***The Official Guitar Thread***

uncle_rufus said:
seem absurdly good quality for the price
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Yup, there's quite a lot of kits that pop up, people have the designs in CNC which means with the straight sides of the iceman (and others). With that it's made the manufacturing much easier and cheaper. The result is a lot of the manufacturers are looking at older designs they have in their histories. An alternative of the Iceman is the Paul Gilbert 'version' which has the longer horn at the top instead (Ibanez Paul Gilbert Fireman FRM300-PR).
 
Had the first play around with the new guitar all linked up after I've put the pups a little closer to the strings.

The neck pickup is closest and louder - lots of output and sounds both clear but also very harmonic laden, the bridge pickup may want a little addition bumping up.. that's got quite a strat sounds for a humbucker pickup. All wired right. Both have quite a bit of output making it interesting getting the settings right for the DI input into garage band.

Does it play clean - yes. Ambience is great.
Does it rock - yes, perhaps a little darker side (compared to strat), so I may need to switch to a different value pot to balance out.
Does it new mental - yes. The bridge pickup picks up harmonics and dissonant chords out of bass string chords.

Now I'm tempted to finish the tube amp Marshall 2W amp and instead of using a speaker, use it as a pre-amp pedal :D

Still early days in terms of getting volume vs amp/DI front end input. I need to start getting some playing for learning more. I'll also get it plugged into a frequency analysis to give a response curve.

EDIT: Adding day two as an edit.

I've been playing around a little with the Pegasus - it works nicely with EQ allowing a clean sound but needing a little bit of a treble boost, not hard in DI/Amp terms with EQ/Tone solving that.

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I just bought a beaten up 2004 Squier Tele on eBay. Maybe a tad impulsive as I don't really play guitar, but I'm quite excited by it!

I have a really nice Squier Classic Vibe strat that I bought from a friend's father before he died that I might move on now...I have another guitar of his which I like less, but I got it after he died so I feel like I need to hang on to that forever. Given I don't really play guitar, having three electrics and an acoustic seems a bit excessive!

I play bass and gig regularly and I only have two basses!
 
Considering trying the trial period for a NeuralDSP plugin - anyone had any experience?

I'm still on the fence with DI vs an amp. So looking at options.
 
NickK said:
Considering trying the trial period for a NeuralDSP plugin - anyone had any experience?

I'm still on the fence with DI vs an amp. So looking at options.
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Anything in particular you want to know? I've bought 2 of them both in Black Friday sales when they almost always do 50% off - got the Soldano 100 and the Archetype: Rabea

Was very skeptical myself of the whole plugin scene and had never even considered it, with my tone snob hat on, up until a couple of years ago I had a Laney Lionheart L20H head and matching 212 cab and that thing was absolutely sublime - but it had one critical flaw; no ability to run it lower output and no headphone options (I know I could have a got one of those power soak DI box things but I couldn't afford it). So when I became a Dad all of a sudden it was far too loud to play regularly and after many months of that combined with going through a period where I needed the money I sold it on commission at a local shop for about £1.2k (making me about 8 or 900, I forget) - spend £60 of it on the Soldano Plugin (I happened to already own a Focusrite Audio Interface so that was all I needed to get going) and that was that

I will say when I play through a "real" amp now I can feel the difference (emphasis on "feel" and not "hear") - it's remarkable how good the plugins can sound and I'm really amazed at how well they respond to dynamics (I guess it makes sense; ultimately all an amp/effects do is process a signal, of course that can be modelled given sufficiently clever methods). But yeah, it feels slightly different playing a real amp which I can only imagine is a mixture of (lack of) latency and actual moving of air from a big satisfying cab. The latency of the plugins is generally really good and not enough to throw you off your playing at all but side by side with a real amp you can sort of subconsciously detect it; so it just comes down to if it is enough to bother you. The moving of air I think could be remedied (obviously, not through headphones) by having beefy enough studio speakers, or even I think some guys run it into a FRFR Cab to get that feel right.

But yeah, I like it, it's flexible and I don't regret either purchase. You can do some cool stuff if you take the time like I have my DAW routed in a loopback so that I can play perfect guitar audio to my pals in Discord/Zoom, I have also setup some projects where I've downloaded and configured the stubs of some of my favourite songs alongside a set of tracks for the guitar which are using multiple versions of the plugin set to different sounds and then keyed it so that it swaps effects at the right moments so I can just shove it on and play.

Not very good for a gigging musician or anything obviously! I don't care about that I'm just a Dad jamming at home through my headphones in the evenings. Give the trial(s) a go I say - there are a lot to choose from and you can trial each one separately so plenty of time to see if you like it and work out which ones you might enjoy :D
 
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uncle_rufus said:
Anything in particular you want to know? I've bought 2 of them both in Black Friday sales when they almost always do 50% off - got the Soldano 100 and the Archetype: Rabea

Was very skeptical myself of the whole plugin scene and had never even considered it, with my tone snob hat on, up until a couple of years ago I had a Laney Lionheart L20H head and matching 212 cab and that thing was absolutely sublime - but it had one critical flaw; no ability to run it lower output and no headphone options (I know I could have a got one of those power soak DI box things but I couldn't afford it). So when I became a Dad all of a sudden it was far too loud to play regularly and after many months of that combined with going through a period where I needed the money I sold it on commission at a local shop for about £1.2k (making me about 8 or 900, I forget) - spend £60 of it on the Soldano Plugin (I happened to already own a Focusrite Audio Interface so that was all I needed to get going) and that was that

I will say when I play through a "real" amp now I can feel the difference (emphasis on "feel" and not "hear") - it's remarkable how good the plugins can sound and I'm really amazed at how well they respond to dynamics (I guess it makes sense; ultimately all an amp/effects do is process a signal, of course that can be modelled given sufficiently clever methods). But yeah, it feels slightly different playing a real amp which I can only imagine is a mixture of (lack of) latency and actual moving of air from a big satisfying cab. The latency of the plugins is generally really good and not enough to throw you off your playing at all but side by side with a real amp you can sort of subconsciously detect it; so it just comes down to if it is enough to bother you. The moving of air I think could be remedied (obviously, not through headphones) by having beefy enough studio speakers, or even I think some guys run it into a FRFR Cab to get that feel right.

But yeah, I like it, it's flexible and I don't regret either purchase. You can do some cool stuff if you take the time like I have my DAW routed in a loopback so that I can play perfect guitar audio to my pals in Discord/Zoom, I have also setup some projects where I've downloaded and configured the stubs of some of my favourite songs alongside a set of tracks for the guitar which are using multiple versions of the plugin set to different sounds and then keyed it so that it swaps effects at the right moments so I can just shove it on and play.

Not very good for a gigging musician or anything obviously! I don't care about that I'm just a Dad jamming at home through my headphones in the evenings. Give the trial(s) a go I say - there are a lot to choose from and you can trial each one separately so plenty of time to see if you like it and work out which ones you might enjoy :D
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I've got the two week trial.
I had a play of the Fortin Cali Suite - this seemed to have a decent thrash and metal starting point. I may switch and try the abasi and soldano. It also has some configurations for more modern clearer metal but even the clean channels have some break up (the guitar has a medium-hot pickup output).

I have an Arturius miniFuse1 interface (basically a single input/output with balanced), switchable instrument pre-amp and 192K/24bit which I'm pleased the NeuralDSP copes with at full rate. The sample buffer gives about 2ms of delay which is decent. I do feel it missing something in terms if instantaneous sound but it's not as bad as garage band.

I have noted that you get a closer full-volume sound on the amp/cab through headphones. The quality is far far better than garage band's attempt through the same interface (GB limits to 48K sample too). What I think is missing is a little bit of control in being able to configure the pedal boards etc with the standalone.

What does annoy me is not being able to switch/dial as easily to play with the tone. However it does seem to give is flexibility.. for 75-90% of of the sound quality.
 
Just been playing between the NeuralDSP plugins:
* Fortin Cali
* Soldano SLO-100
* Archetype Abasi

Being objective I don't think there's that much between them to be honest. There's setting on each that can sound specific ways but the virtual pedals can't be changed so it's quite limited. I can see how that could be useful for lack of gear/clutter but it does feel rather cookie cutter.
Having said that the Fortin has some nice thrash settings, the Soldano a wide range and the abasi has a couple of settings but a Soldano/Marshall with pedals in front is likely to be more flexible... but then it goes back to the full tilt sound which is what this can do without the volume.

It's the first time the Mrs has heard the newly built guitar through "amplification" and she seemed rather impressed switching between the settings. I think the lack of hardware sat that seemed to be quite acceptable.

I think the Soldano seemed to be the most flexible so far, but I would want probably to shove some real pedals on the front, possibly a DIY tube 'preamp'.
 
NickK said:
Just been playing between the NeuralDSP plugins:
* Fortin Cali
* Soldano SLO-100
* Archetype Abasi

Being objective I don't think there's that much between them to be honest. There's setting on each that can sound specific ways but the virtual pedals can't be changed so it's quite limited. I can see how that could be useful for lack of gear/clutter but it does feel rather cookie cutter.
Having said that the Fortin has some nice thrash settings, the Soldano a wide range and the abasi has a couple of settings but a Soldano/Marshall with pedals in front is likely to be more flexible... but then it goes back to the full tilt sound which is what this can do without the volume.

It's the first time the Mrs has heard the newly built guitar through "amplification" and she seemed rather impressed switching between the settings. I think the lack of hardware sat that seemed to be quite acceptable.

I think the Soldano seemed to be the most flexible so far, but I would want probably to shove some real pedals on the front, possibly a DIY tube 'preamp'.
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because of you since yesterday about every 50 posts are from Neural DSP on my Timeline.

neuraldsp.jpg
 
I took up bass guitar this year. I picked up a Harley Benton Bass kit and have been enjoying learning how to play it. Its a short scale, but I have my eye on a Squire Affinity Jazz bass. I've managed to get most of Queen's - Another one bites the dust although in beginners style and tempo :cry:. I'm also learning Knower's - I'm the president and also staring to learn Jaco's The Chicken. I'm having a lot of fun! The Ampeg was my Dad's. He doesn't play much any more, so said I can have it to practice with. It sounds amazing.

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My Younger bro is the guitarist in the family. He has more Guitars than I can count. These two I really like of his

 
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