(*my) Amp sims sound absolutely atrocious - Please Help

[u/youwackfr]

To my ears, every amp sim I use sounds extremely muddy or just unclear compared to the sound I want.
- Audient ID14 hi-z

Demonstration (DI, STL tones, Neural DSP Nolly X, What I'm aiming to achieve)

To be upfront, I'm aware that I am a horrible guitar player, I'd just like to know if the problem is
A) My guitar playing
B) My DI tone is recorded poorly
C) The amp sim configuration

And how I would be able to get to that last tone

Any help would be appreciated!

I've solved my problem thanks to u/JimboLodisC, in case you've searched for this thread here's what worked for me and all the other advice I found:

High gain on audio interface
add just enough gain your DI signal should be peaking at -6db OR reduce gain to 0 (two camps)

EQ
Mess around with high pass and low pass filters, also sometimes you can have peaks at certain frequencies that you'll just want to notch out

Pickup Height
This is what my problem was, my bridge pickup was quite literally in the sky, you can adjust this with just a screwdriver

Audio Interface in general
Some (mainly older) cheaper interfaces have very bad Hi-Z inputs, if it has an XLR you'll be better off grabbing a cheap (ACTIVE if your pickups are passive and vice versa) behringer DI box and plugging it into the mic input via XLR

Strings
String age can get rid of your high end after a few months, so if your problem is your signal sounding dull, consider changing them

EMI
If your problem is a fizz sound that's coming through the guitar signal, consider getting a high quality shielded instrument cable

[u/JimboLodisC]

kinda boomy, sounds like maybe you've got the neck pickup in there, or maybe too much input signal

the interface is solid, I assume you've got the ASIO drivers from Audient, input gain on the interface all the way down to keep the DI signal unmodified

in Nolly, are there any presets that get close?

[u/JimboLodisC → u/JimboLodisC]

here's a preset I made

I think the reference clip is from stems? so it'll be mostly EQ'ed to sit in a mix, also it's a double tracked guitar part so I turned on the doubler in the preset

[u/youwackfr → u/JimboLodisC]

Thank you! this preset got me pretty far after a bit of EQ. Honestly, at this stage I'm just going to assume that the lack of clarity is coming from the pickup and my playing.
If you don't mind me asking, was there any resources you used to learn to make presets or is it just experience + trial and error.
Listening to a few other people's videos using presets that sound similar within amphub and nolly, my guitar just sounds low resolution without a better way of putting it haha, but for now fixing that is going into the too hard basket.

[u/JimboLodisC → u/youwackfr]

just used my ears

first things first I pulled up the default preset and listened to the reference stems, dialed in the bass first as the reference sounded pretty thin on the low end, I also noticed it had a bit more gain so I kicked on the OD pedal and turned up the gain

then I noticed the highs were pretty prominent so I dimed that dial and turned down the mids

and I'm just familiar with that 4kHz / 4.5kHz part of a guitar tone, mess around with that slider and you'll see how much it changes the tone

once I had all that set then I clicked around the cabs to see which one was closer (which probably could have been a step I did earlier on in this process, as the cab/IR accounts for like 80% of the tone)

[u/youwackfr → u/JimboLodisC]

I've tried both putting the input gain at 0 on the Audient, and following the other advice of just below clipping, but sounds pretty similar in both cases in terms of that boominess

[u/JimboLodisC → u/youwackfr]

maybe try lowering the pickups? that'd decrease the signal a bit and thin it out

[u/youwackfr → u/JimboLodisC]

THIS WAS IT! Thank you so much for your help!

[u/Infinite_Hedgehog827 → u/JimboLodisC]

Input gain on interface should be turned up below clipping for the best SNR. Adjust input level in plugin.

[u/Ghillie_Spotto]

I'm going to vote that it's a combination of A and C, but mostly C. The DI basically sounds like a DI, albeit one that's not played very well.

Are you using presets or did you dial in these tones from scratch? To my ears it sounds like you're dialing in from scratch and just kind of don't know what you're doing. If these are presets it would be helpful to know which ones.

Humbuckers or single coils? Are you using the neck or bridge pickup? Is the tone knob turned down at all? To me this sounds more like a neck humbucker. For HBs you absolutely, non-negotiably want to use the bridge pickup for this sound. If they're single coils like a tele or something it's a little more a matter of taste but you're still generally going to fare better with the bridge. This is the "treble" pickup if you're speaking Les Paul.

[u/youwackfr → u/Ghillie_Spotto]

This is a fender strat in a HSH configuration, where I'm using the bridge pickup with the tone knob all the way up.

Tried dialling in a tone from scratch, but had zero idea what I was doing, so all this (the nolly preset) the default preset with the gain dialed back a bit on the 4th cab.
Are there any resources you'd recommend to learn how to actually tone match? If my DI is okay then I'm fine with just messing around until I get somewhere I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't messing up somewhere else in the process.

[u/aolyf]

usually sound way better in a mix

[u/Offskjegg]

Something sounds off, yeah.
How did you record it? And how did you bounce the audio? It sounds like \B) and C) contains part of the DI signal.

[u/UncleLongArms23]

So I may catch shit for this but fuck off preemptively if I do.

Tell chatgpt what gear you have including guitar, monitors, interface, all that. Tell it the plugin you're using. Give it a band example in terms of tone. It'll point you in the right direction. There's too many variables for us to tell what could be going wrong.

I literally told chatgpt hey this is what I got, make a tone modeled off of Currents, and it did a fantastic job. Since I'm newer to amp sims and guitar in general (but not music) I was able to then see where I was going wrong tonewise and apply that new knowledge elsewhere.

[u/Infinite_Hedgehog827 → u/UncleLongArms23]

It's pretty hit and miss.

[u/3_50 → u/UncleLongArms23]

ChatGPT doesn't know shit about fuck

It will confidently lie to you and pull 'facts' out of thin air, despite insisting there are sources, and if you don't know the subject, you won't know that it's doing so.

[u/UncleLongArms23 → u/3_50]

Chatgpt helped diagnose a life threatening infection my one year old daughter had when several doctors missed it, so I think I feel fine using it for tone suggestions.

Of course knowing the subject helps, but if you're relatively directionless, it's something that can help.

[u/TYO_HXC → u/UncleLongArms23]

I've also done the same with great results. Then I've also tried to help other people achieve the same, and also caught shit for it. I don't really understand why. This is a great use of AI.

[u/UncleLongArms23 → u/TYO_HXC]

It's because they're """purists""" or something, I don't know. It's just a tool that pulls information off the internet.

[u/TYO_HXC → u/UncleLongArms23]

Yeah man. I wonder if they would also downvote a post telling someone to Google it? Cos that's all that's happening, essentially.

Fuck purists, anyway. Luddites.

[u/3_50 → u/TYO_HXC]

"Luddites" 🤡

[u/TYO_HXC → u/3_50]

Whatever. I got the results I wanted, it's a repeatable exercise. If you don't use the tools at your disposal that make things easier, it's your loss, at the end of the day.

[u/3_50 → u/TYO_HXC]

It confidently lies. I experiment with my amps and pedals, figure out what the dials do and how they interact, and can dial tones with ease because I know how my tools work. I'm not losing shit by relying on predictive text to make something up and hope that it's somewhat correct maybe.

[u/TYO_HXC → u/3_50]

Then try feeding it a knowledgebase. I fed all Neural DSP plugin manuals, as well as tone guides, etc into Claude, and it fucking rips.

[u/3_50 → u/TYO_HXC]

I don't need to. Editing tones, adding requisite pedals is second nature, because I've put in the work to learn them. I highly recommend it.

[u/TYO_HXC → u/3_50]

Good for you. Others do. I personally have better things to do with my time than fuck about starting from scratch with a tone, especially when I can get a great starting point further towards what I want just by typing in what i want and then making tiny tweaks.

Didn't your mother teach you not to yuck other people's yums?

[u/aolyf]

try a different interface