Amplitube 5 Max etc. on sale

Gear
#1

Apologies if this doesn’t belong on the forum, or is in the wrong section, but for anyone interested who doesn’t already have it, IK Multimedia has some New Year/NAMM sale pricing still going on for Amplitube 5 Max, Tonex Max, and a bundle that includes both and assorted other stuff.

As far as I can tell, this is the same pricing they did for Black Friday. They post some exaggerated comparison prices that I don’t think anyone ever pays, but the current deals seem decent, especially $150 for Total Studio 4 Max, which includes Amplitube 5 Max v2 and Tonex Max. There are also discount codes floating around the interwebs which should be pretty easy to find with google.

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/ts4/?pkey=total-studio-4-max

#2

I purchased the full version of amplitude a while back. I find it unusable for high gain sounds. Absolutely awful. Really harsh highs and bloated low mids.
A quick google search showed quite a few people complain about the same thing.

Id recommend trying a demo first if possible.

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#3

Stop encouraging my amp simulator problem!!!

3 Likes
#4

Hi,

I’ve been on a real journey with Amp Sims. From Pod devices and GuitarRig2 back in the day, through to the Amplitube and Neural DSP days.

Just wanted to say I’m currently loving NAM (Neural Amp Modeler). The quality of tones can be fantastic, and many models (apparently “profile” is a Kemper trademark) are free.

The project really seems to be going places. It’s open source with a permissive license, so manufacturers are beginning to build NAM into inexpensive pedal-sized devices.

Here are links to the NAM player and the ToneHunt repository of free models :

A lot of models are profiles of amps only, so would need to be followed by an IR (impulse response) of a cab. Personally, I prefer to use a product called Quantum Speaker which is a collection of NAM models of certain speaker types using various microphone types. It sounds really good to me :

https://www.neutronstudios.com/quantumspeaker

Something I really like about using NAM is that the models are simple files without copy protection that I can just backup to the cloud and USB drives. You aren’t kept in a single company ecosystem, which is why I took an interest in NAM rather than Tonex.

We seem to be reaching great times where the realism is so high and the costs have been driven down.

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#5

In that case, don’t look here either (though I think the deal below is weaker than their typical Black Friday deal):

#6

Hey, you’d be a good person to ask, lol.

I still demo primarily with the old LePou Lecto Rectifier sim, in 8x oversampling mode, because it gets me close enough to the Mesa smooth saturation sound that when I then go and re-record with a real Mark V or Roadster, it’s still very much in the right ballpark.

But, if I wanted to go a step further, and - ideally on a budget as this is just for demoing for me - grab something that did that Mark-style smooth saturation lead sound very well, think early Petrucci, what else should I look at?

#7

I’m not Tommo but the Mercuriall Reaxis is a really nice sim. It’s been my main amp for several years. For geopolitical reasons I’m not sure I’d buy it again, but the quality is great and it’s got a lot of bells and whistles.

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#8

Check out the neural dsp plugins. You can trial them for a couple of weeks. Best amp sims I’ve come across.

#9

Geopolitical? Where are they based?

Honestly, LePou isn’t half bad, for like 15+ year old technology, if you run it into a good mic sim. I’ve been really happy with how my demos sound, and it takes some careful mic placement for me to get real amp tones I’m happier with than the no-brainer plug and play VSTs. (to be fair, it also helps that the amp does respond a fair amount like a Recto as you dial in the EQ, so I just have some familiarity taking the front panel knobs and not making it sound like a 311 riff or a parody of a Recto)

#10

Sorry guys, I meant to reply and forgot! Yep, I have been using Reaxis too, and in particular the second Lead-2 channel (i) is my favourite (ii) should be reasonably close to a Mark II C+… according to Leon Todd at least :slight_smile:

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#11

The tonocracy plugin is a free option, which has a variety of amps (models and captures). I dont know if it will provide the sounds you’re looking for, but it might be worth a try as its free.

Edit: Tonocracy also allows you to make captures of your own gear using just an audio interface, so you could capture your amp and load the capture into the plugin: https://tonocracy.com/

The free version of the tonex plugin may provide some free captures of the kinds of sounds you’re after.

Alternatively, Neural DSP have the archetype petrucci plugin, and the mark iic+ plugin. Neural also occasionally do sales (often 50% off) which could be a good deal if they have the sounds you’re after :slight_smile:

#12

Word around the campfire: One of the two main hotspots right now. Umm, think home of one of the most famous mesmerizing priests straddling the 19th and 20th centuries, of which the current state figure head partially shares the last name of.

I have a bunch of them, and would highly recommend anybody checking them out. They are great because they can be used as stand alones, but honestly if I were someone looking to buy just one, it would be the Gojira. It is probably the closest to a basic good amp sound at the get go out of the bunch. I do wish it had some of the features some of the other Archetype models have though, but you can always stack them in a DAW if you want those and I generally use pretty basic setups anyway for just practice. Another good trick too is that if you have an amp and either a reactive load, or resistive one with an impedance emulator, you can turn off the amp sim and most of the input effects, and just use the IR’s/cab portion and post EQ and effects, and go in that way.

That said, I have to mess with most of their other offerings a bit to get a more balanced, realistic sound. Out of the box some of the models sound kind of boxy and boomy, and have a really annoying top end buzziness going on which may be more due to their native IR’s, and especially the SM57 capture, I’m always using the GEQ on those.

Case in point about the boxiness: I also have the archetype Petrucci, and some of his presets are that way. I was messing around with that one the other night because I don’t use it that often and I forget what preset of his it was, but it literally sounded like a goddamned Rockman, and I don’t recall any of DT songs that had a tone similar to that. It was so distracting that I gave up what I was practicing and just started trying to remember all the Def Leppard Hysteria songs I used to know. Both that one and the Mesa actually sim the layered parallel clean bleed those amps have, which was kind of cool to see.

#13

That’s my favourite as well. I’ve not felt the need to use any others since I picked that one up.

#14

Me too. I seldom feel the need to use any of the others, it’s just so damn easy to get a good sound out of it. I don’t think it sounds like a 5150 though having owned a couple, but maybe they were trying to model the EVH Fender branded ones. Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter though because it just sounds good.

I don’t use any of the input fx or pedals and just take the gain from the amp portion since it has way more than enough on its own. I play with the mic combos, levels and placement a bit in the IR section, then do have to use the eq at the end to dip slightly in the mids, and use both the high pass and lowpass to narrow the range a bit, although some of the inherent bassy-ness I tend to hear in their models could be the monitors being used as well.

Other than that, the thing is good to go, and the crunch amp is awesome too, and has great OD capabilities as well. Really reminiscent of popular late 80’s and 90’s high gain. The clean amp though is a little flat. Kind of like plugging a guitar into a bass amp, or an acoustic amp, but I realize that’s what they were going for.

I do really wish though that neural would include a more neutral boost/od in the front end portion. I don’t really care for that nasally tube screamer voicing they use on those pedals, but I obviously know they did that because of the overwhelming popularity of them as being used as “boosts”.

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#15

Ah yeah, with sanctions and all physically making a payment might be a little challenging. :laughing:

Though, honestly, I’ve wrapped up writing on the project I’m working on and have reamped a few of the demos, and it’s making me really appreciate how the LePou may be outdated technology, but it honestly still sounds pretty good. It took some doing to get a tone I was happier with (and, at the moment, it looks like that might involve layering both my Mark V and my Roadster rather than either alone).

#16

Well yeah, certainly that would be a limiting factor for sure along with how one may stand ethically on the matter.

Since you have it all reamped, honestly you have a ton of flexibility and the ability to try a bunch of different things and combinations of equipment, IR’s etc… almost too much,

#17

I mean the ethics are their own seperate challenge, right? We’re talking about a nation that, while authoritarian, is at least as deeply divided internally as, well, our own. But I think the logistics are more than enough of a barrier.

And honestly that’s why I stayed out of reamping as long as i did; the risk of analysis paralysis while mixing, with the ability to go back and easily reshape your fundamental tones. I originally was just going to use amp VSTs and DIs while demoing, and then go back and cut raw guitar tracks live with mic’d amps, but with a newborn daughter in the house honestly it probably IS easier to record silently and then print to tape when no one’s around the house. I think if I could get the tones 100% right from a single amp my preference would still be to track everything straight to disk and print tones, but this makes it a lot easier to balance with nap schedule.

But, I’m using real mics and preamps (and rack EQs, though pretty subtle on input) here, no IR’s.

The fact I actually think my two Mesas layer beautifully together is kind of icing on the cake - I’ll try to remember to post some clips in a separate thread tonight, if I get a few moments.

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#18

Well yeah there is such thing as too much. I feel that way with the multiple IR packs companies produce. There is just too much to play with that there is no way you could feasibly get through them all and remember what each sounded like,

Reamping I feel is different. It’s helpful because you can always reuse the performance, and how complicated you really want to make that is really up to you. It all gets more simplistic the more you have a committed idea about what you want. Let’s face it, Mic’ing can be difficult and tedious sometimes, and having to throw away a perfectly decent performance over small placement mishaps is a bummer.

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#19

Yup. Been there. :laughing:

Really, just to be able to record while my daughter sleeps, but get a wide open amp sound printed to tape, is what has me interested in giving this a try.