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Sunday 16 November 2014

Tube Simulator - Sound check and AC30 emulators comparative

I wanted to do a sound check of the TubeSim v1.0 VOX AC30 valve amplifier emulator and a comparative with other VOX AC30 amp emulators. This is it.

First I found on the web a sound file with a clean guitar riff: Then I fed this sound file from the computer Line output into the TubeSim Line input. The TubeSim 25W 8 Ω output was connected into the Rezzonics v12 DIY Cabinet speaker with a Celestion Vintage 30 12''. The output sound was recorded with Audacity in the computer using an AKG D40S dynamic condenser microphone (it's a vocal microphone but that's the best I could get for the sound check)

This is the TubeSim v1.0 guitar riff sound with gain at maximum, no bass, no treble, tone cut off:

I think the sound has a nice crispy distortion, with lots of mids and lots of sustain.

The best would have been to compare it with a real VOX AC30 valve amplifier, but unfortunately I don't own one.
I decided to compare with several amp emulators.
First the open source amp emulator Poulin HyBrit Head v1.1 in the same conditions, maximum gain, no equalization:

The Poulin HyBrit Head v1.1 has a lot of gain too, it's more saturated quite brittle with more treble than the TubeSim v1.0

Now the GuitarRig 2 ACBox GuitarRig 2 ACBox resembles more the TubeSim, less saturated than the Poulin with maybe more bass than the TubeSim v1.0

Amplitube 3 offers two different AC30-like amp emulators: Amplitube 3 Hot AC30: The Amplitube 3 Hot AC30 is less crispy, lots of bass, not much saturation, it's a bit muddy and more somber, less sustain. In my opinion is the worst sounding of all the amp emulators.

Amplitube 3 Hot AC30 Copper:
Amplitube 2 Hot AC30 Copper is a bit more saturated than the previous one, not much sustain, less muddy, more mids, similar to the Guitar Rig 2 ACBox but with less treble, less crispy than the Guitar Rig 2 and the TubeSim.

Then I coneccted the Line Output of the Tube Sim directly into the Line-In of the computer, first with the Speaker Simulator bypassed: And now with the Speaker Simulator active:
The Speaker Simulator reinforces the middle tones as a guitar speaker would do.

Find here the playlist to listen to all the different sounds used in the comparison: Which one is your favourite? Why?

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