Other than experience with the real amp, I don't know.

But there are some things one can do to make the situation better for their home recording.

The problem: A lot of these simulators can be set to do certain things in certain ways that the "real McCoy" doesn't do at all. For example, there may be instances where the amount of gain applied in a gainstage somewhere in the signal chain can be set to way higher than the target analog amp could do. And the digital simulation algo can.

The solution may be to stick to the default settings for an amp, tweak knobs, but not to extremes on any knob. Extreme settings in Audio are typically an indicator that something else is wrong somewhere anyway. Ex: The guy who connects his guitar pickup output (passive electromagnetic) to the Line Input of the soundcard simply because both are 1/4" connects. But since he hears something when doing that, he turns the soundcard's software Recording fader all the way up -- and it just barely reaches the -6dB mark on the VU meters, if that. But since he hears the sound, he goes ahead and starts recording, blissfully unaware that the situation is both an Impedance mismatch and a gainstage nightmare.

One doesn't necessarily have to know the way the real target amp sounds and works in order to turn in a good performance if one uses good common sense about the settings and such. -- And compares their results to known good sounding reference recordings of the same sound whenever they can, tweaking their results to duplicate the sound from those pro reference recordings.

"Common Sense" in this case can go a long way. I wouldn't invoke a Rectifier Boutique amp on a recording at all, simply because I have never played the kind of music that is typically played through one anyway. Sure I'd mess around with it, though. But his old R&B, Jazz, old fart Rock player wouldn't know too much about shreddin' anyway, so how would I know what was right or not?

There is another aspect. The very creative might be able to take an amp sim they know very little about and create a whole new sound with it. I expect to hear that on recordings and it is likely already happening.

Even with the real McCoy, lots of reference listening is in order anyway, though. You have to have a place to stand. The guitarist who is still working at trying to identify notes and chords relative to the tonic is likely to not be listening for things like the harmonic series, tonal depth, etc. -- even though they bandy about the word Tone all over the place. Lots of folks who play have no real idea of the physics behind the thing at all. Like the kid I heard in a music store who was telling his friend about his father's "little tube amp that was only 5 watts but they were "tube watts" and how it had but two knobs, Volume and Tone and how he liked to dime both because on the Tone Control, he "wanted all the Tone there is". heh Tone. Mo' Tone. Dearly Beloved We Are Gathered Here Tone. I could have explained about the Butterworth filter in that Fender Champ, how the shelving is done at 6db/octave and that the Tone knob affects the treble at a certain freq. point, but it is not a brick wall because it is analog and that 6dB/octave is a very musical place to be when designing the filter and that the Butterworth analog filtering circuit is simply one of the most musical sounding ways to do it, etc. etc. But it would have been wasted breath...



--Mac

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