Anyone getting a good guitar tone from the Amp sims?

Hey All. I started messing around with the Amp sim plug ins in standalone on my Live1.. I'm using a Focusrite scarlet 2i2 to interface. My guitar has passive (but high output) PU's. The focusrite's input is set to instrument, the signal indicators are peaking at yellow. However, I just can't get a descent distorted tone from the Amp sims.. clean sounds ok but overdriven sounds like thwunky mud - on ALL of the Amp models! My instincts are that this is a gain-staging issue.. Anybody have some tips they could share? Is there something I can put ahead of the Amp model in the FX chain to get the signal to hit the Amp the right way? Surely these Amp models can produce a decent "metal" tone, am I wrong to expect that?

I've not tried, but saw these tip a few weeks back.

Neo, thanks for that. Looks like the Air amp sims just aren't up to the task - even the guy in the vid said "high-gain distortion" isn't obtainable on the MPC.
My bad, I'll just keep using outboard gear for guitar tone shaping.
Kind of crazy how something as sonically rich as a Moog or Juno can be emulated, but 80's thrash metal guitar is so elusive. Maybe a lack of demand.

ShengTao wrote:Neo, thanks for that. Looks like the Air amp sims just aren't up to the task - even the guy in the vid said "high-gain distortion" isn't obtainable on the MPC.
My bad, I'll just keep using outboard gear for guitar tone shaping.
Kind of crazy how something as sonically rich as a Moog or Juno can be emulated, but 80's thrash metal guitar is so elusive. Maybe a lack of demand.

You may have to sample your riffs into the MPC than go into the sample editor & increase the gain there. This is a destructive process so you may want to make a copy first. You can keep running it thru that to get different levels of distortion.

This gain boost feature kinda make for lack of distortion these 24/32f bit have when even turning the main vol knob to max since the headroom is so high its hard to make sounds clip or get them sweet degrees of over-saturation like on like 16bit SP-505 - just messing the vol knob you could get all type sonics crunchyness.

With these high bit depth MPCs/Force you gotta make the nastyness on your own.
Then use your imagination & all the sound shaping tools available on the unit. Like the Drum FXs, Flavor/Pro, layering the same & or a different edited version of the sample on top of each.

Don't forget you can Flatten a sample as well which bakes in all the FX's & other edits into the 1 new sample that you can now again use your imagination...

You mentioned it could be a gain staging issue, but I need more info on your setup to help with that, but I just post some videos by TubeDigga on that topic:
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=213820#p1872949

Akia don't make sound design simple but they give us the tools to make any sound. Remember this a sampler so you could record a long distorted tone that you do like & mix that with you sound while it going thru the Amp Sim. That's the type of thinking Akai expects from its users.

So far what have you tried to achieve the sound you want?
How long you've been messing with MPCs?

MPC's amp sim is not suitable for guitars. It is likely intended for saturating samples. Use outboards.

I not doing guitar music so don't know how applicable this will be to you, but have for sure found the Amp Sim to be rather lacking when trying to get any real distortion from it... Think it was the 4x10 was OK at saturation warmth but really nothing great in any of them.

Counter-intuitively the best distortion effect on the MPC (IMO anyway) is actually the AIR Filter device. It has a distortion unit after the filter (which you can set to off) which has more modes and varied sounds than the dedicated distortion devices. (As a combined unit I also think the filter and distortion are the wrong order, but we can't have everything...)

The bit crusher on the AIR Lo-Fi device can get some good sounds, not sure how suited for guitar though, but could be worth a play.

Guitar amplifiers and distortion effects perform slightly different tasks though. A distortion effect is usually in the form of a small pedal box that fits in your pocket. An amp usually doesn't fit in anyone's pocket, and it's intended to be connected to a speaker, or may even have a speaker built in.

Now, which of these two categories of devices does the Amp Sim plugin emulate.

HouseWithoutMouse wrote:Guitar amplifiers and distortion effects perform slightly different tasks though. A distortion effect is usually in the form of a small pedal box that fits in your pocket. An amp usually doesn't fit in anyone's pocket, and it's intended to be connected to a speaker, or may even have a speaker built in..

In my experience, the best guitar distortion comes from an amp's preamp section - the part that includes EQ, Shape, Drive Etc. The power amplifier section is what drives the speaker. Distortion pedals are a type of preamp, but only necessary if your amps own preamp section is lacking.

HouseWithoutMouse wrote:Now, which of these two categories of devices does the Amp Sim plugin emulate.

The UI (and name) indicate that it's intended to emulate both.. But unfortunately it seems to achieve neither.
It's a cabinet simulator at best. It is what it is.

A lot of guitarists seem to use distortion pedals. I guess then all of their amps preamp sections are lacking. Why do they buy such amps anyway, even expensive ones sometimes.

Elijah wrote:MPC's amp sim is not suitable for guitars. It is likely intended for saturating samples. Use outboards.

Agreed. Too easy to achieve a good tone outboard and go line-in.. If the MPC had a dedicated guitar input, I'd keep trying.. But since I have to plug the guitar into external gear anyway, might as well use something that shapes the sound the way I like. I think the amp sims were added just to check a box.
Who knows, they may come in handy later on.

HouseWithoutMouse wrote:A lot of guitarists seem to use distortion pedals. I guess then all of their amps preamp sections are lacking. Why do they buy such amps anyway, even expensive ones sometimes.

go ask them

maybe they like things that fit in their pockets