I'm trying to record a real professional guitar sound, but I don't know what components I need to do in order to achieve this. I'm using a Gretsch 5120 guitar for recording which is connected to a presonus firebox and into my computer. I'm trying to record this song that I made on my Line 6 spider 2 amp, but when I record the song through this amp, the guitar sounds totally different. Should I use some third party plugins to make the guitar sound more lively or should I use external effects such as a vamp 2 or should I just go to a studio. I'm a noob at recording electric guitar, so any help I can get will be helpful. Abhi

Hi Abhi, I'd recommend experimenting with the process. Personally, unless I've found an amp sound which I really was 100% sure I wanted to use in the final version of the track, I'd record the guitar using Logic's plug-ins only to get as close to the sound I'm looking for. This way, you can always change your mind about the effects later as Logic records audio 'dry' (without rendering the effects to the audio). Then during mixing experiment with the plug-ins. Cheers Rounik

Thanks for the quick respond Rounik. Are there any really good third party plugins that I can use in Logic for guitar amps?

I'd look at using Guitar Amp Pro with other plug-ins and exploring the Channel strip settings from the Library first... If that's not doing it for you, then people are raving about the new Garageband 09 amp models (which have not yet been incorporated into Logic)... so you could try recording into GB'09? Also, check out Guitar Rig. That seems to be quite a popular 3rd party plug. Anyone else got further suggestions? Rounik

I tried all the plugins from Logic, didn't quite suite my taste. I might give it another shot though. I will check out Guitar Rig, thanks. If anyone else got any other suggestions please do let me know, it would be really helpful. Thanks again Rounik! Abhi

Hi Abhi, there are quite a few guitar emulators out there. Waves do one called GTR I think it is, Universal Audio do one called Nigel, but I don't think that has been ported to their new UAD2 cards... I have both Guitar RIg and Speakerphone (Audio Ease) and really like them both. Not being familiar with your Line 6 thingy, can you not record the amped sound from that... i fyou have already composed with it? If you have a real amp to record, you can also experiment with different mic positions and to top that upm you can combine two mics to the scenario to get even more sounds. All depends on what sound you're after really. Cheers, John