Softube Acoustic Feedback

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

Does anyone here have/use this plug-in?

Guitar Center is selling it as part of a Softube bundle. The entire bundle is Acoustic Feedback, Spring Reverb, and Tube Delay; all for $200.

Does it give guitar ampsims a good feedback sound?

[ZenPunkHippy]

Someone posted a review / thread last year:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=261474

Peace,
Andy.

[kaffeekranz]

When demoing, I caught myself plenty of times turning my guitar away from the screen, or putting my hand on the strings and shortly thereafter realizing that it won't help a thing.
It 'feels' unnatural (of course it does, yeah) and I didn't like it's sound either, but there are a lot of people who like the plugin.
Makes me wonder..
It's not like I'd have used it much anyway.. if I need some short feedback passages, I usually record a picked string and reverse the audio file.
And if the note needs to last for a while.. some reverb and a part of it looped.
Works just fine for me.

[Waker]

I use it. It's excellent if you use it in subtle amounts. It can get out of control in a ebowish kind of way, for some weird stuff. It sort of reminds me of the old superfeedback pedal from boss.

[Agreed]

Wow, someone remembered my review of it I quite like it! I've since found that judicious use of subtle compression before and after an amplifier modeler can improve their feedback characteristics without the need for artificial feedback generation, but nonetheless Softube's Acoustic Feedback plugin remains a valuable tool. One has to be very careful with its settings; I think the recommended settings, the visual cues that it gives are rather off. Subtlety is key for anything like realism, but if you're careful with it, it can add a very lively element to the sound of a modeler. We lack the sort of air movement and resonance that would help to give real feedback; the ability to get what is, to me, quite realistic sounding feedback (again, when used very subtly) while recording and monitoring at 83-86dB is a real treat.

That said, again, lately I've noticed that some mild compression before and after an amp modeler will do some pretty spectacular things to the sound. Even the built-in compressors in, for example, Amplitube 3 - a Dynacomp model in front, with the sensitivity set as necessary for the level of distortion you're using at the amp itself, and either the Tube Compressor or (my preference for this) Amplitube Fender's modern comp set for low (for high gain stuff) or medium (for crunchy stuff) will greatly improve their inherent feedback characteristics without the need for external utilities. They help give the harmonic distortion the push it needs to go into feedback, and they help maintain it once it's started. Throw a wah into the mix to control which harmonics are emphasized and it's quite realistic.

I've been playing with AcmeBarGig's Shred lately, too, it has really good feedback as well. Very lively sound. I expect that it will be quite well received when it launches, I haven't found any need for external utilities with it even with lower gain stuff. But, of course, YMMV, a lot depends on your monitoring setup, your guitar, your interface... All the little things.

I can still recommend Softube's Acoustic Feedback, though with two caveats: first, if you want realism, you have to be quite subtle with it, as anything even in the supposedly green zones can already ramp up too quickly and go out of control as though you were playing directly in front of your amp super cranked, inappropriate for a lot of playing; second, it's unfortunate that the native version doesn't allow the same control over the harmonic emphasis that the ProTools version does. I guess it's the price I pay for using Reaper.

[guitarzan]

...That said, again, lately I've noticed that some mild compression before and after an amp modeler will do some pretty spectacular things to the sound...

+1

Glad to have someone else on board with the "push-me-pull-you" compressor thing!! It works so well that I get a little impatient with many amp sim dev's for not implementing it right into the amp/cab models where it really belongs...maybe you'll get a little more traction with your blog and reviews and all.

[metalifuxx]

...That said, again, lately I've noticed that some mild compression before and after an amp modeler will do some pretty spectacular things to the sound...

+2

[futurefields]

Whenever I add compressors to amp sims it just seems to add more noise than I care to deal with (telecaster, single coils)

[Agreed]

It's definitely something that has to be carefully tuned to your particular setup. If you've got a guitar that's more noise-prone to begin with, you'll need to take that into account. Me, I just use noise reduction/a noise gate, the benefits are worth a little extra time adjusting it. When you can do it all within a given software it makes it easier since you can save the patch as a whole.

I should also note that when I do this, I invariably turn down the gain on the amp itself; if anything it improves clarity, while giving some real benefits to the lively sound some feel is missing from amp sims.

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

Thanks for the 'feedback.'

One thing I've been experimenting with is a simple delay plug-in, with the delay set really low (1-3 ms), then the feedback turned up really high.

Awhile back, I was messing with compressors in the signal chain. I'll have to revisit that...