IK Multimedia's Amplitube 3 review.

While I will continue to post little videos on Amplitube 3's new features, I am compelled to supply you all with my overall review of this amazing product from IK Multimedia.

If you are looking for the absolute best sounding guitar and bass amp/effect modeling software available today, with the absolute best sounding amps, cabs, effects, and microphones that you will ever hear, than Amplitube 3 is it. That is the bottom line!

Amplitube 3 contains whatever tone it is that you are searching for, plus so, so much more! Weather you are just getting started in multitrack reording, or looking for a way to polish your professional recordings, or even if you are looking for a way to knock out a live crowd, Amplitube 3 is here to save the day!

Amplitube 3 contains over 160 modeled vintage and modern amps and allows you to completely tweak everything in the signal chain to your exact liking. If you have a modern or a vintage dream set up in mind, it can be found in Amplitube 3.

So, what is in the box you ask....

Well, just some of the new features in Amplitube 3 include: 30 Brand new amp models , 51 stompbox effects , 31 Amps , 46 Cabinets , 15 Studio mics , 17 Rack effects, even rotary cabs!, and some great new bass gear too! The stunning part of all of this gear is that it does not sound digital to me at all! I have mentioned the fact in my video posts (that this gear sounds very warm and analog), and I am sticking by that statement! You have to hear Amplitube 3 for yourself!

IK Multimedia has become my first "go to source" for any and all instrument modeling. If you want real-ism in your works, then look no furthor! I am completely blown away by Amplitube 3, and will continue to be for a long time to come. I give this package the absolute highest rating that there is!

Amplitube 3 has one feature that has blown my mind more that any other. This feature is the awesome preset browser. Dialing in a starting place, for your tone, is a snap. Then, when you hear what you like, you can add to or take away from the presets devices, and then save it as your own preset. Just like that, you are now ready for the gig!

A custom set up for Amplitube 3 might be in your best interest too! What I mean is that if you are playing live with IK Multimedias Amplitube 3, then you will want to alter the effects and parameters of the devices in real time via a IK Multimedia Stomp i/o and/or the IK Multimedia Stealth pedal, and/or IK Multimedias Expression pedals. This is a sugestion, in order to give the people watching you what they deserve!


Amplitube 3 runs on both Mac and Windows and comes as VST, RTAS and Audio Unit plug in formats. The minimum system requirements for PC are Pentium 4/Athlon XP processor, 1GB of RAM, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. The minimum system requirements for Mac are dual 1 GHz G4 processor, 1GB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4 or later. One thing that I have noticed is that there is almost no "plug in drain" on my laptop (yes, laptop) at all!

The full version of Amplitube 3 goes for around $349. You can upgrade for $199 if you have any of the previous versions of Ampliube 2 (Metal, Jimi Hendrix, Fender, Ampeg SVX, etc.). Check out the IK Multimedia website for more details, and some great videos and audio samples too.

Toontrack Software has been very busy!

Here are just a sample of what is available from ToonTrack.com

EZ MIX

A list of presets for drums, bass, guitars, vocals, and lots more. The included presets are settings which contain compressors, bitcrush, delays, reverb, chorus, and more.69 bucks brings this amazing package of mixing presets to your home studio!

As taken from the Toontrack website.....

"For all the track and songwriters with tight deadlines and a mobile work situation out there, Toontrack, in collaboration with DSP developers par excellence Overloud, has developed EZmix.

EZmix is a simple (EZ), yet powerful, mixing tool that gives you access to a huge array of mix presets for the whole gamut of mixing needs. Whether you need to mix drums, vocals, guitars, bass or keyboards this is your tool.

Simply connect EZmix to a channel strip in your sequencer like you would any plug-in, pick a preset for the instrument or sound on that strip. Done. For demo purposes or in full on production EZmix will cut your studio time, speed up and enhance your creative process from the initial hook to the final track.

EZmix is a Mac and PC compatible, AU, RTAS and VST plug-in delivered with a wide variety of mix presets, with a heavy accent on your drum mixing needs, designed by Toontrack Music Head Of Sound Design Mattias Eklund."

S2.0 presets, via producer Allen Morgan.

Who is Allen Morgan you ask, how about the man behind the soundboards for Taylor Swift, Enola, Spider Problem, and a host of others! How much would you pay to have these precious presets onboard, just to make life easier, and sounding better? How does just 9 bucks sound? You have no excuse to not get this pack today!

Amplitube 3 from IK Multimedia.

Part one, a first look at IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 .

 Let's take a close look at the stomp effect pedals found in IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3, the newest "plug in" offering from IK Multimedia. It is sold as Bass and Guitar amp/effect/rack fx/cabinet,microphone modeling software, but with IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3's release, it has become much, much more applicable to a wide range of recorded sounds.

As a guitar player I love where the digital modeling world has headed. With plug ins', I have found some interesting ways to dial in the exact tone I am looking for. I have searched long and hard for "that one" piece of software that would allow me to find and then save my perfectly created tones with ease. Well, with the release of IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 my search is now over.

IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 places all of their stomps, rack effects, cabs, mics, and amps in one simple and very easy use interface. IK Multimedia a has come up with a way to quickly "dial up" different types of complete tone rigs, tweak them as you like it, and then save it as a preset! The whole world seems to be right in my hands! IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 also allows you to combine your library of amps/fx/cabs/amps (from their previous plug inns) in one easy to find location. All of the IK Multimedia refill packages (Jimi Hendrix, Fender, Metal, ect.) can be found and accessed within IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3.

Incorporating these plug inns into your rig is a snap too, making IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3perhaps the most user friendly, the most powerful, and definitely the best sounding guitar and bass modeling software available today!

Boiling down just some of IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3s new and exciting features, and then peeking into IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3.....

To say that IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 comes packed with tons of new gear (right out of the box) would be the gross understatement of our age. However, I feel that the real improvements can be found in the user preset/preset browser area. This new user/preset browser allows for a lot easier way (and a faster way) for the user to obtain their "own tone". In fact, faster than any of the previous offerings from IK Multimedia. This all new IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 allows for stereo signal processing which is great for all sorts of unique sound processing! I think my vocal tracks will really come alive after polishing them up with IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3.

IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 ships with a ton of new and exciting stomp effect pedals.

As I ventured (first) into the stomp effect section of Amplitube 3, it was clear that I should prepare myself for a world of new and interesting selections. Included in the "stomp browser" area is a way of choosing from either prior IK Multimedia refills' stomps, or right into IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 listing of incredible sounding new stomps. Included in the new stomps are some very powerful choices. Overall these stomps sound better than great, in fact very close to their real life counterparts, and each one sounds unique from the rest. There are no lame copies here.

The list of new stomps found in IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 is vast, but I will supply you all with a "quick looksie".....

First on the list of new stomps found in IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 are three delay pedals! One of which is a completely tweak able a tap delay! This is a very nice addition that all of you custom tone buffs will appreciate! Whatever beat you are working with, you can now get a custom delay to match!

Delay stomps

IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 ships with (get this) eleven distortions!

Distortion stomps

These monsters range in tone from amazing re-creations of the most used and most sought after distortions on this planet right down to even your favorite boutique distortion pedal. Let me start this list with "the all mighty holy grail" stomp effect pedal that is the Ibanez Tube Screamer. Yep, it is in here! Weather you use one to bump up your signal just a bit or if you max that pedal out for cream sounding distortion, this stomp is dead on perfect! But if you like to go against the grain, there is a large selection of others, starting with the "Big Pig" distortion, a feedback distortion, some diode driven distortion stomps, and everything else in between. I really love the "Overdrive" stomp myself, as it adds a nice boost to the signal and it breaks up your signal just exactly where you where it to. These stomp pedals sound amazing, are completely tweakable, and they are just plain fun to jam with!

There are two compressor stomps in IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3, a digital compressor and an analog type of compressor. Both work strikingly well, and bring out the body of my Fender guitar just as I wanted them to. These compressors are very nice working, and very nice sounding pedals, even when used all by themselves! Tweaking these stomps is simple as well, and the compression sounds very analog to me, and not like some of those lame "digital/limiting/ hard wall/cut off" pedals that are available for way more than the price of IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 all together!

IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 ships with two brand new EQ stomp pedals. They are both graphic EQ's, one being a seven band and the other sports ten bands of EQ adjustment. They do a great job, and I recommend dropping one into your signal chain just because you now can!

With the release of IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3, IK Multimedia shines brighter than all of the competition. Point in case: the filter stomp pedal selection. Here you will find no less than eight new filter stomps to choose from! Four (of the eight) are different types of Wah pedals. The remaining four "filtering stomp pedals" are as follows: a low pass filter, an envelope filter, a step filter and lastly, a resonator stomp pedal. The step filter pedal steals the show here, as it allows for only 2, or all the way up to 16 steps! Plus you can select the note value/speed, and adjust the amount of "off to on ratio" within each of the steps. This all alone is a major pedal folks!

Filter stomps

IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 has a selection of 7 different fuzz stomp pedals! With 7 to choose from you can't help but to nail that sound you are aiming for. Weather you are looking for a vintage fuzzy tone, or a newer spanky blues based fuzzy tone, it is in IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3's fuzz stomp section!

Fuzz Stomps

I love using flangers, chorus pedals, and of course my unique "modulating" effect pedals, just like you do too, right? Well, IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 comes with some awesome sounding flangers, choruses, and even a "Uni V" stomp! I think we all know what the "Uni V" pedal emulates, right? Let me just say that the vibe of this pedal is dead on perfect! This array of effects brings breath and life to any clean electric, or acoustic guitar signals. I also love a little flange on a bass guitar, just to introduce some personification.

Modulation stomps

With the selection of "pitch altering stomps" comes yet another perspective on just how powerful IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 really is. Have you heard that IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 is capable of processing in stereo? Have you heard that IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 works like magic when you run vocals through it? Well, the search for harmonic correct pitches in you vocals has become a snap!

Two harmonator pedals (one with an actual moving expression pedal), an octave signal generating stomp, and a pitch shifter round out this area of stomp selections in IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3. Very cool pedals indeed!

Harmonizor stomps

Some might argue that I have saved the best stomp pedals for the last.

Included in the "other" category of stomp effect pedals you will find a "Swell" stomp, a Step slicer stomp, and an "expression pedal activated" volume stomp as well. The Swell stomp has become on of my favorite effect pedals. This awesome stomp acts like a reverse reverb effect, mixed with a hard wall limiter of sorts. Very cool sounds come jumping out of this pedal, and with little effort too! This pedal deserves its place in the group of pedals that you play through often. The step slicer has from 2 to 16 steps, and the note value can also be dialed in for whatever need you might have.

"Other" stomps

Yet another improvement worth mentioning in IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3's stomp effect pedal section is the ability to move the order of stomp pedals around by employing a simple "drag and drop". Why it was missing until now is a curiosity, but I suppose that even in real life we need to un-hook and then re-hook up our own effect pedals in order to do the same thing, right? Well, now you can perform a change in the order of the stomps with ease, which I quickly became a large fan of. This is just another one of the countless "better than real life" premises that IK Multimedia has built their software on. I am just reviewing this powerful software, but before I even had it in my hands I was telling myself "You need this tool in your arsenal". That is my story and I am sticking to it.

Make sure that you come back here soon for more parts in this series of posts dealing with IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3. You don't want to miss one signal post!

Thanks for stopping by, and please feel free to leave a comment, and you are always welcome subscribe too! See you soon!

SongWriters Drumpack from Toontrack

How much would you pay just to be able to “skip over” what is perhaps the most tedious part of songwriting?

Think about this for a minute....... You have just come up with a clever riff on the guitar or piano, and you are racing to “get it down” before you forget it. The best way to do this is to track it with drums, but if you take the time to write, or even drag and drop the correct drum midi files that “work” the entire way through (don't forget that songs need different midi files for each of the changes), the inspiration will soon be gone. You never get those great ones back.

What if we had a clever way to match up complete midi drum files for complete songs, with changes like choruses and bridges all built in? How much would this midi library be worth to you?

How about just $19.00?

Introducing the SongWriters Drumpack from Toontrack Music.

Click here in order to go to the Toontrack website videos and see for yourself why this new midi library is just what you need.

Here is how you can obtain you own SongWriters Drumpack from Toontrack Music.

MXR Black Label Chorus Pedal

Wow!

This is not just another chorus pedal. Nope, not even close!


Using Bucket Brigade circuitry, and then having Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society put his own knowledge base into it, MXR has unleashed a monster!
Check out this demo video (posted below), while you keep Ozzies “No More Tears” song that Zac played on in your mind.

Everything from Seatle sounding darkness to hip fat and wide is oooozzzing out of this pedal.

Check out this video!

Toontrack Beatstation

Hello to all of you,

I have returned from a great vacation, and I am glad to be back here reporting on the newest musical gadgets out there today.

Toontrack is on the music scene radar once more, with the release of some very cool teaser videos, showing their brand new product. The product is called “Beatstation” and this software is freaking cool!

What is Beatstation? Glad that you asked! Beatstation is a lot of things, all combined into one package. Toontrack has placed their awesome “trigger pads” into this software, and it will allow us to assign midi or Rex files to those pads.

Not only can you use the pads to trigger sounds in Beatstation, but there is a sequencer built in there too! It looks as if the usual (and simple) sort of cutting and pasting was just not enough, as Toontrack has made sure to implement some awesome effects into the Beatstation package as well.

Hey, don't just take it from me, head over here to see for yourself, and you will agree that Toontrack has stepped up to the plate, and are ready to hit this one out of the park!

Vacation

Howdy all,

I am leaving on a jet plane........

I will be on vacation for the next two weeks. I need to see the sun, and what could be better than Arizona?

Instead of just taking a break from posting, I am leaving you with a sneak peek of some great posts to come in the very near future.

First of all I just received my copy of IK Multimedias' Amplitube 3! I am so anxious to get some video demos posted for you that it hurts. Be patient please!!! until my return, here are some great videos for you to drew-ell over.

Next on the "blog posts to come" list, is some Propellerhead software products!!! I will be posting some "Home Recording Weekly style" of videos; taking a closer look at Reasons Recycle 2.1 and the Reason Bass guitar refill. Yes, Reason has some powerful software available, and I intend on getting all of you exposed to the endless possibilities that are musically possible, using their great products!

So, until then, keep on writing! I will be back before you know it, and the posts will be up in no time at all!!!!!