Every Marshall Amp Sim Sounds the Same. I Spent Months and Hundreds of Dollars Figuring That Out.

If choosing a DAW was difficult for me, picking (and sticking with) an amp sim has been a close second. Like with DAWs, I’m easily overwhelmed by choices. But if I had just followed my instinct, I could have saved hundreds of dollars, countless hours, and, not to mention, energy and frustration.

All my favorite records (Aerosmith’s Rocks, Bad Company, The Cult’s Electric, and countless others) had a similar guitar tone, some type of Marshall amplifier (Plexi- or JCM800-style). And almost every amp sim, whether native or third-party, has a Marshall simulation. In hindsight, what’s even more frustrating is that they all sound very similar. Yes, some are slightly better-sounding and/or require less tweaking to sound good, but when integrated into a mix, they are hard to distinguish from each other.

To prove this, I recorded a guitar part and used all the Marshall amp sims I had (Amplitube, TONEX, Helix Native, UA ’68 Lion, and a few others). This test was eye-opening. They were all virtually identical. All I really needed to do was pick one ecosystem and stick with it. And if I were truly honest with myself, a plugin like Helix Native has every amp I could ever need, and the tones are good, very good. Does this mean I’ll never use another amp sim? Probably not, but it has provided a sanity check.

Here’s an example: Last week, I downloaded a trial of Brainworx’s Friedman BE-100. I instantly loved it. In my opinion, Friedman makes a better Marshall than Marshall. Then an idea popped into my head (this is how I get into trouble!), Does Helix have a Friedman BE-100? It does. I did the same test I described earlier. I was able to replicate the same tone in Helix. This saved me $30. I do prefer the interface in the Brainworx plugin. I like amp sims where I can turn knobs like on a physical amp, but it’s not worth $30. Because it’s not just $30; it’s $30 here, $40 there, and $79 over there.

Making music is hard. I still don’t quite understand EQ, compression, or mastering, but I’m really clear on some things, and one of those is the guitar sounds I like. I made choosing an amp sim way harder and more expensive than it needed to be. My ears and years of listening to music were telling me the answer the whole time, but like usual, I wasn’t listening.