Magix Vandal amp sim = Winner in terms of sound quality so far

[Hink]

Peter, I do want to add to your point about developers....sascha is no doubt a real class act so I really do agree with you. I cannot see him being down with a reverse smear. Especially my having the rest of his fx at my disposal, they're just too damn good and the fact they are native to Samplitude is awesome. I can't see how such a ploy would behoove him or Magix.

An unlikely scenario for sure with all I have invested, but I could do very well with just Samplitude 11 and a couple vstis from concept to cd (thankfully I dont have to though)

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

Even if I really like Gibson guitars, Hink? Will you still respect me in the morning?

[Hink]

Even if I really like Gibson guitars, Hink? Will you still respect me in the morning?

sure, an sg makes a great canoe paddle

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

Even if I really like Gibson guitars, Hink? Will you still respect me in the morning?

sure, an sg makes a great canoe paddle

LOL you know that always does make me snicker. I don't have an SG so if I'm up the creek I certainly won't have a paddle. Or maybe just a really bulky, heavy one with a Les Paul?

[Hink]

Even if I really like Gibson guitars, Hink? Will you still respect me in the morning?

sure, an sg makes a great canoe paddle

LOL you know that always does make me snicker. I don't have an SG so if I'm up the creek I certainly won't have a paddle. Or maybe just a really bulky, heavy one with a Les Paul?

still my favorite les paul story is when my best friend decided to learn to play guitar in the 80s (we were in our early 20s). He bought a 30th anniversary gold top and a polytone amp, the first time he sat down with it he bent over with it in his lap to plug the chord in. Well the bottom heavy les paul without him having one hand on the neck kicked up and gave him a fat lip.

I couldn't stop laughing and I told him that might be an omen

[hibidy]

you guys are funny.

[sascha]

Hi guys,

I just came back from vacation and discovered this thread.
Doing plugins for almost a decade now and being part of kvr nearly as long, it doesn't all make me wonder that much. Of course I'm *very* connected to my work, heart-wise, but my work is 'profession' for 7 years now, so I have to face everything associated with it.
Extracting the usual 'kvr noise' (which is still fine for me, and often refreshing, otherwise I wouldn't be here), there are a few things I'd like to add from myself:

The OP's opinion:
I don't know the OP, and I haven't heard that somebody related to us started or would start an underground vandal rave. To me it simply seems someone is happy with it (which also makes me happy ).

Hype:
It's true that we announced vandal a year ago (on Musikmesse 09). But it's not true it took us a year to release it, nor wanting to keep up a hype discussion. Back in April 09, we presented it as part of the coming Samplitude 11. Sure, it was presented and notified as being sort of seperate, and we said we *consider* releasing it as a VST (not having clearly thought/said Mac then). But all communication was clearly focused on the Sam11 inclusion.
Samplitude 11 was then released in late June 09 in Germany, which sums up to ~3 months timespan before release. [Well, I changed a bit under the hood since then, all later versions sounded way better.] The international release then took place in autumn 09.
We ourselves didn't do any hype. Long-term Magix customers would agree we don't do much marketing of our pro-audio products. There was just a couple of early beta testers of the Sam11-bundled version (such as Dimi, who also gave invaluable input during development), some early web forums talking, youtube vids, and the vandalamps blog (written mostly by myself, in my spare time; the company wasn't that much involved in it, at least not supervising it).
The fact that we now created sort of a 'Vandal' brand and set up a dedicated website (vandalamps.com) is just due to our internal confidence that we've created something pretty good. As users can read on our 'technology' page (http://www.vandalamps.com/en/technology.49.html) and also in the blog, the plugin went through a few stages of evolution before we even considered it being a 'product'. So there was simply no reason to stir things up on our side in the first place. While the people around me starting raving, I was the least certain (knowing my faults best). I still believe these things need to mature, as often with instruments or pieces of equipment.

Competition:
As explained in the blog as well as on the 'official' website and in personal interviews, Vandal isn't meant as the 'final' software amp, at least not for everybody. We see it as 'custom amplification' because it has a certain signature and doesn't want to be everybody's darling. I'm sure it can fit perfectly in a certain situation, as much as to totally fail in another. As with any gear, be it software or 'real'. All my preceding plugins have always been kind of 'polarizers' in this respect, so that's perhaps 'tradition'
I personally am very prone to get overwhelmed and lost with products that offer too much stuff and choices, that's why I tend to strip down my plugins in some way. I like simple things, such as twisting a knob. I dislike intensive menu browsers and tons of presets, partly because I feel I need to know what's going on and may perhaps lose control over the whole thing.
Of course these are personal feelings, and that is dangerous when you develop a product based on your own assumptions, but many people around me felt similar. Some felt otherwise, so there was of course a bit of a compromise in some parts of the plugin. But the overall statement was still to be different, at least to be another color in the palette. I generally fear the amp modeling world is getting too 'uniform', in contrast to the real world outside, with all these small boutique and backyard people.

It's perhaps also a matter of application or expectation. Products like GR, AT, GTR, L6 etc. are - at least for me - aimed at people wanting to substitute their real-world amps, wanting the same sound (or how near one can come). Which is legit.
Vandal was designed to be pretty much the contrary: it's an own piece of gear. It has no real counterpart. It's got no history, no destination. Use it as you like. Love it or hate it.

Another word on 'competition': the world of plugin devs is comparatively small. Many of us know each other in some way. Thomas (AT1 & TH1) was very important for me during my first clumsy steps of plugin design back in 2001, I still owe him a lot of respect. I personally know of no single developer dissing a competitor's product, at least not with plugins. People are kind, really. I guess that's a thing we devs in this business really like, and what drives us onward. We are all dealing with one of the best things in life. And that's just too precious and luxurious.

Peace.

[dblock]

Hi guys,

I just came back from vacation and discovered this thread.
Doing plugins for almost a decade now and being part of kvr nearly as long, it doesn't all make me wonder that much. Of course I'm *very* connected to my work, heart-wise, but my work is 'profession' for 7 years now, so I have to face everything associated with it.
Extracting the usual 'kvr noise' (which is still fine for me, and often refreshing, otherwise I wouldn't be here), there are a few things I'd like to add from myself:

The OP's opinion:
I don't know the OP, and I haven't heard that somebody related to us started or would start an underground vandal rave. To me it simply seems someone is happy with it (which also makes me happy ).

Hype:
It's true that we announced vandal a year ago (on Musikmesse 09). But it's not true it took us a year to release it, nor wanting to keep up a hype discussion. Back in April 09, we presented it as part of the coming Samplitude 11. Sure, it was presented and notified as being sort of seperate, and we said we *consider* releasing it as a VST (not having clearly thought/said Mac then). But all communication was clearly focused on the Sam11 inclusion.
Samplitude 11 was then released in late June 09 in Germany, which sums up to ~3 months timespan before release. [Well, I changed a bit under the hood since then, all later versions sounded way better.] The international release then took place in autumn 09.
We ourselves didn't do any hype. Long-term Magix customers would agree we don't do much marketing of our pro-audio products. There was just a couple of early beta testers of the Sam11-bundled version (such as Dimi, who also gave invaluable input during development), some early web forums talking, youtube vids, and the vandalamps blog (written mostly by myself, in my spare time; the company wasn't that much involved in it, at least not supervising it).
The fact that we now created sort of a 'Vandal' brand and set up a dedicated website (vandalamps.com) is just due to our internal confidence that we've created something pretty good. As users can read on our 'technology' page (http://www.vandalamps.com/en/technology.49.html) and also in the blog, the plugin went through a few stages of evolution before we even considered it being a 'product'. So there was simply no reason to stir things up on our side in the first place. While the people around me starting raving, I was the least certain (knowing my faults best). I still believe these things need to mature, as often with instruments or pieces of equipment.

Competition:
As explained in the blog as well as on the 'official' website and in personal interviews, Vandal isn't meant as the 'final' software amp, at least not for everybody. We see it as 'custom amplification' because it has a certain signature and doesn't want to be everybody's darling. I'm sure it can fit perfectly in a certain situation, as much as to totally fail in another. As with any gear, be it software or 'real'. All my preceding plugins have always been kind of 'polarizers' in this respect, so that's perhaps 'tradition'
I personally am very prone to get overwhelmed and lost with products that offer too much stuff and choices, that's why I tend to strip down my plugins in some way. I like simple things, such as twisting a knob. I dislike intensive menu browsers and tons of presets, partly because I feel I need to know what's going on and may perhaps lose control over the whole thing.
Of course these are personal feelings, and that is dangerous when you develop a product based on your own assumptions, but many people around me felt similar. Some felt otherwise, so there was of course a bit of a compromise in some parts of the plugin. But the overall statement was still to be different, at least to be another color in the palette. I generally fear the amp modeling world is getting too 'uniform', in contrast to the real world outside, with all these small boutique and backyard people.

It's perhaps also a matter of application or expectation. Products like GR, AT, GTR, L6 etc. are - at least for me - aimed at people wanting to substitute their real-world amps, wanting the same sound (or how near one can come). Which is legit.
Vandal was designed to be pretty much the contrary: it's an own piece of gear. It has no real counterpart. It's got no history, no destination. Use it as you like. Love it or hate it.

Another word on 'competition': the world of plugin devs is comparatively small. Many of us know each other in some way. Thomas (AT1 & TH1) was very important for me during my first clumsy steps of plugin design back in 2001, I still owe him a lot of respect. I personally know of no single developer dissing a competitor's product, at least not with plugins. People are kind, really. I guess that's a thing we devs in this business really like, and what drives us onward. We are all dealing with one of the best things in life. And that's just too precious and luxurious.

Peace.

Excellent down to earth post.

[zerocrossing]

Well, thank you Peter but as a free man in a free country I can express my feelings though they may be wrong or even non-sense for others. that is my right to say what I think even if it may lack knowledge. Anyway as I said before I just enjoy making music with all my gears, and I hope we all try our best to keep our eyes more OPEN to not get entraped by the forces of the conspiracy theoreticians. )

What a strange world to be honest.. lol

Cheers !

Quick question:

Did you pay for your copy of Vandal or is it an NFR copy? Be honest!

[zerocrossing]

The OP's opinion:
I don't know the OP, and I haven't heard that somebody related to us started or would start an underground vandal rave. To me it simply seems someone is happy with it (which also makes me happy )

Honestly Sascha, the thread got heated because the OP was beyond happy and spoke in pure superlatives. I'm a IK Multimedia Fanboi for sure, but I also try to be fair and critical of it, warts and all as they say. My stance has served me well as I find many improvements in the latest version that seemed like they were really listening.

...but the thread got ugly when the Silenceborn decided to start making up facts about IK's technology and describing how it's possible with a little tweaking to replicate all the different amp models that come with AT3 using Vandal. Let's face it, that's just plain and simply not true as even you said Vandal isn't about modeling existing gear but being something new. I respect that and I think even IK would benefit from a similar stance, even though they currently do include a number of sims that are pure inventions of their own based on no existing gear. Judging by what their reps have been talking about, it seems like they're already moving toward more unique models and that's good for everyone.

[zerocrossing]

its about 2 years that im using Guitar rig( since the version 1 ) and before that, i was using Amplitube 1 and lately even Waves GTR( version 2 ), and all other Free Amp sims i could find .i "WAS" really happy and satisfied with the sound of Guitar rig( specially version 2) and my style is more Classic Rock, Hard Rock or sometime Metal .. but also im a big fan of some kind of Jazz styles and Even Newage( experimental ).. but after i got AT2,i realized sounds that i could get out of this great plugin is WOW!,Perfect and Smooth,i tried toomany tests( u know im alittle psycho about the Plugins ) iv testd all Amps,Effects,Cabs,Mics and..at all everything between GR2 , AT2 , Waves GTR 2, Nomad Rock Amp Legend, Izotope Trash, and all other Free plugins iv got, iv been testing all these tests in about 3 mounths, cuz u know im alittle IDEALIST lol.. i wanted the best sounded Plugin..( its very huge, i think i can write a book about the tests lol ).. generally i realized AT2 has the best sound iv ever heard between all plugins i own,
if i want to tell very Briefly something about my tests, one of the great thing i realized about AT2 is its MID and PRESENCE that is more real than GR2 ... u know the sound of AT2 is more Gluey, Smoother, and its really with closed eyes like u r playin through a real AMP..im using toomany Guitars for the test : Fender Strat( Amercian Delux with 3 Single Coils ), 2 Ibanez( JS model and Steve Vai model ), LP Standard Premium Plus edition, and also some cheaper guitars like Squier,Aria, and etc..
and also i'v some old and new Real AMPs too ..from Fender to Marshal to VOX and LINE6 and even Peavy amps.. some of them are for my friends and i got them for my tests.. .
At all there is a Huge difference between AT2 and other Ampsims like GR2 and even GTR2..i could get all kind of sounds i wanted with AT2 from Rock to Metal(real Metal Tones ! ) .. Experiemental to Jazz and other Styles i like.. .
i can get all these sounds with GR2 and GTR2 too but the difference is really Audible!.. .GR2 sounds is like u r playing through a Plastic Channel..so the Distorted sounds seems unnatural alittle to me, even after i realized the power of AT2 i can not enjoy the Clean sounds of GR2 , Waves GTR2 is better, but has the same problem with Distorted sounds,but with GTR2 u can get some nice Clean sounds.. .
maybe later i could send some part of my Tests on these great plugins here on the Forum, but for now i just said my opinions.. .sorry again for my bad english.

Here's what I mean. It's an old post from when AmpliTube 2 came out. How can you use an opinion that flip flops so easily? Say you're really excited with the new tones of Vandal, but to declare it king so quickly after saying pretty much the exact same things about another plug makes the opinion seem very watered down.

[jens]

and about AT3 he wrote:

Hi Peeps,

Well, First of all I'm impressed as hell with this piece of software, Just got my copy (as a birthday present!) installed and authorized, everything is great, JCM 800 is beyond imagination IMHO, very tight and gluey, beefy and tasty, Also that Orange Amp + Ambass'dor are working great together, Well I think IK applied the Fender's Advanced Algorithms to all the previous models in AT2 and while it works almost great on everything (Tighter and Beefier sound) but I think it changed something as well, For example I used to have a very Rounded Sound on both "American Tube Clean 1&2" in AT2 which is lost now, And if I remember right when Fender released Someone else also mentioned the same thing about the Fender amps that are tighter and the reason people and I think someone from IK (probably Squids) brought up was that IK modeled all the models in AT Fender from the current Fender Production line, they said the reason is that the current actual fender amps which IK modeled them sounds more tight and aggressive, In that time I could use the amps from both AT2 which were obviously more rounded and from AT Fender which are more Tight and aggressive, But now I have lost the Rounded sounds from Fender amps in AT2 which is not good IMHO.. Well I think they did a great job and maybe I'm wrong, But to my ears the Fender amps in AT2 does not have that Rounded sounds anymore.

Btw Sorry for my bad English

[jens]

and he also wrote:

for example I have got 3 marshal amps( new ones and also one of them i got from a friend that is much older, think the model been made in 1976 if im right), and to my ears no ampsims could re-create and simulate the quality that I can get from those real amps with mics except amplitube series, the marshal ones in amplitube 2, JHE and Metal are just 95% close to my real marshal amps, and honestly i still could not find that quality in any other ampsims

waitwaitwait... didn't he write here in this very thread:

Anyway I have spent too much to buy almost all the IK Multimedia and other companies amp sim stuff all these years so I'm using them yet all along each other , but Vandal sound is great and better to my ears, not as good as my real world amps but 90% there

[strangedogs]

when I discover they fixed the crashing I get in Reaper I might buy it - until then NO WAY.

[Dean Aka Nekro]

I think Softube Vintage Amp Room feels the best and sounds great. It's really tempting, but 3 amps for that price is really hard to swallow.

I recently noticed that Softube are responsible for the new digital Marshall amp which I thought was funny

multree it sounds pretty good when you whack the power section up on the JMD:1's
i was expecting them to be a shambles tbh but compared with say a Spider Valve or Vmypre Tube its not bad for a debut IMO. Still a JVM/JCM smokes it by miles IMO FWIW

Nekro