Getting a nice tone with POD Farm/Guitar Rig/Amplitude...

mybyte

mybyte

Bachelor of disaster
Jan 10, 2011
4
0
1
Hey guys!

I'm kind of stuck and thought you might be able to help me...

I recently got a Line6 UX1 interface and started playing around with it, but I can't get a good sound out of it. The clean tones are fine enough - POD Farm, Guitar Rig, Aplitude sound more or less alike and pretty good - but as soon as I try to get a nice distorted sound out of it, it gets pretty crappy. I'm not sure whether it's the signal or my incapability to find the right settings for the Plug-Ins.

Maybe you guys could have a look at it. Here's the direct input from my guitar:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=77NEJKPC

I'd appreciate any tips :)

Regards,
Michael


P.S.: please ignore my crappy playing ^^
 
I haven't heard your clip, use dropbox, it's a lot easier and you'll get more people to hear it.
The best advice you can get is: read. There's an unmesurable ammount of threads and posts about guitar tones, mixes, etc, i'd say first of all find out what you don't like about the stuff you're hearing (maybe doing some comparison with stuff you like) and start eliminating the crap, most of the good stuff comes directly out of the amp (sim, in this case) and not from boosting and fucking with settings. Lots of ear training required... dedicate time to it, aim for a good mix, not a good guitar-solo-only tone. You need good monitors.

my 2cents.

PS: Use lepou's free ampsims, get rid of guitar rig. (for heavy stuff at least)
 
I agree, Guitar rig is really good when it comes to clean tones but for heavier, thicker guitar tones, I would recommend Amplitube. Try experimenting around with things, try different impulses.

You can also try out some of Onqel's free amp sims too. They're perfect for heavy tones.
 
I love Guitar Rigs cleans also. Problem is, the controls aren't very intuitive to me. I decided to go with Amplitube Metal and it works pretty well. I really like the gear it comes with, but if I really want the ultimate control, I use those ATMetal amps in the Amplitube 3 main program, which comes with some nice clean tones too. Not only do I get the clean tones of AT3, but it also gives me way more control and Mix+Match on my Micing, Cabs, and stuff because AT Metal is still based on AT2 (I think). Just thought I'd throw out to you how I get my 'likeable' tone. BTW, I always use another EQ on my chain afterwards if I'm mixing it. Making some cuts and some boosts makes a world of difference in a mix. Also, what guitar are you using, out of curiosity? I'm using a C-1 Hellraiser (Schecter) so the EMG pickups are probably helping a bit. But all in all I'd think digital tones aren't that bad if you work at them. Joey Sturgis is very successful at this and he uses a POD, for example
 
I tried out a couple of Plugins and got the best sound so far from Overloud TH2, check it out: http://m-ba.ch/UX1.rar

As for my guitars. I should've mentioned... My Strat has 2 Fender single coils and a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker. Don't have any problems finding a good sound with it. The main problem is my Dean with two Seymour Duncan humbuckers. The bridge pickup has very high output and a higher distortion than most pickups. If I try to use it with POD Farm, it either sounds crappy because I have to set the drive of the amps very low (4-5), or it's just pulp coming from the "amp"... :(

Any tips what might be good combinations of amps/cabs in POD Farm?
 
Hi,
I would suggest to make the time to tune the guitar to perfection so the strings cooperation in chords is ideal, perfectly tuned instruments (check the octaves also) sounds sooo much better and works a charm, when tight and precise playing and picking notes is evolved.

The second thing is in guitar rig it`s kinda complicated to achieve a good realistic and "heavy" sound, I remember having many EQ`s in the chain to compensate that kind of harsh character of the sound itself.

Also, did you try some "boost" in front of the GR/AT/whatever you used ? don`t have to be a razor killing boost, just a kind of band/hipass filter, for example TS808 or at least an shelving EQ set to hipass, that could help you tighten the sound a bit.

I would suggest you get a DI box, many times it helped me and my friends out in this situation.
As _Jeff_ had a great suggestion, try Onqel`s X30 and free stuff like Nick Crow`s amp sims plus impulses...Me thinks that`s the best way so far to achieve a good tone if you`re not going to use a real deal. :)

Yes, and...what about a PU change ? might be helpful too ;)

just my 2c anyway ..
 
I'm not really into amp sims myself but some general rules to follow are:

Use new strings on the guitar
Use a tubescreamer in front of the amp to tighten the low end
Use external speaker impulses instead of the stock cabinet models
 
Well, could possibly work, but not every impulse/simulation sounds less plastic/synthetic with much cutting and EQing (preferably with fine recorded impulses with natural and rich top-end behind 10k or so)
What I hear in the first place besides non-tightness is that there`s something missing in chain before the speaker sim which also makes it so harsh and scratchy. Some DI or preamp should do the trick .. also try using Fredman and GuitarHack`s impulses, they`re plain awesome :)
 
Thanks for the tips. Would you mind explaining to me what impulses are?

As for the general stuff... I change strings pretty often, because I hate it when they start to get all rusty and stuff. Besides, I figure if they sound really good on a proper amp, they souldn't sound crappy on the amp sim ^^
I doubt I'll have to change anything on the guitars. The Strat has two Fender single coils which I really love. Replaced the bridge pickup with a Seymour Duncan JB, which sounds pretty cool too.

Click me and check it out. I found this software... Overload TH2. Has some great sounds, but it's pretty expensive :(

My Dean's actually a bigger Problem. It's the Michael Amott Tyrant Bloodstorm signature, dropped down to C Standard. It seems that most software is overchallenged by the output of the pickups :(
 
Ragnarr said:
this. :rolleyes:

If PU swap is not an option, I would still recommend a DI box to get the signal hot enough for the sims to work in the (well...mostly) ideal way, not counting tightness in playing :)
Click to expand...

What exactly is the DI box supposed to do? I might be mistaken, but wouldn't any Interface like the UX1 and whatsnot make the signal symmetrical anyway?
 
Just a simple line preamplifier to preamp the instrument signal level to a line level and to convert high-Z input into low Z, to lower the chance of hiss and keep the high S/N ratio....of course, these interfaces does in fact act like DI, but if it`s not a higher-end one, dynamics and SNR will be lower, so the input impedance (I too can tell as I own a fast track pro :rolleyes: )
Experiment with hw/sw boosters or hipass filters maybe ?
 
Good point :) lowering the PUs will slightly alter the tone by a little more high frequencies roll-off and making the output less harsh, but really not much, but it should make it slightly more transparent and lets the preamp breathe more.
 
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