best amp simul.: Vox Tonelab vsPOD vs Sansamp vsGuitarRig

[burn]

i need a amp simulator for preproduction at home ( for the real thing, nothing will ever replace an cranked Hiwatt or Plexi!).

But which one is best vs price, I will mainly use it for bluesy / rock sounds, so i don't need tons of gain, just realistic warm and crunchy overdrive

[aryl]

never really heards it, but i met a guy who raved about the "J BOX" from johnson. out of production.

[andyg666]

you're talking hardware, not software, right? i've not used a hardware amp simulator that i like. then again i haven't used very many. as for software amp simulators, i gotta go with amplitube...

[hammertime]

I have the sansamp (psa 1), the pod, and amplitube. Personally, I like the pod best, for clean/ mid-dirty sounds, but I have yet to get a decent lead tone out of it. The only settings I like on it are the fender amps -- the blackface in particular, which isn't the most harmonically complex sound, so most of the simulators do a decent job. The best high-gain lead sounds i've gotten are using the pod and amplitube together in series. I haven't tried putting the sansamp through amplitube yet.

[8th_note]

I have a POD and a Johnson J-Station. I haven't heard the Sansamp, although I have a Sansamp bass unit that I really like.

The POD gets a lot of use. Right now I'm recording a band that has a couple of Crate rigs that sound like ass spread thin on a cracker (I stole that expression from another forum member). The POD has saved this project. We have gotten some very good guitar sound by using the POD as a preamp and running the output into the line input of the Crate head and then micing the cab. Between all the amp models and cab models you can choose from, it's hard not to find a sound you like. You also have good bass, mid, and treble controls to work with. Plus a noise gate. I don't like running the POD direct into the board as well as through the cab but it doesn't sound bad that way, either.

On this project we are mainly using the Brit Blues and one other setting (I forget which) and getting the kind of sound you are describing. The drive setting usually stays around 3 or 4.

I use the J-Station once in awhile but not nearly as often as the POD. I don't like the tones quite as well. The advantage to the J-Station is that it has several bass settings that sound pretty decent. I've used the J-Station way more for bass than for guitar.

The J-Station is discontinued but you can get them on ebay for about $70. I think Line-6 just dropped the price of the POD by $100 but they are still about $200 for the regular POD and a hundred more for the XT. I've never needed a digital-out so the regular POD has worked fine for me.

[inverseroom]

IMHO, Tonelab beats 'em all. I've played a Pod, and I owned a PSA-1 for years, and both are good, but the Vox feels like an amp to me. It sags right, it distorts right, it's just a pleasure to play. I like the effects, too, esp. the spring reverb and trem. And the cab simulations are wonderful.

Honestly, all this stuff is excellent. You really have to try them all out.

[rolandk]

I have a J-station, Amplitube demo, and a bunch of the real amps that are modelled. IMO all the modellers I've played are pretty close in sound quality and a blast to mess around with. The j-stat is cool because its cheap and has bass models.
I'd like to buy Amplitube or Guitar Rig but I'm very wary of software modellers because you can obviously only use it with your computer and someday you'll upgrade to a new version of Windows or Mac OS that won't support it and then your f__cked.

[pk]

This new Pod looks rather interesting, at a good price too.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PODxtLive/

Just wondering who would win the battle between the above and the Vox Tonelab SE. I was leaning on getting the Vox as I've had an orginal kidney POD for 3 years and only now am I really disliking it, just sounds so sterile and lifeless. However, I never heard the XT versions, perhaps they're much better? If so, the XT Live might be worth a shot...

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[the brill bedroom]

I must be missing something. I've got Amplitude and it seems like there are only about 6 useable sounds and they aren't really that great. Seriously, I may actually be missing somethiing! Anybody have any settings they'd recommend?

[andyg666]

I must be missing something. I've got Amplitude and it seems like there are only about 6 useable sounds and they aren't really that great. Seriously, I may actually be missing somethiing! Anybody have any settings they'd recommend?

well, if you're not using a direct box, you're missing a lot... i like the 50W british tube setting quite a bit. playing around with the speaker sims and mic placement i've been able to get usable tones for just about everything i've needed to do (which, admittedly, has been mostly low-to-mid-gain funk/soul sounds). the vibrato is aweseome. i run my EVP73 plugin (rhodes emulator) into amplitube and that rocks too...

[b3groover]

Guitar Rig is pretty sweet. I only have the demo, but it is extremely versatile and user friendly. It blows Amplitube out of the water, which I paid for. I'm going to have to get Guitar Rig now.