S-Gear's Custom '57 is quite good for that sound.

Agree to disagree on that. S-Gear was a game changer in 2012 but time flies in the digital world and Mike has sat on Version 2 for way too long. NDSP and others have left him and his product in the dust. IMHO.

Sounddrops KENT for N4 is an excellent AC30. The best so far IMHO.

Really glad they finally did something dedicated (other than Cory Wong) for the cleaner side of things.

This really does sound amazing for vintage tweedy kinds of tones.

Cory still is best imo for sparkling twangy/funky cleans, but man are we getting spoiled with great amp sims.

How does it sound compared to Amplitubes Fender Collections? IMO they're quite good and the demos here didn't really convince me, but I need to try again when I'm don't rebuilding the studio

I have not tried the Fender under A5, but I used quite a bit the ones in A4.

What I like about Neural DSP is that *all* of them sound good as soon as you load them. Much as I am used to with an HW amplifier. I plug the guitar, and I have a good sound, I tune the controls only to zone in.

The second aspect is that the selection of effects is *simple* but sounds great. AmpliTube is by design offering many more options (which kind of slows down the workflow for me).

Essentially the good thing with Neural DSP is that (as with good hw rigs) you have a huge sweeetspot. They always sound good: you only need to pick the options to select the sound. With other options I usually have to first “make them sound good”. Again, for me that was one of the things where software was different from hardware.

The breakup tones are also *very* dynamic. The only thing I still miss compared to my amps is the kind of effects due to impedance when you run a completely unbuffered chain (the way that volume knob acts is subtly different). And there’s nothing that plugin devs can do about that, since they get the signal already in the digital realm by design.

The credibility of the guy impressed by Amplitube Fenders, some of them being two decades old tech, and unimpressed with this Neural DSP Tone King Imperial offering, which sounds amazing from the get-go, is extremely low in my book. Don't bother rebuilding your studio, I'd say. Your ears are already shot for any proper studio work.

Then again, IK shills are huge in their numbers, so this was to be expected.

Wow dude... Congrats for making the number one ignorant and stupid post of the month here on Gearslutz... The competition is high, but you won by a good margin.

I give a sh** about how old tech is if it sounds good. I've played guitar for 30 years, owned several amps and tried almost all plugin amp solutions. But ok, a random dude on the internet tells me my ears are bad and apparently know that everything new is always better "old technology", so I guess I'll just sell all my equipment over the next few weeks...

Jesus... Get out of the basement and get some air...

^^^ What a Tosser

It's a different level entirely.

Thks homie (nice to have you around been a while) , well in term of amp sim , i can only trust you guys , now i'm afraid to try it lol
More than the amp alone , foryou is that the combo (pedals , cabs ect) that is unique or the amp also is unique ?

I hear you when it comes to analogue but the fact is that with digital it's pretty much a truism that newer tech will sound better than older tech. So almost by definition, sims from 10, 5, or even 1 year ago will be worse than products using the latest modelling techniques. This goes for NDSP's tech itself IMHO. If the 2nd hand market wasn't so moribund I'd sell most of my NDSP plugins tbh as I think their earlier efforts have been superceded.

The pedals are as good as you'd expect from NDSP (except the auto wah - those are always shit) but it's the amp (and the room sound) that really make this a joy to play. Their most dynamic and responsive product to date, IMHO.

If it was up to me, I'd swap out one of the drives for a fuzz and the chorus for an octaver (and I'll never use the autowah) but other than that, this sim is going to be my daily driver for the foreseeable. It just feels that good to play.

I've got a Tone King Imperial MK2 head and matching cab sat here.

Unlike some I think the Imperial sounds like a really great Blackface DR - with the lead channel moving towards a Tweed/Marshaleque vibe.

The whole thing about the Imperial MK2 is the interaction between the gain and the attenuator (which acts as a kind of master control) and the two different channels. Then there's the trem and long tank reverb which also really add to the sound.

Mine seriously starts to sound sweet after about 3/4 hr of playing through it (it gets really hot!) - it just starts to sound so wonderful and captured with a AEA R92 and 57 it's pretty special imho.

I've also had a listen to this virtual version by Neural and I think it's really good and might be fun and useful for me to own for quick mock-ups when I'm writing as it has some of the vibe.

I guess, I have to be honest and say it doesn't have the magic of the hardware to my ears but if you're not directly comparing then who cares!

What I find excellent is how they all work together to enhance each other.
You do not get a lot, but what you get is easy to use and sounds great.

The two overdrives really work well for that “pedal + driven amp” (which is what I would have done with hardware… low drive, gain boost into slightly driven amp. For example, you do not get a super high gain metal monster pedal. Which you probably would not use with this kind of amp (if you want, you need to add the pedal elsewhere).

You get a wha (useful with this kind of stuff), a compressor (opinionated, but very good) and two different flavors of overdrive. I insist: for me what works is that I have a huge sweet spot. I have not yet explored the effects after the amp, but I do not ask a lot.

What I need are usable nice sounds for the basics (say some slap back delay, some reverb)… to make those sounds that are thought “with effects”. It does not bother to me to add one of the several awesome effects I have after the amp (plus I am quite likely to want “glue” reverbs and delays on sends anyways). Not saying they are not good.

Basically the demo ended up with: fiddling with guitar. Record what I was fiddling because I was liking it. Purchase because I wanted more of it. More playing while smiling. Dinner is ready. :P

But I had already decided I really like Neural DSP (as I said, Nolly replaced for me almost everything else because of good sound and usability). They are there with the best (if not the best). Just for reference, I tend to love Igor Nembrini stuff as well, and Softtube Marshals (which I no longer use, unfortunately, together with all softtube stuff because it takes ages to load projects when I add them… since by now I have everything covered with 2-3 awesome options, I can do without, even if it’s a pity… in fact good mid-low gain marshals outside softtube I did not find — I have some Igor stuff for the more high gain stuff though).

As per the Amplitude Fenders, let’s not bash them too much. I found the A4 pretty good at the time they were released. I prefer other options today, yes. But I have played *far* worse (does anybody remember the early PODs? Never owned one, but I was seeing a number of excellent players doing good stuff with them… and yet today they are *very* outdated). In the nineties we were playing stuff which was absolute shit by today’s standard, and that was not preventing us from doing great music (well for those who were doing great music… I do not count me in the group, mine was just OK :P).

Amplitude 5 I simply have not bothered to install (and I will not unless I find that I need that…). I’d rather get the softtubes to load in decent time

This one is enougth imho
Thks for the detailed answer

There's a big difference between Amplitube 4 and 5. I had a short fling with Amp Room (still have it as part of their Volume 5) after a few years with Helix Native, but completely shifted to Amplitube 5 now. Gotta try this one whenever I'm able.... unless some random dudes on the internet tells me I don't know what I'm talking about and I need the newest of the newest to get an acceptable sound

Nice join date/throwaway account!

Off you go, now.

A5 is definitely another league compare to A4, sadly also in plugin loading times and GUI complexity…

I can see the value in simplicity and getting a good sound fast and not being overwhelmed and option paralyzed, in this regard the Neural stuff seems to strike a good balance (although I don’t really like their tabbed UI, too much clicking to switch between the different sections. S-Gear is much better with everything in sight, despite the somewhat dated looks).

I have read similar comments. However, my biggest grime with Amplitude was not necessarily the raw sound (TBH, soundwise I found a lot of difference depending on the model, and some — including some of the fenders — were IMHO much better than others).

My issue was that it took quite a bit to pick across the several options the ones I truly liked. Essentially I found that the time between when I opened the plugin and the time I got in the ballpark of the sound I wanted was higher than with the competition. I also accept this is subjective and I expect it to go down with the time spent. Just me.

What I really love about Neural is that it’s a huge sweet spot. And it behaves like I expect it to.

What kind of tones do you use the most? I suppose it will be quicker for you to demo this yourself (not that it matters, since I did nothing to earn your trust, but I do vouch for this one). At the moment I am away from my gear, but I suppose I could install A5 (I got the license with the huge sale a while ago, I believe since I already owned the fender collection I will find it with the new amplitude) and compare.

One thing to say is that the ToneKing feels a bit darker than the fenders I have played. It’s darker to me than a deluxe, for example. I have not played the hardware version of the tone king (but I played countless of fenders), and this is my gut feeling. I listened to some demos of the real amp, and also in those cases it feels a tad less bright. Which I dig a lot.

For reference, my main hw amp is a marshal 18W PTP soldered that uses the EL84s. Which for me give a tiny bit of VOXy clean sparkle tones when you keep it on the clean-ish side. So I might be biased… for me fenders are a little bit too bright (especially when played with bright guitars such as my suhr ‘strat’). So it could be I really digged the tone king here because it’s a little bit darker (albeit brighter than my marshal).

And no… if you keep that marshall clean it’s not *that* typical marshal sound because of the EL84. They kind of bring back some more of the batsman heritage to me (still, not as bright as the 6L6s).

The Custom '57 was a new amp for S-Gear. A new way of thinking about sims. It was a step above the others when it was released, and not tethered to the 2012 release of V2 as it was introduced much later.

I don't use it as much as I did, but only because I get bored and because I like shiny new things. I lean on Neural quite a lot. *BUT* when I can put aside any biasing toward the new, and load the Custom '57 and just play, it's entirely impressive. Even with my 20-ish amp sims I don't know that I have one that I'd call "better" per se. And I'm not alone. I've heard it said many times that people have gone back and rediscovered how good the Custom '57 is (and Wayfarer, which was another new and improved style of simulation for Mike).

As I've said many times, what makes or breaks amp sims is more often the integrity of the signal you send it than the sim itself. And from what I've heard from many user demos (and seen listed as their equipment), a strong basic guitar signal is not exactly common.

And ringing this back to the topic, I sometimes wonder if this isn't part of the reason that one reviewer's demo can sound so plastique and squishy while another reviewer's can be entirely impressive, though both are using the same sim. I'd love to hear their unaffected tones.

Have you tried the UAD '55 Tweed? Have read conflicting reports... I may go Apollo on my next interface.

From what I heard from the NDSP Tone King video I definitely need to demo this.

No I don't have any UAD products so can't comment on them, I'm afraid.

Ut oh. Just ran a synth line from Generate into Tone King 'Grunge Sludge'. Surprised the world didn't end!

I'm looking forward to trying the demo on this based on what others are saying. I def want to compare it to Amplitude 5 Fender stuff. Anyone who has used Amplitude 4 and not tried 5 shouldn't be making any comparisons as the cab sims take a solid A4 and make it usable in A5. I had good luck re-amping the head stage through a cab and miking it in A4, but wouldn't touch it otherwise ITB, but A5 made that unnecessary and is great.

Agreed that A5 is a whole other level above A4. The possibilities are endless and the tones A5 is capable of is remarkable.

Edit: Besides. I can't stop driving this thing into oblivion while jamming Outshined!

I've never much of an amp 'snob'. I was of the mindset that any 'good' sound can inspire a riff or two. With Neural, I passed on their offerings until the Henson sim. Not that I can play that type of music AT ALL! But...it is an inspiring suit of sounds and I can easily manipulated the tones into something I prefer.

Tone King is dead on as far as that goes. I start to play. Turn some knobs. Music happens! Time disappears. Like when I was 16 without a care in the world except playing guitar. I'm a spoiled amp sim snob now

That spongey rolled off character is the room mic option! It’s a relatively new option in the Neural DSP Plugins (l think Petrucci is the only other one with it) and for some reason a bunch of the demos just left it on mixed loud. I think it sounds wonderful in context but it’s not the character of the amp. You can get this thing tight and spanky too. The low end breaks up perfectly, like a tweed style combo amp does. Ive been waiting for Neural to do something like this a long time and they knocked it out of the park IMO.

Oh snap! Generate is one of my favorite soft synths and I frequently run synths through a guitar amp sim to grunge them up and box them in sonically. Amplitude 5 got more use from me as a synth amp than a guitar amp! Can’t wait to try it with Tone King. I much prefer the workflow of Neural DSP so this could have me freeing up some hard drive space….

Off topic but I had no idea about the Kent for N4 until your comment. I’m a nebula fan and shouldn’t have watched demos of it!! Will it operate at buffer settings low enough for tracking (128 for example?). My PC runs aquas well but always at 1024 or above. If Kent will run at 128…. Well now 2 new amp sims are in my future haha

There's 4 iterations: KENT (full fat version with all features but with heavy CPU hit and highest latency) KENT ZL (highest CPU hit but lower latency), KENT LE (missing mic and room controls with lower CPU hit and high latency) and KENT LE ZL (missing mic and room controls, with higher CPU hit but lowest latency).
I find KENT LE and KENT ZL pointless as they don't sound as good as full fat KENT, nor are they playable, due to excessive latency - at least on my system (I9, 64GB RAM, RME UCX).

However, the good news is KENT LE ZL is perfectly playable latency-wise and still sounds more AC-30ish than anything else on the market thus far.
If I want to record something, I use LE ZL to track, then change it to full fat KENT for mixing etc.

Edit: realised I forgot to address your buffering question. You know your own system best so I can't speak to that but just to clarify, my system somehow manages to run at 256 or even 512 without appreciable latency. I only get problems with latency at 1024 or 2048 buffer. I never set it lower than 256 due to all the other VTSIs and plugins I use requiring a pretty decent buffer to keep everything running stable - but it's still perfectly fine for recording/tracking/noodling at both 256 and 512.
Luckily N4 is free and KENT has a free trial period - so you can try for yourself risk-free. (Apart from the risk to your wallet should you decide you need both sims :P)