If you haven't heard of these yet I'm not sure where you've been. YouTube has plenty of clips featuring both. My video pretty much covers it but to those who can't watch the video right now. There were two amp sim plugins released quite recently.
One of them is the JST Misha Mansoor plugin that's sort of an all-in-one solution with a boost, 3 amp voicing for clean, drive and lead = 9 amp voicings altogether, IR loader and a bunch of effects.
The other one is the Neural DSP Fortin Nameless plugin that's a very accurate model of a Mike Fortin custom Meshuggah amplifier that's sort of a metal hotrodded plexi type amp. I know Neural DSP personally, they're the same people as Darkglass pedals that I'm sure at least your bass player knows and most likely uses. They're from Finland just like yours truly. Try the Darkglass drive model on your Fractal, it's amazing with bass.
Now here's where I come in...
So I've been promising all sorts of "soon" things to you guys and truth be told I'm working on so many projects right now that I've lost count. I hope to have "the main projects" out this year so stay tuned for some real "soon" action. Two of those projects are both of these plugins. I feel very fortunate to have someone like Misha be a friend of mine who really loves what I do. He is appreciated in the industry for a reason. He's one of the most talented unique guitar players of our time but not only that, he's always kind, nice and easy to work with. So when he asked me to be a part of the JST plugin I didn't hesitate. I went to the studio to shoot the best IR's I've shot yet... I shot two Cab Packs worth of IR's for this project. Sadly things didn't work out because of some miscommunication. The four IR's in the JST plugin are not mine but now I have two Cab Packs worth of IR's that I have no use for. Do you guys want them?
The Neural plugin however has a new kind of cabinet section that is all captured by me. Doug (Darkglass / Neural DSP) and I have been in contact for years now and since we're both from Finland and we love the idea that now f.ex. the Fortin Nameless plugin is 100% made in Finland. That stands for high quality in case you didn't know. I actually wasn't aware that the plugin was ready.
So are they any good?
They're pretty good! I think no one is expecting Fractal Audio quality from a plugin but truth be told I'm starting to trust plugin amp sims surprisingly much. If you want sparkling cleans, dirty crunches and djenty high gain and a bunch of effects in a plugin format, the Misha Mansoor plugin does deliver. That being said, Neural DSP is probably the highest quality plugin amp sim I've ever witnessed and there are many people in the industry who agree with me on this like Ola Englund and Ermin Hamidovic. I sure examined the amp modeling quite precisely and it's the closest thing to Fractal Audio amp modeling I've witnessed. That includes Kemper, Helix etc. Obviously it's just one amp sim and it's a metal amp sim. I tried post EQ at 400hz +7dB and I got quite a convincing Friedman type sound out of it and fellow Fractal user Leon Todd got a great rock tone out of it as well.
So to summarize. Check these cool plugins out if you're interested in having an amp modeler in a plugin format.
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