Smooth electric guitar sound

[Starship Krupa]

TH3 comes with many presets, so as with any other plug-in, that's a good place to start.

Classic rockers didn't have access to amplifiers with built-in distortion, so to get their tones, they usually used either Fender or Marshall with a boost or overdrive stompbox.

This signal chain is available with TH3. Presets that use the Bassface, Darkface, Overange, Tweed Deluxe, and Rock models of amp are appropriate. If you want to roll your own, one of those, then the Tube Nine overdrive would be a good place to start, with your choice of cabinets. The RSS Compressor is worth a look, too.

A phaser pedal is an effect that many of them used. With stompboxes and modulation effects, they would always have to go in front of the amp, so try that first.

Of course there are no rules except "if it sounds good, it is good."

Each of the classic players in those bands worked for many hours to craft guitar tones that they liked. Now that you know where to start comes the fun part, experimenting and finding out what inspires you. And don't necessarily stick to trying to emulate your heroes (although that is a solid place to start). Tone is part of the electric guitar's voice, and things sound better (IMO) when we sing with our own voice.

With your DAW rig, it's easy to import a track from our favorite artists, then listen to it while we work on the tone.

As John is implying, the way that those players got their sounds was/is from playing through a physical electronic amplifier, usually using tubes, into a wooden box with one or more paper cone speakers, mic'd with a variety of microphones (condenser, dynamic). While emulations of this are getting better, it's still hard to beat an actual physical amp for sounding like....an actual physical amp. It gives a better monitoring experience for the player as well.

That said, I'm an amp designer myself and I still use emulations sometimes. If it sounds good, it is good and all that.