For me, one of the better ones to play "Live" distortion amp presets is Amplitube by IK
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=96.0http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct02/articles/amplitube.aspBut that thing eats half mac
It needs a G4 800 to run
One of the best guitar amplifiers is Nigel, only for UAD'1 platform
Nigel Multi-Effects Guitar Processing Plug-In
Features:
Continuously variable morphing between different amplifier types
Gate/Compressor for noise and dynamics control
Phasor capable of modern and classic sounds such as those produced by the Mutron
Bi-Phase, Small Stone and MXR series of phasers
Mod Filter: wah, auto-wah, envelope follower, modeled after theMutron III and popular filters
Tremolo with Classic, Shimmerâ„¢, VariTremâ„¢, and Fade modes
Fade-in for swells and reverse tape effects
Modulated Delay capable of chorus, flange and vibrato
Echo Delay up to 1200ms
Artifact-free smoothing on all parameters - no zipper noise!
Requires a UAD-1 DSP Accelerator Card for operation (Not available for UAD-2)
- See more at: http://www.uaudio.es/store/special-processing/nigel.html#sthash.s2RNn5u6.dpuf
http://www.uaudio.es/store/special-processing/nigel.htmlOnce all that is said, I just prefer to record the guitar driven on OS9. It eats too much resources to have any good distortion plug to use it.
In protools I render the distortion and deactivate the Amp because it hardly can run with 2-3 amps in 128 samples (realtime). Then the mac again can breathe.
Take care that a guitar amp is one of the most delicate sounds out there, and that a bad distortion sound can ruin a track, while a good one can give tons of coolness to that track.
I have a H&K tubeman preamplifier, and with that the mac can record dozens of guitars. If I try with virtual amps it can only run a fistful.