NeuralDSP Plugins.

fretmeister

I've got a few of these already - the Nolly X, Nameless, Cali X and so on, but I downloaded the trials of the Morgan Amp Suite and the Tone King Imperial suite to give them a try while their black Friday deal is on.

They are both fantastic. I have to say I have not tried a real Morgan or Tone King amp so I have no accuracy opinion, but just as sounds go, they sound amazing. Unlike many plugins they really seem to get the top end sparkle right. that seems to be a real challenge for plugins and modellers but these are ace.

There's a bit of cross over in the sounds - big clean, chimy sort of thing, with trad / vintage drive when pushed - so now I need to decide which one I'd really like to have and use a lot!

duotone

I downloaded the 14 day trial of the Tone King Imperial MKII on Saturday: https://neuraldsp.com/plugins/tone-king-imperial-mkii

I’ve played around with it for about 1 hour so far & I’m really enjoying it, it sounds great.  I have previously tried the Morgan Amp Suite too & that sounded great too.

I like that the Neural plugins are standalone & don’t need a DAW to be open to use them. Also the Tuner & Metronome come in handy. 

fretmeister

I've emailed Neural and they've kindly given me another trial period on some I've trialled before - the Rabea, Mesa MkiiC, and the Soldano.

I've already bought the Mantra this time round, but I think I can scrape enough together for 1 more.

The Morgan is definitely in the running, but the Rabea has an amazing fuzz effect, and fuzzes are so difficult to get right on a plugin.

ARRGGHHH - decisions decisions!

Brio

I have the Morgan, TK Imp and Soldano packs.  

I may still get another before the deal ends. All are excellent. They are sounding good in my Nano Cortex too. 

steveh

I have had Soldano for a couple of years and its all I need. Tempted by a lot of others but haven't bitten yet.

I mean, if Knopfler, Clapton, Moore, Mayer, and all of the 80s hair metal guys used it, you know that amp can do anything: It's not obliatory to only use the OD channel with everything on 10!

IIRC, Plini was a very close second.

nick79

I bought the Fortin Nameless x yesterday, it’s incredible. I use Amplitube, tonex and helix and the Neural plug in for me blows all of them away. 

Very tempted to get a quad cortex now to replace the tonex and hx stomp. 

NickBotfield

steveh said:

It's not obligatory to only use the OD channel with everything on 10!

Merely strongly encouraged.

Lodious

I bought the SLO-100...bit gainy for my alt-county tastes, but good fun. Seams to have a similar compression characteristic to the Neural Cory Wong amp (not a bad thing...just an observation)

fretmeister

I went with the Rabea in the end - that Fuzz sound is excellent to the point I wish it was in a pedal.

Lewy

Got the Soldano after mulling it over until the last minute. Seems quite versatile beyond the trademark sound, which obviously it nails too.

Brio

I’m loving and capturing the Soldano plugin a lot.

MrTee

Do I need iLock to use these?

nero1701

MrTee said:

Do I need iLock to use these?

They do work stand alone, 

fretmeister

nero1701 said:

MrTee said:

Do I need iLock to use these?

They do work stand alone, 

After you've used iLok to activate them on your machine.

Software iLok though - not a dongle.

fretmeister

I should also say - you get 3 activations, and you can deactivate and move them.

Can even sell them if you want - NeuralDSP support is really good.

melod

Tried most of them and I agree they are really good. I think that in terms of overall easy of use /UX they are the best.

Not that other plugins and captures are bad but it was definitely a better “out of the box” experience.

Too bad I cannot afford their quad cortex.

Their Omega Ampworks plug in is actuallly quite amazing and super simple to get great sounds.

my only “complaint” is that a lot of the plugins cover similar grounds but I guess they are artist and rig focused.

scovell001

I have the nolly x, the slo100 & the tone king. Recently tried out the Morgan & the John Mayer - I think their all really good, I still think amplitude 5 free version is the best for an overall clean tone - however, the slo100 is simply wonderful for pretty much everything, I think I’m gonna have to buy a real one ! 

monquixote

Apparently the sale will be on shortly so I got all the trials to see if I want to buy one.

Here is a brief summary:

Misha Mansoor
I thought this wouldn't be for me, but it's got an amazing clean channel which is a JC-120 / Lonestar hybrid (possibly the best of all of them) and some wonderful effects including a model of a Hologram Microcosm and a Space Station as well as his sig drive and compressor which are superb. 
The only thing that stops me from buying it is the dirty amps (Peavey Invective and HBE) are stupidly tight and you can't dial it out so it's only useful for drop tuned metal.
Probably the best value after the....

Rabea
Amazing value, probably best bang for the buck as it includes a synth (which TBH I wouldn't use) as well as modelling his whole pedal board including Cali 76, Revival Drive, 2 fuzz pedals POG, and Timeline and Big sky as well as a really nice Twin Reverb and a VX Kraken. 
The Kraken has a very solid JCM 800 tone, but the high gain is modelled on a 5150 and doesn't sound as good as the 5150 in the Nolly, Gojira, or Misha amps

Petrucci 
Nice, but not amazing cleans, very good rhythm gain amp, but the high gain is just a worse sounding voice of the mid gain.
Loads of FX, but nothing spectacular, the FX controls are really hard to read. The acoustic thing is a bit of a boondoggle and doesn't sound like an acoustic. It's also super expensive.

Cory Wong
I was so disappointed with this. 
I love Cory Wong, but honestly I thought the clean amps on the Misha, Rabea and Asato were much better. Didn't really like it at all, but I know others love it.

Nolly
Very versatile bundle with a Shiva Clean, JCM 800, 5150 and Victory Duchess, I didn't really like the clean amp or the victory which are both a bit muddy. The JCM800 is pretty decent (not as good as the Rabea) and the 5150 is ace though not as good as the Gojira.  
FX are relatively generic compared to some of the newer ones.

Nameless
I thought this wouldn't be of interest as it's the Meshuggah amp, but just WOW, this is a legend for a reason. Probably the most accurate sounding plexi I've ever heard just very touch sensitive for anything from Zeppelin to absolutely crushing levels of gain.
Not great value as you get one single channel amp and very basic delay and reverb + a couple of drives, no compressor or modulation, but I don't think I've ever heard an amp sim that sounded so insanely good. Will probably be buying this.

Gojira 
This one is vicious as you would imagine for a Gojira plugin. Essentially 3 channels of an EVH 5150. Sounds absolutely massive. 
Also has a load of really superb effects including great phaser and chorus, pitch shifter and a rat. Tape delay and a shimmer reverb.
You can even get a reasonable clean out of it (though it's not going to be a first choice for anyone).
Of the many 5150 and high gain models in the various Neural plugins this is probably the best unless you want the super clanky raw Nameless.
I'm very tempted to get this.

Plini 
Found this to be a disappointment 
Didn't like the clean at all, it's very flat and hifi, the rhythm is nice, but a bit smooth, the lead is so smooth as to be really not to my taste unless you what to do fusion shredding.
FX are basic other than a nice fuzz and no mix on the compressor also the dials are hard to read 

Mateus Asato
Surprisingly I REALY liked this one considering I figured it would be another smoothie fest.
Channel one is a DC30 and nails the lovely chime of a Vox it's brilliant for indie rhythm
Chanel 2 is a lonestar which isn't as nice as on the Misha, but pretty solid
The lead channel is a friedman and is a little too smooth, but nice for liquid leads.
Superb FX section; Diamond Comp, Timmy, Rat, Modulator with lovely Chorus and Trem
Post FX have a brilliant rack tape delay and reverb 

Only annoyance is it could really do with a tightening drive to get some more rock tones as everything is a but polite, but this was once of the biggest surprises as super versatile and very good value.

Tone King
Some really nice tweed sounds on this one although it's quite hard to get sparking clean sounds. You can get a great early Zepp or Aerosmith small amp about to explode sound. 
Spring Reverb is a bit disappointing and the presets were rubbish so I had to work quite hard to dial it in, but the results were worth it.

Fortin Cali 
This is a good sounding JCM800 on steroids, type plugin, but I think it's showing it's age and needs to be updated to the X version as it was flickering on my machine and the UI was hard to use. 

fretmeister

I got the Rabea last time round and I love it.

The best plugin fuzz I've ever heard - to the point that I don't use a real fuzz pedal when recording now. Before I always felt I needed a real fuzz.

On the next sale I might get the Mesa Mk2C one. I did like that and it's a bit different to the others I have.

fretmeister

Also - last time I got the Mantra vocal suite and it's ace.

And, I discovered that it can be used to sort out dodgy vocals for Zoom meetings too. Makes it sound far better than the stock Zoom options for sound.

flying_pie

fretmeister said:

Also - last time I got the Mantra vocal suite and it's ace.

And, I discovered that it can be used to sort out dodgy vocals for Zoom meetings too. Makes it sound far better than the stock Zoom options for sound.

Can you use plugins for Teams? I'd love to attend a work meeting with a T-Pain style autotuned microphone