my DAW for now, lots of good impulse responses I can download and play with

[J0K3RX]

I prefer vst cab sims and impulses as well! Really can't beat them in my opinion unless you are using a real mic and cab... Even then, some of the impulses are probably gonna sound better unless you really have some nice real cabs and mics!

I don't even use hardware effects, for example: chorus, delay, reverb etc for recording.. I prefer digital vst plugins. Most of the time I use Overloud TH2 for just the cabs/impulses and effects and they do great modeling of digital and analog effects. I also use Guitar Rig 4/5 the same way.

For me it's just easier that way since all of the effects, cabs etc are self contained in one vst and TH2 has excellent "real world" layout and mixing, plus, the CPU load is super low! Running separate vst's for each effect can be cpu intensive especially if you have different ones all running simultaneously on many tracks.

I don't know why you would ever want to run delay, chorus, reverb type effects before the preamp? Normally (for me anyway) they come after the cabs when recording. So, my signal chain would be like this
guitar->overdrive->preamp->recording interface->daw->cabsims/impulses->effects

If you want to use hardware effects outside of the daw the chain might look like this
guitar->overdrive->preamp->effects->recording interface->daw->cabsims/impulses->

or, if you want to use all hardware effects and hardware cabsim the chain might look like this
guitar->overdrive->preamp->effects->cabsim->recording interface->daw
or
guitar->overdrive->preamp->cabsim->effects->recording interface->daw

There are upsides and downsides to both setups... For example if you run external/hardware effects when you record they are going to be permanently recorded on the guitar tracks and you won't be able to change it later if you need to. The upside is they will not eat up your cpu.. Now, there are tricks you can do depending on your recording interface and daw but I am not gonna get into that here. 

You see that I am putting and overdrive pedal between the guitar and preamp. This is not necessary but if you wanted to use an OD or distortion pedal I am putting it in there so you can see where that type of effect would go in the chain.

On runoffgroove there are various pedals some of which are actual "amplifiers" and some are preamps and or distortion pedals modeled after a specific preamp found most likely in a famous amplifier like Thor, The English Channel, Eighteen, Azabache, Umble etc.. these are preamp or distortion effects. The little Gem and Ruby are amplifiers meant to drive a speaker or speakers and you really don't want to use them for direct recording or running into a cabsim like the Condor.

What is the difference between a overdrive or distortion pedal and a preamp? Good question... I have used both for both so for me "if it sounds good, then it is good" is the rule I go by. Now, usually most OD pedals don't make good preamps but I have used a couple that get a pretty good, bluesy tube sounds straight into a poweramp so it just depends.

If you are looking for a good clean sounding preamp I would go with something along the lines of a Fender jfet type preamp. I am sure there are many people  here in this forum that could recommend a good clean pre.. I'm kinda a high gain freak and if I want a good clean sound I can usually get it from a vst so I am probably not the best person to answer that type of question... I like a clean sound along the lines of fender or roland JC

That was my turn to make your head spin! 

~ Jim

[patricks]

You did a much better job of explaining it than I did! 
I'm using Guitar Rig at the moment, too. The main reason I'm interested in external/hardware effects is that I've noticed I'll tweak GR to get a sound I like while recording, then I don't usually mess with it once it's recorded. I thought I might as well shape my guitar sound using hardware, which led me down the path of "I can build/buy effects pedals, but what about the amp?" (can't record with an amp at home for various reasons).

This has been extremely helpful, thanks so much! 

[fretzburner]

I think we both have the same vision to use our pedalboard direct to mixer or recording interface.But the missing link here is the amp simulator/cab sim combo.Already built red box cab sims classic and markII but i can't find a good clean amp sim.GT2 is more focused on the dirty side of amp.I wonder if the hotbox with 12ax7's  can handle well the od's and distortions used in our pedalboards if used as amp sim.

[patricks]

The Hotbox looks like a neat project, I don't know much about it but thanks for pointing me toward it

I've been doing bits and pieces of research posting this and the more I look, the more I agree with J0K3RX - vst cab sims are the way to go, especially for things like cab sims. I haven't really seen an analog cab sim that really emulates a speaker all that well.

Until I can find a kit for a DSP pedal that can handle impulse responses, I'm going to stick with stuff like Guitar Rig/Amplitube in my DAW. The new Zoom MS100 pedal looks like it might be promising, though. It's a multi-fx unit the size of a single stompbox, but it'll do amp and cab sims too.