Hardware cab sims?

I know lots of people on here are very much into software amp sims so I guess this kind of goes against the grain, but hear me out. I will be recording an album's worth of guitar tracks later this year and I've realized I need to start planning ahead and decide exactly how I'm going to go about it. I am a classic tinkerer and I need to come up with a workflow that forces me to make desicions. Therefore I have more or less decided to keep all guitar processing in hardware. My budget doesn't allow for Axe-Fx's or Kemper's, I need a a more affordable and straightforward solution. Right now I'm getting pretty good tones from DI'ing my old Zoom 9150 preamp and adding a cab IR after the fact. There's a couple of problems with this approach though. Firstly, as long as it's possible to go back and change IR's until the cows come home, I will. I want to eliminate that seductive, malleable software part almost completely, except for fx and corrective eq. Secondly, I am monitoring through the headphone jack of the 9150 which has awful cab simulation (the unit is from 1995, after all), so I'm not actually hearing a good guitar sound until after it's recorded. This seriously detracts from the fun of recording the guitar parts. Also, I live in an apartment building so micing amps is not an option. But I want that traditional approach: dial in a good sound, record it, done. All of this has led me to the conclusion that a good hardware cab sim might be the solution to my problems. A unit like that would let me play while hearing the exact sound that is being recorded. It would also allow me to use my amps and pedals without any actual micing taking place. Now the big question is of course, what are my options? I've been looking at these two: ADA GCS-2: AMT CN-1: The ADA looks like it has more options but it's really hard to tell one way or the other as neither clip features any of the particular guitar sounds I'm after :/ There's always the Tech21 stuff too, though the SansAmps appear to be more like "amps in a box" rather than dedicated cab sims. It's hard to know how they'll react when you plug your existing gear into them. Anyway, sorry for the long story. Anyone here have any experience with hardware like this?

Hi! I happen to like hardware solutions as well. I've been playing the ADA GCS-2 for about six months now, and like it very much. Flexible tone options, and has a good "feel" considering it's a direct device. Besides taking all my various distortion/overdrive pedals well, it's also an improvement over the cab models in my Korg AX3000 multi-effector. I always only intended to use simulators for demo/writing work, but lately the ADA has been giving me keeper sounds. Plus there are options to send dry signals to separate tracks, which can be re-amped (or whatever) later. FWIW, the ADA unit has been the best $120 I've spent in a while. . . . PS: I've used some of the Sans-amps too, and found it difficult to get what I wanted from them. Apologies to any Sans-map fans out there, but I find them shrill, grating, hard, harsh.

You might want to check out 2 notes engineering. IMO they are the best hardware cab sim devices available.

Do you have any good tube heads around? If so, I've used one of these before and really liked the results:

I'm gonna second the Two Notes suggestion. The Torpedo C.A.B. is what you want. Power amp emulation, cabinet emulation, microphone emulation...Just plug in your Zoom and go. For $500 it's pretty awesome.

Moderators: could this topic be moved to "Recording technologies etc" instead to prevent it from being buried? Thanks.

Why not track through something like Recabinet (either the included stuff or use your own impulses) as Input FX? Edit: maybe freeze your VI's temporarily and drop your latency to record the Guits?

Maybe I should just build myself an isolation box.

Last dumb idea, promise. You could invest in a pedal with two outputs, one for monitoring and second for recording. This is how I set it up nowadays. The second output has an impulse but no realtime monitoring, the first one has decent cab-sim which should feel ok to record with - as I mentioned before I also apply a reverb pedal for ambience which actually makes a big difference. Since we both live in the same country, and I'm a nice guy I could sell you my HT-Dual if you're interested. If you want sound examples I can supply that. PM me :) Alright, I'm out.

I'm now the proud owner of an ADA GCS-2. I've only been playing around with it for like an hour and a half but it appears to be a really cool little unit. I suppose it doesn't do anything all my cab IR's can't, except for two things: it gets me the desried results faster, and I can play hearing the exact sound going to disk. That is worth every penny to me. YMMV. I guess it's a niche product but if you're looking for something like this I recommend it.