"What's it a model of?" well it's a model of the Fender Frontman 25R. Yes, a solid state practice amp. "Seriously? A solid state combo amp? Why in the he-" BECAUSE IT'S COOL try it yourself and see!
Click the pic for a link to the page. Fancy!
Anyone familiar with AXP's other plugin stuff probably knows that while this is ostensibly "just" a model of the Fender Frontman 25R, complete with reverb and (two!) speaker sim(s), there's of course way more to it in practice because the developer always does cool stuff to go beyond the strict boundaries of the model. For more good evidence of that, see the Guv'nor pedal plugin that offers a great emulation of the Marshall Guv'nor pedal (and its 20-years-later followup!) but also has a ton of tweaks to apply to it for more sounds. That rocks. This rocks. The other plugins also rock.
Hey, there's even a triode tube gain stage plugin, a cool sounding little tube model for free, people love that don't they? It's a nice complement to other similar stuff, I like it with the Voxengo tube for some double-layered warming, and you can actually get creative with 'em and end up sort of building your own amp out of tubes and EQ filters, but that's neither here nor there. My main point here is just, you know, grab the tube while you're downloading everything from th site. As it is digital and a model, it will not burn you as a physical tube would. 100% safety guaranteed (note: I am not responsible if somehow it does in fact burn you, although to the best of my knowledge that's straight f**king impossible, I can't account for the possibility that AXP is a graduate of Hogwarts and has created a literally magical model here so better safe than sorry)
Back to the matter at hand! In this case, he did a faithful emulation of the Fender Frontman 25R practice amp, and it actually sounds surprisingly good - I know, I scratched my head when I first hear that it was going to be modeling a solid state practice amp too, but it sounds way better than you probably think... 10" speaker and all, haha. It sounds better with the 2x12 speaker, in my opinion, but you've got the option, so however you want to run it, your call, obviously. Authentic practice amp sound, or authentic "I found a cheap 2x12 at the local music shop and my amp has a speaker out so I decided to give it a shot, and I'm glad I did woohoo" sound? Pick your poison. But don't drink it just yet, because it's really only just getting started...
This model gets way more interesting when you catch the part where he added an "AXP Mod" switch that goes nuts and replaces the solid state gain stages with tube emulation gain stages instead, and re-voices the EQ. Boom, from solid state to basically a boutique amp that he invented in the digital realm. Take that, Dumble! Hah!
It's free as in free beer so nab it, and get the other plugs while you're there, they rock.I am not sure if I'd have known about AXP/SoftAmp if it hadn't been for his call for beta testers for this plugin, I guess there's not a lot of self-promotion going on here, but play this for a few minutes even and you can really tell he spent a lot of time getting this stuff right, the model and its super duper mod version both sound cool as heck so somebody's gotta give props. Today, I am that somebody.
I had a lot of fun getting to play with this and try to break it during beta testing, as well as getting a little input on the final feature set. Though to be clear, that's like being one person participating in a poll on how a talented engineer should gussy-up a neat bridge; I didn't write a line of code, I just offered my feedback and where it was useful, I'm glad it was; where it wasn't, you have of course AXP / SoftAmp to thank for making the smart calls and putting out a very cool plugin here!
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I've asked for it as well.
