Voxengo Boogex Guitar Amp (alpha)

[pough]

Are you suggesting that Mr Voxengo is designing a product based on impulses that are not going to be used?

Not exactly. My point was that you have no clue and ignorance is a stupid starting place to cast aspersions from. It was, however, suggested as a possibility. It seemed reasonable. If this is just in the testing phase and it uses any impulses for the speaker stage, why not test with some decent free impulses and then work out the final details of licensing and such when the plugin's done? Laughable, right?

Of course the final version won't contain any questionable impulses nor it will contain any 'big' names in the impulse list.

Maybe not so laughable a suggestion.

Still laughing, champ?

[helium]

I hadn't much time, but it seems too be cool for clean sounds. But it seems pretty unusable for crunchy or even heavy sounds. The distortion sounds very harsh almoast "broken" and absolutly lifeless and static.

I know how hard it is to give the distortion a bit life. I started with some small recorded riff when I started developing Cortex and after some time I thought the distotion would sound pretty nice. But as I pluged in my guitar and actually started to play it live I noticed that it's totaly unusable. It was as dead as your's. I spend a lot of time to get this right and I'm still not completly happy.
I'm sorry if this sounds arrogant, as it isn't ment to be.


I like all your products, but this one is only usable for Jazz-players who only need clean sounds.

Sorry for being that hard.

[Igor 4000]

On a lighter note I will say that Alex makes the best plugs, but picks the absolute worst names

[bk]

It's strange some people look for tube amp even if I have not advertised it is a tube amp or something. It's just a guitar amp.

Not so strange. When most people think "good guitar amp" they're thinking "tube amp".

Besides that, you make a number of other products to emulate tubes, and you chose the name "Boogex" which I think almost anyone here would associate with "Mesa/Boogie" a company who only make tube guitar amps.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

AKJ, Helium and others. It's a question of getting hold of Boogex controls. They are definitely NOT conventional as Boogex actually allows you to MODEL the overdrive stage. Such things are usually hidden behind the schematics. Indeed, it's hard to hit the goal - tuning the overdrive is like hitting 10 with the dart. But this is NOT impossible. And possibilities offered by Boogex allow you to be CREATIVE after all.

You can get harsh or smooth sounds - it all depends on the controls and impulse response used. BTW, have you tried moving the low-pass (green) filter to the left? Or working with parametric filters?

Boogex is not a quick sketch plug-in. I was thinking and developing its parts FOR YEARS and I know what I'm offering to musicians with open attitude.

Just for your information, I'm absolutely confident that offering something like a guitar amp is like trying to win a million in a lottery. I even have to think that independent developers do not even try to charge a buck for this (I guess because of too much uncertainity in the hearts). But I'm not taking this too close to my heart and I can't say I'm afraid of people attitudes (I do not have investors I have to please with profits). So, let's leave this part alone.

Let's talk about shaping possibilities. If you wish, you post clean sounds here and examples of how you want it to sound. I may try create presets - just to demonstrate you the possibilities. OR show what's not really possible to achieve.

I'll post a next version later today, with a new feature.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

bk, OK, indeed Boogex sounds like Boogie... in the same way as IK (multimedia) sounds like NI. Anyway, it's not a big deal.

[jens]

it seems pretty unusable for crunchy or even heavy sounds. The distortion sounds very harsh almoast "broken" and absolutly lifeless and static.

that's what I meant!

I know how hard it is to give the distortion a bit life. I started with some small recorded riff when I started developing Cortex and after some time I thought the distotion would sound pretty nice. But as I pluged in my guitar and actually started to play it live I noticed that it's totaly unusable. It was as dead as your's. I spend a lot of time to get this right and I'm still not completly happy.
I'm sorry if this sounds arrogant, as it isn't ment to be.

you got it absolutely right with Cortex!

I like all your products, but this one is only usable for Jazz-players who only need clean sounds.

Sorry for being that hard.

my point exactly!

[jens]

AKJ, Helium and others. It's a question of getting hold of Boogex controls. They are definitely NOT conventional as Boogex actually allows you to MODEL the overdrive stage. Such things are usually hidden behind the schematics. Indeed, it's hard to hit the goal - tuning the overdrive is like hitting 10 with the dart. But this is NOT impossible. And possibilities offered by Boogex allow you to be CREATIVE after all.

You can get harsh or smooth sounds - it all depends on the controls and impulse response used. BTW, have you tried moving the low-pass (green) filter to the left? Or working with parametric filters?

Boogex is not a quick sketch plug-in. I was thinking and developing its parts FOR YEARS and I know what I'm offering to musicians with open attitude.

Just for your information, I'm absolutely confident that offering something like a guitar amp is like trying to win a million in a lottery. I even have to think that independent developers do not even try to charge a buck for this (I guess because of too much uncertainity in the hearts). But I'm not taking this too close to my heart and I can't say I'm afraid of people attitudes (I do not have investors I have to please with profits). So, let's leave this part alone.

Let's talk about shaping possibilities. If you wish, you post clean sounds here and examples of how you want it to sound. I may try create presets - just to demonstrate you the possibilities. OR show what's not really possible to achieve.

I'll post a next version later today, with a new feature.

I will spend more time on it!

[Sascha Franck]

Additional latency is a bit too much for my taste, especially when working with headphones. Would probably be better with my Hammerfall setup, but I don't use that one at home. I also find the knobs to react way to slow. Need to drag almost all over the mousepad to change a knob from full right to full left. Personally, I also don't like to lose the mouse pointer, just to find it back at the knob whereas my mouse is all the way at the bottom of my mousepad. Doesn't feel too good to me.

In addition, I find the knobs labeled funny. Tone is actually like a secondary drive control, rather than a tone control.

I think this could be quite flexible, but the feel of it isn't too great IMO. I usually achieve a lot of tonal/drive control using my guitars volume knob and the pickup switches. This doesn't work too well. In addition, I don't find the lows to sound tight enough for heavy riff sounds - but maybe that's just because I don't fully understand the interaction of the various controls yet.

However, apart from that I agree with Teksonik: No free betatesting for a commercial product.

Regards,
Sascha

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Sascha, thanks for your feedback. Tone is not a secondary drive - it's like a channel switch on guitar cabinets, but with more precision. With low Tone you get clean sounds, with high Tone you get high gain sounds.

I've posted a new version:
http://www.voxengo.com/temp/VoxengoBoog ... _setup.exe

It contains a Dynamic parameter in the Amplifier section. This should add more response to the live playing.

I've also included several factory presets.

[Frippertronix]

As with the others, the controls are a mystery to me, but I'm willing to keep trying.

As far as pure distortion in a guitar context, I feel JCM900 freeware plug is more realisitic as an amp emulator, but maybe that's not the priority here. I think people probably assumed, and I think reasonably, that this plug was specifically intended to emulate tube amps since all of the speaker IR's are associated with tube amps.

I sense quality here, Aleksy, as I do with all your plugs, but guitarists, I think, are going to demand as much realism as possible from an amp emulator, since they are used to using real amps so they have a direct comparison to go by, and there is always the option of just mic'ing an amp instead of trying to deal with the tonal limitations of DI'ing.

I'd say the plug will be a success if you can get more of the crunchy warmth of a loud, overdriven, all tube amp. I agree with another poster that the algorithm for distortion is a little too hard and doesn't have enough of the "bloom" and midrange power and smoothness of a qulaity amplifier.

Of course, if you can really do this, you will probably end up being rich beyond your wildest dreams!

On a less idealistic note: why no input gain control? You have bass speaker IR's on there but I found it hard to get a totally clean sound with my bass because of no input gain attenuation.

On the free beta testing note---this is an alpha, not a beta. If he gets it perfected to the beta stage, maybe he'll consider a more closed traditional beta format.

Though, I don't mind giving some amount of free advice to someone who puts out so much good product at reasonable prices.

[kylen]

Though, I don't mind giving some amount of free advice to someone who puts out so much good product at reasonable prices.

I'm of the same mindset - although I'm not a plug developer I am a plug consumer. What I've found with the Voxengo line is that good ideas mentioned here and at the Voxengo forum usually find their way into the plugins. I imagine a good idea brought up during proto-typing might be better implemented at that point while certain changes may be easier to make...2cents

[Frippertronix]

Though, I don't mind giving some amount of free advice to someone who puts out so much good product at reasonable prices.

I'm of the same mindset - although I'm not a plug developer I am a plug consumer. What I've found with the Voxengo line is that good ideas mentioned here and at the Voxengo forum usually find their way into the plugins. I imagine a good idea brought up during proto-typing might be better implemented at that point while certain changes may be easier to make...2cents

If he had people register for a beta test and then gave them a demo limited plug to test, that might be unreasonable, but, let's face it, self-promotion and the seeking of feedback from consumers on KVR is par for the course.

We could blast people every day for doing it if we felt the need.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Frippertronix, have you checked out some of the latest version presets? (that's for the question about power of the mids).

BTW, there's no need in the input gain control. Just set the Drive to a lower value.

I do not know why some people talk about getting rich if succeeding with the product. Good product is a half of the story. Much more than that is needed to get rich...

[mandolarian]

I do not know why some people talk about getting rich if succeeding with the product. Good product is a half of the story. Much more than that is needed to get rich...

Yeah, you need the glossy brochures, the catchy slogan and a great jingle! Aleksey, why not have us Kvr's write you a jingle???