Free guitar amp simulator softwares, VST Plugins

[J.custom]

Hi,
Recently I've been trying to find a free guitar amp simulator online so i can do some simple recording. Anyone has any recommendations? And when i tried to download some free ones, it has a .dll extension and is a VST plugin. What are VST plugins and what software should i use to open such files? Any suggestions?

Ian

 

[blueprintstudios]

J.custom :

first you need a DAW software like reaper or Audacity which supports VST (or even better, cubase, since they're also from steinberg.)
then you need to "mount" the plugin on to the track you're recording or you have recorded.

guitar > 1/4"cable>audio interface (or 1/4"to1/8" adapter > into your audio soundcard input) > DAW > VST-amp/cabsim

do give http://tinyurl.com/diyrecording while you're at it.

 

[J.custom]

How do i 'mount' the plugin for audacity? I've been looking around but not really sure how to do it.

 

[blueprintstudios]

sorry drop the audacity thing cos it doesn't support "live monitoring VST".
try use www.reaper.fm + www.asio4all.com (unless you're using an ASIO audio interface)

install asio4all, install reaper, config reaper to use ASIO drivers asio4all.

create a track, monitor the track ,click on "FX" , "mount" JS guitar amp modeller.
beside the levels meter of the "track" , there's a [speaker icon] and there's a [input] icon. click on speaker icon to monitor. configure the input which your guitar is plugged into.

plug in your guitar > 1/4" to 1/8" input of your soundcard and by now you should be able to hear what you're playing.

gd luck!

 

[kongwee]

http://lmms.sourceforge.net/home.php

I just found this.

 

[J.custom]

@blueprintstudios
Yeah i played around with it and managed to find that out as well. Do you have any experience with guitar rig 4? i downloaded the demo version, but when i plugged my guitar into my computer, there was a HELL lot of excessive noise. Any idea why??

 

[blueprintstudios]

most likely it's because your computer soundcard is not a proper recording interface. or unless in Grig 4 you set alot of gain.

if you're using your pedals (stated in your signature) , all you need in guitar rig 4 is the amp-simulator part on "CLEAN" (imagine you're using a real amp) , instead of using its own amp distortion. you could have 2 rounds (one hardware/one software) of "pedalfx" running if you just randomly chose a preset.

 

[J.custom]

Ah, i see. Thanks for your advice! But lets say i dont wanna use my pedals but modelling softwares or plugins to get my distortion sounds, what software would you recommend me to download?

 

[blueprintstudios]

you're welcome. well it's subjective man, there're many amp-modelling/cabsim/amp-sim whatever you call its. in hardwares/software digital simulation would be Line6 Pod's , guitar rig, amplitube , errr studio devil freebie, many other free VSTs at kvraudio.com

 

[grarrgrarr]

Conveniently, Reaper has an in built Amp Simulator.

Alternatively you can try SimulAnalog Guitar Suite @ http://www.simulanalog.org/guitarsuite.htm

 

[J.custom]

I tried those alr, but just didnt work out for me when i opened them in Reaper, didnt sound that nice. Is it possible to torrent Line 6 pod's or Voxjam softwares?

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

torrent wont have those, unless someone is "kind" enough to share their copy. But then, if those folks pay for their stuff, why would they wanna share it openly like that.

Anyway, if you are refering to "cracked" copy, then too bad, theres no teams doing line6 or voxjam. They are prolly not going to do so from the way it seem. So yeah either pay for it or look for friends who have it and see if they wanna share.

For these kinda software, the only way to really test it out, other than tweaking the program itself(and not just using presets), is to have a proper audio interface between guitar and laptop.

 

[kongwee]

I used to use multiband compressor to do a clean e.guitar sound. With eq,dynamics,modulation and convolution reverb , you could design you own "amp"

 

[J.custom]

How do you design your own 'amp'? That, I would like to try

 

[blueprintstudios]

J.Custom : not sure bout you but I'm never a fan of digital amp simulation. it just doesn't beat the real mike up. the only one close to convincing me so far is Fractal Audio's Axe FX Ultra. but it costs like 5Konwards i think.

gd luck!

 

[kongwee]

You need some of the ingredient. I would say it is not easy to do it. However, you will learn a lot about effect if you play around. You need EQ, which you can determine the "body" of the amp. Compressor to do overdrive. Chorus,flanger, phaser,...etc are the common modulation. Spring reverb(or impulse response of it) and impulse response of an amp cabinet are the last group of effect to look for. You need convolution reverb to load impulse response. Also you have to take care of the order of your plug-in. Note that doing this many take a lot of processing power than a dedicated plugin. Of cos, you must know you are building an "amp" that cannot be found in the market, or does it ever exist.

I'm using logic so I can't really tell you which specific plug-in to use, but the structure or concept is there.

 

[J.custom]

haha. I just wanted to play around with it and the free softwares available online to just record down some ideas. So technically if i plug in my pedals to reaper it should sound way better right?

 

[kongwee]

Well, if your soundcard is decent. It will sound much better.

 

[J.custom]

I'm having some trouble getting any sound out of my computer while recording stuff. Not sure what happened. It was fine at first. When i check ASIO, there is a cross at the output section and says Name:'PC Speaker', Status:'Unavailable', in use by another application?, MS GS Wavetable synth enabled? Anyone can help me on this?

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

using vista or win7?

if any of the above both, you can only use 1 application at any time for audio output purpose. Which ever application you start up first, will take control of the audio driver and prevent another audio application from using it to output sound.

Theres info on it over at asio4all forum as well, reason for why its not able to share audio driver with multiple audio applications and the workaround.

If on xp, there should not be such issue.