Good, ampless, guitar tones

[therecordingart]

I really hate the sound of the POD, and I'm moving into an aparment so I cant record cranked amps anymore.  Is anyone getting really good, heavy, guitar tones running direct through pedals?  If so,  what is your effects chain? 

[calpolyengineer]

I usually record the dry signal (which is good practice for real recording) and then re-amp with an amp and cab sim so that I can dial in the sound just how I want it. I suppose if you really wanted, you could just stick those two pedals at the end of your chain and then record the signal from that. You just lose a little flexibility in mixing it later on.

-Joe

[MartyMart]

Build a ROG Condor speaker simulator and use a nice Jfet amp sim upfront, with
perhaps your most treasured OD upfront of that.
www.runoffgroove.com have some great amp sims such as :
Matchbox
Eighteen
Thunderchief

I have designed a few, which are in the Layouts gallery and there are posts with
links to some sound samples.
search for :
Classic 30
59 Bassman ( mp3 with a TS-9 hitting it hard is great )
Sovtek MIG 50

These will get you some great "cranked" tones at bedroom/recording levels.

Marty.

[d95err]

I've added a line out (from the speaker signal) and a dummy load to a 15W tube amp I've built. This is a very simple mod. Bascally just 1 power resistors and 2 or 3 small resistors. You can put it in the into the amp or in a separate box.

I'm using the free MDA Combo VST-plugin in Cubase as a speaker sim. Works OK. I'm building a Condor to see if it's better.

[MartyMart]

I usually record the dry signal (which is good practice for real recording) and then re-amp with an amp and cab sim so that I can dial in the sound just how I want it. I suppose if you really wanted, you could just stick those two pedals at the end of your chain and then record the signal from that. You just lose a little flexibility in mixing it later on.

-Joe

That's good practise, having the effected and the "dry" gtr part for later processing
I have done it a few times, but this was a good reminder to do that more !

MM

[d95err]

I usually record the dry signal (which is good practice for real recording) and then re-amp with an amp and cab sim so that I can dial in the sound just how I want it. I suppose if you really wanted, you could just stick those two pedals at the end of your chain and then record the signal from that. You just lose a little flexibility in mixing it later on.

My 2 cents on re-amping:

I've tried it a few times - recording the dry signal and using VST plugins in Cubase to do the guitar sound. However, I found that after messing around a long time trying to find the right guitar sound, I always ended up with exactly the same sound as when I recorded. It just took a lot of unnecessary time. Nowadays I try to find one good sound and record it. You should not have too many options when mixing, it just distracts you from the really important stuff.

In general, I think that's why it's so difficult to get a good sound from one of those digital 100 amp models and 1000 effects gizmos. There's simply too many options. Limitations encourage creativity and it's better to squeeze the most out of few options than getting lost in too many.

[calpolyengineer]

Yeah, there isn't much difference at all. It is good for situations where you can't mic a cabinet though, cause you can always save the dry signal to run through a real amp/cab later on. That is mostly why I said that you would lose a little flexibility if you recorded wet signal.

I use a GNX4 to record all my stuff to the computer. It can save the dry and wet signals simultaneously. Most of the time I am recording really late at night so I can't run it through my amp. So I will record both but listen to the wet signal with an amp/cab sim through headphones as I play. That way I can hear it "correctly" but still be able to do anything with the recorded signal.

-Joe