Shredding in the Box

Sep 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Michael Cooper

           
 

SIX GUITAR-AMP SIMULATORS GO TOE-TO-TOE

Software that emulates guitar amps and cabinets has become dramatically more realistic sounding during the past couple of years. Add digital clones of classic stompboxes and outboard effects, and throw in amenities like in-the-box tuners and signal splitters, and it's tempting to leave the real amps and mics in the closet. But can all those 1s and 0s truly replace vintage amps and Neumanns? And of all the guitar-processing software now vying for your wallet, which offers the best sound, easiest operation and greatest versatility?

For this article, I tested six of the latest guitar-amp-simulation plug-ins (all of which also operate in stand-alone mode). To keep my report to a manageable size, I limited the field of players to just one product per manufacturer and included only cross-platform Native plug-ins compatible with both Audio Units and VST formats. If a company offered several such products, then I chose the newest release. Software that required accessory hardware such as pedals or USB interfaces, as well as products that didn't include virtual amplifiers and effects, were excluded from this report. That said, a few manufacturers offer optional hardware, so be sure to check their Websites.

All of the products I tested included such effects as noise gate, compressor, flange, chorus, phaser, pitch-shifter, wah-wah, delay, reverb and various types of distortion. I'll note any additional effects offered by each plug-in when I discuss them.

I tested all of the plug-ins in MOTU Digital Performer 5.13 on an 8-core 2.8GHz Mac Pro running OS 10.5.4. I routed my '62 Strat to my Mac via a Demeter Tube direct DI box, Millennia HV-3D preamp, Apogee Rosetta A/D and MOTU 2408mk3 I/O box (digital input). This signal path produced minimal pickup loading, and pristine gain and A/D conversion. For the best playability with inaudible latency, I set Digital Performer's buffer size to 64 samples during my tests. Let's shred!

IK Multimedia AmpliTube Fender

Developed with Fender, AmpliTube Fender ($199.99, ikmultimedia.com) includes dynamically modeled versions of 12 vintage and modern Fender amps (including three bass amps) and their original matching cabinets (see Fig. 1). Turn off the Match switch to use a different amp/cab combination than the historical configuration. Emulations of nine mics, six stompboxes and six rack effects join a tuner to sweeten the deal. You can position the mics on- or off-axis, and either far away from or close to the cabinet, and then dial in the amount of room ambience you desire.

FIG. 1: IK Multimedia AmpliTube Fender's GUI displays the tuner, stomp effects, amp, cabinet/mic combination and rack effects in turn.

Four-hundred presets get you started. You can chain two complete guitar rigs (each comprising stompboxes, amp, cab, mic and rack effects) in any of eight serial and parallel configurations. Slap on as many as 20 simultaneous effects (12 stomp- and eight rack-based), sync them to your DAW host's tempo and automate their parameters in your DAW. AmpliTube Fender doesn't currently support MIDI control of parameters. Stompboxes and effects include a volume pedal and a stunning re-creation of a 1963 spring reverb. A noise gate and tuner are always at your fingertips, no matter which setup you recall or create from scratch.

The system is expandable using AmpliTube X-Gear, a software shell that hosts both stand-alone and plug-in versions of any Powered by AmpliTube product. AmpliTube Fender comes bundled with SpeedTrainer and Sonoma Wireworks RiffWorks T4 recording software. SpeedTrainer is a practice utility that lets you import an audio file, loop it, change its tempo and pitch, and play along with it (with or without a metronome click). RiffWorks T4 is a 16-bit loop recorder for guitar that also facilitates online song collaboration.

AmpliTube Fender Version 1.0.1 sounded terrific. I really felt like I was blowin' out of a real Fender tube amp with vintage spring reverb (see Web Clip 1). Sound-design capabilities are also quite extensive within the constraints of the plug-in's mission: presenting realistic models of Fender gear. That said, you can't drag effects to a different position in the signal chain after inserting them somewhere else. Even with all high-resolution optimizations activated in the software's preferences, only about half of my CPU resources were ever used. Documentation is superb.