Guitar Amp Simulators

Made using RackAFX.

A number of the pedal and rack effects are based upon the work of Will Pirkle as described in his books on Audio Effects and Synthesizers.

VST3 64-bit Windows

Click HERE for latest version of Tiny F (V0010) which is a stripped-down version of Classic F.  Tiny F uses about 10% of the CPU of Classic F, and it has ZERO software latency so has as fast a response as your hardware will allow.  To achieve these goals, the tonestack is an approximation of the one in Classic F, the cabs are a set of filters rather than IRs, and the amp is single-channel, from either Left or Right input.  This amp does have the improved distortion modelling of Classic Thirty below with a number of user-adjustable parameters for each tube stage.  It has a two-stage preamp but can produce quite a bit of distortion if desired.  No stomps or rack effects are included at this time.  It does include both guitar and bass guitar amp sim capability.  (For bass, be sure to reset the Low Cab Freq to something like 35 Hz!)

Click HERE for latest version of Classic Thirty (V 0030) which has grid-conduction modelling (improved distortion modelling) on a per-tube basis and 33 cabinet models.  Other amp sims to follow.  Short, blurry video  showing demo of grid-conduction modelling: HERE.

Click HERE for other amp sims.

Classic means guitar amp sim, ClBass is bass amp sim (guitar amp revoiced as bass amp sim).

These versions are being released as test versions prior to rewrite of all. For correspondence, please use the email address on the About page of the amp sim.

The main difference between amps is the tonestack. Represented are FVM and relatives (F, FBM, V, Thirty, M, 45), James (J), Baxandall (B), Voigt (V1940 and V2012), some high-gain German amp types that use separate controls (FD and FC) and one amp that uses a five-band EQ (E).  The Full / Eco switch allows you to use Stereo and full modelling of the tonestack versus Mono and an approximation of the tonestack.  These approximations vary, depending upon model and range of the knobs.

A number of common guitar effects are included: Distortion (four different tone control types), Five-Band EQ (pre- and post-amp), Phazer, Flanger, Chorus, Vibrato (each of the four previous with a stereo option), Delay, Tapped Delay (for very short reverb), Reverb, Compressor (including side-chaining input option), and Tremolo.  There is an option for  using only the effects, bypassing the amp.

Problematic hosts which crash due  to DAW bugs (violations of VST3 programming guidelines) include Samplitude Pro X3  (X4 flashes badly  occasionally – Save, Close, Re-Open project), Waveform prior to version 10, and Mixcraft Pro Studio 8.1 build 418 and earlier.  Hermann Seib fixed VST Host, but upon last checking, had not released the fixed version.   All of these problematic hosts can also be crashed with AGain, the simplest VST3 from Steinberg, when the gain knob is rapidly moved about.  This should never happen.

Tutorial HERE.