Cool Plugins I Discovered + Tips For Newbies |
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Jan 15 2014, 09:29 AM
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Beware, long post
 I came across a few very good plugins yesterday but I was too lazy to try them, so I was warming up (after getting the advice from my previous thread ) and I thought why not try some new stuff for my tone  So I tried them, and they sound awesome! And that's a pretty rare thing for me  Oh and I also discovered something for myself; I don't really need Gain on my amps to get distortion... I was recording metal with my amp sims and I just put them on the dirty channel with the gain at 0 and I swear it was still distorted as hell but the hiss/noise was significantly less. So just as a tip for people just getting into recording, do not set the gain at full, just turn up the volume of the amp on the dirty/OD channel and see if it works for you, and if it doesn't, increase the gain slowly, never turn it all the way up, it'll just be a pain This is especially true for rhythm guitar recording because (according to me) we layer our guitar tracks, so it makes them sound more full and more powerful. Adding more gain makes you lose your tone.Onto the plugins then! Before I start, some of the new people who are interested in some home recording and music production came to me for advice, and the common opinion among all of them was that the paid plugins are always way better than free ones. Not true. I use Guitar Rig, Amplitube 3 (paid) and Overloud TH2, and while they are of really good quality (especially TH2, I love it), any tone that paid plugins can give you, you can get that tone with free plugins. The only difference is, paid plugins come with a lot of presets, and some of them like the ones I discussed above, are all-in-one, amps, pedals, EQs, cabs etc. To be honest, I've gotten better tones with free plugins and less experimentation than using Guitar Rig. Feel free to comment if you disagree The Classic Tone Bundle - AcmeBarGig If you're into classic rock and stuff, this thing comes packed with amp heads and is meant to provide tone similar to old school music. I'm into classic rock, so this was a treat oh and its free, the whole bundle. Get it here: http://www.acmebargig.com/downloads/classic-tone-bundle/Preampus Metal Bundle - AcmeBarGig This bundle consists of all of AcmeBarGig's Preampus Metal amp heads (and weirdly, I'm using one of them and it doesn't require an impulse loader... hmm I don't know). I've only tried one of them, and its amazing! You have a separate "Drive Amp" with that amp, which colors the drive. Also comes with loads of presets to get you started. I'm expecting the others to be the same, will check them out once I'm home again, the bundle is free. Get it here: http://www.acmebargig.com/downloads/preampus-metal-lineRedShift Pickup Replacer - AcmeBarGig Okay this is the plugin that caught my eye. Pickup replacer? Really? But yes, it works amazingly well, it has EQ settings of 16 or so pickups that you can put at the very front of your effects chain. I love the Dimebag pickups and the "Invasion" one. I just put this on top, put a low pass at 100Hz or so, put an expander and then use one of the Preampus metal amps, and it works really well!. Free also! Get it here: http://www.acmebargig.com/downloads/redshift Cabinet Enhancer - AcmeBarGig This is an impulse loader with a lot of stuff that generally impulse loaders don't have (at least the ones I tried didn't ). These features are supposed to "add a new dimension to Impulse Response files, adding back some of that live sound that gets lost in generation." Well, it does sound pretty epic and way better than some of the impulse loaders I've used, so I guess its great Free! Get it here: http://www.acmebargig.com/downloads/cab-enhancer/Aftershock (Delay) - AcmeBarGig I'm not a huge fan of delay, I just use a subtle amount of delay just to round off my tone and to get that little filled up live sound quality. I haven't tried this yet, but since all of the other AcmeBarGig plugins are so wonderful, why wouldn't this be? Free free free! Get it here: http://www.acmebargig.com/downloads/aftershock/Pro-Q Equalizer - FabFilter This is the only paid plugin, and they offer a trial version, which I'm using. This is like your regular EQ with some colors. But the thing that makes it special is it can isolate any amount of frequencies. Meaning you can put a boundary around the frequencies you want to hear, and it'll let only those frequencies through, all the other frequencies will be muted Useful when you want to find a particular frequency range to be either made more prominent or less. Trial available here: http://www.fabfilter.com/products/pro-q-equalizer-plug-inI will post a clip of me using some of the plugins I discussed and their settings plus my effects chain after I get home Feel free to ask, disagree or agree with me I'm just a beginner in the music production field and I try to help all other new people out, so I can use all the help I can get EDIT: Here's the settings I used on the sample at the bottom of the post: Lead Guitar:  Rhythm Guitars:  Here's the sample: https://soundcloud.com/sam-ryan-stormrage/new-amps-soundtest This post has been edited by sammetal92: Jan 15 2014, 08:45 PM |
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Jan 15 2014, 01:41 PM
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Hi Sam. This is a very interesting thread. I think that your comments about setting amps with not too much drive and the comparison between paid software and free ones are very precise and helpful for everybody here that wants to start experimenting but also for the ones that want to improve their tones in their recordings. Thanks for taking the time to make this helpful post.
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Jan 15 2014, 04:08 PM
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Thanks for taking the time to post such a useful and detailed review
Seems like I need to spend some time on trying those
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as always 
so just a bit before I show you guys the clip |
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Jan 15 2014, 07:38 PM
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Great post
 Post some recording samples and such to let us hear what you are doing with these! Good advice also not to ROOF the gain right away. Especially on tube amp sims, it just wrecks the tone IMHO. QUOTE (sammetal92 @ Jan 15 2014, 03:29 AM)  Beware, long post I came across a few very good plugins yesterday but I was too lazy to try them, so I was warming up (after getting the advice from my previous thread ) and I thought why not try some new stuff for my tone So I tried them, and they sound awesome! And that's a pretty rare thing for me Oh and I also discovered something for myself; I don't really need Gain on my amps to get distortion... I was recording metal with my amp sims and I just put them on the dirty channel with the gain at 0 and I swear it was still distorted as hell but the hiss/noise was significantly less. So just as a tip for people just getting into recording, do not set the gain at full, just turn up the volume of the amp on the dirty/OD channel and see if it works for you, and if it doesn't, increase the gain slowly, never turn it all the way up, it'll just be a pain This is especially true for rhythm guitar recording because (according to me) we layer our guitar tracks, so it makes them sound more full and more powerful. Adding more gain makes you lose your tone.Onto the plugins then! Before I start, some of the new people who are interested in some home recording and music production came to me for advice, and the common opinion among all of them was that the paid plugins are always way better than free ones. Not true. I use Guitar Rig, Amplitube 3 (paid) and Overloud TH2, and while they are of really good quality (especially TH2, I love it), any tone that paid plugins can give you, you can get that tone with free plugins. The only difference is, paid plugins come with a lot of presets, and some of them like the ones I discussed above, are all-in-one, amps, pedals, EQs, cabs etc. To be honest, I've gotten better tones with free plugins and less experimentation than using Guitar Rig. Feel free to comment if you disagree The Classic Tone Bundle - AcmeBarGig If you're into classic rock and stuff, this thing comes packed with amp heads and is meant to provide tone similar to old school music. I'm into classic rock, so this was a treat oh and its free, the whole bundle. Get it here: http://www.acmebargig.com/downloads/classic-tone-bundle/Preampus Metal Bundle - AcmeBarGig This bundle consists of all of AcmeBarGig's Preampus Metal amp heads (and weirdly, I'm using one of them and it doesn't require an impulse loader... hmm I don't know). I've only tried one of them, and its amazing! You have a separate "Drive Amp" with that amp, which colors the drive. Also comes with loads of presets to get you started. I'm expecting the others to be the same, will check them out once I'm home again, the bundle is free. Get it here: http://www.acmebargig.com/downloads/preampus-metal-lineRedShift Pickup Replacer - AcmeBarGig Okay this is the plugin that caught my eye. Pickup replacer? Really? But yes, it works amazingly well, it has EQ settings of 16 or so pickups that you can put at the very front of your effects chain. I love the Dimebag pickups and the "Invasion" one. I just put this on top, put a low pass at 100Hz or so, put an expander and then use one of the Preampus metal amps, and it works really well!. Free also! Get it here: http://www.acmebargig.com/downloads/redshift Cabinet Enhancer - AcmeBarGig This is an impulse loader with a lot of stuff that generally impulse loaders don't have (at least the ones I tried didn't ). These features are supposed to "add a new dimension to Impulse Response files, adding back some of that live sound that gets lost in generation." Well, it does sound pretty epic and way better than some of the impulse loaders I've used, so I guess its great Free! Get it here: http://www.acmebargig.com/downloads/cab-enhancer/Aftershock (Delay) - AcmeBarGig I'm not a huge fan of delay, I just use a subtle amount of delay just to round off my tone and to get that little filled up live sound quality. I haven't tried this yet, but since all of the other AcmeBarGig plugins are so wonderful, why wouldn't this be? Free free free! Get it here: http://www.acmebargig.com/downloads/aftershock/Pro-Q Equalizer - FabFilter This is the only paid plugin, and they offer a trial version, which I'm using. This is like your regular EQ with some colors. But the thing that makes it special is it can isolate any amount of frequencies. Meaning you can put a boundary around the frequencies you want to hear, and it'll let only those frequencies through, all the other frequencies will be muted Useful when you want to find a particular frequency range to be either made more prominent or less. Trial available here: http://www.fabfilter.com/products/pro-q-equalizer-plug-inI will post a clip of me using some of the plugins I discussed and their settings plus my effects chain after I get home Feel free to ask, disagree or agree with me I'm just a beginner in the music production field and I try to help all other new people out, so I can use all the help I can get |
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Jan 15 2014, 08:43 PM
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Yes, I was just working on that
was recording a few samples to show my mate, this is the best one, and this is the one I used my new plugins on I'll update the opening post with the samples and the settings. Here they are: Lead Guitar: Rhythm Guitars: Also, please tell me if I'm making any errors in my effects chain, or if I can do anything to improve my effects chain. Maybe I'm not ordering my effects right Here's the sample: https://soundcloud.com/sam-ryan-stormrage/new-amps-soundtest Hope you like it and hope I've helped someone out a bit!
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Jan 15 2014, 11:09 PM
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Yes Sam
You made a great work
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