Levels 4 dirty guitar

I am a Reaper newb and have found the amp sims in JS the best fx I have found to get dirty sounds out of my electric guitar into Reaper. However I am not sure about the levels I am setting sliders at when recording. It seems that to get any "dirt" in the sound I am pushing sliders way up so all the signals are pounding way up into the red and the wave form graphic in the track takes up the whole vertical space (and beyond). Is this correct? Can I blow my monitors and/or headphones doing this? I read that you are not supposed to let levels go above -10dB when recording, but I found if I do this I can't get any real overdriven guitar sound at all. BTW, it is fun to play with, but my suspicion that amp sims or virtual fx do not come within a thousand miles of a real valve amp are confirmed. I have a mic :) Maybe I am doing it wrong?

Try downloading and installing FreeAmp from the Fretted Synth web site. It's a free VST plugin that does a remarkable job of simulating amps and stomp boxes. It's a little heavy on CPU, but if you can deal with that it's great. Also - some plugins such as these don't like one dll file to be used on multiple tracks. So in freeamp's case, find the .dll file where you installed it and make a copy of it. Then in Reaper rescan your plugins and you have another amp you can use. You might want to rename the freeamp FX in Reaper (right click) so you can keep track of which copy you're using.

Thanks a lot, I will check it out. What about the levels? Is it OK to have everything blasting into the red as described in my first post?

Dirthead is also a very nice high gain ampsim... Free too