OPINION: VSTs Sound Like Absolute Dog Shit

  • Thread starter Thread starter BigGuitars
  • Start date Start date
stratjacket said:
I assume you’re playing through studio monitors, what monitors are you using and what interface or how are they connected to your computer?
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I do both monitors and headphones. Mackies for both. Focusrite solo. Run guitar into R input. Adjust level to just above green (somewhere around 12 decibels in the DAW. Studio One 5. Using guitars ranging from a Wolfgang special to Jackson JS11s to Fender HM Strat to Charvel San Dimas with JB. For plugins I've got STL AMPHUB, Fortin Cali Suite, Guitar Rig 5, ML 800, ML Roots, Amplitube 4...
 
Funny thing is, my amp sims can sound okay when I capture them in OBS when I'm streaming or recording videos. But they sound horrible in the DAW.

Example:

 
I’m not a fan of real amps with IRs either. IRs inject their own tome more so than the real cabinets the emulate. I simply feel that if you’re going to emulate the speaker and mic, then go all modeling at that point.
 
BigGuitars said:
It's probably just me. My hands don't agree with them. My ears don't agree with them, but you'd think at least I could find one tone in the plethora of models available that suits me. Doesn't look that way. I just don't get what people like about VSTs other than the convenience. Either I'm doing something completely wrong, or they really are just cheap digital gimmicks that sound like crap. Just a big grift. Either way, I'm just left baffled by how ungodly awful anything I try to record with them sounds. I'm familiar with the basics about setting up the interface, EQing out mud and whatnot. But they still sound like cruddy, muddy, flubby pieces of crap to me. Got to be some other guys that agree with me.
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Nope. I find VSTs absolutely awesome, convenient, efficient, and sonically fkn great providing I know what I'm using and how I'm using it.

One thing that shouldn't require stating, but seemingly does - there's SO much stuff out there with regarding to VSTs/Plug-Ins/etc. that it's really hard to wade through all the crap and figure out what it is one needs. Sometimes even the crappy ones can actually do a lot of great things providing you really wring 'em out for everything they're worth. Too many options, results in not enough time spent truly learning the platforms/plug-ins, and takes away from the whole "shut up 'n play yer guitar" focus. Get a "few" select VSTs and plug-ins that YOU need, and work the shit outta them. Get to know them intimately well - because they offer a lot.

As for everything sucking - I don't think the users of Spectrasonics could possibly agree. I certainly don't agree.

To each their own.
Peace & Powerchords :rock::rock::rock::rock:
 
BigGuitars said:
Funny thing is, my amp sims can sound okay when I capture them in OBS when I'm streaming or recording videos. But they sound horrible in the DAW.

Example:

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To me, that sounds terrible because the tone was dialed in terribly.

In the room sounds do not always translate well to recordings.
 
scottosan said:
I’m not a fan of real amps with IRs either. IRs inject their own tome more so than the real cabinets the emulate. I simply feel that if you’re going to emulate the speaker and mic, then go all modeling at that point.
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Nah. You need to take some time to create some IRs and you will learn so much. IRs do not alter your tone more than the cabinets at all.
 
Spaceboy said:
Nah. You need to take some time to create some IRs and you will learn so much. IRs do not alter your tone more than the cabinets at all.
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I agree. This is the first time I’ve ever heard this, and I don’t agree either. What they DO impart however, is the entire signal chain: mic, cab, mic pre, and ( important) conversion. So yes, however someone captured that IR, makes a difference yes. I guarantee you an IR captured with an API preamp and shitty ( or great) converters is going to sound and feel different than an IR captured with a neve style preamp and the same converters ( and same mic and cab obviously). The preamp and the converters mostly definitely make a difference; how big or small it is is up to your ear and what you think. I personally think they matter a lot, and are two factors that don’t get talked about much( if at all) when capturing IR’s.
 
VESmedic said:
I agree. This is the first time I’ve ever heard this, and I don’t agree either. What they DO impart however, is the entire signal chain: mic, cab, mic pre, and ( important) conversion. So yes, however someone captured that IR, makes a difference yes. I guarantee you an IR captured with an API preamp and shitty ( or great) converters is going to sound and feel different than an IR captured with a neve style preamp and the same converters ( and same mic and cab obviously). The preamp and the converters mostly definitely make a difference; how big or small it is is up to your ear and what you think. I personally think they matter a lot, and are two factors that don’t get talked about much( if at all) when capturing IR’s.
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Thanks for this perspective. So do you have recommendations in this regard? I've been seeing positive reviews of the York Audio captures. I only have experience with Ownhammer and Celestion (and no complaints).
 
Whoever's got that real amp/vst A/B comparison I'd like to hear it
 
Definitely check out the Lasse STL Suite. You can demo it for 10 days. Sounds killer! The Greenback IRs sound like recording my '72 GBs but professionally done. ? Was very impressed with it.
 
Question to the OP - are you sure you're feeding instrument level signal to your soundcard before it hits the sim and are you sure it's set up properly? I've seen so many ppl mess up so badly. Just today a colleague from work said he can't make his positive grid bias sound right. Guess what. He was plugging his guitar into a line level input. Plus he forgot to switch to the asio driver and set buffer size properly. It took us 5 min to fix all and he was super happy with the results. Also food for thought - you'd be surprised how bad isolated guitars sound on your favourite recording. :)
 
welp.....here we go...


things to consider: One is a reamped track, the other is a plugin on a DI: This is inherently going to cause differences in tone just from the start. the reamp tracked is traveling through my converters, out my DI box, out to my amp, back into my converters, through my di/reamp box again, and to my monitors. The plugin does none of that, except on rendering hitting the converters. I have what I consider the best DI/reamp box on the planet, the little labs red eye, but still, it is something to consider. The same cab IR was used for both, lasse lammert tonality suite: 57/201 mix on a recto cab. volume match is pretty close, but sonically you may think they are different volumes just because the amp track and the DI track have inherently different frequency responses and dynamics. The rendered files look totally different, that should tell you something is going on different between the two right from the start.


These are not WAV files, they are MP3s. Soundcloud of course converts these to MP3's anyways, but rendering a wav to soundcloud should theoretically sound better than an mp3 to an mp3, but hey, they sound good regardless. enjoy!





 
K-Roll said:
Question to the OP - are you sure you're feeding instrument level signal to your soundcard before it hits the sim and are you sure it's set up properly? I've seen so many ppl mess up so badly. Just today a colleague from work said he can't make his positive grid bias sound right. Guess what. He was plugging his guitar into a line level input. Plus he forgot to switch to the asio driver and set buffer size properly. It took us 5 min to fix all and he was super happy with the results. Also food for thought - you'd be surprised how bad isolated guitars sound on your favourite recording. :)
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Uh... How do I check this stuff? I don't think I'm running it wrong. I've got guitar running into R input on Focusrite solo. Track selecting that input. Not sure about asio or buffer size.
 
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