I have sworn by Waves plug-ins for a long time. They are a great company, and their plug-ins are well worth the big price tag. A lot of hype is surrounding their new Waves GTR plug-in, apparently it's the "hot new thing" in the LA studios, and the "best amp modeler ever," so I was really curious and excited to try it.
First, the rig: I used my tried-and-true workhorse guitar, the ESP LTD MH 400 NT with EMG 85 (bridge) and EMG 81 (neck) pickups. I used the Native Instruments Guitar Rig DI footboard unit straight into the Analog input of my MBox.
Setup: I downloaded the demo tonight and got it registered on my iLok (silly that I should have to do this for a DEMO) and voila, some new plug-ins to play with. Variations on the Amp and Pedal plugins exist for mono/stereo, number of pedals per plug-in instance (2, 4, or 6) and number of cabinets (1 or 2.) Generally speaking, the Amp plugin with 2 cabs in mono sounded the "least worst," to paraphrase Type O Negative. Waves also threw in a very cool Tuner, which I have to say is the best software tuner I've ever used!
The UI design for the plug-ins is top notch, exactly what we've come to expect from Waves. Everything looks really cool, and is easy to use, with nice preset menus, A--B, undo-redo, and the other usual Waves niceties. But how does it sound?
As most of us here would do, I put this thing to the test for a METAL sound first and foremost. I tried lots of different approaches, varying amps, pedals, cabinets, mics, EQ settings, etc., and everything I came up with sounded brittle, digital, and grating. I've not heard high gain amp simulation that is this amazingly unusable before, it's like some kind of sick joke!
Low fast palm muting sounds weak and unconvincing, pinch harmonics are incredibly piercing, and seem louder than everything else in a very phony, disorienting way (the amp Drive is apparently auto-normalized... ouch.) The EQ knobs on the face of the virtual amp models are voiced so strangely that I wonder if they ever tested them with an actual guitar. The Bass and Mid knobs make your guitar woof like a nauseated dog. The Treble and Presence knobs, once dialled even slightly past 12 noon, begin to rip your head off with insane amounts of high pitched white noise, even when you're not playing, and your Drive is turned up less than halfway.
I found myself laughing quite a bit when I wasn't feeling frustrated. However, the Gate pedal does a decent job of shutting this thing up intelligently and transparently, so at least you can "make it stop." And believe me, you'll want to!
For more "in between" type sounds, it sounded fairly decent. Like one of those palmtop Zoom units. Not stellar, but not nearly as bad as the hi gain amps. I would still never use it on anything resembling a final recording, though.
For clean tones, I found myself liking GTR quite a bit, especially when I used their Doubler pedal (kind of a subtle phaser) in front of the Clean amp. Shimmering, full-bodied clean tones, I was really impressed. However, the Delay pedal sounds wacky and excessive, as does the Chorus pedal, no matter how they're dialled, so it's pretty limited mileage in terms of variations of usable clean tones. And as good as GTR sounds clean, both NI Guitar Rig and POD XT sound at least as good (if not better!), and they have a lot more usable (and even amazing!) effects to choose from, particularly in the Delay/Chorus/Mod department.
The presets: Just to see if I hadn't explored the right options in dialing up tones, I tried out all the preset sounds that come with GTR. The hi gain settings have cheesy leetspeak names like "GoTh1k" and "nU," which sound even more hilariously awful than anything I came up with on my own. All the hi gain presets are variations on the same theme: mid-scooped sounds that have more bass than anything else. Woof woof!!!! I seriously don't get what the fuck they were thinking, all the money Waves has made selling plug-ins must be supporting some serious crack habits.
The verdict: save your money. POD XT is the champ overall, NI Guitar Rig sounds great for anything except metal, Amplitube and Amp Farm both sounded terrible to me until I heard Waves GTR, which has to be the worst amp modeler I've ever heard. I've tried to be fair but it's just a ridiculously sucky product. Of course, nothing sounds as good as a real amp miked up, but this comes nowhere even close.
I can't imagine their overhyped Waves/PRS DI box would make any significant tonal difference, either. I can tell that the audio coming through my existing DI is a good sounding signal at the right level, and that it is the GTR amp modeling itself that is introducing the suck.
The question in my mind is, how did this product ever make it to market? It's $600 Native and a whopping $1200 TDM. They sell it as "The Professional Choice." If people start using this on major records, get ready for the worst recorded guitar sounds you've ever heard. With all the producers in LA raving about it, I'm sure it's destined to happen.
If you guys want clips, I'll post them here.
First, the rig: I used my tried-and-true workhorse guitar, the ESP LTD MH 400 NT with EMG 85 (bridge) and EMG 81 (neck) pickups. I used the Native Instruments Guitar Rig DI footboard unit straight into the Analog input of my MBox.
Setup: I downloaded the demo tonight and got it registered on my iLok (silly that I should have to do this for a DEMO) and voila, some new plug-ins to play with. Variations on the Amp and Pedal plugins exist for mono/stereo, number of pedals per plug-in instance (2, 4, or 6) and number of cabinets (1 or 2.) Generally speaking, the Amp plugin with 2 cabs in mono sounded the "least worst," to paraphrase Type O Negative. Waves also threw in a very cool Tuner, which I have to say is the best software tuner I've ever used!
The UI design for the plug-ins is top notch, exactly what we've come to expect from Waves. Everything looks really cool, and is easy to use, with nice preset menus, A--B, undo-redo, and the other usual Waves niceties. But how does it sound?
As most of us here would do, I put this thing to the test for a METAL sound first and foremost. I tried lots of different approaches, varying amps, pedals, cabinets, mics, EQ settings, etc., and everything I came up with sounded brittle, digital, and grating. I've not heard high gain amp simulation that is this amazingly unusable before, it's like some kind of sick joke!
Low fast palm muting sounds weak and unconvincing, pinch harmonics are incredibly piercing, and seem louder than everything else in a very phony, disorienting way (the amp Drive is apparently auto-normalized... ouch.) The EQ knobs on the face of the virtual amp models are voiced so strangely that I wonder if they ever tested them with an actual guitar. The Bass and Mid knobs make your guitar woof like a nauseated dog. The Treble and Presence knobs, once dialled even slightly past 12 noon, begin to rip your head off with insane amounts of high pitched white noise, even when you're not playing, and your Drive is turned up less than halfway.
I found myself laughing quite a bit when I wasn't feeling frustrated. However, the Gate pedal does a decent job of shutting this thing up intelligently and transparently, so at least you can "make it stop." And believe me, you'll want to!
For more "in between" type sounds, it sounded fairly decent. Like one of those palmtop Zoom units. Not stellar, but not nearly as bad as the hi gain amps. I would still never use it on anything resembling a final recording, though.
For clean tones, I found myself liking GTR quite a bit, especially when I used their Doubler pedal (kind of a subtle phaser) in front of the Clean amp. Shimmering, full-bodied clean tones, I was really impressed. However, the Delay pedal sounds wacky and excessive, as does the Chorus pedal, no matter how they're dialled, so it's pretty limited mileage in terms of variations of usable clean tones. And as good as GTR sounds clean, both NI Guitar Rig and POD XT sound at least as good (if not better!), and they have a lot more usable (and even amazing!) effects to choose from, particularly in the Delay/Chorus/Mod department.
The presets: Just to see if I hadn't explored the right options in dialing up tones, I tried out all the preset sounds that come with GTR. The hi gain settings have cheesy leetspeak names like "GoTh1k" and "nU," which sound even more hilariously awful than anything I came up with on my own. All the hi gain presets are variations on the same theme: mid-scooped sounds that have more bass than anything else. Woof woof!!!! I seriously don't get what the fuck they were thinking, all the money Waves has made selling plug-ins must be supporting some serious crack habits.
The verdict: save your money. POD XT is the champ overall, NI Guitar Rig sounds great for anything except metal, Amplitube and Amp Farm both sounded terrible to me until I heard Waves GTR, which has to be the worst amp modeler I've ever heard. I've tried to be fair but it's just a ridiculously sucky product. Of course, nothing sounds as good as a real amp miked up, but this comes nowhere even close.
I can't imagine their overhyped Waves/PRS DI box would make any significant tonal difference, either. I can tell that the audio coming through my existing DI is a good sounding signal at the right level, and that it is the GTR amp modeling itself that is introducing the suck.
The question in my mind is, how did this product ever make it to market? It's $600 Native and a whopping $1200 TDM. They sell it as "The Professional Choice." If people start using this on major records, get ready for the worst recorded guitar sounds you've ever heard. With all the producers in LA raving about it, I'm sure it's destined to happen.
If you guys want clips, I'll post them here.
no, seriously, thats pretty much the same raspy harsh brittle top end....except the bass on the marshall is tighter...so this is actually worse...but not much. 
