Unleashing Studio-Quality Guitar Tones with Top Plugins and Amp Sims: A Guide by Steve Stine

But what I do want to do is talk about the ones that I think are the best , in my opinion , that I use and how they might be able to help you . There's a couple of different categories of them , actually three different categories that I've thought of . So the first category . First of all , what is a guitar amp sim ?

Well , when you plug in your guitar into your computer , and this would happen through what we call an audio interface Now , once the guitar is plugged into the audio interface and the audio interface is plugged into your computer , you can then record . You could record your voice or whatever , and certainly you could record your guitar .

So you're going to do that through a program called a DAW Digital Audio Workstation , or oftentimes we just call it a DAW . Okay , now some of these amp sims or guitar plugins what they are are software that are made to sound like amplifiers .

So instead of plugging your guitar into an amplifier and then mic'ing it and then running that into your computer , you're using this software that is emulating the sound . Emulating again , we could use different kinds of words profiling , you know different , whatever you want to call it , but basically that software is trying to sound like an amplifier .

And there's just many , many different kinds of software out there that do this , and what I want to focus on are the ones that I think are the best , that I use a lot , but please understand that there's many other ones out there . There's a lot of free ones out there that you can look into .

That I'm not going to be talking about here because , again , I don't know the stability of some of these things . The amps or the companies that I'm going to talk about are ones that are tried and true and are as stable as anything , so that's what I'm going to start with .

So , anyway , the first ones I'm going to talk about are the ones that are within the environment itself , like the DAW , the digital audio workstation . You might buy something like , or might own something like , studio One by Personas , or you might own Logic Pro if you're a Mac user or whatever it might be .

Now , sometimes what happens is these companies will have amp sims , guitar plugins , amp sims built right into the digital audio workstation itself . So instead of going out and just spending a bunch of money buying some amp sims , you could start with the ones that come with your recording software .

Okay , now you know the recording software that you have , you might have a free version and that doesn't come with those , so you need to move to a paid version that does come with those .

I mean , I don't , I don't know what you use , obviously , but that's a great place to start is just seeing what your DAW might already have inside of it for an amp sim , okay , or a guitar amp plugin . So now let's move on to some companies . The first one I'm going to talk about is a company

called Neural DSP , n-e-u-r-a-l DSP . Now , this company makes a lot of different amp sims and they're all really , really good from actual amps , like they have a Mesa Boogie one . Let me see what else I have installed on my computer here while I'm talking to you . Let's see here . There we go . They have a Saldana one .

They have some that are based off Fortin amplifiers if you know who Mike Fortin is . They have an Omega , one for Ampworks Omega , which is pretty cool . They have lots of different ones that are based off an actual amplifier . Then they have these archetype ones that are based off players and the tones of players .

You know stuff like John Petrucci , there's one for Nali , there's one for Gojira the band Gojira , if you know them there's one for Corey Wong . There's just all kinds of different ones again . So they have specialized ones for amplifiers and then they have ones for tones of certain players . And I really like the NURL DSP stuff .

So it's just again , it's not the cheapest stuff on the planet but it sounds really good and most of the time with those you're going to get , you know , maybe a couple of different kinds of amplifiers built into it . You know , even if you got the Mesa Boogie one , there's a couple of different Mesa Boogies that you can dial in sounds with

. The next one up I'm going to talk about is Bagram Bagram Digital and they make these really simple one knob ones that work great . There's one for a Mesa Boogie and there's a bundle that just came out not too long ago for Eddie Van Halen style amplifiers , so 6505 , the newest EVH , the EVH3 before Eddie passed away and out of 5150 .

And those are really great because they're super easy . If you're looking for something really easy to dial in and get a great tone , they don't come any easier than

that . The next up , the ones I'm going to talk about next , are the STL Tones . Now , stl Tones makes a ton of really great stuff too . They have different subscriptions where you can get this thing called an amp hub and all it is is a bunch of different amp heads . And then there's cabinets and stuff too , but you dial in your own tones .

And then they have one called Tone Hub , which is all these different players that they have different sounds available for those , and then they also have what are these ones called Tonality ?

So , like they again , depending on when you listen to this podcast , they just came out with one not very long called , called the Josh Middleton , which is absolutely amazing , just absolutely amazing tones , but they have a bunch of different stuff , so that's another one to check out .

There's another company called ML Sound Lab , and ML Sound Lab makes a bunch of really great stuff too . Miko over there just makes a bunch of really great sounding stuff . And then , of course , there's Positive Grid and the next batch I'm going to get into here are more for multi-options for amps .

So these companies have lots of different amps to choose from , lots of different heads , lots of different cabinets , different pedals , different things like that that you can choose from . We're the ones that I mentioned before are a little more specified , so you're not dealing with 50 different amp heads that are available in this one piece of software .

Now we're getting to that .

So Positive Grid has the BIOS Amp 2 at the time of this recording and the BIOS FX 2 . Now the BIOS Amp 2 is a little more raw guitar tone , you know , profiled captured kind of tone .

The BIOS FX 2 has all kinds of different stuff , including the amps , but as well as a bunch of different pedals and different things like that to dial in and sculpt your tone . Both of them are really , really great . The BIOS FX 2 is by far the more popular of the two .

You can get it on your computer , you can get it on your phone or your iPad or whatever it might be . There are different things like that and then they have hardware that connects to it and you can use that software along with the hardware that they sell as well .

And then we move on to IK Multimedia . Now IK Multimedia makes a very popular program called Amplitube Amplitube . Amplitube 5 is where we are right now , but they've just recently come out with something . Last year they came out with something called Tonex , which is just amazing too , and both of these again .

I don't want to get into massive detail with these things , but Tonex does tone capturing , so you can actually take and capture the sound of a guitar amp that you own or something like that , or you can get tones from other people , different stuff like that , but both amazing products . Then we move on to Native Instruments , which has Guitar Rig .

Now , I'm going to be honest with you . There was a time when Guitar Rig was kind of the bomb . For me . It was really , really cool , but I don't think it's stood the test of time as well as some of these other things . That's it . Yeah , I'm just being honest with you .

Hopefully they'll come up with something in the near future that will be back in the game , but I think there's other things out there that are definitely worth looking at more than Guitar Rig . And then we move

on to a company called Tune Track . Now Tune Track is actually famous for easy drummer , superior drummer , that sort of thing . But they do have stuff for guitar as well . That's really easy to dial in . For some people it's too easy because you can't sculpt your tone , you just have what's available , but it's called Easy Mix .

And Easy EZ Mix is kind of like the Bagram stuff , where it's kind of just dial it in and go . But I'm going to be honest with you , I very , very much prefer the Bagram stuff . Again , tune Track they haven't really come out with anything . That's just been mind blowing compared to Neural DSP or Bagram or STL Tone , some of that kind of stuff in a while .

And then we keep going down the list . Line 6 has their Helix , which is really amazing , which you might have heard of that . Well , now they have a native piece of software that you can use for your computer and run the sounds of the Helix as well , which is pretty cool . I have to be honest , I do not own it .

I've seen people use it , but I don't own it just because I have so many other things that are that suffice what I'm looking for . And then there's Overloud THU , which again I just it doesn't hold up to the Neural DSP stuff and all that sort of thing in my opinion .

Now there's other people that would definitely disagree with me , and it's worth checking it out and see what you like . And then the last one I have on the list here is JST , which is Joey Sturgis Joey Sturgis Tones and he's been updating some of these software that he's got as well .

He's got , like Jeff Loomis if you know who Jeff is Jason Richardson , some of that kind of stuff and again , pretty good stuff . Does it hold up to the Neural DSP stuff and things like that ? I think that's a decision that you'd have to make . A lot of these companies

have trial versions so you can try them out , see what you think and kind of go from there . So , anyway , hopefully that makes sense . That gives you something to kind of work with , and so that's it . Take care , stay positive . Thank you for joining me and make sure you check out guitarsoomcom If you're looking for any guitar lessons , anything like that .

We now have an all access membership , which is really awesome , and just keep supporting me in whatever way you can . I sure do appreciate it . So take care and I'll talk to you soon .