Product Reviews by KVR Members

At first glance quite good sound quality, some - but certainly not all - nice string tones, theoretically, at second glance I do not like the whole concept of a plugin like this at all.

If you look for some, completely effects-overloaded (which seems to be the more precise definition of "augmented" here) - more or less in some way - string based, prefabricated preset tones, this might be the right choice, if you want to create your own tones by yourself, or even shape them individually precisely, it certainly is not.

Unfortunately I miss any deep editing options, you cannot create your own sounds, all you can do is, to modify the existing presets - more or less. Not even a simple ADSR control is included.

Certainly not "the strings, I've always wanted" for me. I wonder why and how Arturia thinks to know, what I personally want or need, if they do not even know me.

The only reason, why I have not deleted the plugin immediately after testing, was, that I found some at least more useful string sounds, after I had set all Fx, Delay and Reverb controls to zero. Unfortunately this does not work with all presets, some still seem to have implemented some reverb and other "augmented improvements" within the basic tones. So for me the only useful controls, that makes sense, are Color and Morph, everything else is not really usable for me.

But even about these controls and what they really do within a single preset neither the plugin itself nor the manual says anything. Very unprofessional in my opinion.

This plugin seems to be some sort of "black box" for some sonic flying blind in the "Brave New World" of (average) effects overload, some sort of audio toy in the sense of "you press the button, we do the rest", but I can hardly define this prefabricated preset collection a serious, professional tool or instrument, sorry. Although some string sounds are really usable and good, if you manage to remove their "augmented" components.

The GUI animation also is only a nice, but dispensable gimmick, nothing more. Looks ugly and kitschy, makes no sense at all and does not improve anything sonically.

As freeware maybe nice for some rare use, but I certainly would not want to buy a plugin like this.

I only hope, that plugins like this are not the future of Arturia. Would be a pity.

Interesting instrument, good sound quality.

Unfortunately I found the installation a little bit complicated. It was not clear to me, that I had to install the Vienna Synchron Player first, after having installed it and the library also, first nothing happened, until I realized, that I had to activate the library within the iLok License Manager manually before it is recognized.

I have a lot of iLocked plugins and almost all others open a window for activation at first use automatically, so I did not expect this procedure. Now I know it maybe for another installation in the future.

Once installed and activated the library works well and sounds very convincing. Comparable large file size for a single instrument, but ok, on the other hand this one seems to be a very unique library of a beautiful, very naturally sounding instrument and the sound quality also is excellent.

I've never heard of this flute before, but it sounds interesting, beautiful and seems to allow a lot of vivid modulations, in some way it sounds to me like a mixture between a regular (bass) flute, a pan flute, an American Native flute and a didgeridoo, due to the special overtones, it can produce.

Underrated instrument, as far as I can hear.

A handpan library in the same quality would be the perfect complement to this instrument in my opinion.

All plugins work well and sound very naturally, very good sounding Chorus and Flanger, Preamp and Enhancer also sound and work well.

Unfortunately I did not manage to get any convincing sounds from the Phaser. Phasing itself has little to do with other phaser plugins, which I know, instead of a convincing phasing the signal sounds - indenpendent of the settings - always completey distorted, even with Saturation at zero, worst with a square wave, better with a pure sine wave, nevertheless not at all what I would identify and accept as a working phaser.

Input reduction also does not help much. I personally suppose that this is some programming mistake, but as it is, the Phaser unfortunately is unusable for me.

If this mistake is corrected in a future upgrade, the whole collection would be excellent, so it unfortunately is only average.

Excellent sounding Delay, or sonically rather some sort of really good sounding and working tape echo with additional tube circuit.

The only advantage, this plugin has is that Tempo only shows bpm, but is not switchable to ms. This feature should be self-evident meanwhile in delay plugins, in my opinion.

I also got the risk message but on another (freeware) platform you get the direct link and just can place the .dll file into your VST folder. No other files needed for installing.

To the plugin itself: I usually am no big fan of ambient reverbs, as they usually sound too digitally and synthetically to me, but this one really enables some nice, more naturally and organically sounding reverb tones, than I had expected, if properly adjusted. The possible long decay time is a nice additional feature for some self oscillation or drone sounds, although usually some seconds will be the sonically better solution.

Will not replace my (not so cheap commercial) favorite reverbs, but is a nice addition to them. Definitely worth a try.

To be honest, I've never really been a big Fender amp tone fan, apart from some small Tweed amps, my sonic homebase rather is Vox, Hiwatt, Marshall Plexi, Orange. So I did not expect much from this release but nevertheless gave it a chance and tried the demo version.

I have been very surprised. Very positively. Of course you can get the typical, good Fender clean sounds, but where this amp really shines are the really, really great sounding crunch and overdrive tones, even at comparably low volume.

On the one hand typical Fender tones, harmonious, with good sustain, on the other hand also with some - almost similar to a Plexi - sonic qualities, like very good harmonics reproduction, a lot of bite and some nice dirt, good reaction to attack and in general a very authentic, naturally sounding and reacting vintage tube amp tone, which you hardly get in this quality from modern multi channel high gain amps.

The JBL 15" cabinet seems to be an excellent choice for authentic Fender tones, for a beefier, fuller bodied sound the 412 Greenback but also the VHT P50E cabinets do a great job, the Jensen Tweed also works well here, while the V30 cabinets are not my favorites with this amp.

The two channels sound very different, what I miss a little, is a linking option, but this you can easily create by running two instances of the plugin in parallel if you want to blend both channels, but also the single channels alone sound convincingly enough.

Really clean but also high gain sounds usually sound comparably good from most amp simulation plugins, but especially the simulation and reproduction of typical vintage crunch and tube overdrive tones like the ones here seems to be much more difficult in the world of digital plugins. Concerning this Mr. Nembrini really does an outstandingly great job, which this new simulation proves once again.

I have also tested the plugin with some pedals in front, SD-1 and Klon Centaur for example sound quite good, if you look for even some more gain, but the two pedals, which I really like in front is a RAT or an OCD. With both pedals this plugin gets a nice, more aggressive, heavier, but still very vivid, organic, slightly more British voiced tone, which you in a blind test hardly identified as a typical Fender tone and with which you easily can even play Hard Rock or even some more modern, much heavier stuff flawlessly.

Other pedals, like tape echo, spring reverb, Univibe, tremolo, ... of course also work well with these amp tones.

Only a few controls, but a lot of really great tones, which are simply, but effectively adjustable.

Great all round amp (simulation) in my opinion, independent from any musical style or genre and for me the best sounding and also most flexible Fender amp simulation, which I have heard up to now.

For me the by far best and most organically and naturally sounding reverb plugin, which I ever have heard.

The basic sounds have - in a very positive way - a lot of vintage character, some sort of Fifties / Sixties reverb character, in other words, it reminds me of a very unique combination of a very good plate reverb with a very good spring reverb, so it sounds very unique, but also great.

But it does not stop there, it offers a lot of options for individual adjustments and tweaking as well as some really very different sounding presets, which offer almost endless possibilities from short doubling up to really large hall, almost cathedral reflections, which all sound very different, if compared to common ambient reverbs, which usually sound too digitally and synthetically for my taste.

As a guitarist I like the basic tones a lot, you can even add some saturation to the reverb, vintageize the tone even more with the Legendary control, smooth the sound with the Lush control, or also create more modern voiced reverbs, but you hardly will find a setting which sounds digital, sterile or synthetic here, so it also works very well with almost every source, vocals, drums, bass, synthesizer, ...

Early and late reflections can be adjusted and modified independently, dampening affects long, mid and short reflections differently and you always have the feeling that you use a very good analog unit, not a digital plugin.

Not the cheapest reverb plugin, but in my opinion really worth the price. You hardly will need any other one. In my opinion.

Unusual, but in my opinion very useful concept.

A lot of good sounding and working modules to individually shape your own sound, you can build and tweak your own amp simulation, your own overdrive, distortion pedal, but also a lot of other good sounding effects, effect combinations and sound shaping tools are included.

This plugin can be used as very individually adjustable amp simulation, as a virtual pedalboard or both, or even more.

The spring reverb, only as an example, sounds really good, if properly adjusted, the IR module offers some good working IR presets, but, what I like even more, it also allows loading of external .wav IR's, which in my opinion is a very useful feature.

For a freeware plugin it is an excellent, flexible tool, sound quality is very good, also if compared with some commercial solutions, although this kind of flexible modular system (mainly) for guitar players at the moment anyway seems to be very unique in the market.

My personal additional wishes, maybe for the future, would be an additional Phaser and Univibe/Leslie/Rotary module and a midi-controllable Wah module in the fx section.

Even more interesting could be - at least for me - a typical, complete Tweed and Plexi tube preamp section as modules, maybe also a modern high-gain preamp, but also eg. a typical Class A Single Ended and a complete Push-Pull power amp with authentic long tail pair phase inverter module, in the best case with different tube options. (Class A: EL84, 6V6, Push-Pull: EL34, 6L6, 5881, KT88, ...).

Then this plugin could really become an "all you ever need" solution for guitarists.

But also as it is, a very nice plugin. Even more, as it is freeware! Thank you very much.

To be honest, I personally am not really a fan of most of the Mercuriall amp simulations, alo not really of neural network based plugins. The Reaxis sounds good, but I'm no real Mesa Boogie fan, while the Spark's Marshall simulations could not seriously convince me. The Euphoria sounds averagely good, but not outstanding, for my taste too "nice". too polite, the typical punch, heaviness, but also the tube character of the real amp is missing too much for my taste, but also a Bogner is not really my sonic homebase. Too many knobs, too little great, unique tones, to say it simple. I prefer one or two perfect, authentic tones instead of some dozens, which only come close to maybe 80 to 90%, but do not really hit the spot.

Quite the opposite is this - cheapest - (preamp) simulation, they offer. Sonically very flexible, 3 channels from 2 slightly different voiced units, the A offfers more (vintage) bass, the B a tighter, more modern voiced bass, while everything else remains the same. Choosing 12AX7 or 6N2P tubes also makes a difference.

The additional features, noise gate, the different, very good sounding overdrive pedals (especially the Greed Smasher and the SD-1), cabinet IR loader, reverb IR loader, mono/stereo mode makes this plugin a very flexible working horse. As a standalone solution equally well, as if used in a DAW.

Sonically the three channels cover almost everything, you need, the Clean channel offers nice, Fender voiced clean tones, although some additional American crunch would not have been a disadvantage at higher gain levels. the Crunch channel is sonically - for my ears - Marshall (hot rodded) Plexi territory with a lot of gain, maybe even already too much, a starting point with less gain, which also enables some better adjustable semi-clean to cleaner crunch tones I personally would have preferred, nevertheless the tones sound really very good, react well, sound authentically and are widely adjustable, while the lead channel has a similar voicing but offers even more gain, also sounds good, for me maybe comparable with the lead channel(s) of a VH-4, which also can be seen as a compliment.

These critics of course rather concern the basic design of the real AMT pedals, but this is complaining at a high level, the plugin itself offers some nice features as the reverb IR loader and really very convincing sounding tube (per)amp tones, which you easily can refine with your favorite cabinet IR's, in case you do not use the built-in ones, which in general also do a good job. But I personally usually prefer using some of my favorite speakers, I am not really a G12M nor a V30 fan, I prefer eg. an ET-90, V-Type and of course, the very rare, for me sonically almost unbeatable Sidewinder. Sounds gorgeous here and loading external IR's is easy and works well, which is not always the case.

I did not really miss a power amp section, as the tones just sound right, as they are, the sound, feel and are playable very much like a real tube amp.

Input volume adjustment also additionally can improve the tones, in this case more is not necessarily better.

For me personally the best sounding Mercuriall plugin.

For all the useful features and the sonic quality the regular price already is a bargain, if Mercuriall offers it at reduced price, even more.

In the same quality also a simulation of eg. the Gurus Double Decker Mk. II, of the Victory The Sheriff pedal or of the Koch Pedaltone Mk. I would be nice in my opinion.

Or an - in my opinion - urgently necessary sonic upgrade of Spark...

Addition, after I had the chance to run the plugin against the real pedals:

The plugin sounds good, but in direct comparison the tones of the real pedals and the plugin still are worlds apart. The Clean channel of the plugin has some digital treble harshness, which I did not like, while the Clean Channel of the pedal has a much warmer, sweeter sound with much more real tube character, a really good, professional, Fender-based clean to semi-clean tone, the same concerns Crunch and Lead channels, the one of the pedals just sound more organic, have more real tube amp character, sound much more like a typical Marshall-based tube amp, even with the stock EHX tubes.

So, even if the plugin is AMT approved, there is still some place left for sonic improvements, especially concerning a more accurate, more authentically sounding and behaving, more breathing and a sweeter, more organically behaving tube amp character.

The general character matches, but the plugin - in my opinion - comes close to the real gear up to maybe 85 - 89%, 99 - 100% would be a much more convincing result for me.

The basic for this fine-tuning is already there...

Long overdue, that this legendary amp gets a good simulation, as it has a very special, very own sound, which, despite of some, also existing similarities, rather differs more from a typical vintage Vox, Marshall or Orange. From modern high-gain amps anyway completely.

Some sort of very unique clean to semi-clean British sound, which you hardly can get out of modern multi-channel-amps as little as out of any pedals. Think of the typical The Who or Pink Floyd sound, cleaner than a Plexi, but with good dynamics, excellent harmonics and, if needed, a lot of sustain due to the vintage power amp saturation.

For me personally these British clean to decent, transparent overdrive tones always sounded very fascinating and I always preferred them over any typical American clean to semi-clean tones.

Typical Nembrini quality, sonically as good and convincing as the Voice DC30 and the Mrh 159.

The P50E speakers seem to do a good job, but I personally would have preferred a cabinet with some - in my opinion - more authentic Fane Purplebacks instead. Or alternatively a cabinet with some Goodmans or Simms Watts speakers. But ok, these IR's you can easily get somewhere else and load them by yourself.

Great work, thank you.