5 Amp Designer Tips For Capturing That Guitar Tone in Your Head

[@JohannesLabusch]

I do a very different style of music, so maybe this won't be so interesting to you guys, but my number 1 Logic guitar sound breakthrough came when I discovered Space Designer as an IR loader. You just put it in the channel, and instead of a reverb IR you use a good guitar cab/mic IR. Even some free ones I've found online seemed a lot better than what Amp Designer has on board.

[@TeamPill]

what is an IR Loader. For that matter, what is IR stuff (i know it stands for impulse response, but I just don't know what sound it gives one).

[@JohannesLabusch]

@@TeamPill Okay, it's not that easy to explain, but I'll give it a shot. Here we go. Emulating a guitar amp is only part of the job. Even if you have a great amp emulation, the part that is still not taken care of is the considerable influence that the speaker, the room and the microphone(s) have. That's where IRs come in. An IR loader is a device that can take one of these IRs and run your signal through it. Don't ask me how it's done technically, but they're basically a very short sound file that captures those elements. So, your guitar and your amp emulation are "sent" through this, and trigger that sound file. It makes your amp emulation sound like it was played through that cab and recorded with that microphone, whichever one was used to create the IR. It's the same technology that's used in reverbs, so you can suddenly jam in the Sistine Chapel or Albert Hall or Abbey Road, and that's why Space Designer can "play" those IRs. Not sure if that helps. You might look up KZbin videos about the Mooer Radar, maybe those will explain it better. To make it really short, it'll make your guitar sound a lot more like it was recorded in a real room, with a real mic, by somebody who knows what they're doing.

[@TeamPill]

@@JohannesLabusch Oh that's dope. So what exactly do I do to get this sound in logic? I'm not sure I understood your first comment.

[@JohannesLabusch]

@@TeamPill Look around online. Find a place where you can download IRs. There are a ton of free ones available. Pick a speaker and mic combination that you think would work well for you. Like, I don't know, Fender 4x10 cab and a Royer 121 mic. Download it. It should have an .SDIR extension. In Logic, call up Space Designer in your channel. It should say "Volume Env, Filter Env, and then the third field after that should be a drop down menu where you can pick "Load IR". Navigate to your downloaded file. Turn the "Wet" control to %. Good luck.

[@PaulEubanks]

@@TeamPill For the purposes of guitar, think of an Impulse Response (IR) as a cab/mic simulator. They can be used for much much more like reverb, etc... but for doing all digital guitar signals you need to emulate a preamp, a poweramp, a cab, and a mic. The IR will cover the cab/mic part. Logic's Amp Designer contains the ability to play through the preset IRs (these are the cab/mics), but not the ability to load your own. I have an IR of my favorite Mesa rectifier 4x12 cabinet with greenback speakers for instance, since this cab is a custom one-off and not something you can buy retail.

[@michaellocatelli8483]

Incredibly helpful. Thank you for this video!

[@EGONOZON]

Ok so I‘m new to Logic and I wanna record my own songs, but I struggle to find the right tone for my guitar. So I think „maybe I can find a tutorial on youtube that can hekp my find the sound i‘m looking for, I will probably have to watch hours of footage, but maybe there is a gem hidden somewhere.“ And then I find this video and it‘s exactly what I needed! I’m so stoked. Oh and it was the first video I clicked on :-D Instant subscribe. Thanks a lot!

[@mikecole4489]

This helped so much

[@michaelnagy5958]

Another great video. Thanks for the excellent content.

[@PaulEubanks]

Logic's Amp Designer is it's Achilles' Heel. I just can't be bothered with it when it takes SO MUCH FIDDLING to even get a passable guitar tone, let alone anything good. NeuralDSP and STLTones are just too good to be bothered w/ Logic's Amp Designer right now. Those are plug and play with hardly any fiddling, which saves heroic amounts of time on a project. Maybe Logic will overhaul amp designer in a future update, but for now, it's basically only good for doing goofy drive tricks w/ drums and vocals.

[@TeamPill]

Maybe some people won't notice it (and I normally haven't, that's why i point this out), but make sure your pedalboard goes in first on the effects list before the amp. If it goes after the amp, you will get some crazy stuff, but often too much (especially gain wise)

[@rustyshackelford4503]

Gonna have to dig into these suggestions. I’m pretty new to Amp Designer and thus far every tone I’ve tried to get from scratch just sounds so sterile, fuzzy, and digital. I always feel like I need more midrange, but any midrange boosting just sounds like mud.

[@reganovich]

That was amazing...thank you! The focus on the importance of double tracking there made me wonder about something..might be an idea for a video? Basically, I love real strings sounds as in string quartet, orchestra etc Have messed around with different sample libraries but you can't beat the real thing. I always wondered, if you can imagine for a minute a single violin playing, then you double track it, then you output and playback those 2 signals to a speaker which you in turn mic up several different ways... if you kept layering like this could you get to a nice strings sound from basically a single live violin?! Any chance you could run this experiment and make a vid for us?!! ;) great channel, thanks again!

[@accentontheoff]

Won’t lie - Logic Pro amps and effects have become a real option for me mainly because of your videos. Just one thing? I get a lot of noise all around the chain. Wondering how you manage your noise gate plug-in (or anything else) to avoid that. Any advice would be welcome. Thanks! P.S. Does more RAM or CPU power help in this area.

[@thecruddybug4437]

Great video. I'm kind of the opposite in the sense that I put too much reliance in my pedals and I don't futz with the amps enough. I used real pedals, not the pedal designer, but I should really explore the amp sounds first, get sounds I like, and then tweak the pedals to suit those amp sounds and not the other way around.

[@thesullivanstreetproject]

Long-time watcher, first time commenter. :p Super helpful video, thanks for the great content! The more 90s sound-related tips you can show, the happier I'll be. It might be outside of the realm of what your channel does, but I'd love to see a "How to sound like so-and-so using the Amp designer in Logic Pro". Like, how to get as close as possible to John Frusciante's tone, or Weezer's tone, etc.

[@calebandrewcunningham6399]

Oooh, an LTW-FTC!

[@SabiaCDO]

MAAAAAAAN, you just made me subscribe.

[@roxammon5858]

Useful Video. Thanks

[@nachorondan2703]

Hey Chris i am really interested on playing guitar live thru logic amp desginer with some baking tracks, i am considering UAD Arrow and SSL 2, for audio interfaces what do you think? Is it possible?

[@dudedude7849]

Nice one, how did you make these drums?

[@StratsRUs]

Has Amp Designer been updated since 10.3.2 ? I am wondering if its realism has been improved ? Thank you

[@lavinchi6709]

Thankssssss!!!!V useful!!!

[@JesseWilsonMusic]

Really good stuff, thank you!!! I'm a bit confused about how much gain to record DI electric guitar with though, some videos say to purposely clip the DI signal for a more gain-ey effect but you're not doing that - would you advise against clipping it and adding gain afterwards? Thanks!

[@cortnysellers]

Assuming you have meters on your interface, you want the level just barely hitting the yellow on your highest peaks. If you don't have that, then turn off all plug ins on your channel and use the level meter in Logic.

[@evanbrown1367]

Great video as always! Question: regarding the last step of using different microphones for the same take -- would you recommend creating stacks like that for each guitar take?

[@creepymcpeepers]

How do you copy parts of each one and make it it’s own take?

[@michaelcirasuolo515]

I noticed you have Avid Eleven do you mind sharing how you hooked this up to Your Computer or did you connect to interface? Thanks for this tutorial great as usual

[@FuzzekeTrailerMusic]

Cool! Logic all the way

[@TeamPill]

I'm really trying to get better drum sounds using midi stuff in logic and I think what you have here sounds pretty damn realistic. Do you think you could do a video on how you did the drum sounds for midi tracks (I'm not talking about the drum generator thing, I want something with full customizability using midi).

[@dafingaz]

Nice

[@aldente42092]

Brought to you by the word "Finesse"

[@motomuso]

I'm really going to miss Logic when I have to retire my 5,1 Mac Pro.

[@dackattac]

(For anyone in a situation where they can't easily get another guitar take, Wider by Infected Mushroom is a handy free plugin. Not as powerful or pronounced as proper double-tracking, but way less uncanny-valley than delaying the same take for the Haas effect)

[@recmydream]

logic has a ton of cool plugins and features, but amp designer is not coolest of them. There are few free plugins wich sounds better... on the over hand the bass stack emulation is pretty good

[@rollomaughfling380]

Y'know, I appreciate the apologetics about how this is a mid '90s punk-pop "Warped Tour" "Sour Patch Doritos" kind of sound, but maybe label it as such in 2020? This is a "pedalboard sound," not a "guitar sound"-useless for anyone wanting to get a real guitar tone (a sound where you can actually hear the character of the individual guitar).

[@Above-Ground]

I am inclined to agree. Although, I do love this channel.

[@TeamPill]

what do you mean real guitar tone? The instant you bring in an amp of any kind, one will probably hear that as a variety maker too--stealing from the original tone a bit. It's all on a spectrum of processing, so to speak, as I see it.

[@rollomaughfling380]

@@TeamPill The thing I meant about "real guitar tone" is literally the thing I said about real guitar tone. If you can't discern the difference, then you may lack qualifying experience to comment.

[@TeamPill]

@@rollomaughfling380 nice explanation there

[@alexwr]

@@TeamPill Ahahaha, he can't even tell you what he means because he just made up the term to be a gear snob.