IK Multimedia Amplitube 2.1
Contents |
General Information
Original Author: Staffay
Weapon: Amp simulator
Make: IK Multimedia
Model: Amplitube 2.1
Price: $399.99 / €299.99
Product description
IK Multimedias Amplitube has been around for quite a while, and was one of the first computer-based amp simulators. The user interface is very intuitive, and is made to look and work as a real guitar players setup. Included are a metronome and a "speed trainer", which simply works as a MP3/Wav player where You can adjust the speed without detuning the song.
Basically there is four sections that make up a sound: Stomp - pedal simulators Amp - amp simulators Cab - Cabinet simulators Rack - different rack effects, such as reverb, delay, chorus etc.
In addition to this there are two "chains" of the above, that can be run simoultaneously. E.g. You can mix two totally different sound into one - or mix two slightly different sound to get it even beefier.
The software comes with 13 different amp types, most of them based on Fender/Marshall but also solid-state and other tube amps are featured.
The stomp section has simulations of delay's, four different types of distorsion, auto-wah's, filter, eq and a lot more. Nothing seems to be left out here.
For the Cabinet section there are 16 different speaker configurations and 6 different microphone types, whose distance, angle and ambience can be adjusted.
The Rack section is intended for the final touch of the sound and contains Reverb's and delay's as well as EQ, rotary speakers & more.
The installation of the software is easy, and You get into it's functions very fast due to it's logical setup, which it is the best I've seen so far. It works both with VST-hosts and RTAS-hosts (Pro Tools) as well as a standalone product.
In addition to use it only for recording/practising IK Multimedia offers hardware to control the software for live usage. This features was not tested, since I did'nt had access to the hardware when this was written.
What is a little bit confusing, is that IK Multimedia has a broad range of guitar simulators and also different hardware that supports the software. So if You buy Amplitube original, you have a discount on the other products and vice versa, but there is no single product that contains it all. To confuse things even more they manufacture X-Gear, which You must have in order to play Amplitube live. X-Gear also works as an host for all different versions/plugs in the guitar/bass series. In addition to this there are several hardware pieces and bundles that can be purchased. In my opinion, this is too messy and just makes the customer confused.
Sound
Feel
Overall Impression
Video
Alternative Weapon
System Requirements
Power PC based Macintosh® Minimal: 866 MHz G4 processor, 512 MB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Suggested: dual 1.25 GHz G4 or G5 processor, 1 GB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Supported Plug-in formats: AU, VST, RTAS.
Intel based Macintosh® Minimal: 1.5 GHz Intel Core Solo processor, 512 MB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later. Suggested: 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 1 GB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later. Supported Plug-in formats: AU, VST, RTAS.
Windows® Minimal: Pentium 1GHz / Athlon XP 1.33 GHz, 512 MB of RAM, Windows XP / Vista or later. Suggested: Pentium 2.4 GHz / Athlon XP 2.4 GHz, 1 GB of RAM, Windows XP / Vista or later. Supported Plug-in formats: VST, RTAS.
