Be afraid Chris- be very afraid

[chrisj]

Okay, I've got a freehostingsite full of examples to check out all my guitar amp sim plugins- and to compare them to Waves and Amplitube sounds. There's two main categories, distorted sounds and lower-gain stuff done with a neck pickup. All of the example playing is courtesy of the poster 'hibidy' at KVR.

I should be afraid because I have a bunch of real amp guys in this subforum ;) but the thing is, I really hate typical amp sim sound, so I might do better here than with guys who are in love with typical amp sim sound :D

My examples all include traces of reverb from FreeverbCJ, largely because all the competing amp sims ALSO use reverb in their examples, but I encourage people to go dry for many guitar tracks in a mix. However, FreeverbCJ is free, so it's not like adding verb will cost you money. I've also got a free gate, and a free flanger and chorus for effects, as well as free Density and Drive plugins for further stompboxly duties, so the focussed and dedicated nature of these plugins doesn't mean you're being ripped off for lacking a thousand cheesey fake effects stompboxes :D

The folder with all the different examples is here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=1144626af1bdfd8ade385df5c3eff3abab0ac90f 08f04fa4

Note that none of this is intended to mimic OTHER amp sims, it's intended to act like real amps in a mix, or even sit in a mix more cleanly than some real amps might. Expect an intense focus on the midrange, and a lack of chrome and gloss. My opinion is that this glossy slick goop and bass boost is what makes sims sit badly in a mix, so my stuff is made to not require bass cutting and amp sim management. You might want to put verbs on it and such things, but nothing is forcing you to- and it's good to be able to pick your OWN reverbs if you're working at a professional level.

Cheers, have fun listening to the clips- all of these are available now in my Kagi AU plugin store, http://store.kagi.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?storeID=6FEGJ_LIVE&& with the extra ones (not on the front page) found in the 'Emulations' section.

-chris

[chrisj]

No response, so I'd better be less vague...

Hi! I'm interested in reactions to what I've been doing with DI amp-sim heavy guitars. I know I got things differently from how people normally do amp sims, and I've got at least a couple people freaking out and saying my stuff acts like real amps. But heavy guitars are way the toughest challenge for this sort of thing, a challenge blatantly FAILED by everything else I've ever seen.

Is this a big jump ahead, or for that matter is it better than BAD real amp use? Have I at least got to where you have to have your shit together to record real heavy guitars to make them be better than my $60 plugin for DI guitars?

http://www.mediafire.com/?cj493wh2hqn

All of that was tracked over headphones. It's GrindAmp on the sides and FireAmp in the middle. If not for the drums I could've done it in an apartment. If I get around to making drum sample kits, even that could be done in an apartment (a lot more accurately... but I love drumming so I was happy to bash away, even if it's not tight)

I'm less concerned with whether the top is glossy and tubey enough (I made no efforts to improve this, it's the raw amp sim in its default settings) and more interested with whether the BODY of the thing is sitting in the mix in the right way, because I think I made some big strides in that direction, and again, maybe got it better than poorly done real amps- or real amps through Palmer boxes, etc. yes?

[chrisj]

OK, this sucks, everybody here is too nice to give me a rash of shit over this stuff. Other sites have made it pretty clear they're hating it. I'm going to scramble to do a version with cab sim... leaving the old one up. Evil!

This is it. So officially the other one is amp sim WITHOUT A CAB, and if that sounds retarded to you don't even listen. And this is with a sort-of cab.
http://www.mediafire.com/?0yeyhtozizj

[Slipperman]

Hi Chris.

Yo.

Running my ass off. Haven't even had a chance to install the "revised" plugs you sent me.

Will do ASAP.

ABSOLUTE BEDLAM here.

Playing hookey from workee right now.

Break offically over.

XOXOX

Slippy

PS. A half a dozen of your plugs are ALL THE FUCK OVER a bunch of records I'm either completing, or have completed. I will start to discuss WHAT I have found most useful, and WHY ASAP.

[chrisj]

I'm gonna be your worst nightmare revising shit, Slippy...

Try this on for size.

http://www.mediafire.com/?2ijzfexwd5x

Latest revision on the cab sim, CabVintage30... the version linked above which gives you a file called HeavyWCabs is the version of the plugin you've got, and the one that can be bought at the store right now. And it pissed me off, because it's got an obnoxious steady-state drone quality that you get from ALL convolution speaker cab impulses.

The new one is stealing ideas from my Character plugs- I gave up on the idea of measuring speakers at different gain levels and just started trying shit, and I managed to completely fix the droning quality while keeping the turd-polishing, control-fizz functionality happening.
And I got it a fuck of a lot punchier and more defined in the mids.
And it's just a bit more CPU-efficient now.
AND, now it's zero latency so you can track with it.

Good fucking work day, if you ask me. Now I gotta do a whole new line of speaker cab plugs- which kinda fucks up my notion that you should be able to have a complete working guitar sound of the gods for $60, but if I can get it to kill everything else, $120 (cab and amp) is still better than $300 or $600 or $1500. So fuck it. I'm not exactly Waves here.

Coming up- finetuning of the new V30 cab sound, GREENBACKS for FireAmp (that is going to be absolutely lethal), various stuff like that. Not sure exactly how many different cabs there will be, but it's going to be a good selection.

[meLoCo_go]

Hey! Thumbs up for your work and research! Nothing feels better than setting ambitious goal and reaching it! Right now I'm fucking buried with work so have no time to check your stuff, and checking would be only of theoretical interest as I'm a VST guy. But anyway, I'm interested in new stuff for DI-guitars as a guitar player.

[eagan]

I'll echo that. It's not that I'm not interested, but since I live in a windaz VST world, this is stuff where I'm not going to look at it much other than vaguely thinking "cool that Chris is cranking away at all this stuff".

(and as I've already said here before, understanding the one man operation nature of things there I'm not even going to vaguely suggest that you should divert yourself into porting stuff to other types of packages)


JLE

[Tim Armstrong]

(and as I've already said here before, understanding the one man operation nature of things there I'm not even going to vaguely suggest that you should divert yourself into porting stuff to other types of packages)

I think it'd be more of an expansion into a very large, previously untapped market. But then again, I've been pestering him about it ever since his first plugs appeared!

:Coolio:


Tim

[chrisj]

http://www.mediafire.com/?1bmcwc2iurn

I'm done with this phase so the threads can die- and this is actually me PULLING the plugs out of my store and starting over. They are all going to end up being as different as the original 'GrindAmp' clips of rat-hell, and the above.

That is GrindAmp and GrindCab. What's GrindCab? It started out as the thing heard above as Vintage30Cab (massively smeared, but colorful and less fizz) and turned into something totally different which showed me what I have to do.

Every amp sim is getting its own dedicated cab, for no extra cost. You can use the cabs on other amp sims if that's what you need to do. It's like head, cab: two distinct plugs.

For now everything shuts fucking down and goes away until it's RIGHT. All the cab sims are gone too- the new approach to doing them kills the old ones anyway.

Back when all the amp plugins ruthlessly kill everything else out there, and not before.

this is why I don't develop for all those platforms- I have my hands full beating everybody even just to the AU format... my attention has got to stay on the sound, not on market. Fuck, I don't want a universe of new markets all to get handed something like the first GrindAmp sans speaker-cab part... I'd get lynched. Sorry, I have to have priorities a certain way...

[weedywet]

So educate me, Chris.

How would I try these AU plugs in a ProTools or ProTools LE environment?

thanks
w2