"I prefer your presets a lot as it feels more like"the real thing"
I totally agree! There are alot of great Presets out there. But sooo many of them feel too "studio smooth" if you catch my drift. This is what caught me with AustinBuddys Live Gold. There is a certain smoothness as well, but also a tangible raw feeling to it that feels less studio to me, and more actual Amp. Hard to explain. But you FEEL it and HEAR it.
Yes. I am always striving to make each preset realistically sound like the real amps I have played and/or heard (with a mic on them of course). The addition of the speaker compression algorithm to the amp block a few firmwares back (feel like years ago now!), to my ears, always pulled away from that goal for me, even though I'm sure it's technically accurate by Cliff. Apparently lots of people agree me, because they like my presets which don't use it (or use it very sparingly, like 0.25, in some cases).
The Factory amps default to 1.0 speaker compression. I just set it to zero. But anyone can add it any time, the more you add though, the more you have to raise the Level to compensate for the gain reduction at the speaker as it compresses. And different amps compress differently at speaker, so I don't think a one size fits all setting works.
Compression is the sound of rock, but there are a few kinds/types of compression and not everyone gets this stuff. I want the amp (model ) to naturally compress as it gets louder. That's what makes a lot of amps so glorious as they get louder, they naturally compress and focus the tone in a pleasant way This is not the same as speaker compression, but that can be a part of it.
Then there is the heavy compression (pedal) in front of an amp, like many country Telecaster players like. Many of them (like Andy Woods) are using that not just as a "smoothing out the low to high E stings" control but also as an overall guitar signal boost going into the amp/hitting it. Works great.
Or squishy, sustainy Strat compression stuff like the 80's, where it's almost a limiter and ratios of 12:1 or higher. It's cool thing for some kinds of cleans. One of Fractal Audio's Matt Picone's personal favorite sounds.
But for rock music, many producer/engineers add compression at lower ratios right after the mic preamp to act more as a "limiter" to cut the peaks when recording the amp (so the way the low E doesn't poke out while the high 12th fret isn't wimpy sounding in comparison, level wise). After applying that, they then raise the gain which makes the guitar louder and punchier.
This is using lower compression ratios like 2:1 (not really above 4:1) and only putting -1db to -3db compression on peaks. The compressor is not "always working", it just compresses slightly when the loudest notes play really.
That's how Andy Johns did it on Zeppelin records for example, with a Universal Audio 1176 (4:1, fixed fast attack at 0.283 milliseconds, fast release at 75 ms, and light limiting/gain reduction of no more than -3db at the loudest guitar notes). That's a secret sauce of a lot of classic rock guitar tones on albums that make them sound big and fat coming ot of your speakers.
I was in a pro mixing/producer forum recently and the question was asked "if you could have only one plug-in between EQ, reverb, and compression, what would it be?" Without hesitation, my vote was for compression. Because, technically you can create EQ with mics and mic placement, and reverbs with rooms and spaces, but you can't naturally create compression (I guess if you are a master fader rider and can mind read your guitar player before he hits the louder or soft notes, you can...).
