On vocals, drums, synths or any other instrument you can think of, guitar amp simulators actually offer a huge range of exciting sounds that can give your tracks a level of ‘ oomph’ that you can’t get from your DAW’s native saturator plugin. You don’t need to fiddle around with your amp’s knobs, shifting your microphone stand 2 inches to the left in order to drastically change the tone that fits this one riff, only to have to remember exactly where they were placed for the rhythm section prior.

If you start buying amp libraries like an absolute maniac it can begin to slow down your computer and become deceptively detrimental to your music-making process - but if you have a powerful PC and plenty of room on your hard drive this is unlikely to exacerbate into a major issue.Īdditionally, there is no need to concern yourself with room acoustics, microphone placement (or just owning a microphone) with amp simulation - all of that is done, and is quite often easily adjustable, within the program itself. That said, simulated amps still do take up space, it just isn’t physical. Once you factor in mic stands, cables - did you just shudder? - it can become a minefield for tangling, tripping or just generally getting frustrated and breaking things of your own accord. Most hobbyists can’t afford to shell out thousands of dollars per classic amp to create an army of amplifiers to do their creative bidding, yet this is something that many amp libraries offer at a fraction of the price and space.Īmps, especially if you are using a cabinet and head instead of a combo amp (where the speaker and amplifier are contained within the one box) can take up a whole lot of room. Unless you’re rich, professional or just a better planner than I am, I doubt you have more than 2-3 amps and certainly not enough space to comfortably fit and eventually record more than 5.Īnd with that, you have it - the easiest justification for simulating an amp.

If you’re an artist with a bedroom in your studio (yes, not the other way around) look around right now.

Bias guitar amp software