You would be really surprised how great some people can sound thru many things.
90% of it is the players chops & the ears to dial in tone!
yup. that ^^^
I hope that Guitar Rig has sonically progressed in leaps and bounds over the last couple of years. I ditched it in version 4 (still looking to sell my Rig Kontrol pedal-I/O, btw, if anyone is interested). In the final analysis, to get really good quality sounds out of the GtrRig amp/cab sims, you need to have a quality, low latency I/O (=$$) and a pretty well-powered and properly tuned computer (=$$$), and of course, the Guitar Rig software. Others may argue that they got to a happy place on a shoe-string budget, but I never could using their flagship I/O (Rig Kontrol 3) and a decent $600 (3 yrs ago) Dell Laptop. Clearly these needed to be upgraded for me to get anywhere near usable quality in live performance, and after a year of frustrations with NI, I wasn't prepared to drop the coin on I/O and computer upgrades. And then, of course, you are tied to a computer for your performances, and all of the worries that go along with that. In the final analysis, you add all of that up and it just about equals or surpasses the cost of the AxeFx. Eventually this reality became a no-brainer for practicality, and after switching to the AxeFx, have never looked back or even thought twice about going back. No more fighting latency issues, blips, crackles, pops, or the worry of carrying around a laptop to nightclubs where it is vulnerable to who-knows-what.
That said, I'm sure there are plenty of Guitar Rig users out there who really like what they have. And it does have some cool features that I'd love to see implemented in some way, shape, or form in future iterations of FAS products. One thing they don't have, though, is the type of customer support, product support, and attention to detail that FAS has. Not....even....close...and never will be.
