noisy guitar track with high gain type effects

If you are only having problems with the high gain amp sims and not clean settings then it's not the input.

I am on the same quest as you. The built-in amp sims do, indeed, add way too much white noise on high-gain settings. I've been experimenting with various free .au plug-ins from out there on the web, and still have not found the perfect cocktail for the classic "Marshall Stack" sound which every rock guitarist craves. The distortion of "British High Gain" sounds to my ear too much like overdriven solid state circuits and not at all like the valve distortion I want. A few amp sims out there get closer, but short of paying ridiculous money to a commercial plug-in maker, the Holy Grail of guitar sound continues to elude me.

As for getting rid of noise, some of it is just the gain amplifying the otherwise-unheard hiss coming from the guitar itself. It's more than I'm used to hearing from actual amps of any quality, but it really is just an amplification of something that is part of the signal. If you are using a Strat or Strat-copy, try flipping the rocker switch from the far-down position to one click between the bottom & the middle. This balances the bridge & center pick-ups with each other, providing a little noise reduction yet still giving you a bright sound. It won't kill all of it, but it will help.

Also, if you turn the gate off, the hiss simply becomes part of the noise floor, and you actually notice it less when the guitar is playing.

(I only use the neck pick-up when playing clean. I find it too dark for distorted rock applications.)

I'll let you know if I ever find a way to cut the noise down further.

I have the same problem when I try to record in this manner, and I too would be very interested in hearing about any solutions!

I don't think you will ever find a $3000 amp sound on a free ($79) recording program. The amp sims in garageband are decent but you get what you pay for. IK multimedia makes some nice sims but it cost. Logic LE comes with a awesome amp sim and lots of other goodies.

I use a Tech21 Sans Amp that does a good job or a M-Audio Black Box that sounds like a lot of great amps (but a little over compressed).

istevus, is "Logic LE" Logic Express? And, if so, if I purchased Logic 8 Express, do you think I would find dramatically better noise performance in the guitar amp sims? Thanks.