Improving Results With Guitar Sims/plugins Options

[Todd Simpson]

I'm not an engineer, I'm a guitar player But very often, I hear about folks very frustrated with the tone they get from guitar sims. Only recently did I realize I was doing something by accident almost that is giving me a bit of an advantage in hardware. The good news is, it's an easy fix.

THE PROBLEM:

You plug in to your interface, you launch your guitar plugin and it sounds thin/weak/etc.

THE CURE

There are a couple of easy ways to fix this. I'm using a Behringer Direct Box (original I just added it for boost) but it also, according to the behringer site,

"Provides impedance and signal matching for the direct connection of instruments to mixers and amplifiers"
http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/DI4000.aspx

essentially, plugging directly in to an interface robs your signal of some of the natural response of an amp. I'm using a very generic product to overcome this, but you could also use a purpose built product like this one.

The MOTU Z BOX.

This device does something similar and makes your software react a bit better by doing a bit of impedance kung fu. From the vendor web site. http://www.motu.com/products/guitar/zbox

"ZBox matches the output impedance (”Z”) of your guitar to the impedance of a non-amp input, such as the mic/instrument preamp inputs on your audio interface. Without proper impedance matching, your guitar won’t sound natural or “feel right”.
"

The pricey option is to get something like the 11 Rack or similar rack unit that adjusts input impedance on the fly to make the guitar simulations seem more realistic. I've used wads of rack units and the 11 does respond with the dynamics of an amp. So while it does seem a bit like smoke and mirrors, I've been converted in to a believer

Here is a brief article about "impedance matching" and it's impact on overall GUITAR TONE. It's a wad more important than I originally thought. Just sharing my experience though, your mileage may vary

http://community.avid.com/blogs/avid/archi...out-true-z.aspx

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This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Sep 1 2014, 08:53 PM