Free modular amp sim software

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Re: Free modular amp sim software

Post by bender »

nex666 wrote:To be honest I prefer some of the free software, no strings attached. Of course they don't have one for every single amp model that Amplitube emulates. So Amplitube has got the advantage there, as well as being easier to use...but, here's the info for all interested:

http://lepouplugins.blogspot.com/
http://www.theserinaexperiment.net/plugins.html

Some great models and you can probably figure out what amps they are "cloning", they sound great for an amp sim, still not the real thing though.

You will need to get an impulse loader (LePou has one, and KeFIR is pretty good too, if you want to google it) to put after these sims in your FX chain, but you can get loads of different impulses that suit your sound more. (Basically an impulse is a clip of the way the the mic/mic placing and power amp affect the sound, you can get ones that a reverbs too).

I used these things for a while, but in the end I just ended up recording a real amp because it's pretty hard to get a dirty sound with these things, they're very "clean and polished"..or at least all the resources that are available for them are.
Impulse Responses won't give you the flexibility of modeling software- they're more of a snapshot of a particular amp setting (FWIW most of the amp sims use IRs for the speaker and room simulation side of things). What IRs are really great for is creating realistic sounding reverbs or sampling a particular space so that you can place other sound in that space. They're also cool for making things sound weird.

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Re: Free modular amp sim software

Post by nex666 »

Yeah they won't, because it's hard to find one for exactly this cab, exactly this mic, but it's pretty easy to find one for an ENGL pro with a 58, etc, mesa..

Plus the AXE FX uses impulses which is quite a highly regarded commercial product.. it just has shitloads of them. Have you tried using these IRS? They are made especially for this purpose.

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Re: Free modular amp sim software

Post by bender »

nex666 wrote:Yeah they won't, because it's hard to find one for exactly this cab, exactly this mic, but it's pretty easy to find one for an ENGL pro with a 58, etc, mesa..

Plus the AXE FX uses impulses which is quite a highly regarded commercial product.. it just has shitloads of them. Have you tried using these IRS? They are made especially for this purpose.
What I mean is that if you exclusively use IRs and a freeware convolution plugin, you won't get the flexibility because IRs can't model every possibly location on a pot's throw therefore that setup won't be a viable alternative to amp modeling. That's why you can't get enough gain out of them- an IR of an amp is locked at whatever settings the amp had dialed in when the IR was taken. Like I said, IRs are a part of most of these modeling plugins (or hardware) just not the only part.

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Re: Free modular amp sim software

Post by nex666 »

benderissimo wrote:
nex666 wrote:Yeah they won't, because it's hard to find one for exactly this cab, exactly this mic, but it's pretty easy to find one for an ENGL pro with a 58, etc, mesa..

Plus the AXE FX uses impulses which is quite a highly regarded commercial product.. it just has shitloads of them. Have you tried using these IRS? They are made especially for this purpose.
What I mean is that if you exclusively use IRs and a freeware convolution plugin, you won't get the flexibility because IRs can't model every possibly location on a pot's throw therefore that setup won't be a viable alternative to amp modeling. That's why you can't get enough gain out of them- an IR of an amp is locked at whatever settings the amp had dialed in when the IR was taken. Like I said, IRs are a part of most of these modeling plugins (or hardware) just not the only part.
And I definitely won't disagree with that!

I use those freeware amp plugins infront of the IR, if you'll look at my links heh, the IR's in the convolution program (keFIR or leCab) are supposed to go after them. I probably didn't make it clear enough, I have a habit of doing that.

These are my favourites anyway: TSE X30 (Basically an ENGL model, not exactly sure which one but I'm sure someone else could shed some light on this), LeCto..It's a LECTOfier..heh and I quite like the one he calls "LeGion".

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Re: Free modular amp sim software

Post by Timi »

benderissimo wrote: Podfarm will have more in it up front. I use it too but it's incredibly flakey with the latest version of Pro Tools (my main DAW) so I'm hoping this will be a good replacement.
Granted I'm not using it often, but Pod Farm on my Pro Tools rig is rock solid (PT9, 4 year old iMac), was always fine on PT8 too.

How do you find CPU usage on Amplitube 3 compared to Pod Farm?

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Re: Free modular amp sim software

Post by RuBear »

benderissimo wrote:
nex666 wrote:Yeah they won't, because it's hard to find one for exactly this cab, exactly this mic, but it's pretty easy to find one for an ENGL pro with a 58, etc, mesa..

Plus the AXE FX uses impulses which is quite a highly regarded commercial product.. it just has shitloads of them. Have you tried using these IRS? They are made especially for this purpose.
What I mean is that if you exclusively use IRs and a freeware convolution plugin, you won't get the flexibility because IRs can't model every possibly location on a pot's throw therefore that setup won't be a viable alternative to amp modeling. That's why you can't get enough gain out of them- an IR of an amp is locked at whatever settings the amp had dialed in when the IR was taken. Like I said, IRs are a part of most of these modeling plugins (or hardware) just not the only part.
IRs are linear, which means you basically can't get any non-linear effects (distortion, compression) from them. This is just purely from theory and assumes there isn't any other trickery going on. Also (in theory) an IR can model reverb/cabs/rooms assuming that your not trying to model them being overdriven (best example is a cab that your putting too much watts through), cause then your back in non-linear territory.

Dunno if that makes any sense to anyone, but hopefully it helps.
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Re: Free modular amp sim software

Post by bender »

Timi wrote:
benderissimo wrote: Podfarm will have more in it up front. I use it too but it's incredibly flakey with the latest version of Pro Tools (my main DAW) so I'm hoping this will be a good replacement.
Granted I'm not using it often, but Pod Farm on my Pro Tools rig is rock solid (PT9, 4 year old iMac), was always fine on PT8 too.

How do you find CPU usage on Amplitube 3 compared to Pod Farm?
Not sure about CPU usage just yet- I've been a bit too busy to really test it. I like the range of models and sound of PodFarm a lot but since I upgraded to PT 9 it just doesn't work properly anymore. When you drop device onto the bottom panel it usually appears and then suddenly changes into something else. It's a real PITA. I was hoping Amplitube would be a viable replacement. Time will tell.

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Re: Free modular amp sim software

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Never had a problem with either pod farm or pod farm 2, i like the elements in pod farm 2 as well, especially the bass amps, saves memory and CPU.
So, is that low alcohol or no alcohol at all? mmmm, no alcohol, do you want to try it? Noooooooooo.

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Re: Free modular amp sim software

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rocklander wrote:thanks bender.. seemed too good to be true.. was for me. went to the download section after registering and it wont load (just defaults to the "user area")... poopies!
whaddaya know? seems to be a firefox issue.. opera worked okay :D
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Re: Free modular amp sim software

Post by bender »

BG wrote:Never had a problem with either pod farm or pod farm 2, i like the elements in pod farm 2 as well, especially the bass amps, saves memory and CPU.
I hadn't either... until I upgraded to PT 9 :(

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Re: Free modular amp sim software

Post by Bg »

benderissimo wrote:
BG wrote:Never had a problem with either pod farm or pod farm 2, i like the elements in pod farm 2 as well, especially the bass amps, saves memory and CPU.
I hadn't either... until I upgraded to PT 9 :(
revert to v8? ;) I run Cubase which isn't perfect but no probs with Pod Farm, which is a bonus :)
So, is that low alcohol or no alcohol at all? mmmm, no alcohol, do you want to try it? Noooooooooo.

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