Whoa... check this out: https://www.sonicake.com/?syclid=3b2cea ... 005913dca5

I had a practice last night with the laptop setup, and I disliked a lot about it. There were too many boxes on top of my cab: the power amp, the audio interface, the laptop... There were extra cables, like the midi cable, and the cable between the interface the power amp. It took longer than expected to get everything setup. Then, trying to get the EQ correct for the cabinet was difficult to do with plugins and caused some other issues. I know this is something that would only happen once, but I digress, it just shows how fragile the whole thing is.

However, the setup is absolutely perfect for recording. Managing the cab IR is easy and flexible, there's no time pressure if something goes wrong, and there's no phantom clicks to clean up in the audio from the pedal switches. There's also a lot more options for putting together pedal boards and using a midi footswitch, and less gear to carry if you are going to a professional studio.

Okay folks. I’m kind of done with my whole real amp and pedals chain into my laptop and GarageBand. There must be a great, inexpensive amp simulator that wouldn’t be sounding that different for my personal recording/songwriting.

I’ve got an iRig interface. I really want a simple, switch on and go setup. Suggestions very welcome. I’m not a pro, I just want decent sounding and plug in and go guitar setup.

Gramsci wrote: Thu Mar 20, 2025 6:46 am Okay folks. I’m kind of done with my whole real amp and pedals chain into my laptop and GarageBand. There must be a great, inexpensive amp simulator that wouldn’t be sounding that different for my personal recording/songwriting.

I’ve got an iRig interface. I really want a simple, switch on and go setup. Suggestions very welcome. I’m not a pro, I just want decent sounding and plug in and go guitar setup.

I saw Six Organs of Admittance recently. He used a Jazzmaster into the Boss IR-2 on Fender Twin setting straight to the PA. It sounded indistinguishable from playing through an amp.

I have a Strymon Iridium that is simple and sounds good. I think the Boss is cheaper.

Gramsci wrote: Thu Mar 20, 2025 6:46 am Okay folks. I’m kind of done with my whole real amp and pedals chain into my laptop and GarageBand. There must be a great, inexpensive amp simulator that wouldn’t be sounding that different for my personal recording/songwriting.

I’ve got an iRig interface. I really want a simple, switch on and go setup. Suggestions very welcome. I’m not a pro, I just want decent sounding and plug in and go guitar setup.

For a Plugin, I like the Brainworks Bassman, and Ampeg V4b and B15 plugins. They go on sale on Plugin Alliance all time. I think I got them for like $15 each. Still never met a Twin Reverb or Super Reverb plugin that I liked. Seems like Clean is a real trick to these devs.

I have a TC Electronics Deluxe reverb thing that sounds close enough for government work. Really cheap. Sometimes I just use my Rusty Box or Boxidizer with a Fender 63 Spring Reverb pedal. If I'm playing into a cab, I have a little Furman SP20 2 CH amp that is like 40 watts (20/ch) and it does well. It's like half a rack space sized. If I need more I use my bid Peavey Tube Power Amp, which sounds great.

I also hear the little POD Express pedal sounds pretty cool.

skoz wrote: Thu Mar 20, 2025 8:42 am

Gramsci wrote: Thu Mar 20, 2025 6:46 am Okay folks. I’m kind of done with my whole real amp and pedals chain into my laptop and GarageBand. There must be a great, inexpensive amp simulator that wouldn’t be sounding that different for my personal recording/songwriting.

I’ve got an iRig interface. I really want a simple, switch on and go setup. Suggestions very welcome. I’m not a pro, I just want decent sounding and plug in and go guitar setup.

I saw Six Organs of Admittance recently. He used a Jazzmaster into the Boss IR-2 on Fender Twin setting straight to the PA. It sounded indistinguishable from playing through an amp.

I have a Strymon Iridium that is simple and sounds good. I think the Boss is cheaper.

The Boss looks great. The USB C solved a problem. I think I’ll buy one.

Gramsci wrote: Thu Mar 20, 2025 6:46 am Okay folks. I’m kind of done with my whole real amp and pedals chain into my laptop and GarageBand. There must be a great, inexpensive amp simulator that wouldn’t be sounding that different for my personal recording/songwriting.

I’ve got an iRig interface. I really want a simple, switch on and go setup. Suggestions very welcome. I’m not a pro, I just want decent sounding and plug in and go guitar setup.

Depends on your application. Are you just doing recording? Software is awesome, iRig is a good start, it's all dependent on your taste and what you are looking for.

You can test drive Kuassa's Amplification 360. It's an all-inclusive app that loads all their products, built for this purpose. You can test drive anything and you can buy everything for fairly cheap, considering.

Another one to consider is Two-Notes G-nome. It's fairly inexpensive and you get a lot of great stuff for the money. There's some pay-for modules that are nice, but I wouldn't say required.

Nembrini makes a VST host, Nexus, that is very flexible and will load any VST you want. So, you're not really tied into a specific brand ecosystem. Nemberini also makes the amps that Plugin Alliance has that everyone loves and has mentioned here. They also have a free VST host that will load their VSTs, and they have a ton of free ones that are nice.

However, if you want to do this live, having a laptop is really cumbersome. So, something to consider is if you are willing to spend money. There are some hardware options available that are great: there's the Helix, the Quad Cortex and the Ampero II, just for starters. I can only really speak on the Ampero here, because I own one, but any of the Ampero II products are also audio interfaces. The Stage in particular has amazing I/O.

Two-Notes makes the Opus, which is amp/cab sim. Really nice if you really are only interested in the amp/cab sim and want to use your own pedals or multi-effects. I would point out any purchase of a Two-Notes physical product will come with a free copy of Genome. I have two of these that I use for recording and live, when I'm using my actual pedals.

There's tons of great VST stuff out there: Nembrini, Kuassa, Audiority, Plugin Alliance.... you could even find plenty of free VSTs between these companies that would get you a really nice rig on the cheap. If you are only really recording, you don't need a VST host, because your recording software would suffice. Can't say much about Garageband, but Reaper is really cheap, if you pay for a license, which is optional.

Regardless of what you do, you should consider a MIDI controller of some sort. The Hotone Ampero Control is amazing (not specifically needed for an Ampero) and also the Paint Audio MIDI Captain is really flexible. For cheap and easy set up, there's always the Behringer FCB1010.

As far as sound and quality goes: Of all the software and non-software sims I've used, my favorites have been Two-Notes Genome/Opus and Ampero. They just seem more lively and tweakable. What I love about Two-Notes stuff is that you can tweak the hell out of your preamps and poweramps. And the cab simulation has the most options for designing your mic position and even the room you want to record in. Most amp sims with IRs only give you mic position and mic type.

Gramsci wrote: Thu Mar 20, 2025 10:37 am

skoz wrote: Thu Mar 20, 2025 8:42 am

Gramsci wrote: Thu Mar 20, 2025 6:46 am Okay folks. I’m kind of done with my whole real amp and pedals chain into my laptop and GarageBand. There must be a great, inexpensive amp simulator that wouldn’t be sounding that different for my personal recording/songwriting.

I’ve got an iRig interface. I really want a simple, switch on and go setup. Suggestions very welcome. I’m not a pro, I just want decent sounding and plug in and go guitar setup.

I saw Six Organs of Admittance recently. He used a Jazzmaster into the Boss IR-2 on Fender Twin setting straight to the PA. It sounded indistinguishable from playing through an amp.

I have a Strymon Iridium that is simple and sounds good. I think the Boss is cheaper.

The Boss looks great. The USB C solved a problem. I think I’ll buy one.

I like mine, especially since the clean and dirty channels can be completely different amps and settings.

I was setting up the Ampero Stomp over the weekend and I'm just thoroughly impressed with it. It's not that it's unique amongst it's competitors, just considering what having 12 blocks of effects can do to expand your options is just amazing. I love that you can add an FX loop to any block, that is a total game changer in itself. I ended up getting an Ampero Control and the Ampero Switch for an extra 6 footswitches, for a total of 9. The 3 Stomp footswitches have short and long press controls, though the only long press I find useful is the one that turns the Tuner on.

Block 1: Volume mapped to an expression pedal
Block 2: EQ voicing with mid-range boost mapped to the Ampero Stomp FS 2
Block 3: EQ voicing with low-range boost mapped to the Ampero Stomp FS 3
Block 4: Compressor mapped to Ampero Control FS 1
Block 5: Boost mapped to Ampero Control FS 2
Block 6: Distortion mapped to Ampero Control FS 3
Block 7: Boost mapped to Ampero Control FS 4
Block 8: Pitch Shifter mapped to Ampero Switch FS 1
Block 9: Detune mapped to Ampero Switch FS 2
Block 10: FX Loop mapped to Ampero Stomp FS 1
Block 11: Amp
Block 12: Cab

In the FX Loop, I've got a TC Electronic Plethora X1 into an analog delay. I only wish the X1 had some way to switch between FX that doesn't require me to bend down, but not a deal breaker.

I love all the coloring options for the guitar and ability to add EQ to voice the amp differently. It's been a great solution since adding a second guitarist to the band and having trouble cutting through at times. If this were an all physical pedal pedalboard, it would be absolutely ridiculous in size and complexity, but since two of the pedals on the board do multiple things, it's actually a pretty quaint size, considering.

I ended up moving the modulation out into the X1 because I didn't like the ones from the Stomp compared to it. This ended up freeing some blocks up and I thought, why not go for broke and added an extra EQ, a compressor and an additional boost on the other side of the drive pedals.

I’ve been playing around with the Amplitube 5 free amps and to be honest they’re pretty good for what I need. I still find the clean amp isn’t nearly as “warm and punchy” as my Mesa Mark I plugged direct. But the High Gain sounds fine. I’m using the build in effects for GarageBand. My latest project is kind of mini symphonies. Lots of layered guitars so “tone” isn’t really needed.

The Boss pedal still looks good.

Is there a list of great free plugins for GB?