I'd strongly suggest anybody with a DAW to check out Amplitube 3.

It really doesn't work all that well when playing into it, but if you record a dry guitar and then apply Amplitube as a plugin onto it, it's nothing short of incredible IMO. Because you can tweak the sound ad nauseam _completely_ you can really dial in tones you'd have to spend weeks with in front of an amp. Any effect combo as well at a click of a mouse, and all 100% reversible and changeable at any time, nothing committed to track.

Our guitarist records _everything_ these days so that whatever rig he plays through, the signal is also split into two right at the start so that he records also a completely dry signal. When it's all done, he says, 99% of the time he'll end up only using the Amplitube sound after all, perhaps mixing in some of his rig to create another doubled track.

That's what I've been doing with the latest songs...and the resuts sure make me smile so far. I could _never_ record such nice sounds 'live' unless I had a million-dollar studio and days of time - but these I get in 10 seconds flat with no gear whatsoever but the DAW and a guitar with a cord.

Here's a quick demo I did for a new song, just last night recorded the guitars...and it was a matter of just playing it thru and then quickly pull some amp models on the plugin. It's pretty low drive all the way thru and really boring since it has no lyrics, just mumbled something over it as I played, and drums yet...at 2:40 there is a bridge part but no solo as of yet. But I'm using maybe 5 different Amplitube presets on the song.

http://deeaa.pp.fi/lzm/CanWait/canwa...r_drumless.mp3