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Native Instruments Guitar Rig 3

Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Babz

           

NI’s cyberguitarist’s toolbox gets an upgrade.

BONUS MATERIAL
Web Clips: Hear audio examples that demonstrate Guitar Rig 3.

FIG. 1: Guitar Rig 3 features a newly redesigned and optimized user interface. Enhancements throughout make everything cleaner, more efficient, and intuitive.

Guitar Rig 3 is the latest version of Native Instruments' guitar amp- and effects-modeling software. Like its predecessors, it comes with the latest model of the Rig Kontrol hardware controller (see the sidebar “Rig Kontrol 3”). You can also buy the software by itself.

Guitar Rig 3 (see Fig. 1) provides much more than just modeling — it's an all-around guitarist's toolbox. You get a suite of integrated tools, including a tuner; a metronome; dual software Tape Decks (with a sync function) for recording, playing, and learning tracks; and the fantastic Loop Machine for overdubbing multiple layers of sound on the fly. This review will concentrate mainly on new features. (For details on legacy features, see the Guitar Rig 2 review in the June 2006 issue of EM, available at emusician.com.)

Amped-Up Amps

Four new amp models are included in Guitar Rig 3: Ultrasonic, Citrus, High White, and Tweed Delight (see Fig. 2). These additions bring the total number of amp models to 12, rounding out an already-broad palette that contains Marshall, Vox, and Roland emulations, an Ampeg bass amp model, and more.

FIG. 2: Guitar Rig 3 offers four new amp models: Ultrasonic, High White, Citrus, and Tweed Delight.

Ultrasonic emulates the Bogner Überschall, an exotic and highly aggressive-sounding heavy-metal amp. The real amp has separate clean and high-gain channels, but the Guitar Rig 3 (GR3) model conserves screen real estate by providing an onscreen toggle to select between the two. The Clean channel sounds great and is an excellent starting point for inserting one of GR3's many distortion effects. The Overdrive channel will take you to instant übersonic metal heaven (or hell, as you may prefer). It is a deliciously silky, hard-driving metal sound with tons of low-end chunk. From Sabbath to Slayer, you're in the zone (see Web Clip 1).

Citrus is an emulation of an Orange amp, a British-made tube amplifier. The High White model conjures up a 100W Hiwatt. Both seem well suited to that crunchy middle ground between clean and full-blown distortion. This is often the Achilles' heel of amp emulators, but both models excel wonderfully in the realm of semidirt. From fat chord chops to arpeggiated open strings, they serve up a palpable sense of real amp-cabinet response with both grit and definition (see Web Clip 2).

Tweed Delight is modeled after an early Fender combo amp with relatively low wattage and few controls. It puts out a warm tube-amp breakup that would make it a great choice for early rock 'n' roll, country, or blues styles. With a little tweaking to the Warm Delight preset, I was able to create an inspiring straight-ahead rock tone that reminded me of a Sticky Fingers-era Rolling Stones sound (see Web Clip 3).

Effects Nouveau

The update also includes six new effects modules: Sledge Hammer, Tape Echo, Delay Man, Ring Modulator, Real Wah, and Custom EQ (see Fig. 3). Sledge Hammer is modeled after the Marshall Jackhammer overdrive/distortion pedal, and it adds a distinctive new flavor to the Guitar Rig distortion menu. It has a low-end-heavy character but is highly tweakable and capable of delivering a range of harmonic overtones, from a bit of drive to infinite sustain.

Tape Echo re-creates the classic Roland Space Echo tape delay, including tape hiss (which fortunately can be dialed down in NI's model), and Delay Man is based on the Electro-Harmonix Memory Man. Both of these models offer much more than just echo. With a little knob tweaking, you can get chorus, reverb, tremolo, and all sorts of insane whammy-type effects.

Ring Modulator is another exciting new offering. Loosely based on the Moog Moogerfooger MF102 pedal, it offers more experimental types of sounds. The presets demonstrate a range of sound mangling, from bizarre warbling, metallic, pitch-shifting, and throaty effects to tamer effects like vibrato and tremolo (see Web Clip 4). The 6 new effects extend the Guitar Rig effects arsenal to 44. That's a lot of stompboxes.

UI Enhanced

FIG. 3: Sledge Hammer, Tape Echo, Delay Man, and Ring Modulator are among the six new effects modules introduced in Guitar Rig 3.

Guitar Rig has been reworked in numerous ways to make it easier to use. Larger fonts and a high-contrast platinum-and-pale-orange skin are much easier on the eyes. The Browser and its factory banks and presets have been given a thorough makeover. The banks are now organized by a variety of categories, including amp type and styles, and amps appear at the top of the list. Many presets have “SC” (single-coil) or “HB” (humbucking) after their name to key the user in to the suggested pickup choice. You get a hefty helping of new factory presets, including Signature Sounds (designed to emulate the sounds of various guitar heroes). One consequence of the overhauled preset section is that many presets from Guitar Rig 2 weren't carried over to the new banks. However, they are fully compatible, and if you upgrade from version 2, they can be imported from your hard drive. New users will be able to download them from the NI Web site.

Banks are organized into categories that can be filtered to display only your choice. Presets can be tagged with various attributes and keywords, and this metadata is integrated into a new and improved search engine. (Unfortunately, one simple improvement is still lacking. On the Mac, hitting Return to initiate a search is not supported; you must actually click on the Find button with the mouse.) When editing presets, the new Save As button instantly saves your edit to the current bank, allowing you to tweak away while ensuring a secure and efficient work flow.

Other new enhancements include a Matched Cabinet feature and a Live view. Matched cabinets expedite creating your custom rig by automatically marrying an appropriate cabinet and mic to your amp choice and offering simplified mic adjustment controls. (Hint: sliding the Dry/Air slider to the right gives just about any preset more life and realism.) At the same time, all the more detailed cabinet and mic customization is retained from the previous version in case you need it. Live view presents a simplified view with larger fonts that can be more easily read in a live-performance situation (see Fig. 4).

Rigged Up

Guitar Rig 3 doesn't do a perfect job of emulating every one of its devices. You'll need to get in there and tweak the presets and default settings to unlock its full potential. But while it may not be an exact replacement for hardware devices, it offers a means to combine a virtual music store full of amps and effects in countless new and exciting ways. And it does so for less than the cost of a single hardware amplifier. Beyond that, it lets you combine classic tones with new synth and cyber-age technology, such as the LFOs, envelopes, and sequencers in its Modifiers sections, to make your guitar sound like it never has before (see Web Clip 5).

FIG. 4: The new Live view offers a simplified screen that could be ideal for using Guitar Rig onstage with a laptop.

I might go so far as to speculate that if Jimi Hendrix were alive today, he would be using something like Guitar Rig. Not necessarily to re-create his past, but to do what he was known for: use cutting-edge technology to create entirely new ways to process the electric guitar. And perhaps that is where the true promise of something like Guitar Rig lies.

Back in the days of classic rock, a computer was something bigger than a Marshall stack, attended by men in lab coats, and all those classic tracks still popular today were created without a single USB port or latency buffer in sight. But this is the cyber age, and we want every amp and guitar device in history, and we want to be able to sling them over our shoulder in a backpack. Guitar Rig 3 takes us one step closer to that dream, and a giant leap closer to the future.

(By the time you read this review, NI is scheduled to have released a free update, Guitar Rig 3.1, which the company says will include improved algorithms, a reduced amp-noise floor, enhanced external-software control capabilities, and more. — Ed.)

Babz is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and music-technology writer in New York City.

PRODUCT SUMMARY

PROS: Redesigned user interface with many new features and improved work flow. Excellent new amp and effects models. Hybrid technologies offer new sonic potential.

CONS: Not all emulations are totally faithful to original devices.

Native Instruments
www.native-instruments.com

Rig Kontrol 3

FIG. A: The revamped Rig Kontrol sports a new black finish with new labels and includes two additional footswitches, level meters, and upgraded audio converters.

The Rig Kontrol, which serves as a foot controller, preamp, and bus-powered USB 2.0 audio interface, has also been given a makeover (see Fig. A). New features include two additional footswitches, a black finish with clearly marked labels, I/O meters, and upgraded 24-bit, 192 kHz audio converters. It comes preconfigured to work with all GR3 presets but can also be easily programmed onscreen to take advantage of GR3's new simplified controller assignment options, such as Snapshots.

You can now assign several functions to a button, so as many effects as desired can be switched on and off at once. Snapshots let you capture the state of complex combinations of multiple components within a preset and assign it to a single footswitch for recall. You can assign multiple Snapshots within the same preset (for intro, verse, chorus, and so on). Integrating the Rig Kontrol 3 into your system can be a bit complicated. For details, see Web Clip A.

BONUS MATERIAL
Web Clips: Hear audio examples that demonstrate Guitar Rig 3.