So... Is Guitar Rig dead?

[WatchTheGuitar]

I wish all presets used a humane file format. VCV Rack uses JSON which is good for both readability and writing parsers.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Backwards compatibility is always a problem for most new plugins. It's not usually the presets, though, mostly its the plugin itself. For example, if you delete Guitar Rig 5 from your system and install version 6 instead, the DAW won't magically replace GR 5 with GR 6 plugins and restore the settings. In alot of cases, you can't even use your DAW's capacity to copy the old settings across to an instance of the new plugin as there's a good chance that even that won't be compatible.

This has been a persistent problem with upgrades across the years, unfortunately. The only exception to this, that I'm aware of is Waves. Say what people will about them, backwards compatibility is one of the things they get right. That's why they're still popular amongst the studios that have been around a while.

Unfortunately, the best way I can think of to transition from Guitar Rig 5 to 6 is to keep everything installed and go around manually replacing every instance of 5 with 6 by hand. Then deactivate 5, but keep it on the system if you can, just in case. Give copy and paste a try though, as it does work sometimes and you never know your luck.

I'm surprised that NI didn't change the name to just Guitar Rig Pro, without a number. Kontakt used to have that Problem of having to replace old versions if you wanted to get rid of the old plugins, but finally they change Kontakt 6 to get rid of the name, which should be better for new versions. I don't understand why the inconsistency between products.

[SLiC]

NI should have changed the name to 'Effects Rig' - its a decent enough amp simulator but its a really outstanding general purpose fx rack, I think a lot of people may miss this with the word 'Guitar' in the title.

[FapFilter]

yes, NATIVE INSTRUMENTS EFFEKTS RÄCK (or just EFFEkTS) would be great

[RafaelMorgan]

Like people are saying, Guitar Rig is great as an effects rack, specially for creative, ambient, crazy stuff.

However, this new ICM tech is not good at all. New amps suck even more than the old ones.

I feel a bit embarrassed for NI...

[GaryG]

Should Traktors12 work in GR6 (the Player version specifically)? The components aren't showing up for me although NA says they're installed ok.

[_gl]

ICM tech details: http://blog.native-instruments.com/the-making-of-icm/

[SLiC]

Like people are saying, Guitar Rig is great as an effects rack, specially for creative, ambient, crazy stuff.

However, this new ICM tech is not good at all. New amps suck even more than the old ones.

I feel a bit embarrassed for NI...

Plenty of people with a great deal of knowledge and experience seem to disagree with you.

[AC222]

Hello, can anybody confirm whether or not the sound engine for gr6 and gr5 sound the same with the exact same presets? I would think it's pretty much the same but I've heard in practice with some software later iterations have changes under the hood that make them sound slightly different, particularly in transient response whether it is the coding or oversampling etc...

[AC222]

Hello, can anybody confirm whether or not the sound engine for gr6 and gr5 sound the same with the exact same presets? I would think it's pretty much the same but I've heard in practice with some software later iterations have changes under the hood that make them sound slightly different, particularly in transient response whether it is the coding or oversampling etc...

Never mind. I just saw that this was addressed earlier in the thread and hadn't taken the time to read. Apparently it is all exaclty the same if playback is in HQ mode. For what it's worth, it's not as dumb if a question as others made it seem. It is often enough the case that old presets don't sound exactly the same in a new sound engine.

[LoveEnigma18]

IIRC, there is no HQ mode button on Guitar Rig 6 Pro, isn't it? Is everything HQ by default now?

[SLiC]

IIRC, there is no HQ mode button on Guitar Rig 6 Pro, isn't it? Is everything HQ by default now?

Yes, everything is HQ always.

[simon.a.billington]

Backwards compatibility is always a problem for most new plugins. It's not usually the presets, though, mostly its the plugin itself. For example, if you delete Guitar Rig 5 from your system and install version 6 instead, the DAW won't magically replace GR 5 with GR 6 plugins and restore the settings. In alot of cases, you can't even use your DAW's capacity to copy the old settings across to an instance of the new plugin as there's a good chance that even that won't be compatible.

This has been a persistent problem with upgrades across the years, unfortunately. The only exception to this, that I'm aware of is Waves. Say what people will about them, backwards compatibility is one of the things they get right. That's why they're still popular amongst the studios that have been around a while.

Unfortunately, the best way I can think of to transition from Guitar Rig 5 to 6 is to keep everything installed and go around manually replacing every instance of 5 with 6 by hand. Then deactivate 5, but keep it on the system if you can, just in case. Give copy and paste a try though, as it does work sometimes and you never know your luck.

I'm surprised that NI didn't change the name to just Guitar Rig Pro, without a number. Kontakt used to have that Problem of having to replace old versions if you wanted to get rid of the old plugins, but finally they change Kontakt 6 to get rid of the name, which should be better for new versions. I don't understand why the inconsistency between products.

Yeah I totally agree with you. I honestly don't know why more devs don't do this.

Even if you wanted to redo everything about your plugin you can still always offer a "legacy" mode. Any plugin that opens up without dome kind of "made with new version" flag, could just open up in legacy by default with its settings restored. It's a fairly further proof way of doing it, I don't know why developers just don't do it.

[_gl]

Yeah I totally agree with you. I honestly don't know why more devs don't do this.

I'm a programmer and I've had conversations with plugin devs in the past. The one I recall, he just hadn't thought of storing the plugin version number in the session / preset, and applying the saved parameters based on that. He did see that it was better though than changing (say) a parameter's range and breaking old presets or DAW sessions (or having to create a whole new plugin id to avoid it).

I've also talked to the Pianoteq devs in the past, who at the time (may be different now) didn't appreciate that changing the sound engine a little without preserving the prior version for saved presets and sessions would make things sound different - not good for presets or pre-existing mixes, which should render identically without user changes.

To be fair, doing plugins is pretty darn complex, there's so much to think about (especially for smaller or one-person devs), so it's not surprising they can't think of every little thing or execute all areas perfectly. But hopefully that will evolve over time.

.. of course NI has plenty of experience .

[_gl]

I wish all presets used a humane file format. VCV Rack uses JSON which is good for both readability and writing parsers.

Agreed, human-readable is always good to have. It's got me out of some tight spots before (eg. software crashing or refusing to load due to some parameter-change related bug).