Guitar VST suggestions?

[littlebadboy]

Hello, everyone!

I know this has been asked before, but I can't find it. Or, perhaps I just such at my choice of keywords to search for!

I am thinking of going minimalist by selling my hardware because I have a tight play area in my house. I don't gig anymore anyway. What's a good versatile guitar VST that could take 7-strings well? I like to do somewhat modern metal projects with some ambient stuff. Something that I could also use my Behringer FC1010 as a stand-alone with for just in case would be also nice. Also, budget price would be really great as I am not really a recording nerd.

Thanks in advance!

 

[madmarcus1960]

Checkout the newish Tonex for $50 and unlimited user area downloads. It's like a software version of Kemper/Quad Cortex minus the FX
SGear 3 for more vintagey tones.
Amplitube 5 integrates with Tonex for FX.
Brainworx, Nembrini or Kuassa makes great guitar software suites.

TH-u is a very good all in one.

 

[Gearzilla]

Line 6 Helix Native—Comprehensive modeling suite. $399

Line 6 Metallurgy—trimmed down Helix Native geared towards metal. $99

Most VST’s have free trials so they’re all fairly easy to compare prior to purchasing.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I'd check the free Tonex version first. You can chose 20 captures to your liking. Also check the free version of Amplitube 5.

 

[littlebadboy]

Gosh... Lots of choices!...

Thanks everyone!

 

[Bruce]

Literally a saturated market for choices with this. Demo/try/check em out.

 

[PatF]

There is lots of free stuff to mess around with. Search for Ignite Amps, Poulin Amps, Variety of Sound, and TSE Audio.

A Two Notes Wall of Sound license comes with the purchase of two 10 dollar cabs. The Big Hairy Guitars cabs are pretty nice.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Tonelib GFX

 

[Sascha Franck]

Search for Ignite Amps

Yeah, they're excellent, especially in case you are into heavier sounds, the Emissary is really great. But (and that's why I didn't recommend them yet): You need an external IR loader (ok, they have a free one there as well) and IRs with them as they don't come with any. The direct path into the IR rabbit hole.

 

[madmarcus1960]

Mercuriall Ampbox is another great all in one suite. Their standalone Spark is a fantastic Marshall VST. They also have ReAxis, which is a Mesa rack preamp sim.

 

[Steinmetzify]

Mercuriall Ampbox is another great all in one suite. Their standalone Spark is a fantastic Marshall VST. They also have ReAxis, which is a Mesa rack preamp sim.

+1 for Mercuriall. I own all their stuff and it’s stellar.

Even recording with amps, I’ll use it for the chorus to widen the sound and also to load external IRs.

ReAxis is a favorite of mine and has been since release day, and the Bogner sim kicks all ass too.

 

[Bruce]

+1 for Mercuriall. I own all their stuff and it’s stellar.

Even recording with amps, I’ll use it for the chorus to widen the sound and also to load external IRs.

ReAxis is a favorite of mine and has been since release day, and the Bogner sim kicks all ass too.

Chorus and micro pitch on everything here! A little sure goes a long way.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

I know they’re hated round here but the Neural DSP plugins are excellent, standalone, quick MIDI learning, rock solid, decent GUI’s, and always sound great. I think the bad feeling a lot of guys have towards QC kind of seeps into their feelings towards the plugins which are great products.

I think Helix Native is an amazing product too and well worth it, but there’s no standalone, no amp GUI’s, and it generally takes a little more work to get something going (you have more freedom to mix and match different fx, bigger choice of everything, can route things all kinds of ways). Metallurgy is cool, but I think Neural still leads the way for that format of software, and Helix beats it in tonal options and value. If the amps included in each product are EXACTLY what you’re after they may be a good shout as you get a UI and standalone too.

Amplitube has some great stuff but a much worse GUI and user experience than Helix Native. It does have a standalone version and integrates ToneX though. Some of the models are excellent, there’s a huge choice of amps.

ToneX is excellent but the user experience is pretty limited. If you enjoy clicking through a list of presets and hoping you’ll land on what you need it might be good, but generally you’ll have to invest some time and/or money into finding what you need.

Nembrini is hit and miss for me, stand-alone requires their app, and generally I don’t like their included IR’s. If there’s a specific amp model you’re after they can scratch an itch.

Audio Assault do the best value for money sims. A bit of an erratic company and things sometimes behave weird but when you pay $5 or less what do you expect?

STL Tonality and Amphub are terrific. Not really spoken about much around here. I can’t really vibe with their ToneHub/ControlHub products at all.

Mercuriall do excellent sounding stuff and at reasonable prices. Solid UI’s, but less slick than Neural. I really like their Rectifier and Bogner Ecstasy, you get a very realistic experience of using the real thing.

As far as using a MIDI controller, the neural plugins have been easiest for me to set up, followed by Helix and STL. Some are either a nightmare or don’t offer that as a feature.

 

[laxu]

My favorites in no particular order:

• NeuralDSP Petrucci, Soldano SLO and Tone King Imperial
• ML Sound Lab ML5 (Mesa Mark V) and MIKKO (cab sim)
• Line6 Helix Native (most feature packed, great deal for Helix hardware owners)

You can try pretty much every plugin out there and then choose what you want to buy. I could probably do 90% of what I need with the Soldano SLO plugin alone but haven't bothered buying it even on sale because I have hardware modelers.

The ML Sound Lab ML5 is worth a try because it's to my knowledge the only Mesa Mark V amp model I know. MkIV and IIC are found on others but Mark V is not.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

The ML Sound Lab ML5 is worth a try because it's to my knowledge the only Mesa Mark V amp model I know. MkIV and IIC are found on others but Mark V is not.

Amplitube has a Mark V emulation. The Mikko stuff can sound quite good but it’s more like applying IR’s over a more general purpose distortion which to me is less preferable than something like ToneX, or something more algorithmically based. Works surprisingly well though and they don’t charge much for it. The drawback for me is every mode is on a different channel - in amplitube it’s laid out like the real amp and gives a more similar experience. I really like the Mark Series amps in AT (they have IIC+, III, IV and V).

 

[laxu]

Amplitube has a Mark V emulation. The Mikko stuff can sound quite good but it’s more like applying IR’s over a more general purpose distortion which to me is less preferable than something like ToneX, or something more algorithmically based. Works surprisingly well though and they don’t charge much for it. The drawback for me is every mode is on a different channel - in amplitube it’s laid out like the real amp and gives a more similar experience. I really like the Mark Series amps in AT (they have IIC+, III, IV and V).

Well MIKKO is a multi-mic cab sim mixer. I think it's great and more advanced than what you get in hardware units today.

I believe the ML5 is based on some machine learning model, it was updated a while ago.

Never gotten along with Amplitube. I loathe the ToneX app user interface but it does sound good with the right models.

 

[mikah912]

Literally a saturated market for choices with this. Demo/try/check em out.

This is the only answer that will matter. You gotta go demo stuff.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

I believe the ML5 is based on some machine learning model, it was updated a while ago.

I may be wrong, but I’ve read from a few places that the amps are captured with IR’s at various settings and the knobs interpolate between them. I think the Kemper is kind of like this too, it uses a kind of all purpose distortion that is then shaped with IR’s.

I remember years ago someone deconvolved a 5150 to use over a Metal Zone and it sounded depressingly close given how crude the process is.

 

[laxu]

I may be wrong, but I’ve read from a few places that the amps are captured with IR’s at various settings and the knobs interpolate between them. I think the Kemper is kind of like this too, it uses a kind of all purpose distortion that is then shaped with IR’s.

I remember years ago someone deconvolved a 5150 to use over a Metal Zone and it sounded depressingly close given how crude the process is.

I would expect that they are machine learning models and they might then have a number of interpolation points. You can disable the cab sims and everything and to me the models behave in a pretty nice manner so I don't think just IRs would quite do.

There's a lot of small companies that have been able to put out pretty nice plugins and even hardware with sound at least in the ballpark of the big names in digital guitar amp modeling like Line6 and Fractal. I expect all of these are using a machine learning model because the common thread is that these models are never able to do anything more than what the actual amp offers. I have a hard time believing these companies could achieve in a few years what has taken like a decade or more research for the big names if they were a component based modeling.

As an example NeuralDSP is hiring people with experience in e.g PyTorch machine learning library and I fully expect that ToneX runs on it or some other ML library.

Not that there is anything wrong with ML based models. It's clearly been shown it works and can be developed into a "works like the amp" model with enough time spent on it.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

I would expect that they are machine learning models and they might then have a number of interpolation points. You can disable the cab sims and everything and to me the models behave in a pretty nice manner so I don't think just IRs would quite do.

There's a lot of small companies that have been able to put out pretty nice plugins and even hardware with sound at least in the ballpark of the big names in digital guitar amp modeling like Line6 and Fractal. I expect all of these are using a machine learning model because the common thread is that these models are never able to do anything more than what the actual amp offers. I have a hard time believing these companies could achieve in a few years what has taken like a decade or more research for the big names if they were a component based modeling.

As an example NeuralDSP is hiring people with experience in e.g PyTorch machine learning library and I fully expect that ToneX runs on it or some other ML library.

Not that there is anything wrong with ML based models. It's clearly been shown it works and can be developed into a "works like the amp" model with enough time spent on it.

I agree to an extent, but I can’t believe that machine learning based models (such as Neural DSP or Mercuriall) would be able to churn out the volume of new products that ML Soundlab do, at the price they do with some kind of cutting edge innovative tech. They already have a lot of experience with IR’s and I believe it’s perfectly possible to get decent results with a more crude method, so long as an appropriate distortion circuit is in place. Fair enough if I’m wrong, but based on everything I’ve heard, the IR approach seems a lot more likely.

It’s taking nothing away from what they’re doing, there’s still a lot of work to be done to make it into a sellable product that is supported on different platforms and runs smoothly, and ultimately delivers what it promises. I think Neural and Mercuriall are probably better examples to judge ML based products like that and how long it takes to make them vs ML who have new releases constantly.