Logic Pro X: Making The Most Of Amp Designer.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Close Menu. The Rotor Logic pro x guitar amps review free plug-in is great for adding a bit of warmth to lovic sound when set /36677.txt its ‘Brake’ mode. Messages 6, A little compression before any amp modelling can help make the sound feel more springy. I usually used the Rosen since you can blend or have a near and far thing loaded. I never got anything very good out of /45426.txt amp sims which surprises me because some of their others are really good. It is the Tube Amp Ultra
 
 

Logic Pro guitar amp simsWhat’s good? | The Gear Page.How to get a great guitar tone in Logic | MusicRadar

 

I know a number of Logic users who have tried Logic’s Guitar Amp Designer plug-in, skimmed through the presets, and then dismissed them as less authentic than some of the third-party options. That may not be entirely fair, as with a little perseverance, it is possible to coax some extremely usable sounds out of it.

In order to achieve a stereo signal chain for a mono guitar input, you’ll need to use a stereo channel with the Direction Mixer plug-in inserted first in the signal path. As a rule, amp modelling works well enough for clean sounds and also for heavily distorted, edgy rock sounds — it’s when you want something that falls in-between the two that you have to work a little harder.

While the focus on this Logic workshop is on getting the most out of Amp Designer, I like where possible to put some analogue pedals before the input to my audio interface rather than relying on Logic’s pedalboard for everything.

As well as ensuring you have the right input impedance, using analogue pedals helps round off any sharp peaks that might cause brief converter clipping, which in turn makes the attack of the notes sound more natural. And don’t be tempted to push your record levels too high — peaking at around dBFS is more than loud enough. If you call up a Dual Mono plug-in you’ll see L and R tabs that let you view and adjust the left and right channels independently. This opens up some interesting creative possibilities, particularly when it comes to guitar processing.

To make use of these Dual Mono plug-ins, we need a stereo channel — even though the guitar input or pre-recorded dry track is probably mono. My approach is to set the track to stereo input, then instantiate a Direction Mixer plug-in from the Imaging plug-in menu and adjust its Spread fader to give zero stereo width — which puts your mono input equally into the two channels.

A Dual Mono instance of the Pitch Correction plug-in will let you achieve a natural-sounding double-tracked effect. If you want a safety net to ensure your bent notes end up in exactly the right place, then put an instance of Logic’s Pitch Correction after it set to Chromatic and with a slow correction speed — about half way up on the correction speed fader. This allows your bends and wobbles to pass through intact but any long sustained notes will land on an accurate pitch.

This might sound like a bit of a cheat, and it won’t work quite so well if you like to use those slightly off-key blues bends, but it can also be used creatively by setting different correction speeds for the two sides of a Dual Mono instance, to introduce small changes in pitching when notes are being bent.

This helps cement the fake stereo double—tracking illusion that I’ll cover later on. A little compression before any amp modelling can help make the sound feel more springy. If you haven’t got a compressor pedal you can always just use a plug-in — I like to use the Logic X Opto or Vintage FET compressor models set to an attack time of 10 to 20 ms and a release time of maybe 50ms.

A ratio of around usually works well, then adjust the threshold to get between 5 and 10 dB of gain reduction on the loudest peaks. This doesn’t sound too obviously compressed but adds a bit of life to the guitar sound. Placing a compressor early on in the signal path will help smooth out the ‘spimky’ DI signal. As any amp or pedal designer with tell you, EQ is a powerful pre-treatment, as the overdrive section of an amp or pedal will react differently according to the EQ of the input.

I’m planning to use a Dual Mono amplifier for this example so I’ve put a Dual Mono Channel EQ after the compressor, dialling in a few dB of mid-range boost between 1 and 2.

If you make the centre frequency a little different on the two channels, that will also help create a bigger stereo image. Using mid—boost EQ in this way helps sharpen up the amp sound without making it ‘fizzy’. Some users suggest feeding two chains of amps and effects from buses, but to play without annoying latency, it is necessary to engage Logic’s Low Latency button, and this disables bus sends as well as plug-ins that cause long delays when active.

After recording, click off the Low Latency button and all your tardy plug-ins and buses come back to life. Using buses is no problem if you are treating a dry guitar track you’ve already recorded, but if you want to hear something like the final sound as you record, bus sends are probably not the way to go.

Which amplifiers you choose depends on the sound you’re out to achieve, but a useful tactic is to choose an amplifier and speaker combination that delivers a bright attack for one channel with perhaps a warmer sound that has more body to it for the other.

By mixing them using the amplifier output level controls, you should be able to get a solid sound that still has a well-defined attack. One often—overlooked feature of Logic’s guitar amplifiers is that if you click EQ above the tone controls, you’ll see a menu offering alternative EQ types, and they all sound distinctly different.

If the amp sound is too dull or too edgy, try a different EQ. It’s well worth experimenting with different amp and cabinet models. The virtual microphone position can also make a big difference to your final tone. Amps load up with default choices of loudspeaker cabinet but again you can mix and match to get closer to the sound you’re looking for.

Speakers make a huge difference to the sound and, in very general terms, the smaller speakers tend to sound thinner and brighter whereas the larger ones have more low end and less ‘edge’ to the sound. There’s also a huge difference between the various 12—inch speaker types, with the mic type and position offering yet more variation.

As a rule, putting the mic close to the centre of the speaker cone gives the brightest sound whereas moving it away and to one side gives a warmer sound.

The SM57 model has a bright, slightly nasal character while the ribbon mic model has the warmest sound. For bluesy overdrive tones, adding just a small amount of dirt using a pedal at the input combined with a modest amount of amplifier gain will usually get you close to where you need to be. For a clean sound I’ll often pick something like a Fender or Vox amp model on one channel and a clean preamp on the other channel, with the speaker emulation bypassed on the clean preamp channel.

Mixing a clean DI’ed sound with an amp emulation sometimes gets you a sweeter clean sound than using an amp emulation on its own. If you don’t want the two sounds panned hard left and right, you can use another instance of Logic’s Direction Mixer plug-in, after the Amp Designer, to narrow the stereo field or even collapse it to mono. Try using different delay settings for the left and right channels, to give you a wider guitar sound. For those big rock solos, delay often works better than reverb, and if you put a Dual Mono version of Logic’s Tape Delay after the amplifier, you can then use the Deviation control to the right of the delay knob to shift the delay time slightly away from the tempo-locked value.

I also tend to set the LFO modulation to be slightly different on the two sides too. This could go anywhere after the amp plug-in, though I generally put it directly after the amp.

Set each channel to percent wet, select the Timing mode as Pitch Tracking for one side and Manual for the other, then set the Manual channel’s Delay slider to around 15ms. This spreads both the pitch and timing of the two amplifiers very slightly, producing a decent double-tracked sound. The Rotor Cabinet plug-in is great for adding a bit of warmth to your sound when set to its ‘Brake’ mode. Another useful trick that you can use if the finished guitar sound still comes across as too hard or edgy is to insert Logic’s Rotary Speaker plug-in, but set the speed control to its Brake position so there’s no modulation.

This adds a lovely warm character to the sound. You can experiment further by changing the rotary speaker type in the box just above and to the left of the picture of the speaker. They all sounds very different, though I usually find that one of the the first three sounds best. If you’re an old hippy like me, turn the speaker motor back on and enjoy the swirls. I’m sure there are lots of other strategies that can be employed to create usable guitar tones — after all, every guitarist has their own ideal sound in their head, which is what makes the electric guitar a truly unique instrument.

The ones described here work for me most of the time and when I come up with a chain of plug-ins that gives me a useful sound, I save it as a channel preset so I can call it up again when needed. If you were disillusioned by the presets, give these simple techniques a try as I’m sure you’ll come up with something useful. Buy PDF version. Previous article Next article. New forum posts Re: Anyone ever used a Nail Bar? Advice on getting my guitar serviced. Login You may login with either your assigned username or your e-mail address.

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Logic Pro guitar amp simsWhat’s good? | The Gear Page.

 

I recently updated my computer and decided to try the Logic trial previously on Studio 1 The S1 sims are not very appealing but I can force them into some compliance with my needs. Are there any Logic presets that come close to sounding really good? Outside of ‘Brit and Clean’ which is a generic, but useful clean, sound I have not found much appealing. I haven’t put in the time to dig deeply, though. No crackly fizz tone. Stokely Member. Messages 1, I found them to be pretty terrible, same with the pedalboard pedals.

The only one I could tolerate was the clean fender model Now, caveat, I’m a terrible guitarist and can make anything sound bad! When I changed out the cabs turning them off in the amp sim and using some IRs I had it did improve things.

When I ended up getting s-gear it was night and day better right away, despite my bad playing! The bass amp designer sounds pretty good to my ear though. Stokely said:. Click to expand Messages 4, Not a fan! Every time I get the urge to check out Logic’s baked-in amp sims it’s a quick reminder of why I don’t use them. Messages 28, I love Logic, but the amp sim aren’t it’s major selling point. I have an AC15 here, and Im not sure what amp any of those guys are using to model their software with but it doesn’t sound like any Vox I have ever heard hah.

They’re garbage but they work. Turn off the speaker simulator in the amp sim and use Space designer to load an actual speaker IR. There are some in SD that are really good and Celestion has some that are great. The speaker sim is the weak link. Logic Amps are fine. Change the guitar player. Attached Thumbnails. Thanks for the info. I really want to like dare-to-dream: love the Logic Amp Sims. They look great, they should cover the bases nicely – they just sound so “meh”.

These days I’ve grown tired of managing so many 3rd party plugins and extra-stuff across multiple computers etc.

I’m finally realizing they don’t make my music sound any better really. Thanks for the suggestions. I went through this method yesterday and recorded the entire experiment. Unfortunately all the guitar audio was recorded in realtime through the screen recorder, so it’s not exactly optimal audio. So, I was quite happy with the experiment and felt I was able to get near one of my favorite tones I would get from a Blonde Character Series SansAmp I had 10 years ago. The takeaways: 1.

The problem with the Cab Simulation might be that the Cabs are directly fused to the Mics capturing them. We can’t turn off the Mics if we use the Cabs, so we have to choose one.

So I don’t know if the problem I’m having with them are the Cab sim, the Mic sim, or if they are just both too annoying together for me. I’m going to run some pink noise through them today to see just what is going on, since I’m not even sure that the Mic sim isn’t effecting the direct out from the amp. It didn’t sound like it but I do want to be sure. I have to assume these patches were designed for a send aux with those settings.

As soon as I mixed in the dry, the sound opened up. So, basically I feel like what these IRs are doing is suppressing whatever out of control EQ curve was built into each amp as its character. And it is not strange, because thanks to his experience Tony Platt know how to get the perfect sound of this amp. The plugin is available for Windows 10 or higher and macOS It is the sound that created legendary rock masterpieces.

If you want a real high gain monster in the form of an amp sim plugin, the next one on our list is what you need. Finnish company Neural DSP is one of the top producers of amp sim plugins. A few years ago, they decided to team up with Fortin to get one of the demon heads in plugin form. The name speaks for itself if you read it backward. Still, the software has absorbed all the power and fury of the physical prototype. In short, everything you need to get an aggressive metal sound. Although, this amp sim is versatile and can also serve for dirty tones.

Also, a good attraction of this plugin is the pedals for even more expressive distortion and the fantastic cabinet emulation section. Imagine that you have many guitar amplifiers, effects pedals, and cabinets at your disposal. The TH-U plugin from Overloud will be just such a hub for you. Overloud Audio Tools is an Italian company specializing in creating music production software, including amp sim plugins.

In , they introduced the T-HU plugin, which intends to be one place where you can build a ready-made guitar sound with lots of options. First, the plugin has both amp modeling and capturing technology. In general, the creators included models of different guitar amps. Regarding effects, there are pedals as well as emulation of studio rig. And, of course, you can apply 18 different models of microphones to the cabs impulses. You will have a 3D model of the cabinets to move the mics on the speakers.

The plugin is available for Windows Vista or higher 32 and bit and macOS The developers have done everything necessary to fill it with as many virtual guitar heads , cabinets , and effects possible. The plugin will come in handy for those who like to dig into presets with well-known guitar tones and create their own. If you choose between giant hubs of virtual amps, cabinets, and effects, you should check out the AmpliTube 5 from IK Multimedia. The Italian company IK Multimedia has been in business for quite some time — over 20 years.

They produced both hard and software and were among the first to translate amp modeling to portable devices, thanks to iRig. Their first version of AmpliTube, released in , was the first guitar amp and effect plugin that simulates an entire rig. And now this software has received version 5, which has just an incredible number of different features. With AmpliTube, you have complete freedom to create a signal circuit.

And you can make it as easy as possible — by drag-and-drop , all the necessary elements from stompboxes to amps, cabinets, studio effects, and even the room. By the way, the number of units in the plugin is vast. For example, in addition to the previous ones, the new version of AmpliTube got new models , 23 new rack FX , and over wholly re-captured cabinets. If you were satisfied with the previous versions of AmpliTube, the fifth version would please you even more. Imagine designing an amplifier and picking out minor details of the sound yourself to sharpen the guitar tone the way you want it.

California-based Positive Grit has already made a name for itself among musicians and prosumers with its versatile owt. For example, Bias FX 2 allows you to use many different virtual amplifiers, effects, and cabinets. The developers went even further and introduced the Bias Amp 2 plugin, which will be an absolute dream for anyone who wants to influence the minor details of their guitar tone. Bias Amp 2 is a virtual guitar amp designer.

The developers studied the behavior of many boutique tube amplifiers, which allowed them to create dynamic tone control. It completely emulates the sound of a tube amplifier and gives you the most realistic tone. The plugin is available for Windows 7 or higher both 32 and bit and macOS If you remember that little but growling transistor head from Marshall called the Lead 12, know that you can get it as an amp sim plugin entirely for free. Marshall created the Lead 12 Solid State Amplifier in the late s.

Now this famous amplifier is available in amp sim plugin form from Italian company Audiority. The plugin almost wholly replicates the appearance of the actual head. The creators slightly modified the chain by adding a Contour knob to get a more scooped tone and additional Boost overdrive stage. In addition to that — a built-in Marshall cabinet impulse with Celestion V30 speakers.

The plugin exactly replicates the sound of the Marshall Lead 12 head and has a pretty good built-in cabinet impulse. It is Amplex 4 by NaLex. Those of you interested in the no-cost amp sim plugins have heard of the software from NaLex. This guy provides his products for free on his blog page.

Among them is Amplex, a Multiamp that can be all these heads at once. This virtual amplifier comes with a folder with text documents with the code, which you can load into the plugin. These are the emulations of different guitar amplifiers — a total of more than It is important to remember that NaLex software only comes as an amp sim head.

It means that you will need to use your own IR loader and a noise gate to get the finished guitar sound. If you haven’t got a compressor pedal you can always just use a plug-in — I like to use the Logic X Opto or Vintage FET compressor models set to an attack time of 10 to 20 ms and a release time of maybe 50ms.

A ratio of around usually works well, then adjust the threshold to get between 5 and 10 dB of gain reduction on the loudest peaks. This doesn’t sound too obviously compressed but adds a bit of life to the guitar sound. Placing a compressor early on in the signal path will help smooth out the ‘spimky’ DI signal. As any amp or pedal designer with tell you, EQ is a powerful pre-treatment, as the overdrive section of an amp or pedal will react differently according to the EQ of the input. I’m planning to use a Dual Mono amplifier for this example so I’ve put a Dual Mono Channel EQ after the compressor, dialling in a few dB of mid-range boost between 1 and 2.

If you make the centre frequency a little different on the two channels, that will also help create a bigger stereo image. Using mid—boost EQ in this way helps sharpen up the amp sound without making it ‘fizzy’. Some users suggest feeding two chains of amps and effects from buses, but to play without annoying latency, it is necessary to engage Logic’s Low Latency button, and this disables bus sends as well as plug-ins that cause long delays when active.

After recording, click off the Low Latency button and all your tardy plug-ins and buses come back to life. Using buses is no problem if you are treating a dry guitar track you’ve already recorded, but if you want to hear something like the final sound as you record, bus sends are probably not the way to go. Which amplifiers you choose depends on the sound you’re out to achieve, but a useful tactic is to choose an amplifier and speaker combination that delivers a bright attack for one channel with perhaps a warmer sound that has more body to it for the other.

By mixing them using the amplifier output level controls, you should be able to get a solid sound that still has a well-defined attack.

One often—overlooked feature of Logic’s guitar amplifiers is that if you click EQ above the tone controls, you’ll see a menu offering alternative EQ types, and they all sound distinctly different.

If the amp sound is too dull or too edgy, try a different EQ. It’s well worth experimenting with different amp and cabinet models.

 
 

Logic pro x guitar amps review free –

 
 

This opens up some interesting creative possibilities, particularly when it comes to guitar processing. To make use of these Dual Mono plug-ins, we need a stereo channel — even though the guitar input or pre-recorded dry track is probably mono. My approach is to set the track to stereo input, then instantiate a Direction Mixer plug-in from the Imaging plug-in menu and adjust its Spread fader to give zero stereo width — which puts your mono input equally into the two channels.

A Dual Mono instance of the Pitch Correction plug-in will let you achieve a natural-sounding double-tracked effect. If you want a safety net to ensure your bent notes end up in exactly the right place, then put an instance of Logic’s Pitch Correction after it set to Chromatic and with a slow correction speed — about half way up on the correction speed fader. This allows your bends and wobbles to pass through intact but any long sustained notes will land on an accurate pitch.

This might sound like a bit of a cheat, and it won’t work quite so well if you like to use those slightly off-key blues bends, but it can also be used creatively by setting different correction speeds for the two sides of a Dual Mono instance, to introduce small changes in pitching when notes are being bent.

This helps cement the fake stereo double—tracking illusion that I’ll cover later on. A little compression before any amp modelling can help make the sound feel more springy. If you haven’t got a compressor pedal you can always just use a plug-in — I like to use the Logic X Opto or Vintage FET compressor models set to an attack time of 10 to 20 ms and a release time of maybe 50ms.

A ratio of around usually works well, then adjust the threshold to get between 5 and 10 dB of gain reduction on the loudest peaks. This doesn’t sound too obviously compressed but adds a bit of life to the guitar sound. With it came innovative music styles and advances in processing guitar amp modulations. With the fine ax and little mixing skills, one can achieve almost industry-standard tone.

This plugin is not only a complete one but also very visual and easy to understand. It has a lot of different functions with a wide range of tones to choose from. The styles that this amp suits the best are the hard-rock and metal ones ; even so, it can be used for more clean-like sounds and work completely fine.

The price to quality ratio of this plugin is excellent. It shines on home studios as it does a really good job, and having an amp and microphone that sound better is costly.

We will talk briefly about each one and what you can expect them to do. Its variety is absurd, and it will surely deliver the sound you want, as you have lots of EQs and fine-tuning knobs to reach it. First is the preamp, the most complex module, as it has four models to select and four pedals to choose from. Going from right to left, it goes from a clean sound up to a high-gain aggressive tone. It also has a high pass and a low pass filter, and a three-knob EQ to reach your desired sound. Next, we have both effects, mod, and time; these effects are flanger, chorus, phaser, and delay and reverb.

Its presets range from an API preamp studio to a tube amp live. On top of that, you have a descriptive impulse response section with categories for each sound; these categories are sorted with adjectives, making it easy to get the right tone. Also, know that you can turn off any sub-section you want. Making it easy to listen to what you are modifying and helping you get to your desired sound. It can be installed on both mac and windows but if you are not sure, it has a free trial that you can try out before purchasing.

It has a ton of different nuances to choose from, and its sound quality is high. The re-designed MRH has brought to the digital form the famous classic British tone we all love. Based on the iconic Marshall JCM , the Nembrini Audio came pretty close to the same well-known tone texture and response the hardware one has. Even the visual design is almost the same. There is a cleaner included with a usual noise gate to clean up some rumbling or harsh frequencies at the end of the line. The MRH is a complete guitar software that will provide everything you need to get your guitar tone ready here and now.

The plugin is available for Windows 7 or higher and macOS MRH is a great tool to jam to your favorite rock classics, record your demo, or reference your tones for the later re-amping. And even with a few tweaks and add-ons, you are good to publish your music without any other amp. Another advantage is that the MRH plugin has everything you need to get a mix-ready guitar tone. Everything you need is here.

The Chandler Limited GAV19T is a two-channel guitar amplifier that can achieve both classic slightly overdriven guitar tone and near-high gain sound. On the one hand, the interface is quite simple and concise, but you still have many options for achieving the desired guitar tone.

The most important thing about this will be the massive number of impulses based on the most famous types of cabinets and speakers. In addition, you will be able to change the character of your guitar sound thanks to the different bias options. You have all the options you need to change the character of your sound, and over 70 built-in impulses will allow you to dive into mining your tone even more.

You can even try to use it for something around metal, but the rock genre will still suit it best. And the nice thing about it is that the Friedman BE plugin perfectly emulates the sound of this piece of guitar gear. It is a two-channel plugin that emulates the growl of watts, all amplified by EL34 tubes. You will get a punchy and dynamic tone that can cut through the mix. The Clean Channel, on the other hand, lets you get a nice and clean tone where you need it.

Speaking of settings, like in other Brainworx plugins, everything you need for a ready guitar tone is available here, including many impulses. If you want the legendary Plexi sound of a Friedman BE guitar amplifier, this plugin will be the perfect solution for you. And over cabinet impulses will send you on a journey to dial the guitar tone that suits you best. The Spark plugin from Mercuriall Audio Software will be a real find for fans of Marshall guitar heads.

It has quality sound and lots of good production options. Mercuriall Audio is a Russian brand that has already gained an audience among quality amp sim plugins. Step 9: Pedalboard has two discrete effect busses which you can easily switch between, while certain pedal parameters such as performing Wah Wah sweeps can be automated via eight macro controls. Each issue it brings its lucky readers the best in cutting-edge tutorials, need-to-know, expert software reviews and even all the tools you actually need to make great music today, courtesy of our legendary CM Plugin Suite.

This makes the pedals sound so much better to me, so an entire world is definitely opening up here in front of me to be explored. I’m going to play with the tube distortions in PhatFX and see what I can squeeze out of it.

So that’s pretty much it. I’m going to look for the Celestion IRs next. For an acoustic a blend of direct and cab would be right to keep some splang from the ac pickup. Use the Logic pedalboard for pre and post amp effects. I felt like the S-Gear amps reallly had a better “feel”. But I struggled to get a good ac30 tone that felt authentic and also its kind of fiddly I sort of just appreciate the logic ones are quick and easy to get up and running.

Ill give a shot using the logic amp sim into a diff cab sim, that sounds interesting. I think you get a better amp sound using the silver compressor and overdrive plugin, plus a bit of reverb. I decided to ordered a Fryette Power station to hopefully be able to both practice w my main amp and silently record with it Its driving me nuts not being able to use my favorite gear.

Yeah it depends on your style of guitar for sure. My friend does more 90s style tones like Weezer etc and his DI stuff sounds great. But for slightly overdriven stuff that crunches when you hit it harder At least not yet. I would always use SD in mono like a guitar amp, then turn it into stereo with modulation and delays if you want that.

Sometimes when using the Pulse IR loader I’d try a different speaker on each side and that can work. If you have a dense track with a bunch of parts, simpler is better. I usually used the Rosen since you can blend or have a near and far thing loaded. Also as far as pedals–kind of a weird thought to put down virtual pedals in front of a virtual amp!

I got Dr. Drive from Audority free from Plugin Boutique and it sounds good to me. Again the Logic Pedalboard just sounds grungy and gnarly and not in a good way to me. I’ve used Garage Band for years and before I had a modeler, I’d mix amps, like their AC30 with their Marshall copy the track into two separate tracks. IRs and EQ helped as well. I prefer my Stomp, but it can work OK for a hobbyist like myself.

Exploring more.. Absolutely useless to me. You must log in or register to reply here. Trending Topics. So I just bought 63 guitar pedals Started by downburst82 Saturday at PM Replies: Is having a sense of humor off limits here?

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