KVR Audio

Amberience · Post by **Amberience** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 1:55 pm

I use RevalverMKII as my main amp modeling software. Amplitube 2, AmpegSVX, and Jimi Hendrix Edition, are all very very excellent products, and they sound great.

X-Gear sounds fantastic. Being able to put a Marshall tube amp through a bass cabinet would be killer!

I'm wondering if it will be possible to route that same Marshall tube amp through more than one cab, or will you have to load up two of the same amp to do that - an elementary question that I'm sure I can answer myself by checking out the demo.

One thing about AT2 that I could never get my head around was how to route things. Like, I'm not sure if you can split an amp to two cabs, or send two amps to one cab, or send one pedalboard to two amps and then onto two cabs... in RevalverMKII you pretty much have to build it up yourself, so its easy enough to do, I'm just curious whether it is made easier with X-Gear.

beergeek · Post by **beergeek** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 2:31 pm

OK...basically...

X-Gear is free (limited time but kinda open-ended) IF:

1) You own AT2.
2) You buy AT2 soon.
3) You own any 2 "Powered by AT" plugs neither of which have to be AT2.

Is it the best thing since sliced bread? How would I know, it's not released yet

Am I looking forward to it? You betcha!

Am I grateful to the Squidsmeister for advising IK on freebies? Yup, he's cool that way.

Am I going to complain that it doesn't do this or that? Nope but I might suggest that Squids talk to them about things like drag ad drop.

Squids points it out, the way to get them to respond positively is to present positive, constructive criticism.

That said, everyone has a right to bitch about whatever they want to. I think Greg has a point about the cost of the StompIO.

Personally, I think they should offer it with and without the software, build in at least one pedal, up the audio to at least 96 and make it internally wireless. But that's just me

I am very curious as to the workings of the X-Gear stuff and would love to see some video of loading up a rig.

And Squidsy, two things...you know that complaints are always registered above compliments and just the enormous amount of discussion over the tiniest details should tell IK how passionate people are about wanting AT products to be the solution of their dreams. It's sort of a back-handed compliment isn't it?

asseca · Post by **asseca** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 2:41 pm

zvenx wrote:by the way does X-gear read presets from the other Amplitube stuff or we have to recreate the presets if all we want to do is add midi controls to some of our presets?
rsp

The Amplitube presets are saved in XML format, so there is a good chance that X-Gear can read the original presets ...

zvenx · Post by **zvenx** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 2:55 pm

that would be kool
thanks
rsp

Sickle · Post by **Sickle** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 3:23 pm

I'm still kinda confused about X-Gear being free. Is it bundled with the StompIO, or what? Will registered users have some sort of notification, err..

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 3:40 pm

beergeek correctly points out the way things like this work... the squeaking is always louder than the clapping, no? That doesn't mean that the squeakers have lost all sense of reason. It just means that this is a forum.

It's the same thing I point out when the squeaking gets loud on the RMS forum. I don't get mad about the squeaking, I point out why it may or may not be unfounded (as Squids is doing), and then I remind that complaints are always going to outnumber "gee isn't this swell" threads (as beergeek is doing). Seems pretty much par for the course to me. On to the squeaking--

I don't see any reason to be "happy" about the X-Gear release. Some people might feel relieved that they're now going to have access to certain functions (and if they're the right people, for free), but they have no reason to be "happy." That's like starving someone and then giving them a slice of bread. Their first reaction is always going to be "thank god, a piece of bread!" but that doesn't mean that it was reasonable to starve them.

I'm increasingly curious about the target demographic, though. If it's not the same demographic as AT1 (expensive, but ultimately, attainable), then who? I haven't been able to figure that one out yet. Usually a company's product can be successful if they aggressively market to one demo that they've researched. This set of releases still feels schizophrenic to me, though I can't quite put my finger on why.

Greg

redshift factor · Post by **redshift factor** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 9:40 pm

Lunch Money wrote:I'm increasingly curious about the target demographic, though.

Guitarists.

Lunch Money wrote: If it's not the same demographic as AT1 (expensive, but ultimately, attainable), then who? I haven't been able to figure that one out yet.

Guitarists.

Lunch Money wrote:Usually a company's product can be successful if they aggressively market to one demo that they've researched.

Guitarists.

Lunch Money wrote: This set of releases still feels schizophrenic to me, though I can't quite put my finger on why.

Yep, guitarists.

stag · Post by **stag** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:34 pm

yep, Guitar players and low blows are hand in glove.

beergeek · Post by **beergeek** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:41 pm

Sickle wrote:I'm still kinda confused about X-Gear being free. Is it bundled with the StompIO, or what? Will registered users have some sort of notification, err..

Yep, it's bundled with the StompIO because that's how it interfaces with ANY of the AT products.

So, the StompIO and X-Gear go hand in hand...we have X-Gear because of the StompIO. X-Gear is the midi control for AT products and it was done this way so that all the products could use the same software for midi control since the StompIO is a midi controller....

And since X-Gear is agnostic to the controller...StompIO is agnostic to the plug-in. Although I'm curious to see someone use it with GR for example.

Anyway, I'm just pissed about my new lappie and VISTA. *Most* of my stuff works but some very important things to me do not.

It's really interesting to me that free plug-ins are working under Vista and my fuckin' Waves plug-ins are not.

Tracktion 3 is working under Vista but my fuckin' Pro tools is not.

/off topic rant off

beergeek · Post by **beergeek** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:49 pm

redshift factor wrote:
Lunch Money wrote:I'm increasingly curious about the target demographic, though.
Guitarists.

Guitarists with more money than me.

redshift factor wrote:
Lunch Money wrote: If it's not the same demographic as AT1 (expensive, but ultimately, attainable), then who? I haven't been able to figure that one out yet.
Guitarists.

Guitarists with more money than me.

redshift factor wrote:
Lunch Money wrote:Usually a company's product can be successful if they aggressively market to one demo that they've researched.
Guitarists.

Guitarists with more money than me.

redshift factor wrote:
Lunch Money wrote: This set of releases still feels schizophrenic to me, though I can't quite put my finger on why.
Yep, guitarists.

Guitarists with more money than me.

Oh, and probably better than me I might add. I'll spend a few hunnert on a plug but when you get to the numbers on the StompIO, I'd rather buy another guitar

Bottom line, it's not that it's over priced it's just priced over what I would pay.

--Rob

redshift factor · Post by **redshift factor** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:26 am

Have you guys seen the price of guitar stuff?
$2000 for a guitar...
$3000 for an amp...
$1000 for an fx processor...
$500 a pop for vintage pedals...

Serious guitarists will pay a lot for their tone. Always have. This is the market Amplitube is aimed at. Guitarists who play Gibsons, not Epiphones. I think it really comes down to a question of quality in the end. These guitarists will pay what they have to for it.

I think the serious Achilles heel of StompIO is the 48kHz max samplerate. If IK wants to charge the kind of money they're charging for it, they should have at least put 96kHz converters in it, if not 192kHz. That is the proaudio standard. For someone like me, StompIO is not usable for tracking because of that, so it's not a complete I/O solution. It looks nice purely as a MIDI foot controller, but not at the price they're asking. If it had studio quality converters, then I would say it's worth it. They really killed themselves on those converters.

Amberience · Post by **Amberience** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:45 am

I agree, but not based on 48khz being bad, but basically because for the price they're charging you'd expect higher recording ability. If it were $200 and had 48khz maximum, then I don't think it would really bother me. 48khz is fine for recording most things.

redshift factor · Post by **redshift factor** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 2:34 am

Amberience wrote:48khz is fine for recording most things.

It's not fine for an 88.2kHz or 96kHz project.

A3ntar · Post by **A3ntar** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 3:14 am

Amberience wrote:I agree, but not based on 48khz being bad, but basically because for the price they're charging you'd expect higher recording ability. If it were $200 and had 48khz maximum, then I don't think it would really bother me. 48khz is fine for recording most things.

Yeah, exactly my thought. Why the 48Khz limit if this is itended as a proffesional recording audio interface. And for that price, one would assume that it would support higher sample rates.

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:12 am

Are you being like that deliberately, redshift? Obviously it's aimed at guitarists. But it's not really just aimed at "guitarists." I and other people in this thread are guitarists, and they've certainly missed targeting us. So there's obviously a demographic of guitarists that's not their target, and one that is. I'm sure that was your attempt to be clever, but it fell a bit short. The question is: what sorts of guitarists is it aimed at?

"Serious" guitarists of the kind you're referring to are NOT buying AT2 and a StompIO. They're laughing at people who think they can get tone from software. I disagree with them, and I think that sims can produce wonderful tones, but the people who are 'serious' about their tone but are scraping by after paying $2,000 for their guitar and $3,000 for their amp aren't willing to drop another $1100 on a footboard and $300 (assuming only one flavour is purchased) for the software. So who does that leave?

You don't seem like a 'true' guitarist to me, though I might be wrong. It's like you're echoing the perception of guitarists and their willingness to spend money rather than sitting right in the milieu. I'm sure there are people buying $500 vintage pedals and only $2000 on their guitar (I guarantee, if they've paid $500 for their guitar, they've dropped a lot more than $2000 on their guitar), but there's something about the prices you estimated that seems a bit skewed, and the opening phrase is more like "those guitarists" than "we guitarists".

"Serious guitarists" aren't all throwing money away on their tone. Plenty of working musicians getting by on something like my main guitar, a Godin LG. If they're lucky enough to make some good money or a living at it, they'll invest back into their craft by buying something more expensive, sure... but any guitarist will tell you that you don't have to drop $multi-K to get a good workhorse guitar with great tone. And there ARE musicians, even professional ones, who understand that tone doesn't magically appear after spending money.

Sometimes the non-expensive guitar is the right one for the job, and sometimes an off-brand copy is better than the real deal. Plenty of people out there astonished by Yamaha Pacificas, for example. So what makes a guitarist "serious" in your perception? The ability to drop thousands of dollars on gear? Millions of guitarists dreaming about the gear they'd love to own would disagree.

In any event, back to the point-- if someone's main go-to axe is $1500, and their main go-to amp is $2500 (with hand-assembly and sometimes even p2p wiring, mounted on a road-worthy metal chassis and in a nice tolex head, not to mention high-quality speakers...), that's their core. I mean, that's a guitar that will last them most of a lifetime (depending on how much they abuse it) and an amp that will get them through live gigs and allow them to find at least one or two of the tones they identify with and express it at volume during gigs. It really does make the $1100 StompIO seem like a joke with a bad punchline. The core AT2 is probably worth a few hundred... but they should've done their customers a proper by including X-Gear for free when it was done with.

Greg

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