Following on from Softube's Vintage Amp Room plug‑in comes Bass Amp Room, which is similarly protected by iLok and available in VST, AU and RTAS plug‑in formats, for both Windows and Mac platforms. While some modelling plug‑ins try to seduce you with endless variety, Bass Amp Room follows the tried‑and‑tested Vintage Amp Room approach of offering a small number of components that are modelled with a high degree of accuracy. In other words, they focus on the quality of the amp and cabinet modelling, and leave you free to modify the resulting sound with your own effects plug‑ins if required.
Niklas 'The Swedish Rock God' demos Vintage Amp Room and discusses design philosophy behind the product. Introduction Straightforward and simple, Vintage Amp Room emulates three great guitar amps in a complete studio setup with speaker cabinets and fully flexible microphone positioning. Softube Pro Audio Equipment, Softube Pro Audio Virtual Instruments, Softube Pro Audio Samples & Loops, Softube Pro Audio Virtual Processors, Silvertone Amp In Vintage Electric Guitars, Bass Amp, Bass Amp Head, Bass Combo Amp, 65 Amps Guitar Amplifiers. Unlike modelling packages that include dozens of amps, interchangeable speakers, effects and pedals, Vintage Amp Room offers just three classic amps. Although not named, these appear to be based on Marshall, Fender and Vox AC30 models, and have the same controls and features as the originals, with nothing added. Built on Softube's legacy of modeling analog gear with unmatched accuracy, Amp Room is the modern platform designed with the discerning professionals in mind to be a continuously growing pro audio system of everything you need to create high-quality, authentic,.
In fact, Bass Amp room provides only one amplifier model, although this can be fed through any one of three speaker cabinets. Ultimate breaks and beats vol 20. The mic distance from the cabinet can also be varied, with further adjustment of horizontal positioning available when the mic is close to the speaker. There's also a DI section with basic tone controls, and an amp/DI mixer, an adjustable limiter and a 'phase‑invert' switch. So, despite the very simple interface, the range of potential bass sounds is impressively wide. The designers aren't allowed to name the amp on which they've based their model, but they do tell us that it was originally designed as a guitar amp in the 1970s, and is characterised by thick and solid preamp distortion, when overdriven, that means you can crank it up without losing the low end.
The three cabinets vary in size, with the largest producing a predictably deeper tone than the others, and the smallest being a little lighter on the low end. The cabinets are selected by clicking and dragging in the room view to get the desired cab in the centre of the screen, after which the mic distance and lateral offset can also be adjusted by clicking and dragging. A conventional amp control‑panel sits at the top of the screen, and includes high and low gain settings, an input gain control, three-band EQ and a master volume. By contrast, the DI has high- and low-cut controls, plus a central tone knob, the results of which range from warm and deep to thin and bright. Whereas the amp catches transients by 'saturating', the DI utilises a limiter. A single dial adjusts the limiter sensitivity, and this has a red lamp to show when the limiter has been pushed into operation. The balance of the two sounds is adjusted by means of a horizontal slider, and it's when mixing them that the 'phase‑invert' button can be used to determine which setting sounds best. Being able to blend the two sources is what makes this plug‑in so versatile.
The DI works separately from the amp/cab simulations, and its simple tone controls are specially designed for bass guitar. This means that you could, for example, set up a thinner, heavily distorted sound on the amp and blend this in with some deep bass from the DI to give aggression with punch; or you could use a bright DI sound to add a bit of edge to an otherwise warm amp sound. As a rule, the 'phase‑invert' position that gives the deepest bass is the right one, but if you stumble across something that's technically wrong but sounds right artistically, there's no reason not to use it. It's also possible to bypass the cabinet emulation to allow a speaker model from Vintage Amp Room (if you own it), or of course any other speaker modelling plug-ins you happen to own, to be used instead.
Before getting in too deep, it's worth mentioning that any bass with passive pickups needs to be fed into the system via a high‑gain ('Hi‑Z') DI box, or an audio interface that offers an 'instrument' input setting. When adjusting the amp, increasing the input gain can push it into distortion, particularly if the high‑gain input setting is chosen, but the power‑amp knob can also bring in some nice power‑amp distortion if used carefully. It's possible to push the latter too far, though, at which point the sound can become quite nasty — just as the real thing can. The preamp distortion is nicely controlled, and can go from dead clean, through slightly hairy, all the way to Stranglers‑on‑acid, should you want it!
Of the three cabinet models, the Classic is the largest, and would appear to be based on a popular brand that begins with the letter A.. I'll let you guess it! This is an 8 x 10 cabinet that combines good definition with an impressive depth of bass. The Rocker is a model of a typical 4 x 12 cabinet, for a harder, more present sound, while the tiny Odd Bird is actually a 1 x 12 design, chosen simply because the guys at Softube happened to think it sounded nice! All three produce very authentic and usable bass sounds, with very different characters, but the DI blend really adds to the tonal range, and allows even the smallest cab to be given an extra helping of warm bass if it needs it. For a fully produced bass sound, you'll probably need to add your own compressor plug‑in, but that's about all you'll need unless you're after something very unusual. The results are very convincing and amp‑like, and the speaker emulation is very effective in filtering out finger noise.
At $199$249 including VAT, Bass Amp Room isn't the cheapest amp‑modeller around (the offerings from Line 6 and IK Multimedia are probably the best software competitors), but unlike some bass amp plug‑ins, this one lends a real sense of depth and weight to the sound, and is definitely worth looking at if you do much 'real' bass guitar recording. Paul White
SUMMARY
A classy software emulation of a bass amp and three cabinets, with some useful DI functionality thrown in for good measure.
- Softube +46 13 21 1623.
Have you ever had that thing where you play through an amp that sounded great yesterday, and now it just doesn't seem to be quite as good? It may sound a bit thin, or muddy, or doesn't seem to distort in quite the same way, or perhaps you're just hearing it differently today. Who really knows? Well, I can't figure out if it's the ultimate level of modelling reality, but for me, amp-sims do the same thing. I like life to be simple, and I'd love to be able to say this is MY sim and be done. I'm close; there are a couple that get used far more than all the others, but some days I just need to try something a bit different.
Softube's Vintage Amp Room has been around for about ten years now and it takes a deliberately very basic approach; no long lists of amp, cab, speaker and microphone choices, no components to swap, no tuning tweaks and no stand-alone version. What you do get is three amps in a single room with a single microphone. Those amps are a Marshall JCM800, a Fender Twin and a Vox AC30 (and the rather nice sounding room is in Soulmine Studios in Linköping in Sweden). I'm quite surprised that Softube hasn't been tempted to update Vintage Amp Room over the years with a few optional-extra speaker or microphone choices, but they clearly set-out their vision of a simple interface and a great sound and have stuck with it since.
Anyway, I fired-up the 'White Amp' (that's the JCM800) and it sounded simply exactly the way I thought it should. It isn't exactly the same as MY JCM800, but it absolutely nails the quality of that sound. I spent an hour firing-up every other amp-sim I've got for comparison, and whilst in each case you can hear the character of the Marshall (or Fender, or Vox), they all have a sort of family character that plays through whatever settings you choose; some are very present, some have a hard midrange, or a slightly distant quality to the sound. Some sounded quite different to the others for similar settings, but could be tweaked to get very close, but to my ears on that day, Amp Room just had 'The Sound' straight out of the box (so to speak) and with no option-anxiety required.
Vintage Amp Room's graphics are a bit of a throwback. The amp and cab illustrations look as though the perspective is a bit wrong, the control panels are small and the way the microphone stand moves is a bit bizarre - it sounds good and is very easy to use but does look a bit odd (take a look at the review video). Interestingly, Softube produces very highly regarded amp sims for Universal Audio that use far more conventional (by today's standards) interfaces, and the Metal Room plug-in has a quite different look to it (and multiple mics).
Softube Vintage Amp Room Bundle
SUMMARY
A classy software emulation of a bass amp and three cabinets, with some useful DI functionality thrown in for good measure.
- Softube +46 13 21 1623.
Have you ever had that thing where you play through an amp that sounded great yesterday, and now it just doesn't seem to be quite as good? It may sound a bit thin, or muddy, or doesn't seem to distort in quite the same way, or perhaps you're just hearing it differently today. Who really knows? Well, I can't figure out if it's the ultimate level of modelling reality, but for me, amp-sims do the same thing. I like life to be simple, and I'd love to be able to say this is MY sim and be done. I'm close; there are a couple that get used far more than all the others, but some days I just need to try something a bit different.
Softube's Vintage Amp Room has been around for about ten years now and it takes a deliberately very basic approach; no long lists of amp, cab, speaker and microphone choices, no components to swap, no tuning tweaks and no stand-alone version. What you do get is three amps in a single room with a single microphone. Those amps are a Marshall JCM800, a Fender Twin and a Vox AC30 (and the rather nice sounding room is in Soulmine Studios in Linköping in Sweden). I'm quite surprised that Softube hasn't been tempted to update Vintage Amp Room over the years with a few optional-extra speaker or microphone choices, but they clearly set-out their vision of a simple interface and a great sound and have stuck with it since.
Anyway, I fired-up the 'White Amp' (that's the JCM800) and it sounded simply exactly the way I thought it should. It isn't exactly the same as MY JCM800, but it absolutely nails the quality of that sound. I spent an hour firing-up every other amp-sim I've got for comparison, and whilst in each case you can hear the character of the Marshall (or Fender, or Vox), they all have a sort of family character that plays through whatever settings you choose; some are very present, some have a hard midrange, or a slightly distant quality to the sound. Some sounded quite different to the others for similar settings, but could be tweaked to get very close, but to my ears on that day, Amp Room just had 'The Sound' straight out of the box (so to speak) and with no option-anxiety required.
Vintage Amp Room's graphics are a bit of a throwback. The amp and cab illustrations look as though the perspective is a bit wrong, the control panels are small and the way the microphone stand moves is a bit bizarre - it sounds good and is very easy to use but does look a bit odd (take a look at the review video). Interestingly, Softube produces very highly regarded amp sims for Universal Audio that use far more conventional (by today's standards) interfaces, and the Metal Room plug-in has a quite different look to it (and multiple mics).
Softube Vintage Amp Room Bundle
Oh, and the presets are odd too. Select one, modify the setting, and if you come back to the same preset in the same plug-in session, you get the changes that you made, which is sometimes useful but often not. You get no effects pedals (you can always plug into your real pedals before the signal hits your audio interface) and no post-processing options, but you can bypass the cab if you want to use something different or use effects after the amp but before the cab (and which opens up the chance to use multi-mic IRs).
Vintage Amp Room has the sort of design quirks that might be 'character' or 'flaw' depending on how you look at the; it's got very limited options, so far as I can tell it looks like and does just what it did nearly ten years ago, and it isn't cheap, but on the other hand, it still sounds exceptionally good and for today at-least it's my favourite sounding soft-amp; and after we've finished the work and handed over the recording, that's really the only thing that matters.
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Softube Vintage Amp Room Bundle
This article was originally published in issue #44
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