Best studio amp plugin?

How do you feel about using amp plugins to record? Which is your favorite? I like the Komplete Guitar Rig Player 5.

I have Guitar Rig 5 Pro and use it daily. I need to match it to a foot controller for more versatility.

I have a bunch of them but use them more as effects when mixing.... I love using them on drum loops and to shape reverb sends and stuff like that. I will occasionally use one on guitar but generally if I run a guitar direct I want it to sound direct so I'll use plugins that aren't guitar specific or the sansamp plugin if I didn't use a sansamp pedal as the DI in the first place. The best one? all of the native ones are pretty close to most of their amp models these days, but none of them feel right. I've tried all of them except bias. I honestly really like some of the freeware VST plugins the best. They sound good enough and have a low CPU hit usually. If you wanna get an apollo, the UAD ones sound really right in a mix. Like the amps they're meant to be, particularly the marshalls. The UADs still don't feel like playing through an amp. Its more like putting your amp on a loadbox and playing through a speaker sim

thnx jim. i think the marshall emulator on the one I use (a native one) is pretty good. short of an actual marshall, I don't know if there are better. ill look into your recommendations.

I didn't really recommend anything, LOL

in freebies, try the following:

simulanalog.org pack (oldies but goodies, I actually like the 900 simulation's spring reverb a lot and use it to mix, usually to distort and spring up digital echoes on a return buss where I feel too lazy to hook up my tube PA head and tapco spring reverb and mic the speakers). I find myself using the DS1 a lot on synths. Slapping it on a 303 insert sounds just like a 303 into DS1 and a DI. No joke. Why spring for a pedal I would only use on synths? The univibe isn't too bad either. These pedals aren't pretty though, they just use your DAW's native GUI

the poullin plugins are good for overdrive, mostly heavy amps like bogner and a 5150 but there's an 800.... not bad overall, really excel at dirt, less so at clean and that just breakin' up tone. But that's a tall roder. Nothing quite like real tubes.

excite amps does a bunch of tolerable stuff for free, I haven't sued much of it but I have all their stuff

there's this thing called amplion that's supposed to be a mesa rectifier.... I've used real rectos and I think the plugin sounds better for guitar LOL the spring reverb on it isn't bad and its a pretty cool plugin for adding grit and vibe to DI or software synths but its high on CPU for how little it does

look for acme bar gig's 'shred', the amps don't sound right but they sound interesting and the room simulation engine seems to be based on impulse responses. The sound of the cab sim and room sim together is surprisingly cool. Its kidna nice to disable the guy's amp simualtions and just use his cab and ambiance engine. It can help DI clean guitar sit in a mix. Its a low CPU hit for how good it sounds too but like I said, most of the amps sound a bit weird to me and the effects built in are junk.

if you can find them Distorque makes KILLER vintage stompbox plugins and a cool rack chorus that has a tri-chorus vibe. I was really shocked at how cool their fuzzface/tonebender sounds. Youc an go under the hood of all their plugins and adjust virtual component types and values too. I still own a fuzzface and have owned tons of them as well as tons of tonebenders, a buzzaround etc. These guys got the magic of those old fuzzes. Its insane. But all their stuff is good.

for more quality stomps look up TSE, they do a rat, a tubescreamer etc. The rat is their best one.

that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

i was talking about uses, but thanks for this too XD

oh umm, yeah uses.... guitar centric plugins are so handy when mixing if you are creative and tasteful. I am always using them allover the place to add color to synths, echo, reverb.... sometimes I will make use of them in a sidechain of a compressor or send a track to a harmonizerand/or vocoder and distort it through an amp to make like a midrange exciter? lots of thigns you can do with guitar plugins in the mids of your mix. Back in the day I sued to use actual effect pedals like that wired up to the hardware mixer with a passive DI feeding the input if they sounded off with a low impedance signal going in. even for live sound I sued to have some distortions available to patch in, usually parallel dirting up the vocal or snare drum or on the echo send or return for rock bands. This is easier though. Oh yeah, I am notorious for running at elast some of my snare into distortion stomps. I started doing it with drum machines like a lot of techno guys but wound up doing it on any snare in any type of music even ballads... try it with plugins, works the same.Distorques orange squeezer and distortion+ are my new favorite snare enhancers. I'll have a couple snare layeres and the one that's going to give the most crack at 6k gets the stompbox and then they all sum into a channels trip plugin that has a nice overload simulation and good midrange EQ that's ahrd to fuck up like a 1073

cool! you're an awesome resource.

I try to share the wisdom, I ahd to elarn by trial and error and it took me until I was like 25 to even eb passable at this stuff and know how everything works.... even with all the resources online these days there's not going to be a youtube channel that just answers specific questions ind etail and certainly not with anything but pat textbook answers. I am always trying to answer questions with low to no money solutions that are also creative and might help someone's home recordings stand out against stuff that had all the latest and greatest toys. Lack of resources can spur you on to make something unique. I'm always trying to LIMIT my options every song and force myself to be creative even though I have all the stuff in the universe to toy with. You can get lsot in that and make something generic or not even finish making it!

yeah, that's true. uniqueness is key and being poor is a good way to spark creativity.

my call is always to invent some new way to do things instead of trying to simulate a fancy gear technique with simulations or cheap sound-alike knockoff gear. Its always more interesting to just be inventive with what you have.

I like AmpliTube 5 because it has Mesa/Boogie and Fender amps