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FREE VSTs for Fender-ish overdrive?


Zanman777

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I didn't know exactly where to post this, so I posted it on several categories as it fits on all of them. If this is wrong, I apologize to the admins and accept the removal of the excessive copies.

 

I've been looking for a set of FREE VSTs that allow me to get a good Fender tone. It's always hard to describe tones by words, but what I'm looking for are essentially two tones:

 

1 - A classic fenderish middle-of-the-road overdrive, especially like the Fender Bassman and such provide.

2 - A full creamy clean, like

or Dire Straits - You and your friend (ok, this one is on the overdrive field already... but there are many phrases that don't "distort", that's what I'm looking for).

 

 

 

To help figure out my tastes, I can tell a couple of amp sims that provided what I was looking for.

 

- Amplitube Fender has been the best VST I found for my needs. However, it's a coommercial VST and the demo ran out... The amps I liked the most on AT Fender were the 59 Bassman, the Pro Junior and the Champ.

- I have a Fender Mustang III and the model I like the most is the Bassman simulation too.

- As for the "creamy clean", I have never found any option that convinced me.

 

 

 

 

In terms of references, here are a couple of songs that have guitar tones around what I want:

Steely Dan - Reelin' in the Years . This is THE tone 1 I'm looking for. It's exactly what I got from the Pro Junior model on AT Fender, with a Fuzz fedal in front of it, I think.

 

Other tones I like, somewhat around the "classic rock mild overdrive" category too, are:

- ZZ Top - Waitin' for the Bus

-

- Eric Clapton - Cocaine

 

 

 

So... How should I get tone number 1? How about tone 2? Any towards the right direction will be helpful and appreciated :)

 

PS: Amplitube Custom Shop doesn't work on my computer, because my CPU is SSE2 non-compliant

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Zanman777 wrote:

I didn't know exactly where to post this, so I posted it on several categories as it fits on all of them. If this is wrong, I apologize to the admins and accept the removal of the excessive copies.


I've been looking for a set of
FREE VSTs
that allow me to get a good Fender tone. It's always hard to describe tones by words, but what I'm looking for are essentially two tones:


1 - A
classic fenderish
middle-of-the-road
overdrive
, especially like the Fender Bassman and such provide.

2 - A
full creamy clean
, like
or
Dire Straits - You and your friend
(ok, this one is on the overdrive field already... but there are many phrases that don't "distort", that's what I'm looking for).




To help figure out my tastes, I can tell a couple of amp sims that provided what I was looking for.


- Amplitube Fender has been the best VST I found for my needs. However, it's a coommercial VST and the demo ran out... The amps I liked the most on AT Fender were the 59 Bassman, the Pro Junior and the Champ.

- I have a Fender Mustang III and the model I like the most is the Bassman simulation too.

- As for the "creamy clean", I have never found any option that convinced me.





In terms of references, here are a couple of songs that have guitar tones around what I want:

Steely Dan - Reelin' in the Years
. This is THE tone 1 I'm looking for. It's exactly what I got from the Pro Junior model on AT Fender, with a Fuzz fedal in front of it, I think.


Other tones I like, somewhat around the "classic rock mild overdrive" category too, are:

-
ZZ Top - Waitin' for the Bus

-

-
Eric Clapton - Cocaine




So... How should I get tone number 1? How about tone 2? Any towards the right direction will be helpful and appreciated
:)

PS: Amplitube Custom Shop doesn't work on my computer, because my CPU is SSE2 non-compliant

 

That's Elliot Randall's brilliant work on Reelin In The Years. He used a vintage Strat with a neck humbucker into a cranked SVT on that song. IK Multimedia used to make a freeware version of their Amplitube SVT plugin. That and the appropriate guitar would be about the only way of getting close with "free" stuff that I'm aware of. Chances are you're going to have to put some money out to get what you want if you're really particular about really nailing that sound. Another couple of products (pedals) that do great SVT / Ampeg tones are the Catalinbread SFT, and the Tech 21 Bass VT. 

As far as Dire Straits (and quite possibly Wonderful Tonight too), a clean amp alone won't get you all the way there. You need a compressor to get that kind of sound. Mark used a Orange Squeezer. It's a big part of the sound he got on the first couple of records, so at the bare minimum, you'd want a software compressor in front of the amp sim plugin. The track you linked to is later, and definitely into overdriven territory, but it's still got some compression on it.

 

 

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PS: Amplitube Custom Shop doesn't work on my computer, because my CPU is SSE2 non-compliant

 

I get the feeling this is going to hinder your efforts. Amplitube is pretty good and IK has sales all of the time so this is easily my first suggestion. I think the Princeton model and cab were 20 bucks, chump change for the best headphone amp I have ever used. What sort of PC are you running?

 

EDIT: Also check out the Bedroom Producers Blog. Suggestions and reviews for all manner of free audio software. here is the amp sim page

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