How to deal with rig overload...

    OK...so the day has come where I, like so many others, have too many good profiles. I must say, it is a nice problem to have. But still a problem nonetheless.


    So I've been thinking about a new way to deal with this and want to get some creative thoughts from the peanut gallery. I love the idea of having a variety of amps to choose from and when I want to play a certain amp, I can dial in that amp. I find I like many profiles of some amps and only 1 or 2 profiles of other amps (from the same rig uploader of course).


    What I'm thinking about doing is to start identifying which amps sound good with my Gibson Studio with its Burstbucker Pros for the kind of music I like to play. I might even do the same with my Squier Stratocaster, but I really don't play this guitar anymore.


    The idea is that some amps just won't work well for my setup/taste without a lot of tweaking and frankly there are too many great sounding rigs to warrant such tweaking. Of course I would have to try a few different uploader's rigs to "blacklist" an amp...but nonetheless, it would be nice to know which amps aren't a good fit for me just the same. For the amps that do work, I would still check out new uploads to see if they improve on the sound for me. I probably wouldn't keep a lot of one-off rigs where only 1 or 2 profiles of a rig sounded good unless it is truly exceptional.


    To do this, I would put together a spreadsheet of amps to manage what I've tried and liked/disliked for various rig uploaders in addition to the cabinet/mic used.


    One wildcard in this is the cabinet as it can be swapped (and to a lesser degree the mic). There might be some amps that sound bad to me through one cab/mic setup but sound good under a different. I figure by trying a few uploads, I can account for this.


    Anyway...not sure if anybody has tried this approach. Would be good to know. Feedback welcome!

    I agree with that unfortunately...I'm just hoping they'd be close enough for me to decide what amps work and what don't. Or rather, what amps sound great and what amps are just ok. Could just be wishful thinking... :S

    The choice of guitar amps and sounds that suit your style can be very challenging. There is a lot of psychology involved. Too often, when playing a rig, you simply lack the distance as if you were in the "producers chair" and simply were listening to a guitar in a musicial context. The more dense your music is, the more tricky it gets. When simply jamming to a playback track you will turn your guitar louder than it would be in a studio or live mix. This is unavoidable due to the fact that you need to hear your intrument louder than the other intruments in order to perform well. So you might end end up in a situation where your favourite amp sound totally gets buried in a mix, when the guitar volume is down to a normal level.


    I think that the best way to audition guitar sounds is by recording them and see what works in mix. Get a fully mixed and mastered background track that suits your style best. Those guitar hero and rock band work nicely for this. Then create some dry guitar tracks in single, double or quad tracking, whatever that style would require. Then simply reamp those dry tracks with your favourite rigs and put them in a context and see what works for you. This can be a lot of work but it´s worth it.

    right.
    recording and listening to the whole mix is a very good exercise.


    I remember when I was recording my first record with my band:
    the other guitar player and me would double track our parts using an older Laney amp - so far so good - and then one of us would add a fifth track consisting of a (fixed) wah pedal in front of a Sansamp.
    At first I didn't get why the producer/engineer wanted us to do this, but later, when listening to the rough mix, the Sansamp track complimented the tracks that used a mic'd amp nicely.


    Guitarists often look for that Rock Star tone (too much gain and bass, too much delay and reverb) that sounds great when jamming alone, while producers are more interested in a tone with character that mixes well and plays nice with other instruments around it.


    Got slightly OT, sorry ;)

    Thx for both your input! Much appreciated. I like the idea of dry recording and trying various rigs. Takes a bit to set up, but can go through a number of amps that way with relative ease once you make the investment.


    I clearly am not a recording professional...and what I'm hearing is that there may be two categories of amps to keep on my short list. One for recording and one for jamming. I knew that many players live rigs differed from their recording rigs (e.g., Tony Rombola from what I have heard)...just never thought it through that far.


    Much appreciated!