adambhoy

Hey John! Great question. I use Guitar Rig quite a bit; started with 2 and now have 4. When I got my Mac I switched my DAW of preference to Logic Pro 9 from Pro Tools and Reaper. I like Logic for a variety of reasons, and one of them is for the "Amp Designer" plugin that is included. There are some great tones to be found, both in their amp emulations, and in the "pedalboard" function that's offered. You can basically choose an overall tone and it will load a preset "rig", or you can choose an amp head, then a cab, then various stomp boxes to come up with something unique. That's pretty much what Guitar Rig can do as well obviously, and I like both. Between Logic's Amp Designer and Guitar Rig 4 I have just about every guitar tone simulation I have ever needed for my recordings (which are all basically for demo purposes). Both have really nice mic placement functions that allow you to change the type of mic, the position it's in, and even the angle to the speaker cone. I know Guitar Rig even lets you put it in or out of phase, which is neat. Neither let you do multiple mics, which would be pretty cool, but hey, not bad overall. You can still mic a second cab in a different place if you want. My favorite of all the tones from each: Guitar Rig: their "Tweedman" (Fender Bassman) amp, which sounds really great when pushed and maybe given a little Leslie treatment Logic Amp Designer: their "Studio Amp" (Mesa/Boogie Mark III), which is just about as versatile as the actual Boogie head. Put a "ribbon mic" on that and add their Vintage Drive pedal and you're in heaven!

Ooh that's a great idea, thanks Lazz! I wasn't aware of that particular functionality for BiaB.

Yeah I saw that one too! It definitely seems to be very close to what I'm looking for; unfortunately it's only for Windows, and I'm on a Mac. I'd love to find something similar though.

Hi all... Forgive me if this has been posted before but I searched and couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, so here goes... I am looking for software to help me generate lyric sheets with guitar chords (either boxed format or just names), and at the MOST, lead sheets with a notated melody line, chords and lyrics (for multiple verses, etc). Really it's just so I can generate sheets to look at during my solo acoustic gigs, so something legible and hopefully on a single page works best. Finale Songwriter MIGHT do it, but even that might be too much; I am looking for something more from the lyrics first perspective, instead of having to notate the music bar-by-bar FIRST and then adding lyrics. Make sense? The closest I have found is something called Lyricist V3, but I am on a Mac and would really rather not use Parallels or Boot Camp to run Windows-based software. Plus the screenshots of the end product don't look all that great. I like that general idea though. Anyone have any recommendations for something similar? Thanks!

I have not (sorry, I know that isn't very helpful), but interestingly enough I was JUST reading about it for the first time, and low and behold, I found your post. So it's currently at the forefront of my brain and I thought I'd respond. Sounds kind of cool, but also fairly pricy. Do you really need to pay almost $300 to find words that rhyme, etc? I'm a sucker for apps that might help me, so I for one hope that it does more than just provide dictionary/thesaurus help. I am researching a bit to find some songwriting software, and this is definitely piquing my curiosity.

If you have a Mac, then Garageband is an awesome pre-installed program that would be perfect for doing what you are describing. I take my MacBook Pro on the road with me all the time, and if I come up with something cool in my hotel room, I only have to open the program and hit "R", and BOOM--I am recording through the internal mic. You can sing away to your heart's content without worrying too much about the details inherent in a "fancy schmantzy recording studio" (nice haha). The sound quality isn't the greatest but for just getting ideas down it is quick and painless. Super easy to burn CDs and play them in your car to learn from too. Of course for this you need a fairly expensive Mac setup, which if you don't already have, makes this advice rather pointless... ANYWAY, just thought I'd throw that out there in case you did! ;o)

Totally depends on what you are shooting for. I record a lot of demo stuff using my laptop, Logic 9 and an audio interface (mine is a Saffire Pro 24--cheap but does the job). I use EZ Drummer and Superior Drummer for my beats, and all the great MIDI loops that Logic offers. I play all the guitar parts, bass parts, do all the vocals myself, and engineer it too; it is pretty easy just sitting next to my laptop and hitting record. Works great and sounds awesome, if your purpose is fleshing out song arrangements, bringing ideas to a band, etc. That having been said, I would never use my setup to record something I actually wanted to release to the public. For that I still go to a real studio with a real interface, real pre's, real mics and all that other good stuff. There is definitely a place for a proper recording studio in the modern world. Plus I find it easier to play my parts if I don't have to worry about working all the knobs too. So, long answer short, it depends on what your goals are. Maybe you can give a little bit more info and people could help you further?