So I've got a copy of Guitar Rig 4, which lately I've been comparing with trials of Amplitube and POD Farm, and I keep having a common problem with all 3 of these plugins - very subtle but nasty clipping.

I've checked my gain staging at all of the relevant points in the chain: DI into Apogee Duet 2 (inst. input on about 5-10 out of 65, no clipping), input into Guitar Rig, all of the various meters in the patch, and the output. None of them are clipping. It sounds pretty damn decent on clean patches, except if I play hard enough I can hear subtle digital clipping especially with bass frequencies. Also as the amp models start to break up, they break up in this same way, starting with the crap digital clipping sound. Maybe its just the nature of the beast.

I'm not expecting miracles, and I'm mostly just using the sims in standalone for practicing at home, but I can't get past this. Even my hardware POD v1.0 sounds more acceptable in comparison.

Is anyone using these amp sims for clean-to-OD tones and getting pleasing sounds out of them?

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Fender Strat
Fender Blacktop Tele
TB FX Loop/Channel Switcher > (in loop) > Mojo Hand Analog Filter > EQD Dream Crusher Fuzz > Subdecay Liquid Sunshine > Frazz Dazzler > Line 6 M9 > EHX Memory Toy > (end of loop)
Soldano HR50+

Rig Thread

Man, I don't know. I use Revalver and I love it. The only thing I can't get past is the issue of it sounding weird if I just run it through PA alone. I just can't get use to that 'recorded' guitar tone. Sounds great in a mix, just not alone.

I know you've probably checked this, but I had the same issue awhile back... My meters on my Apogee don't read the same as the meters/input on Revalver. I can't remember which, but as soon as I turned one of them down, it was great.

Revalver also has a feature to level out input/output levels to give the cleanest sound possible, so that helps a bit, too.

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2012 Screw the Past Rig

I've been using the Line 6 mobile in for my Iphone, had the same issues with some of the software out there, I settled on Ampkit..... Not sure how it'll work with the Apogee, but I've been happy with the clean tones, just, as Braunz0 said, it's messing with the levels, as they may be a bit off. Most the software I've used tends to be like that, and finicky....

Just keep in mind, each rig you set up may need different input and output levels

hope this helps some, although, I'm not too familiar with the interface you're using my self

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ESP Eclipse Limited (3/100) or Gibson Les Paul Standard (97) - Fulltone OCD - H.B.E. Detox EQ - Laney GH50L - 80's Ibanez AD-9 (in loop) - Randall XL 4x12
Tortex "The wedge" picks, Blue Steel strings, Line 6 Moble In, Charvel Model 6 modded to a Model 5FX.... Probly other stuff as well

I played around with the gain more yesterday, ended up just turning the inputs and outputs down a bit more and it seems to help. I definitely agree that these things are finicky and require a lot of tweaking, but then again so was my real amp tone when I started out looking for that too, hahah. I guess I need more patience.

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Fender Strat
Fender Blacktop Tele
TB FX Loop/Channel Switcher > (in loop) > Mojo Hand Analog Filter > EQD Dream Crusher Fuzz > Subdecay Liquid Sunshine > Frazz Dazzler > Line 6 M9 > EHX Memory Toy > (end of loop)
Soldano HR50+

Rig Thread

Does the program have a compressor plugin you can use on the input or do you have an analog compressor you can just plug into the input?

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Stage Guitars: '80s Thin line LP Custom, '70 LP Standard, '83 Squier Black Headstock Strat w/ Dan Torres pickups, '59 Black Danelectro DC, sometimes others.

Pedal Board: Nady UHF 10 -> TU2 -> Rocktron Big Crush -> 70s MXR Phase 100 -> Cry Baby -> Bad Monkey -> Early '80s Rat -> Early '80s Ibanez CS 9 -> Ibanez DE 7 -> Behringer Dr 100 Stereo Reverb

Stage amps: '63 Blonde Tremolux w/ two original 2X10 cabinets with a '60 Ampeg Rocket/18 watt VTB Marshall clone/ Epi VJ into a Mashall 1965A

Yeah I suppose I could give that a shot too. I'm not a big fan of compression, but a little bit might help in this case. I've also read that a bass cut before going into the amp sim can make a big difference.

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Fender Strat
Fender Blacktop Tele
TB FX Loop/Channel Switcher > (in loop) > Mojo Hand Analog Filter > EQD Dream Crusher Fuzz > Subdecay Liquid Sunshine > Frazz Dazzler > Line 6 M9 > EHX Memory Toy > (end of loop)
Soldano HR50+

Rig Thread

maybe compresion is the problem! limiters and compresors do add some distortion. Is there a poorly adjusted limiter or compresor running, maybe a default somewhere to prevent clippping?

I put in a few hours of playing the other day and ended up adding a shelving EQ as a bass cut around 45Hz, first effect in the chain. It cleared up some mud and distortion. Also added a very subtle tube compressor after the EQ, just enough to knock a dB or two off of the really hard strums.

Backing the gain off a bit more and being careful about adding gain has helped a lot. The meters in the plugin are pretty useless, they stay completely in the green now with a good bit of headroom before it reaches yellow (if at all) and it seems to work best this way.

I don't think the noise I'm hearing is from clipping, it seems to just be harshness in their modelling of amp distortion. I'm still working on dialling it out as much as possible, but its getting better!

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Fender Strat
Fender Blacktop Tele
TB FX Loop/Channel Switcher > (in loop) > Mojo Hand Analog Filter > EQD Dream Crusher Fuzz > Subdecay Liquid Sunshine > Frazz Dazzler > Line 6 M9 > EHX Memory Toy > (end of loop)
Soldano HR50+

Rig Thread

I'm far from an expert on this, but you might want to look at your initial setup parameters. Sample rate, latency, etc. Also if you are using a laptop make sure the wireless Internet connection is shut off.

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Stage Guitars: '80s Thin line LP Custom, '70 LP Standard, '83 Squier Black Headstock Strat w/ Dan Torres pickups, '59 Black Danelectro DC, sometimes others.

Pedal Board: Nady UHF 10 -> TU2 -> Rocktron Big Crush -> 70s MXR Phase 100 -> Cry Baby -> Bad Monkey -> Early '80s Rat -> Early '80s Ibanez CS 9 -> Ibanez DE 7 -> Behringer Dr 100 Stereo Reverb

Stage amps: '63 Blonde Tremolux w/ two original 2X10 cabinets with a '60 Ampeg Rocket/18 watt VTB Marshall clone/ Epi VJ into a Mashall 1965A

Oh... Good call on that, and also, my Mac's power adapter is noisy as hell... So I have to keep it at least 3 feet away from my computer or interface.

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2012 Screw the Past Rig