There are two main parts to an amp sim setup:
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The amp sim, which shapes the core tone – for example, how clean or distorted the sound is.
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The cab sim, which replicates the sound of a speaker cabinet and affects how the tone is projected and perceived.
Cab sims often use Impulse Responses (IRs) – digital snapshots of real cabinets, recorded with specific microphones and room setups. These help your guitar sound more natural and three-dimensional, especially when recording direct through an audio interface.
Tip
If you want to try this straight away, Softube's Flow® Guitar Essentials plugin in the Focusrite Hitmaker bundle is a perfect place to start. Later on in this article, we explain how to install and use the Flow Guitar Essentials.
Real amps shape your tone in a big way. Without one, a guitar’s direct signal often sounds harsh or flat. Amp sims replicate that tonal shaping, including distortion, EQ, and compression – whether you want to emulate a classic amp or build your own custom sound.
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Logic Pro's Amp plugin |
Softube's Flow Guitar Essentials |
Amp sims also make it easy to experiment. You can mix and match elements like pairing a Vox preamp with a Mesa Boogie EQ and a Fender-style cab, or switch amp models after recording, without redoing the take.
Most amp sims include cab sims, but you can also try different IRs to change the feel. It’s an easy way to improve your tone and make it sound more like a real amp in a room – perfect for recording at home.
But what is an Impulse Response?
An Impulse Response captures how a speaker, mic, and room colour the sound of an amp. It’s like a digital fingerprint of a real-world setup.
You don’t need to know exactly how they’re made just that they let you drop the sonic character of a real cabinet into your amp sim. Speaker type, mic placement, and room ambience are all baked into the IR, so your tone instantly feels more realistic.
If you're connecting your guitar directly to your interface to use an amp sim, the creativity doesn't have to end there. An audio interface's instrument input is essentially emulating the input on your guitar amp, pretty much anything you can connect to your guitar amp, you can connect to your audio interface, for example: pedals.
Guitar > Pedals > Interface > Computer
Any guitar pedals you'd usually use with your amp, you can now place between your guitar and interface to get them same tones and effects in your DAW.
Tip
Most audio interfaces with two or more jack inputs also have two instrument inputs.
This means that if you have any stereo pedals (often chorus, delays, reverbs), you can use two cables to connect to the two inputs on your interface and record your guitar in stereo.
Your Focusrite interface unlocks Flow Guitar Essentials Softube's meticulous plugin emulation of some legendary amps and effects.
Firstly, the plugins come with your Focusrite interface, so if you want to experience an amp sim in your own setup you can download it now and follow along with this guide. This plugin includes a custom collection of two amp sims, three effects, and a collection of guitar-centric signal chains for realistic recorded tones giving you some options to learn with.
Distorted guitar amps have been notoriously difficult to emulate in software, as there are a lot of nuances to the sound. Often, amp sims built into your DAW are great for clean guitar sounds, but not as good for distorted sounds – where Softube's emulation really shines
Note
This guide is made for people installing and using the plugins from Focusrite's Hitmaker Expansion– a set of plugins included with your Focusrite interface.
To find out more, click here: focusrite.com/software/hitmaker-expansion
This section teaches you how to install the Softube Flow® Guitar Essentials step-by-step. You can find instructions to get all the Hitmaker Expansion plugins from your Focusrite account, but it's often best to install them one by one.
To install any plugin from the Hitmaker Expansion, you must have already registered your Focusrite device. For more information, and steps on how to register your Focusrite interface, go to: getstarted.focusrite.com.
To install the Softube Flow® Guitar Essentials:
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Go to: id.focusritegroup.com/my-software.
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If you're prompted, log in with your account.
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Click on at the top of the page.
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Scroll down until you see Softube Flow® Guitar Essentials.
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Click .
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Click to reveal your unique activation code.
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The code itself is a link, click the code to go to the Softube website.
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Fill in your details in the Create an account section on the right of the Softube website. You'll need to:
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Enter your email
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Enter a password
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Select your country
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Tick the Softube Privacy Policy box.
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Click SIGN UP.
Softube automatically adds the code to your Softube account.
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Click Register License:
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Click ADD YOUR ILOK NOW.
Softube use a piece of software called iLok to license their plugins. You may already have an iLok account if you've installed plugins in the past, or you may not. The best way to check is if you have “iLok Licence Manager” installed on your computer.
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Enter your iLok User ID (you can find this in iLok Licence Manager) or tick the box “Need an iLok account?” box to create an iLok account.
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Click My Products on the right-hand side.
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Click MAC or WINDOWS, depending on your operating system, to download the Softube Central installer to your computer.
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Go to your downloads folder and run the Softube installer
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Find Softube Central in your computer's applications folder and open it.
When you open Softube Central, it may prompt another installation, follow the instructions to complete this.
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Sign in, to Softube Central using the Softube account details you created earlier.
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Go to the Not Installed tab and find Flow Mixing Suite.
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Click Install.
Now the installation has finished, and you've activated the plugin, you can close Softube and start to use the Softube Flow® Guitar Essentials in your DAW. To learn more, move onto the next section.
To install the Softube Flow® Guitar Essentials:
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Go to: id.focusritegroup.com/my-software.
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If you're prompted, log in with your account.
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Click on at the top of the page.
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Scroll down until you see Softube Flow® Guitar Essentials.
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Click .
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Click to reveal your unique activation code.
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The code itself is a link, click the code to go to the Softube website.
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Sign in on the Softube website.
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Click Register License:
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Click My Products on the right-hand side.
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Click MAC or WINDOWS, depending on your operating system, to download the Softube Central installer to your computer.
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Go to your downloads folder and run the Softube installer
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Find Softube Central in your computer's applications folder and open it.
When you open Softube Central, it may prompt another installation, follow the instructions to complete this.
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Go to the Not Installed tab and find Flow Mixing Suite.
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Click Install.
Now that you’ve got the Softube Flow® Guitar Essentials installed and ready to go, let’s walk through how to load it up in your DAW and start shaping your first tones. Whether you’re going for clean sparkle or gritty crunch, Softube Flow® Guitar Essentials is a great place to begin.
To use the Softube's Flow Guitar Essentials you need to open it in your DAW. In this guide we’ve used Ableton Live Lite, this also comes with your Focusrite interface, but you can use any DAW software.
In this guide, we've used Ableton Live Lite as the DAW used to open the plugin. However, most of the steps are the same in other DAWs.
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Open Ableton Live Lite (or any DAW) from your applications folder.
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Select a MIDI or Audio track with data on it.
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Go to Plug-Ins in the Browser on the left-hand side of Live.
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Expand the folder
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Double click any of the plugins you installed earlier.
Open Flow Mixing Suite to find a selection of preset guitar chains, or any of the individual plugins to just use that effect.
Ableton adds the plugin to the select track.
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Play audio in your DAW and as you tweak the settings in the plugin you've just opened you should hear the difference in the sound.
If you need any help to install or use any Softube plugins, you can find Softube's help centre, user guides, and contact details here:
In this section, we'll teach you through getting your first guitar sounds from your amp sim. Make sure you've opened your DAW and loaded up your amp sim plugin on an audio track. If you need help, see Using Softube's Flow Guitar Essentials to open the amp sim in Ableton Live Lite.
What you'll need:
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A guitar, electric or bass.
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A jack cable, like the one you use to connect to your amp.
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An audio interface.
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Connect your guitar to the jack input on your audio interface.
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Set the input in your DAW.
In your DAW, you might need to set the input to the input your guitar is connected to. If your guitar jack is input 1, set the input to 1, if it's in input 2, set the input to 2.
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Arm the track for recording.
To start hearing your guitar, you need to Arm and monitor the track.
You might start to hear sound at this point, but the next step is vital for making sure your guitar is at the correct level to make the most out of your amp sim.
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Set up your interface's input to record your guitar. This consists of a few parts:
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Set the input to accept an instrument signal. On Focusrite interfaces, this is called Inst, but it might also be Hi-Z or have a picture of guitar.
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Set your gain. If you've got Auto Gain, use that, it should get you to the right place. If not, play your guitar and increase the gain control until you're seeing the meter hit around -18dB.
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For more tonal variety, turn on Air. This affects the instrument input, so experiment with it on and off.
Amp sims are modelled on a particular level going into the amp, most plugins are designed to have a signal around -18 to -12dB going into them. This means any distortion or effects are applied as they were intended, and you're not over-driving the plugin, or putting too little sound in to hear any effect.
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Start experimenting and tweaking controls.
The controls on the left duplicate the controls on the amp itself and also let you tweak the microphones. For more information on mic positions, see Miking your amp: The classic approach.
If you close the amp window, you can see the amp, mic, and pedal controls for the plugin at the bottom of the window.
The Dual Tremelo amp (pictured) is particularly good for clean tones. You can change "Flows" in the top left of the plugin and try out the Custom 100W, which is particularly good for more distorted sounds.
Amp sims offer a huge range of tones and are incredibly useful in home recording setups. Like any approach, they come with trade-offs. Let’s look at the pros and cons to help you decide if they’re right for your workflow.
Amp sims may seem like an endless expanse of tones, from all sorts of manufacturers with ultimate flexibility, but not everyone uses them. Maybe for you, using a physical amp or a combination of the two might be the best option:
Amp sims offer a flexible, cost-effective way to record great guitar tones at home. Here’s why they’re a popular choice for modern recording setups:
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Convenient
No need to mic up a loud amp or set aside a dedicated space – just plug in and play.
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Non-destructive
You don’t have to commit to a tone while recording. Tweak your sound later to fit the mix.
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Consistent
Get the same tone every time, without worrying about mic position, room acoustics or noise.
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Versatile
Access a wide range of amp models and effects in one plugin – from clean to high-gain.
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Pedal-friendly
Use your real pedal board with your interface to shape your tone before the amp sim.
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Affordable
A much lower cost than owning and maintaining multiple amps and cabs – ideal for home setups.
While amp sims are incredibly useful, there are a few trade-offs to keep in mind when recording guitar this way:
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Latency
You might notice a slight delay between playing and hearing the sound. This can be minimised with a low-latency audio interface like those from Focusrite, especially when using Direct Monitoring.
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Realism
Some players feel amp sims don’t fully capture the feel or response of a real amp. That said, many modern sims come impressively close.
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Feel and dynamics
Amp sims can sometimes respond differently to your playing compared to valve amps, especially in terms of touch sensitivity and natural breakup.
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Choice overload
With so many amp models, cabs and effects available, it’s easy to spend more time tweaking than playing. Simpler setups can often lead to faster results.
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CPU usage
Some amp sims are demanding on your computer. When you start double-tracking, adding rhythm and lead parts and any overdubs, using too many amp sims at once can impact performance in your DAW.
Despite these points, amp sims continue to improve and remain a go-to option for guitarists recording at home.