I've read in some sites that S-Gear is a great guitar amp emulator... I honestly never tried it or paid attention to it...

Do you know it? Is it that good? I'm curious.

Yes actually! I have been in contact with the guy that created the software for many years. I even made some suggestions that showed up in a recent version. He always listens to folks as far as feedback and makes a very good amp sim.

It's the best one I have tried yet in terms of mid gain and clean tones. Many sims struggle when the gain is in the middle. They can do high gain, they can do clean, but that bluesy/tube/warm mid ground is a real challenge for them. This is not the case with S-Gear I've found personally. It does an amazing job with such sounds and has a very tube like and warm character. Also, it's stereo clean tones are simply pristine.

Not to say it can't handle high gain, because it can. I made a few patches that I shared with the S-Gear Forum and made a few vids featuring some of the patches.

Here is one of the vids I made for him when the last version was released.


Todd

Sure, it's up there with Helix and TH3 and Amplitube. I don't know if I would call it "best" though .

I never understood what was so special about it, not that its bad but the high attention and praises always felt odd to me.

I also remember there was this barely noticable (with headphones) room-ish sounding reverb in it that couldn't be turned off, don't know if it was a bug or there to fool ears.

All of the reverb and room tone can be killed if so desired The mic/cab section let's you control the fine details. Some IRs do have a bit of room in them it seems. The good news is that the Sgear comes with a wad of RED WIREZ IRs which is very handy and you can load your own as well

As was mentioned, "Best" is a term that doesn't work well for subjective things like tone, plugins, etc. But as far as my experience, it's an amazing plugin for getting a really warm/tube like distortion and for really pristine cleans. Worth a download and spending some time with it at the very least

Todd

Thanks guys! There is a demo version so I'll try it later.

The "best" tittle at this thread was to attract your attention.

While your at it, grab the Overloud demo, and the AMPLITUDE demo, as well as SGear. Each one is a bit different and folks like them for different reasons. It's worth playing around with each of them to see which one fits you best IMHO

Todd

I've always liked the Waves GTR one with models by Neil Citron and Paul Reed Smith:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yde2nEH9RXQ


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBOPK80kcdA


In fact, I like it so much I've just re-installed it!!!

Id say get a demo of that as well! I demoed pretty much all of the amp sims over the years, and the updates. Each one has it's own strengths and it's own tone. A lot depends on the tone you are looking for. GUITAR RIG was my go to sim for quite some time before I found Overloud. I have a thread full of Guitar Rig Presets here as a result. Now I have a thread with each sim I've gotten really in to so there are presets you can download from my profile forum. You can't always tell how a sim sounds by the built in presets. Sooo many are PURE CRAP as was my experience with GUITAR RIG. I only like one preamp, the sansamp emulation. So I used it in pretty much every patch. In OVERLOUD I like the RANDALL heads like the V2.

Todd

I have GTR and really like it. The other one I used to really like but don't really see mentioned is Magix Vandal also great for Vintagey Gain sounds, not so good for the real High Gain stuff.

Is it a new version of Waves GTR? I don't remember getting cool tones of mine in the past..

I have GTR 3.5 which I think has not been updated since. I had some nice tones using dual Amps and different Cabs on each with only a Boost in front on the included Pedals and some Delay after the Amps. If I can get it set up the same again I'll post some clips!

Also check out the demos for some of the amp specific plugins. For example there is a killer ENGL emulation that has a demo. It's incredible in terms of how versatile it is. It's got reverb/delay built in and even the stock patches are nice. Of course you can make your own to taste. It goes from sparkle clean to bluesy crunch to metal chug.

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products...gl_e646_vs.html

I did a couple of demos with it. I found it very responsive and very close to the real thing that I also tried. Your mileage may vary.




This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Oct 13 2017, 06:01 PM

That's cool Todd! The POWERBALL II head sounds really good!


I wonder if anybody tried the Helix standalone software.

Idid loved the cleans but the high gain models sounded like they needed additional IR files. i did two vids with every stock preset.

It can be time consuming but my recent topic on tone cloning might be the best way to evalute software.

I remember my first thoughts on the processor but few things changed after I set a goal. Liked the amps more, disliked the reverbs more...specially for the experienced user finding a tone to like gets easier with experience so making things harder makes more sense to us.

And its also not only about how close but how fast we can get there too. This might be even more important as there isn't many "bad" options out there. Even freeware can be a better option than the payware depending on the tone needed.

Finally, if one owns a pedal setup this should be included when testing. Keeping the pedals adjustments (I almost never change mine) constant actually improves evaluation speed.

This post has been edited by Mertay: Oct 15 2017, 07:55 AM