Guitar Rig Pro

I'm not going to compare Guitar Rig (GR) with real hardware amps. By now I think most people will have made their mind up about modeling vs tubes etc. This review will be in the context of a modeling solution for a PC.

GR offers three main types of modeling; Amps, Speakers/Mics and Effects. In addition it ships with its own custom foot controller. All this is wrapped up in a stand-alone/vst/dxi/rtas format.

Amp wise you dont get as many models as some other packages, but the main 'bread-n-butter' styles are there. Vox, Fender, Mesa and Marshall types are available in 1.10. However, you do get to tweak the amps more than some packages. Things like variac power supplies, tube bias etc can be tweaked. This gives the amp models a far wider range than would at first be seen.

The 'more tweaks' theme is carried over to the cab/mic models. The big feature is being able to setup multi-cab/mic setups, either fed by a single amp or multiple amps. A wide range of cabs and micing techniques are modeled.

Its really 'effects-r-us' for the remainer. A whole box full of virtual pedals covering all the standard guitar effects varieties.

Taken as a package, I think the sounds possible are very good. GR does seem to handle clean or crunch slightly better than full out distortion. To my ears some of the 'flat out' sounds sound a little synthetic.

But beware, its possible to tweak things the wrong way and get some truely horrible sounds, but thats the price of flexability.

The demo offers a chance to try it out, but lacking the foot pedal and the full library, you really only get a taste. The pedal works very well. Having a responsive rocker pedal that can be linked to any setting is fantastic. It can be a wah-wah or volume, or trem rate, or depth or twin amp balance etc etc. Very expressive patches are possible. The pedal is strange as it uses audio for the control signals rather than USB etc. Having said that, it worked straight out of the box.

GR ships with an enormous set of presets. These cover almost all guitar styles. Some nu-metal devotees may be disapointed though. CPU usage is reasonable, nothing taxing my 2.8 P4 unduely.

Buyers should ensure they have a suitable I/O device for their PC though. Personally find anthing with a latency over 10ms hard to play to. I use a Edirol FA101 and find it fine with no timing problems when playing.

Authorisation is via NI's now standard challenge response system. Support appears good and they have setup a users library to exchange presets.

In summary, GR offers a massive range of tones and effects. The sound can be very 'real' or very weird, you choose. The hardware may seem to make it expensive, but it really does expand the expression available through the software better than other systems I have tried.



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