AmpliTube Version 3.7.1 Now Available! Optimized: 30% to 40% less CPU & RAM

[Harry_HH]

This feature is a very basic one but it saves a lot of end-users time. Therefore I wonder why the IK has not executed it, I made a remark of this more than a year ago. Instead creating fundaments, the IK has been busy with many minor and useless feature for the AT.

Enjoy this justifiable criticism and please try do something also consumer-driven, not just business-driven (e.g. the stupid AT gear shop is a typical business-driven, candi-like but useless feature). Business is a necessity but in the long term as you do the products, also your business will suffer.

Harry

I don't know, seems to me that an entire update dedicated to drastically slashing CPU and RAM usage is pretty customer driven.

And many people like the custom shop. Just because you think it's useless doesn't make it non-customer driven, does it?

Brent

More economic CPU use is OK - but this hasn't really bothered me because guitar amp modelling plugin in very rarely needed to put simultaneusly on more than 1-2 tracks at the same time, i.e. this feature wan not the first in my list. In those cases you really need several open instances at the same time, you can either render or freeze the track(s). But the feature I mentioned is something which should be self-evindet, the lack on which wastes time and irritates (e.g. I don't use the browser at all but single products such as Jimi for this reason, which is pitty because the browser itself is good but useless because you can't browse the browser "because these are separete functions", as IK Peter wrote. And as I guessed, there really seems to be "many people who like the custom shop" as you wrote, i.e. like wondering in the shopping mall istead of working - but then again, there are also many people who like the reality television. H.

[beau921]

I don't know, seems to me that an entire update dedicated to drastically slashing CPU and RAM usage is pretty customer driven.

Brent

+1

I should have mentioned that, too. Glad you pointed it out.

I was overwhelmed trying to save the Custom Shop from Harry's feature-pruning hatchet.

But if you have too much time and mony and like to wander in the "IK shopping mall" like some bored housewife, rather than practice music, be my guest.

I resent being equated to a housewife. If I didn't have to go move the laundry over into the dryer and wash some dishes I'd write more to dispute that.

[glokraw]

there really seems to be "many people who like the custom shop"

1. Education: the custom shop goes into homes in locales that will never ever
have a Guitar Center, or even some hole-in-the-wall 'Bad Bobs Rawk Shawp'
type of store. People who once only pealed an Orange, can now jam on one.
Discovering that a phaser does more than just stun Star Trek creatures,
broadens the horizon.

2. Affordability: People around the world can muster $20-$40 for a few pieces of
gear, that they know they like (through mall testing) far easier than saving up
the full retail price of the truckload version. When the market is flooded,
and the economy is in ruins, you move on, reinvent your niche, or close the doors.

3. Yes, patch browsing can get much much better, a system with some options
like the z3ta+ browser would be a great improvement.

Relax, it's the weekend, get some Cobalt strings,
and enjoy making some new tunes

[kaffeekranz]

More economic CPU use is OK - but this hasn't really bothered me because guitar amp modelling plugin in very rarely needed to put simultaneusly on more than 1-2 tracks at the same time, i.e. this feature wan not the first in my list

Phew, you have no idea,a really basic setup for me would be:
Guitar 50l, guitar 30l, guitar Center, guitar 30r, guitar 50r.

Additionally there would be the bass:
Low frequency through a clean amp, middle frequencies and high frequencies through a separate slightly distorted amp.

There might also be some FX with Amplitube on top (just some e-bow lines or similar) and not all of them are playing at the same time.
But let me count.. this makes about 8 instances.

[glokraw]

Not to mention keyboards, drums, and vocals, none of
which have been immunized against the A3 fx injections.

[Harry_HH]

More economic CPU use is OK - but this hasn't really bothered me because guitar amp modelling plugin in very rarely needed to put simultaneusly on more than 1-2 tracks at the same time, i.e. this feature wan not the first in my list

Phew, you have no idea,a really basic setup for me would be:
Guitar 50l, guitar 30l, guitar Center, guitar 30r, guitar 50r.
quote]

I wouldn't brag with that.
Is your music better because of this?
World would be better place if more productions
concentrated on tasty sounds rather than wall of sound, wide dynamics, better melodies and harmonies, more imaginate arrangements. H.

[kaffeekranz]

I wouldn't brag with that.
Is your music better because of this?
World would be better place if more productions
concentrated on tasty sounds rather than wall of sound, wide dynamics, better melodies and harmonies, more imaginate arrangements. H.

Why would you call that bragging?
The music isn't better per se, but you've got a lot more possibilities for sound shaping (tasty sounds), "melodies and harmonies" in different places of the stereo spectrum, even "more imaginate arrangements".
Does the standard guitar oriented song have to be limited by the number of guitars?
How about an orchestra with just 2 players..

[koolkeys]

This feature is a very basic one but it saves a lot of end-users time. Therefore I wonder why the IK has not executed it, I made a remark of this more than a year ago. Instead creating fundaments, the IK has been busy with many minor and useless feature for the AT.

Enjoy this justifiable criticism and please try do something also consumer-driven, not just business-driven (e.g. the stupid AT gear shop is a typical business-driven, candi-like but useless feature). Business is a necessity but in the long term as you do the products, also your business will suffer.

Harry

I don't know, seems to me that an entire update dedicated to drastically slashing CPU and RAM usage is pretty customer driven.

And many people like the custom shop. Just because you think it's useless doesn't make it non-customer driven, does it?

Brent

More economic CPU use is OK - but this hasn't really bothered me because guitar amp modelling plugin in very rarely needed to put simultaneusly on more than 1-2 tracks at the same time, i.e. this feature wan not the first in my list. In those cases you really need several open instances at the same time, you can either render or freeze the track(s). But the feature I mentioned is something which should be self-evindet, the lack on which wastes time and irritates (e.g. I don't use the browser at all but single products such as Jimi for this reason, which is pitty because the browser itself is good but useless because you can't browse the browser "because these are separete functions", as IK Peter wrote. And as I guessed, there really seems to be "many people who like the custom shop" as you wrote, i.e. like wondering in the shopping mall istead of working - but then again, there are also many people who like the reality television. H.

But that's the point. You say they need to do something customer driven, but much of what they have done IS customer driven. It just isn't what you wanted. No problem with that, it happens.

The custom shop may be like a shopping mall to you, but that doesn't mean that everyone who uses it is spending more time shopping than using, right? And of course, the custom shop WAS in response to many users who specifically asked for the ability to buy individual items because the whole AT3 product is overkill for them. Or they wanted a specific sound that wasn't available already.

In the end, it's easy to say that a company isn't listening because they aren't listening to YOU. But you and I both know that it's not a universally held opinion.

Brent

[Hink]

I wouldn't brag with that.
Is your music better because of this?
World would be better place if more productions
concentrated on tasty sounds rather than wall of sound, wide dynamics, better melodies and harmonies, more imaginate arrangements. H.

really? Maybe you should add texture to your list because it's not an either/or what kaffeekranz was talking about. I'll never run that many instances of any amp software, one because I have a nice set up now using tube amps and also because I'll freeze the track once the tone is what I want.

Is my music better? Who cares? Either you're gonna like my music or you're not, I could really care less who likes it. OTOH when I record my performance I'm playing through the amp of my choice that "works" for me best in that song, it might not sound the best for the song at the end but I'm using the tone that suits me best for performing. Hence I should be at my best, I go to great lengths not to be committed to the guitar tone I record and always record a direct line out of aby box (I use the third out which is a bypass for the dry signal on my pedal) (actually typically I record 4 tracks or more depending on how many mics I use, I monitor with fx but record the fx to separate tracks from my miked cab). I would much rather be happy while playing than anything else.

When I'm playing in my sweet spot or my zone I'm at my most creative, then I can re-amp to achieve the best tone to compliment the rest of the instruments and song. This can be done with sims and in the box solutions or through a hardware re-amper and another amp or amps. Layering can create awesome textures, so again it should not imho be an either/or...that's the beauty of the studio...of course it all starts with a good performance and for that like I said I use the best amp for what I am attempting to achieve...which of course varies from song to song and between different players.

IMO the world would be a better place if people didn't spend so much time telling others how they should do things and just let them do as they please "live and let live". I certainly would not expect anyone to follow my path so what makes you think you can decide what path would make the world a better place? After all no one is making you listen to anything

[kbaccki]

Why, even the oft-referenced, track-impaired Beatles would have had a need for at least 3 simultaneous AT instances back in the 60's.

[trimph1]

It runs really nicely here, did not effect anything other than the CPU/Ram usage....great stuff!!

[Brian @ IK Multimedia]

We don't need 1000 version of
some quasi-modelled amp, the differencies in sound are minimal in the bottom line. See e.g. Waves amp farm: 10-20 model per each genre is enough to cover even demanding use(genre means here e.g. "clean vintage" or "drive stadion set" or likewise). BTW, I have compared 4 diffrent products (Guitar Rig, Waves, Speakerphone and AT, althoug some AT modellings are very good, they concentrate too much in stupid things like I have expressed - less is more here).

Harry, AmpliTube 3 amps are more than "quasi-modeled." They are specific amps, brought into the IK development lab which are then analog modeled on the component level, often done in cooperation with the top names in the industry, and certified to their exacting standards of authenticity.

AmpliTube 3 is the guitarists' ampsim. It has never been meant to be some generic effect plugin a producer slaps on a track and dials up a preset for plastic guitar tone or "wacky effects." There are other plugins that focus on that.

AmpliTube 3 is designed by guitarists who know gear, for guitarists who love gear. For many discriminating tone-chasers, a generic "general purpose" amp won't do. Some guitarists want a specific amp or pedal, accurately recreated down to the nuances. Perhaps it is because this is the amp they play, and they want to be able to dial in their exact tone on an amp they are intimately familiar with. Or perhaps they want the tone of a favorite player or rare, expensive vintage gear. Or perhaps they just want to learn the differences in tone and feel between various models to make an informed purchasing decision. AmpliTube 3 Custom Shop, with its large and ever-increasing selection of highly accurate gear models allows a user to do all of this. With the Custom Shop, users can try and buy as many or as few models as they wish, and only pay for the ones they want.

If your needs are not that great, then you will be very happy getting by with just the FREE version of AmpliTube 3 CS, or perhaps purchasing one or two of the "Custom" models held over from AmpliTube 1.0 which cover general purpose tones for a mere 5 gear credits a piece. (You can get the Custom Modern Hi-Gain for just 3 credits right now in the Huge Gain promotion!)

Regarding your preset issues, keep in mind there are 3 different places for presets: AmpliTube's two built-in browsers - one for Patches, and one for Presets, and your DAW's preset manager, which may load .vstpreset, .fxp, or .fxb, etc. You should use AmpliTube's Preset browser for what you want to do. When you click the arrow to change presets, make sure you are clicking the arrows to the RIGHT of the preset name. The arrows to the left are to change Patches, which use bank + patch number (like 000A, 000B, 110C, 999D, etc) and are meant to be used with hardware floor controllers. It sounds like this is what you are using by mistake.

If you want to create your own bank for automating changes and save it in your song, you can also use the preset manager built into your DAW. Here you can build a custom preset bank by simply going through each program number and changing to the desired preset in AmpliTube's built-in Preset Browser. Once you do that, the stored preset will be recalled simply by calling a program change in your host.

[Harry_HH]

Regarding your preset issues, keep in mind there are 3 different places for presets: AmpliTube's two built-in browsers - one for Patches, and one for Presets, and your DAW's preset manager, which may load .vstpreset, .fxp, or .fxb, etc. You should use AmpliTube's Preset browser for what you want to do. When you click the arrow to change presets, make sure you are clicking the arrows to the RIGHT of the preset name. The arrows to the left are to change Patches, which use bank + patch number (like 000A, 000B, 110C, 999D, etc) and are meant to be used with hardware floor controllers. It sounds like this is what you are using by mistake.

If you want to create your own bank for automating changes and save it in your song, you can also use the preset manager built into your DAW. Here you can build a custom preset bank by simply going through each program number and changing to the desired preset in AmpliTube's built-in Preset Browser. Once you do that, the stored preset will be recalled simply by calling a program change in your host.

A lot of text but my original question left again unanswered. Once again:
most obvious and intuitive/logical way to use the AT3 browser is
1. choose the instrument
2. choose a genre (sound character etc.)
-> you get a list of presets
3. the you want to able to browse this list in the order it appears
by one click, back and forth, either by the mouse or witht keyboard.
I don't want to store any list of presets, just easily browse this list.
Question: can you do that?
If yes: how?
If not: why and when?
Thank you. H.

[Brian @ IK Multimedia]

As I stated, you do this with AmpliTube's built-in Preset Browser. When you launch AmpliTube 3, at the top you will see two fields, one that says "000A" and one that says "Default." You can browse the different preset menus by clicking on the field that says "Default." You will find menus for different amps or "Complete Rigs" organized by AmpliTube software title and such. Select any of these presets as a starting place. Then you can browse sequentially through the preset menu with the up/down arrows to the RIGHT of this field (next to BPM.)

[Brian @ IK Multimedia]

I should stress, though, that AmpliTube is not really designed to be a preset-player like many plugins. You will get the most out of it by building your own rigs by choosing your preferred models from the gear drop-down menus, and then dialing in your own tone with the knobs, just like you would do with their physical counterparts. It helps to be a guitarist with background knowledge in gear, but as previously stated, one of the strengths unique to AmpliTube Custom Shop is that it is a great tool for building that knowledge if you don't have it yet.