I like that… 
Part of what I’m saying is who’s to know if it really sounds better or worse that the real thing. You can have a twin with tubes on their last legs, a dry-rotted speaker and a crusty 57 and get the perfect tone for the mix… or you can have the latest boutique amp and an 87 and get something completely unusable. Yup… that’s a stretch. But by the time you do what you’re gonna do to the sim track, it’s gonna be about the same as after you do what you’re gonna do to the real amp.
I think a lot of folks that bash sims spend too much time playing alone in the bedroom. What you get in isolation is NOT always what you actually need in the mix… or live once the drums and bass kick in…
have fun
rich
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I am SO sure that you understand why the presets tend towards this…
The devs want to show all of the capabilities.
well… yes. But they should. If I have a plugin that complicated, I want presets that show everything it can do. GR also comes with simple presets, so it does do both. I do agree with you that a simple setup is way easier for me as a starting place than a complicated one. But the complicated ones are fun to flip through to get ideas.
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Of course they should. Wholeheartedly agree. Scrolling thru presets can give you good ideas and inspiration sometimes. But especially on gtr sims, the presets are way overproduced to provide what would be a finished product in a very specific mix. At that point, I tend to scrap it and start from scratch… have fun
rich
I don’t have many latency issues unless I get way into a mix and then want to add a guitar or a vsti part. But in that case, I bounce down a quick 2 track of the mix and turn off all my plugs except the sim or vsti. I do the same bounce when I track drums to a “semi-finished” mix… works pretty good… later
rich
Rich, it is a good approach if you have any familiarity with the instrument, pedals, amps, etc. I mean, you have a minimum idea of what is happening and doing. On the other hand, imagine that you are mixing something and get a DI track of a guitar, but have never played a guitar. What about before plug and start tweaking some minor adjustments, start by the presets and get the sound most close to what you are looking for?
Yes… very valid point.
But as I said… many presets are overdone, overproduced and sort of “already mixed” in a specific way. They can tend to stick out or not fit in a mix. Then you will have to mess with it just as much if not more than a “basic amp” type setting.
If your presets work, then have fun with them…
But if you are having difficulty, go back to basics.
Granted… I can’t even remember not knowing how to set an amp even though I’m a drummer first…
But even if you don’t play guitar, setting up amps/tones is a good skill set to have.
Have fun
rich
i agree
Care to elaborate? Just curious what you like/dislike about it. Is this one stronger with high gain stuff?
??? How did you get yours to work without an ilok???
I have not the foggiest idea why the Scuffham stuff works really well for me. I have all the others too, but after I found out about the Scuffham set (it was either from @ColdRoomStudio or @Chordwainer I think…) I just quit using everything else. I don’t know enough about code to even begin to guess what they did different, but man are those things fun to play!
As lame as this reply is, I just really really like how they sound. They act more like the real amps I’m used to using. I don’t do a lot of heavy rock stuff. So for amps like a 59 bassman, a Dr Z, Matchless, or Vox AC15, the sweet spot is usually somewhere right around where the amp breaks up but before it starts self-compressing. The way the guitar breathes in that sweet spot on the Scuffham just seems more accurate than the others to me. I also hear much more of a difference between the models than I do in GTR rig, amp farm, or Waves. The UAD probably comes in second place, but they’re sooooo expensive compared to the Scuffham.
About the high gain, the Soldano is the only amp in the bunch that was really modeled after circuit that was designed for high gain. I think it does it well. But as you can imagine, in real life, you wouldn’t want to track a whole CD using a pair of Soldanos. I have a several Mesas, a Diamond, a Peavey 6505+ and a Carvin V3…I think the Scuffham Soldano is at its best when you blend it in with those.
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If you buy it directly from Scuffamamps (which I did when it first came out), rather than run it through the Slate bundle, you don’t need an iLok.
Thanks @ColdRoomStudio Andrew, I got mine used off Ebay before Slate picked it up in the bundle. So I have a perpetual license (in addition to the Slate one), but the license transferred to my ilok…I didn’t see an option to activate it any other way. What am I missing?
It’s actually available as a Machine Locked Licence or an iLok version:
http://www.scuffhamamps.com/which-license-scheme
It has never required one for as long as I’ve been using it. Just a .dll that you drop in to a VST folder like any other.
Andrew has the full scoop-- should have read to the end of the thread before I posted!
Wow. I never even saw that. Andrew saves the day again! (And Dave too) 
Not sure if anyone said this already but running through a hardware compressor to “condition” the tone of a guitar before hitting an amp sim can really improve the tone. Danny Danzi showed me that trick years ago. He uses/d a cheap behringer compressor on the insert of a pretty inexpensive console before going ITB. I’ve done this a few times and it really helps even out the tone. Danny gets great amp sim tones.
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I wonder if this is the ticket for that pedal test we were working on??