Guitar Amp

The Guitar Amp effect emulates three vintage guitar amps: Combo USA, Combo UK and Stack.

Guitar Amp window

The Input knob determines the amps input gain. The three LEDs located above the knob serve as level indicator. They can be used to make the amp see the same input level as the hardware version would. The SC (single coil) LED will light if the level equals the output of a single coil pickup. The HB (humbucker) LED will light if the level equals the level of a humbucker pickup. The Hot LED will light if the level is even higher, in this case you're using a virtual booster stomp box. Note that the LEDs assumes you're playing the guitar as hard as possible (eq. some powerful rhythm chords). The LEDs are supposed to light during the loudest signal peaks only. Don't worry if no LED ever lights while playing more subtle parts: a real amp would see a lower level too.
The LEDs are just a way to make it easy to set up the amp to work just like the hardware version. You can ignore the LEDs if you like. You can, for example, use a higher setting to get a more distortion.
A guitar amp's 'Lo' input is 6 dB less sensitive than the 'Hi' input. You can turn the Input knob down 6 dB in order to virtually plug your guitar in the Lo input.

The Output knob controls the output level. The meter on the right shows the output level. It is important to stay out of the red section if the amp is played live, in order to avoid clipping. Typical values range from 0 dB (overdrive sounds) to approx. 10 dB (clean sounds).

Volume, Bass, Mid (or Cut in case of the Combo UK amp), Treble and Bright control the actual guitar amp. The Bright switch toggles between the amp's "normal" and "bright" channels. Mic Pos controls the position of the microphone relative to the guitar cab's speaker.

The Combo UK's normal channel has a built-in treble booster: The amp's input is more sensitive (use the Input knob to control the sensitivity). The Treble knob controls the amount of treble boost. The Bass knob cuts a certain amount of bass, closely emulating the the bass response of various versions of this particular amp.

It's best to connect your guitar to a high impedance input. Low impedance inputs compromise the guitar pickup's treble response. Some soundcards have a dedicated instrument input. A high-impedance DI box or preamp can be used if your soundcard doesn't have one. You can also try using a stomp box effect as DI box.

A guitar's sound can be made less bright by turning it's volume knob down a bit. This can be desirable, especially when overdriving an amp using single coil pickups. If you've recorded a guitar with its volume knob at maximum level you can use an EQ effect before the Guitar Amp to mimic the loss of treble sounds (use the Hi Cut section at 6 dB/Oct, the Frequency knob controls the treble loss).

To play the Guitar Amp live you should click the Track's Rec button, and turn on the Recording menu's Tape Type Monitoring feature. This only works with the AsioSound or VistaSound driversets.

You can use effects to further enhance the sound. You can, for example, use Echo, Reverb (set Width to zero to make it mono) and/or Tremolo effects with one of the combo amps. Use them in this order, and before going through the Guitar Amp, to be as close to the real thing as possible. You can place them in a Multi Effect if you run out of effect slots.

The Guitar Amp's output signal is similar to the signal coming from a microphone placed close to a guitar cab. One will typically apply studio type effects like EQ, compression and reverb to it. Clean guitar sounds will benefit from a Compressor effect (turn up the Attack knob to approx. 25 ms.).

The Guitar Amp uses significantly more CPU power than most other effects because it runs at a higher samplerate internally. It is, however, much more efficient if the input is silent (because the guitar plays the chorus only, or it plays the solo and the outro only etc.). You can take advantage of this feature by using an Automated Fader effect before the Guitar Amp to mute the silent parts in recordings. This is necessary because the noise which is always present in recordings will be seen as a non-silent signal by the Guitar Amp.