# Scuffham S Gear



## jononotbono (Apr 11, 2018)

I've been trying out Scuffham S Gear that's included in the Slate Everything Bundle and quite frankly love it. But I have a few questions if anyone here has experience using it.

When I record Guitar using my amps, I set up a few Mono Audio Tracks (in Cubase) and route them to a Mix Group (for mixing Purposes mainly). I usually pan the mono tracks however I want and this all works perfectly. I've tried doing this with Scuffham but instead of the Group being a "Mix Group" (for mixing not mixing the Guitar tracks together) it is just so I can use 1 instance of Scuffham and have all the mono tracks route into it mainly to save CPU. However, panning the mono audio tracks doesn't really work with how I usually do this and obviously missing something. I'm wondering what people are doing to use this, have different sounds, panning options for different tracks and not rinse CPU.

I'm guessing the most simple way of using Scuffham is to insert 1 on each Mono Audio Track. Then do whatever you want and route it wherever you want. This would be fine is CPU was unlimited but it's not (especially when in a big Cubase template).

The main reason (creatively) I like to have multiple Mono Audio tracks routed to a Group when recording Guitar normally (as in with a real amp) is because I like to double track takes and layer things. Having 1 track per Scuffham really kills this vibe so I'm looking for any ways around this. Here's a scenario...

In a track I want two clean Guitars, two Overdriven Guitars and two Guitars for creative FX.

I'm thinking that perhaps I should create 6 Groups, each with an instance of Scuffham (Clean 1, Clean 2, OD 1, OD2, FX1, and FX2) and I would pan the Groups how I want them. Then I would have, for example 10 mono audio tracks, routed to each Group just so I can have the option to record on each one (similar to Cubase Lanes but with the option to add insert plugs on any of them (if I choose to). Seems simple enough but I am wondering, what if I want to double track the Clean 1 and then pan both takes left and right when there is only 1 Group for Clean 1? Hopefully this makes sense and the number of tracks and groups etc are just examples from the top of my head. Having multiple Mono tracks is very good for speed and workflow (especially when they are all sent to Groups and eventually Stereo Audio tracks for Stem Creation).

I've been watching the Slate Scuffham S-Gear Tutorial video and I'm a little bit puzzled why he has his Clean 1 and Clean 2 on Stereo Tracks and each one is hard panned Left and Right (when typically Mono is what is recorded with Guitars). Anyone got any ideas on that? Why not use 2 x Mono Audio Tracks instead?




Interested to know of anyone's workflows with this kind of thing as I love the sound of it. Actually responds like playing through an amp which is just so good. I've also been looking at buying some Impulses from Ownhammer as many of demos I have heard have sounded amazing. If I can figure out the best way to work with this then I doubt I'll be buying a Kemper because you can load you own impulses (including Kemper impulses into this).

Thanks

Jono


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## mac (Apr 11, 2018)

Can't help with your questions sorry, but have one of my own for you! What else have you tried emulation wise, and how did s-gear stack up against?


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Apr 11, 2018)

Hi Jono,

What I like to do is to duplicate my Input Bus, and put S-Gear on the second Bus as an insert.

That allows me to record two tracks for each take, first one is totally dry, and the second one is a printed version of the S-Gear settings on my Input Bus.

Setup looks like this, for exemple :











This way, during the recording stage I have only one instance of S-Gear open, and I just switch presets if I'm recording a clean, crunch, lead, etc.

Once the recording is done, I just delete the "printed S-Gear tracks", add a new instance of S-Gear on each of my dry tracks and Freeze. With the latest Cubase, you can also do an offline processing, which is probably even better.

All the tracks are mono, and routed to Groups where they have additionnal processing.

I hope this helps !

\m/


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## jononotbono (Apr 12, 2018)

whitewasteland said:


> Hi Jono,
> 
> What I like to do is to duplicate my Input Bus, and put S-Gear on the second Bus as an insert.
> 
> ...



That does help thanks a lot! I'm going to definitely duplicate my Guitar input from now on. It's great idea. Talk about giving yourself options further down the road.

I've also decided to never use Mono Audio tracks in Cubase ever again. I don't really understand why they exist anymore because I have been trying Scuffham out on Stereo audio tracks and recording my mono Guitar signal. The amp inside Scuffham is the only thing about the plugin that is mono and then it turns it into Stereo. I didn't realise until yesterday that the Scuffham plugin is actually Stereo so works best on Stereo Audio tracks which explains why I was having panning problems when routing Mono tracks to Stereo Groups. I think having more than one impulse in a single Scuffham instance also messes panning up with Mono tracks too. 

I ask tried recording Guitar straight from my amp and mixing desk in mono onto a Stereo track and it still records with one waveform in the audio event but you can still pan and apply stereo plugins. 

Anyway, thanks for your advice. Recording the clean signal as well as the wet separately is a great thing for sure!


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## Chandler (Apr 12, 2018)

I love S-gear and use it all the time. From what I understand, what you’re doing won’t really work. S-gear is meant to function like a real amp, so inputting multiple guitars won’t work. Amp inputs are mono, so it won’t preserve any stereo information. On top of that having multiple tracks going into it will increase the input gain and might push the amp into overdrive. Sometimes that sounds great, but if you want a clean sound its not. The last point is, there is a big difference in sound between multiple notes being played on separate amps and on one amp. This is why you never see 2 guitarists in a band use one amp, it sounds terrible.

I use 1 instance of S-gear per track. I don’t find it to be too CPU intensive, but when it does become a problem I simply freeze the track. Then to save CPU I take fx off tracks and use sends for things like reverb, delay, etc. I group similar tracks together for things like EQ and compression.

I hope that helps.


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## jtnyc (Apr 12, 2018)

mac said:


> Can't help with your questions sorry, but have one of my own for you! What else have you tried emulation wise, and how did s-gear stack up against?



I have S-Gear, Ampitube, TH3 and Logic amp designer. S-Gear sounds great and is my favorite most of the time with TH3 getting some use as well. The other 2 don't get used at all.


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## jononotbono (Apr 12, 2018)

Chandler said:


> I love S-gear and use it all the time. From what I understand, what you’re doing won’t really work. S-gear is meant to function like a real amp, so inputting multiple guitars won’t work. Amp inputs are mono, so it won’t preserve any stereo information. On top of that having multiple tracks going into it will increase the input gain and might push the amp into overdrive. Sometimes that sounds great, but if you want a clean sound its not. The last point is, there is a big difference in sound between multiple notes being played on separate amps and on one amp. This is why you never see 2 guitarists in a band use one amp, it sounds terrible.
> 
> I use 1 instance of S-gear per track. I don’t find it to be too CPU intensive, but when it does become a problem I simply freeze the track. Then to save CPU I take fx off tracks and use sends for things like reverb, delay, etc. I group similar tracks together for things like EQ and compression.
> 
> I hope that helps.



Sorry, did you read my comment directly above yours? I am using 1 Scuffham on every single stereo track now. I have done away with mono audio tracks completely. After speaking to the Devs, they informed me it works best on a stereo audio track because it is a stereo plugin. A lot has changed since my initial post and the one directly above yours. Thanks for your input though. Scuffham is an amazing plugin. Actually been playing my Les Paul today and it sounded so good (I’m usually a Tele Guy).


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## mac (Apr 13, 2018)

jtnyc said:


> I have S-Gear, Ampitube, TH3 and Logic amp designer. S-Gear sounds great and is my favorite most of the time with TH3 getting some use as well. The other 2 don't get used at all.



Cheers! Is it the sound you prefer, or a combination of that plus the interface? Personally, I *really* dislike amplitubes UI, but really enjoy the sound.


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## mc_deli (Apr 13, 2018)

Same here... I really like playing with some of the Amplitube Fender and SVT stuff. Really love the sound (though takes a while).

My GAS is rising...


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## mc_deli (Apr 13, 2018)

Like:full 15 day trial.

Don't like:the name. Always makes me think of Danny Upham and makes me giggle inside.


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## jononotbono (Apr 13, 2018)

mac said:


> Can't help with your questions sorry, but have one of my own for you! What else have you tried emulation wise, and how did s-gear stack up against?



Sorry I haven't replied to your questions yet. I have amplitude, Guitar Rig, and Scuffham. For me, Scuffham is my favourite. I actually can't stand Guitar Rig (it's great as an FX box and I love using it for anything but playing Guitar through). It doesn't feel like I am playing through a Guitar amp. Amplitude is good but just not doing it for me as much as Scuffham. 

Scuffham makes me question "what's the point in buying a Kemper?" because you can load the same impulses into the Scuffham and is a hell of a lot cheaper in comparison. Anyway, I guess this stuff is subjective but Scuffham is a very good Guitar sim and if you rent the Slate Everything Bundle it's included. Or it's about $130 which compared to a Kemper about £1100 (new) makes it an amazing thing.


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## jtnyc (Apr 13, 2018)

mac said:


> Cheers! Is it the sound you prefer, or a combination of that plus the interface? Personally, I *really* dislike amplitubes UI, but really enjoy the sound.



I very much prefer the sound of S-Gear. The UI is simple and to the point. It only provides 5 amps as compared to Amplitube or TH3 which have a lot more choices, Having said that, S-Gears 5 amps sound great and cover 90% of what I need. If I need more variety with high gain stuff, I turn to TH3 for more choices. Amplitube was a big disappointment to me. The clean stuff just doesn't get the body or that slight in between breakup tone. It always sounds brittle and harsh when I try and push a clean tone into that territory. Some of the higher gain stuff is ok, but much of it just sounds processed and fizzy. Aside from that, the UI/preset setup is terrible, and they include presets and components that you don't own in the browsers (shameless marketing). They also scatter components all over the place ie, some distortion pedals listed in Slash folder, others in the Amplitube/distortion folder and others under Wampler. I truly hate interacting with Amplitube. They spend a lot of energy on nice pictures with fancy graphics and that's pretty cool, but it just doesn't sound that good to my ears. 

I'd rather have 4 or 5 great choices than 100 mediocre to bad ones. I recommend demoing S-gear. I do hope they add an amp or 2 at some point. An AC30 and another hi gain choice would be great.


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## vintagevibe (Apr 13, 2018)

I have all the major brands and TH3 is just about all I use now with AmpliTube 4 and Guitar Rig 5 as second choices. I never use S-Gear. I never really liked it all that much. BTW it seems like development pretty much stalled a couple of years ago. Nothing new added in quite some time.


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## jneebz (Apr 13, 2018)

Love Scuffham. Something organic about it compared to others, IMO. 

I actually haven't used it in Cubase 9.5 yet, but in previous Cubase versions, the Scuffham plugin would disable itself after you opened a saved project...and to make it worse, the blue "plugin activated" color would remain, so it was sort of covertly disabled. The fix was simply to click on the plugin to activate, but until I figured this out, a real PITA. Developer said it was a "Cubase issue."

Maybe fixed now, and not a deal breaker....just FYI.


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## jononotbono (Apr 13, 2018)

jneebz said:


> Love Scuffham. Something organic about it compared to others, IMO.
> 
> I actually haven't used it in Cubase 9.5 yet, but in previous Cubase versions, the Scuffham plugin would disable itself after you opened a saved project...and to make it worse, the blue "plugin activated" color would remain, so it was sort of covertly disabled. The fix was simply to click on the plugin to activate, but until I figured this out, a real PITA. Developer said it was a "Cubase issue."
> 
> Maybe fixed now, and not a deal breaker....just FYI.



Yeah, it's not a problem in 9.5


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## Soundhound (Apr 13, 2018)

Another S-Gear fan here. I found it years ago and have never found anything (including the great sounding UAD stuff) I like better. It sounds like a guitar.


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## jononotbono (Apr 14, 2018)

Soundhound said:


> Another S-Gear fan here. I found it years ago and have never found anything (including the great sounding UAD stuff) I like better. It sounds like a guitar.




That's interesting. I haven't got any UAD-2 stuff yet but it's a road I am going to go down when I get some more money.


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## catsass (Apr 14, 2018)

jneebz said:


> Love Scuffham. Something organic about it compared to others, IMO.
> I actually haven't used it in Cubase 9.5 yet, but in previous Cubase versions, the Scuffham plugin would disable itself after you opened a saved project...and to make it worse, the blue "plugin activated" color would remain, so it was sort of covertly disabled. The fix was simply to click on the plugin to activate, but until I figured this out, a real PITA. Developer said it was a "Cubase issue."
> Maybe fixed now, and not a deal breaker....just FYI.


Odd.
I've been an avid S-Gear user since Cubase 8 and have never experienced anything even slightly resembling that issue.
I'm on a PC. You?


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## catsass (Apr 14, 2018)

vintagevibe said:


> BTW it seems like development pretty much stalled a couple of years ago. Nothing new added in quite some time.


Actually...
https://www.scuffhamamps.com/news/product-news/94-namm-report-2018


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## Jazzy_Joe (Apr 14, 2018)

jneebz said:


> I actually haven't used it in Cubase 9.5 yet, but in previous Cubase versions, the Scuffham plugin would disable itself after you opened a saved project...and to make it worse, the blue "plugin activated" color would remain, so it was sort of covertly disabled. The fix was simply to click on the plugin to activate, but until I figured this out, a real PITA. Developer said it was a "Cubase issue."
> 
> Maybe fixed now, and not a deal breaker....just FYI.



Not to go too far off topic, I've got the exact same issue with my UAD plugins, is this a THING?


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## Soundhound (Apr 14, 2018)

My S-Gear preference could be for two reasons. 1) It may be because of the kind of sound I'm generally after, which is just edge of breakup, from Little Wing to Voodoo Chile slight return, Robben Ford, Derek Trucks... I tend to like that. and 2) I came across S-Gear when I was playing live a lot (second childhood and was always looking for the same kind of sound I go for playing live. There's something about S-Gear that just sounds more live (real?) to me. Don't know what it is...

I've gotten some of the UAD stuff since, when I've been focusing much less on guitar and have worked much less on getting guitar sounds. I knew S-Gear from before and know how to get what I want out of it.

Don't want to put anyone off UAD, their guitar stuff does sound amazing. I just always found S-Gear very easy to use.

A lot of people swear by the Kemper profiling, but I haven't tried that yet.





jononotbono said:


> That's interesting. I haven't got any UAD-2 stuff yet but it's a road I am going to go down when I get some more money.


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## mc_deli (Apr 14, 2018)

Soundhound said:


> Voodoo Chile slight return, Robben Ford



This makes my head hurt. One of the above is my desert island disc, the other is well, electrodes on testicles for me!


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## Soundhound (Apr 14, 2018)

Hilariousness. I'm going to guess you are a member of the House of Jimi (as am I), and Señor Ford is not in constant rotation.



mc_deli said:


> This makes my head hurt. One of the above is my desert island disc, the other is well, electrodes on testicles for me!


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## mc_deli (Apr 14, 2018)

Soundhound said:


> Hilariousness. I'm going to guess you are a member of the House of Jimi (as am I), and Señor Ford is not in constant rotation.


I am a fully paid up disciple of the Axis!
Had a teacher that made me learn Ford licks once. It just seemed like anti-blues, anti-soul, anti-music to me. I'd rather blend a finger, paste it and eat the pizza. Sorry.


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## Soundhound (Apr 14, 2018)

What makes a horse race, brother! The finger sandwich does not sound appetizing, though a really good curry can do amazing things.

Hendrix was the first live show I ever went to, so I kind of don't have a choice there (not that I'd want one.) I can still hear the sound of him hitting a low E after walking out on stage, have been chasing that sound my whole life. First time I ever heard Robben Ford, Derek Trucks, Larry Carlton, Duane Allman, I reacted similarly.





mc_deli said:


> I am a fully paid up disciple of the Axis!
> Had a teacher that made me learn Ford licks once. It just seemed like anti-blues, anti-soul, anti-music to me. I'd rather blend a finger, paste it and eat the pizza. Sorry.


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## Zoot_Rollo (Apr 16, 2018)

S-Gear user.

But use Amplitube 4 Fender/Fender2, MESA packs mostly.

The A4 Soldano and RED PIG are incredible.

Audient id14 JFET input does wonders.

I usually bring the guitar in on a mono audio track and stereo bus it to A4 with BREEZE 2.0 as my main reverb tail as an FX send.

Studio One Pro 3.5.x.


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## Josh Richman (Apr 17, 2018)

What’s everyone’s take on virtual bass amps? I’m a bass player and so far my favorite is using Soundtoys little radiator & radiator, logics amp designer. I like them better than the amplitude & IK multimedia stuff I have. I have the slate stuff so I’ve gotta try out what comes with it. Curious about Bias virtual amps too.


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## Zoot_Rollo (Apr 17, 2018)

i've been round and round with bass amp/cab sims.

i recently bought the Amplitube 4 Ampeg SVX/SVX3 packs.

They are spot on in my opinion.

I also have the Overloud Mark Studio 2 which is pretty nice as well.

3rd place would be Two Note's Torpedo Wall of Sound.

not to mention the VAST array of cabinet IRs that can be used with a variety of IR host apps.

good time to be a bass player.


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