This is very clever. Now if you have a question about changing settings or how to do something, you don’t have to search help, just launch this plug-in and watch a video tutorial from MacProVideo. Of course, you have to be a member to watch, but you can download the plug-in free.
Great to see Leslie getting ready for a new release.
As a guitar player of 25 years, I have quite a bit of analog gear in my studio. Currently I have 23 guitars, eight amps and all kinds of pedals. As a computer nerd, I’ve watched the guitar amp emulation grow to impressive levels over the last decade, but never have I been more impressed with an amp plug-in than I was with the new ENGL amp bundle from Brainworx and Universal Audio.
The favorite amp in my collection is a 1988 Marshall JCM800 Head running through a 4 x12 1960A Cabinet. That amp will scream, but it can also sound gritty and bluesy and warm, and with a good hard strum of the strings, it will tear your head off. In my opinion, that’s what most amp emulations are missing.
There are a few factors that go into making a good amp emulation. One of them is obviously the tone—you want a JCM800 (or in this case, an ENGL) amp emulation to sound like the original. Many software amps can sound like a Marshall, but they have the same tone no matter what you do to configure it. They are missing the key ingredient, which is the dynamics.
When I play the strings of my 800 softly, I get a totally different tone than I do when I strum them hard. If I back off the volume knob a little, the tone cleans up significantly, giving me the freedom to play many types of music without ever engaging a pedal.
One of the things I’ve learned over the years is to use the amp first and pedals second. I dial in the amp and get everything I can out of it—I use its tone and dynamics to build my sound. You can’t always get that from software.
To my surprise, I did get a lot of that from the new ENGL amp plug-ins. The new amps are modeled after the ENGL E646 VS and the E765 Retro Tube. The VS has four channels—two lead, crunch and clean—that give you lots of choices when building the tracks for a song.
I don’t have an ENGL amp—although it is on my list of amps I want—but I have played through ENGLs in the past. Being a metal guy, I love the high gain channel of the VS. It has this low-end growl that just inspires you to play. The other channels give you the versatility to play almost anything. I was actually surprised with how well it sounded on the clean channel. I really like the sound of a tasteful chorus on a clean sound and when dialed-in, this sounds heavenly.
I must say, I thought the VS would be my favorite of the two plug-ins, but it wasn’t. The Retro Tube is amazing. It’s a two-channel amp that gives you some warm saturated tone and some nice heavy grit on the second channel. This amp plug-in is just full of tone.
I made two audio samples, one for each amp. I switched through the channels on both amps, so you can hear the difference. I purposely used the default settings and I didn’t play anything specific, I just noodled around. I played slow, soft, fast and hard, so you can also hear the difference the dynamics make. Listen to the saturation on the VS—it’s like you are pushing the amp a little too much and you get that wonderful warm sound out of it.
Both amps feature an effects rack that includes a Gate, simple EQ, Delay, Record Chains, Input Gain, Power Soak and the ability to bypass the pre or power amp. The Input Gain is especially nice if you have a single coil guitar and need to boost the input a bit.
One of the real treats of the ENGL amp plug-ins is the Record Chain section. This is where Brainworx owner Dirk Ulrich recorded the ENGL amps using his Neve VXS 72 Console—one of only nine ever made. There are 64 miked and EQed cabinet presets to choose from. You can also audition the presets by manually clicking through them, or by choosing the number of bars you want each preset to be available and let the plug-in automatically switch.
Someday I will have these amps in my studio, but I’m quite happy with the work that Brainworx and Universal Audio did with these ENGL amps. The attention to detail with amp dynamics alone make these amps a must-have.
All about the story behind one of the most popular (and enduring) coin-op arcade hits of the 80s.
There’s an interesting bit about halfway through talking about Apple’s increased presence in India of late. That’s a potentially huge market for Apple.
These are great. Much respect to Amazon and their customers for the laugh.
An interesting look at stock buybacks.
Mathew Carella gives some thoughts and examples on writing good CSS.
Duck Dynasty star Jase Robertson:
“I asked where the bathroom was and he said, ‘Right this way, sir.’ He was very nice,” Robertson shared on Live With Kelly & Michael. “He walked me outside, pointed down the road and said, ‘Good luck.'”
Stuff like this happens to me as well. It especially pisses me off when it happens in the hotel I’m staying at.
Matt Gemmell:
Whatever a person’s excuse might be, it’s difficult to get past the idea that this is someone who has failed to comprehend and internalise the rules of a language they’ve used almost every day of their life. That’s the magnitude of the negative impression being created. It’s like publicly, repeatedly demonstrating that you can’t tell the time, or count – and that you bizarrely don’t see those deficiencies as particularly worrisome or problematic.
I’ll be the first to admit that I make some very stupid mistakes when I write. They are not from lack of understanding and it horrifies me each time it happens. (I took extra time with this post).
Jim and Dan discuss Apple’s September 10th event, a lower-cost iPhone, Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 update, App Store vs. Google Play revenue, and more.
Sponsored by Hover (use code DANSENTME for 10% off), Squarespace (use code DANSENTME8 for 10% off), Shutterstock (use code DANSENTME8 for 30% off), and Smile.
Can’t wait for this. Documents one of the most important indie labels of the 1980s – they had bands like Front 242, KMFDM, The KLF, Laibach, Ministry and many others.
(Thanks to Dan Frakes on Twitter for the info.)
Ron Offringa:
Last week in my opinion piece about why I think Android users should consider the Moto X I opened up the article with an admission: I currently use an iPhone 4S and I plan on getting the next iPhone. This wasn’t supposed to be a secret (if you follow me on Twitter then you would have noticed that I use iOS most of the time). On the Droid Life Show I have shown my iPhone and discussed using my iPad. That said, I know that a lot of readers did not know, and more importantly, were surprised or upset to read that I use an iPhone.
Much respect Ron.
CARROT is a hilariously twisted AI construct who wants nothing more than for you to get out of bed every morning. Her witty spoken dialogue, beautiful songs, and innovative wake-up system will have you starting each day with a smile on your face.
If you have to wake up, it might as well be “hilariously twisted.”
Cool app that helps you plan ahead for upcoming expenses. I like apps like this that do one thing and do it well.
In this issue, Rene Ritchie looks at the future of human interface and how iOS 7 has given him a glimpse into the future; Matt Gemmell remembers Dire Straits’ Alchemy Live; Canadian rock star, Ra McGuire from Trooper, talks about his life with the F-Word; Chris Domico is frustrated about how the Internet has turned us into idiots; and Matt Dusenbury analyzes Apple’s “Designed in California” ad campaign.
You can preview all of the articles online or download the app for iPhone and iPad, and subscribe with a seven-day free trial.
People are scared of beards.
This is just weird. Go to any YouTube video and when it starts playing type:
1980
A missile command game comes up and starts to attack the video. You may have to type it in a few times before it works.
Benedict Evans:
A new, cheaper, high-volume iPhone would have the potential to mitigate or even reverse this trend. Clearly, like current low-end Android, it would sell to a demographic with a lower average engagement and purchase rate and so the average iOS rates would drop. However, it would mean that iOS’s reach would expand significantly at the expense of Android. How would a $200 or $300 iPhone sell? Easily double digit millions, possible up to 50m units a quarter.
Great article.
Headlines blazed across the Internet this week that Google Play revenue grew by 67 percent, while Apple’s App Store only grew by 15 percent during the same time. Something about that seemed odd to me.
I’m no Horace Dediu, so please forgive my simplistic look at this, but when I looked at the stories, I realized that the research company didn’t actually provide any revenue numbers. How do they know the revenue from either company? It seems they are trying to work it out themselves, but that’s a guess at best.
Even Google will only say that “they’ve paid more money to developers this year already than all of last year.” They don’t provide any revenue at all, but say users have downloaded 50 billion apps.
Apple gives us some numbers to work with. At WWDC Apple said it paid $10 billion to developers since the App Store opened—$5 billion in the last year alone. Apple says it has 900,000 apps available and over 50 billion downloads from the App Store.
Since we don’t know how much Google has in revenue, 67 percent of thin air, doesn’t really mean a whole lot. Let’s assume that Apple’s growth is accurate1, 15 percent of billions of dollars seem pretty significant to me.
Who knows what’s accurate with research companies these days. ↩
It looks pretty good. I still think Calendar and Contacts look a bit stark, but not as much on the Web site with the subtle color changes.
Bare Bones Software of Wednesday announced the release of Yojimbo 4.0, a new version of their digital junk drawer app for the Mac. The new release is available for download from their Web site – it’s no longer available through the Mac App Store.
To manage sync in Yojimbo, Bare Bones has turned to Wasabi Sync, a third party sync service provider that supports Apple’s Core Data API. It’s no secret that some developers have had significant problems implementing iCloud Syncing in a way that works well for themselves and their customers; Bare Bones president Rich Siegel made a blog post earlier this year explaining the issues in detail.
Full screen support has been added for the main Yojimbo window and for information item windows, along with updates for improved appearance on Retina displays.
Marketcircle makes some great products for Mac and iOS.
Reports of “faulty” GPS, “buggy” multitouch, “jittery” scrolling and an ecosystem that “still lags iOS” weren’t enough to stop Google’s latest Nexus 7 from getting a stellar review on par with Apple’s iPad mini.
I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. Now we wait to get it.
This is great.
Larry Ellison talking about Google’s Larry Page:
“We just think they took our stuff, and that was wrong,” Ellison said in an interview with Charlie Rose on “CBS This Morning,” which was aired on Tuesday.
When asked if he thought Page was evil, Ellison replied: “I think what they did was absolutely evil.” He fell short of vilifying the man himself as evil.
Paul Thurrott:
A proposed class action lawsuit has been filed against Microsoft on behalf of its shareholders, alleging that the firm lied about the financial performance of its Surface RT tablet. The surprise revelation that sales were much less than expected came months later than required by law, the suit says, and immediately “eviscerated” $34 billion of Microsoft’s market value, materially impacting shareholders.
The suit names Microsoft as well as Steve Ballmer, Peter Klein, Frank Brod and Tami Reller as defendants.
The news for Microsoft and the Surface RT just keeps getting worse.
Very smart article from John Gruber. Also note that Gruber refers to a possible new iPhone as “lower-cost” and “lower-priced”—I don’t expect this phone to be cheap in any way.
Early Bird tickets are available for another great looking conference in San Francisco.
Every time Universal Audio asks what I want next from them, the first thing on my list is an amplifier plug-in—today they delivered. With a tagline of “No Pain. All Gain.”, UA released the ENGL amplifier plug-in.
UA does the best emulations of analog gear in the business, so I’m sure this will quickly become one of my favorites. I’m going to download and try it out.