ObiAudio

So I have had Amplitube Fender for almost 3 months now. The excitement of having a new plug in has definitely worn off, BUT my excitement about how stellar this version of Amplitube sounds hasn’t! I kid you not when I say this is my FAVORITE guitar tone I have gotten in the studio! Recently they did a upgrade and its not just bug fixes. It includes 3 new effects including the Fender Compressor Stomp, Fender Wah and the Fender ’63 Reverb Tank Rack Unit and each one of these sound amazing! Now the first time around I wrote more so on how in love I am with this plug in, and rightfully so, I mean this is an amazing plug in! Well this time I will dig deeper into what is included and tell you how each part of Amplitube Fender sounds!

Now just like all the other versions of Amplitube, Ampeg SVX, Metal and Amplitube 2 there are a tons of options but the overall layout is the same. The same killer tuner, same amp, mic and stomp box layouts. Very familiar which is a good thing. It helps keep them all uniform to be able to use them in X-Gear which is a “shell” of sorts that lets you use any of the Amplitubes together and switch between presets. Sweet. Now I can not stress enough how well this sounds compared to real Fenders. I have had the chance to play a real ’65 Fender Deluxe Reverb that my uncle bought back in 1965 when he was a teenager. I love it and have offered countless times to buy it off him. Of course being that it has sentimental value he always says no but I love to borrow it and play it. Well when I play Amplitube Fender I can close my eyes, put my M-Audio IE-30′s on and just forget I’m running through a computer!

In Amplitube Fender there are 12 Guitar amps, 12 matching cab, 9 stomp box effects, 7 rack effects, a tuner and 9 microphones. This has the same layout as all the other Amplitube series have. Another cool feature I haven’t touched on with the Amplitube series yet is Speed Trainer. It is used in the stand alone version of Amplitube Fender. It is basically an integrated audio player that gives you separate pitch and speed controls for playing back music and slowing down the tempos of music without changing the pitch. It allows you to drag any WAV, MP3 or iTunes files into it and set loop points for playing over and tracking your songs. Oh and they throw in a metronome in there too. These are awesome practice tools that EVERY guitarist should take advantage of!

Now lets get into the Amps. There are 12 amps total including ’59 Bassman LTD, ’65 Twin Reverb, ’57 Deluxe, ’65 Deluxe Reverb, ’64 Vibroverb Custom, Vibro-King Custom, Champion 600, Super-Sonic, MH-500 Metal Head, Pro Junior, Bassman 300 and the TBP-1 Bass Preamp. I could record all guitars AND basses with this plug in! These are awesome and sweet emulations. I hate to even call them that because once your put time into guitar tone you get really snobbish sometimes and I tried so hard to find fault in these, but I couldn’t. Every time I recorded a guitar or bass I ran it through this and they all sound stellar! I’m gonna kinda skip the guitar stuff here and kinda focus on bass here. There are 3 obvious options for bass here. The ’59 Bassman, Bassman 300 and the TBP-1 Bass Preamp. Out of these my favorite was the TBP-1. It sounded so clear and full that now I really have to choose between Ampeg SVX and Amplitube Fender! Now back to the amps. I have to say again that my favorite clean amp here is the ’65 Fender Deluxe Reverb and then to top it off my FAVORITE guitar crunch I have heard is from the MH-500 Metal Head. Very impressive. I have never paid much attention to the Fender “Metal Amps” mainly due to the fact Fender is and has always been known as a clean amp company. Well the awesome sound of the MH-500 Metal Head is amazing!

As a guitar player my favorite thing besides new pedals and awesome amps is cabs. I have been known to own a few amps in my day but my passion was switching cabs. I have had 1×10′s, 1×12′s, 4×12′s, and I have had a 2×12′s and a 15 in a cab before! Well one thing that you really can’t mess with is trying these different amps with other Fender cabs. I mean running a MH-500 Metal head through the ’59 Bassman® 4×10” Open Back cab sounds cool. I mean you can run through these combinations that you would never have thought to even try before that sounds really good! One of my favorites is the Fender Vibratone 1×10” Rotary Speaker for a Leslie type effect.

The stomp box section of Amplitube Fender has a 1st class effect selection. In the Stomp section there are 9 stomp boxes at your disposal. There is the Fender Compressor, Fender Blender, Fender Phaser, Fender Fuzz Wah, Fender Tremolo, Fender ’63 Reverb, Fender Tape Echo, Fender Wah and Fender Volume. You can use these in any combination in either Stomp A or B. Now if you thought that was a lot we haven’t even touched the Rack effects yet! In the Rack you have a Fender, Pitch Shift, Fender Tape Echo, Fender Sine Flange, Fender Triangle Chorus, Fender Wah, Fender Compressor and the Fender ’63 Reverb. Now that I went through those lists can you really imagine needing anything else? I mean they have all the bases covered inside the plug in without having to add to it. One thing I really want to point out is how awesome these sound! My favorite reverb is the 63′ Reverb. Sometimes I’ll use it as a reverb for vocals or other oddities and turn off all the amp and cab modeling so it is just the reverb and it sounds stellar!

Now I know I have done a review on Amplitube Fender before but it needed to be revisited with the new update and to give you guys a more in depth review. I still can not believe how much this plug in has made recording guitars. No matter where I am I can turn on my laptop plug in my Audio fire and record a take and dial in a killer tone that would take tons of setup time and a lot more money than this plug in costs! The versatility in this makes this a must have for every guitarist recording! You can be a session guitarist and do all of your work with Amplitube Fender!

IK Multimedia Amplitube Fender

Wow…. Seriously…just wow! I got this a few weeks ago and have not yet been able to stop jamming! I just keep playing guitar! This is getting in the way of my production! Anybody else try it? Wow. I am speechless. That describes IK Multimedia’s newest addition to the Amplitube series. I mean W-O-W. I have been playing guitar for 10ish years now and have done more than my fair share of looking for “that” tone. I have spent thousands of dollars on gear and sold thousands of dollars worth of gear. I mean its not that I didn’t find anything good, Just not what I have been looking for. That is when I went to my usual line 6 stuff. Not stellar but good enough ya know? Well when I heard about Amplitube Fender I was intrigued. Wasn’t really too sure about it but I was still intrigued. After reading tons of info on it I finally bit the bullet and opened up the best Fender sim I have ever heard. Seriously. No wait..the best guitar plug in. Ever. They have set a new bar and the worst part, at least for other companies, they set it high.

Now I usually play through a Fender Pro Junior, even had a Bassman LTD for a bit too. Loved them both, but I stuck with the Junior cause its small and I do a ton of gigging and recording. For gigging purposes with some decent pedals its pretty versatile. Bassman is nice, but it is heavy and kills my back! Now I’m a bit spoiled, as a lot of you are, with a multi effects unit. You know the type…a bazillion amp models, a bazillion cabs, one or two mic models and bazillion effects. Nice if your plugging directly into a board for a gig or if your in a home studio it can be okay and sure it gets you by, but it lacks realness and depth. Well now I can honestly say that when I’m recording now I miss nothing. I mean nothing. Not even a tuner. Noise gate? Yep. Compressor? It’s there. Fuzz? Check. Wah. Uh huh. Mic models? Well…how about 9 different models!? I mean seriously, this is a whole mic locker in itself! I was ecstatic! I am in heaven!

When I first plugged my Strat (If you can’t tell I was a Fender guy to start….) I was immediately impressed. Now I knew it would be nice I mean I have IK Multimedia’s Ampeg SVX (also Highly recommended) and love it, but wow. Forget the awesome sound, these LOOK LIKE THE REAL AMPS. Just like how Ampeg SVX looks exactly like a Ampeg looks, these look just like the Fender amps that they emulate so well! Now I know I should really just pay attention to how well and realistic it sounds but a little eye candy never hurt right? Plus when your spending your hard earned money in this recession you really want your moneys worth. You want to be sure they put everything they could into your purchase. Well the detail in this is amazing! Not only in the tone knobs, cabs, grill cloth but even down to the specific mic models that are being modeled! The Condenser 87, 84 and 414 looks like a 87,84 and 414 would. The Dynamic 57, 421 and 441 all look like a 57, 421 and 441 look like. The ribbon looks like a ribbon and the Groove Tubes mics look like them too! I mean the logo is even there! Back to how they sound though..Each amp is ridiculously emulated to where, I know this is blasphemy, but seriously….I enjoyed this more than I do my real amps!

Now I know, I know, whatever right? No. I mean I had my M Audio IE-30 headphones on and jammed for about 4 hours when I first got it. I never do that with my amps. Never. I though ok I’ll just record a few lick’s and just change presets til I find stuff I like and go from there. Well within 2 presets I was hooked. I had to create my own preset folder just to save the presets that I like! I spent 4 hours of my life going through about 25 or so presets, I didn’t even make it past first amp in the series! I fell in love with the ’57 Deluxe! Amazing tones coming from presets!? I mean usually I’m not a preset guy but the amp is amazing! Errr, well I mean this plug in is amazing…kind of weird to say that but, again, Wow. It’s well deserved. I had to come back and say “Okay Obi, your going to go through all the presets, amps and effects just to check this out and know this plug in…you are not going to stay on any said part of this plug-in for more than 2 minutes…”. I have been messing with this for a little over a week and still am in love!

Now usually I don’t write reviews for a lot of gear purchased unless its for my website but this is amazing! I can not stress it enough, this is by far the best thing any home studio can have to rival the big studios when it comes to how your guitar sounds. This is ridiculous. You get so much for the price its hard to say no. I have just put my Pod XT Live in its gig bag to be sold on eBay since I can use this live! This new Fender plug-in is my new studio and gigging workhorse!

IK Multimedia Amplitube Fender

Check out Amplitube Fender Review Pt II!!!