HONEST AMP SIM REVIEWS!!

[Bombadil]

What about sims that come in DAWs? Logic X has one, it's passable, I suppose.

Anyways, I have 2: Amplitube 4 and Scuffham amps. The reviews of those sims match my experience with them. Scuffham is my 'go to' sim. Between these 2 and my VOX AC-15, I'm good.

[HASR]

Thanks for the very kind words and suggestions!

The DAW amps are coming, the reviews are set for this month and they will be up shortly. I put them on our list when I responded to the other member that mentioned them. We just couldn't start anything new until after today. Going up today we have a couple of "best of 2018" features and three trivia giveaways at 12pm 6pm and 12am EST.

We realized that we announced on KVR before we were ready and there was a lot wrong with our page at the time. It was the KVR members that alerted us to the issues as well as helping us fine tune the page. We wanted to thank everyone in here that helped us out.

[Burillo]

i've checked out Amplitube 4 review. i'd give it a 2/10 score. the review, not Amplitube. a lot of general language (e.g. Amplitube is "not professional grade" software - what does that mean, exactly?), but little to no specifics. it doesn't read like an "honest" review, nor is it any kind of in-depth review - if anything, it reads like the person writing it isn't really that familiar with Amplitube, doesn't know its ups and downs very well, and didn't actually bother to review Amplitube and its functionality.

what is missing? well, unlike authors, i can actually provide some specifics. off the top of my head - there's no mention of the (very feature-rich) cab section and the fact that it's possible to swap not just cabinets and mics, but also speakers; no mention of the fact that there's latency that cannot be switched off; no mention of ability to do parallel FX chains; no mention of looper/recording functionality; no mention of the fact that Amplitube 4 finally has an effects loop; no mention of the fact that Amplitube is one of the few amp sims including a Whammy emulation... the author also seems to be oblivious of Amplitube's history, which explains why some models sound better than others (hint: some models are old and go as far back as Amplitube 1), and the author also didn't bother to mention which specific models did he think were "so-so", which ones were better, etc., and on top of that, the asinine recommendation to go for the MAX bundle, when in fact the ability to purchase gear a-la carte is one of Amplitube's selling points (wow, look at that - no mention of Gear Credits either!), and is a great way to save money without buying loads of crap you don't need. (no mention of IK's transfer policy either...)

and that's just off the top of my head. i could write a better review in my sleep. what you have there, isn't a review by any stretch of the imagination.

[Bombadil]

^^Has some good points.

[abi]

i have read some of your reviews (plugins which i also own) and found that your scores were quite like those which i would have given them, which pleases me in the sense that it makes your reviews look „honest“ to me personally.
on the other hand i understand burillos criticism because many of the reviews are quite shallow. it is somehow understandable that it is a lot of work to review every single amp of say amplitube, thermionik or revalver in depth as they all have so many models. but, if you call your site „honest amp reviews“ you automatically generate expectations.
I can see the dilemma though. if you wanted to review every model of every plugin in depth it would take ages, which contradicts the idea of presenting an overview of whats available to the user now and not in 3 years time. if i was in your place i would take the slow route and present the users reviews which are extensive and balanced (you could revise the reviews already written one by one). or, if you want to stick to your pace and the depth of reviews as they are now, i would consider a rebranding. like emphasizing the database/overview character instead of a morally loaded concept like „honesty“...good luck!

p.s.: did you consider sound demos?

[SirkusPi]

Burillo is obviously correct that the reviews are not in depth. However, as others above have also mentioned, the website's reviews of the plugins I do own are consistent with my general feelings, so I tend to "trust" the bottom line opinions on the plugins I don't have. I strongly believe that there is a place for this website, that it's off to a worthy if imperfect start, and I very much look forward to seeing how the various components - not just reviews, but tutorials, contests, etc. - develop.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I dunno...I just gave Helix a demo based on the overwhelmingly positive rating compared to Amplitube, and couldn't disagree more with their assessment. In general, the amps in Helix did very little for me. The Fender sims and AC30's had a hard edge to them that I just didn't like at all and felt very same-y. Though I got some nice 800 tones once paired up with the ribbon microphones. In general, I thought the Helix effects though were quite good. Another negative: it seemed like Helix was designed to let you control it via Line6 hardware hardware, but not via traditional MIDI. Or maybe I just couldn't figure that part out but I wanted to use my MIDI expression pedal to control the pedal position of the wah or Whammy and couldn't figure this out. And that GUI? Awful to work with. Then there's weird things like 1 microphone per cab (you can load a second cab though), and there's this huge volume drop-off when you move the mic position further back. Granted, a microphone a foot away from an amp will not be as loud as one on the grill, but the level of dropoff is extreme and would be compensated for with microphone preamp gain in a studio setting if the level was too low. Anyway, I spent a few hours with Helix today and would rate it a 6 out of 10 based on my own tastes and experience.

On the other hand, Amplibute has quite a few great amps (Slash 800, Fender Collection 2, a handful of others - even some of the older ones). The stomps aren't the best, but the rack effects are good, the GUI is a pleasure to work with, and there's all the cool tweaks like being able to swap out speakers, mix multiple microphones, etc. Sure, on the whole there are the some big duds that IK should either update or just relegate to the legacy bin, but there's a lot to like about Amplitube 4.

As to the site itself, I didn't have the easiest time finding the reviews I was looking for. I'd suggest overhauling the navigation and having an "overview" table somewhere on the site with sortable columns for 1) company, 2) product name, 3) rating, 4) price along with a quick description of what each sim/package offers. Beyond that, breaking out the manufacturers/sims in a Wiki style layout would also make navigating from review to review a lot easier. If I'm reading the Amplitube 4 review, I should only be a single click away from the Helix review (via either a Wiki style left-hand navigation) or maybe even a dropdown. Also, was it just me or were there a lot of references to stoner rock tones? If that's what you play, that's cool, but there's more to tone than just that.

Generally, when I'm demoing an amp sim package, I'm generally concerned with things like...

1) How are the Fender style cleans? Can it do country, clean blues, 80s jangle, etc.?
1A) How are the pick dynamics on the cleans? Good touch response?
2) How does the amp sim do with driven, bluesy/classic rock tones?
3) Is it good for crunch tones? Is it on the bright side of the spectrum with lots of ear peircing content? Big lows? How are the mids?
4) What about the high-gain area? Talking Mesa and metal tones here. Is there just a big chunk of undefined bassy-mess with these sims, or can you actually hear the notes?
5) How about the cab/microphones? Are they impulse responses? If so, good? If not, how are they being done? How's it sound?
6) Any effects? How do they sound? Passable, just good enough, or actually good?
7) How does the amp sim take pedals in front (talking hardware).
How's the MIDI control?
9) Latency?

That'll tell me what the package's strengths and weaknesses are. Now, I might be loading up different amps to answer those questions if it's a big package of amps, or if it's just a single amp, a lot of those questions may not apply. But when I'm looking for a "Line 6 Helix" or "Amplitube 4 Max" review, I expect all those questions to be answered in the review, with some information about which amps check which boxes, and/or any tips/tricks/insights the reviewer can offer.

Lastly, I'd like to see reviews for Cytomic's The Scream (best Tube Screamer in plugin land by quite a bit IMO), and some of SKNote's recent offerings. I really like the SKNote Deluxe1 for example.

[Burillo]

I didn't mean to imply that i expect to see every single included model to be reviewed. Rather, i would like to see some examples of whatever it is that's being talked about, and would like to see some actual functionality review as well. Like, what do you find useful that isn't included in other sims? What do you miss? You know, specifics.

[HASR]

Alrighty, well I hate doing the multi quotes but I want to try and answer everyone's questions and address suggestions if I may. This is going to be a novel no doubt.I am going to group all the thoughts by user at risk of some run on looking paragraphs.

First, thanks for checking out the page, there's still a lot of work to do but we are working on it. The design is a simple wordpress design that we employed for the beta and early stages. We wanted to keep it very simple and easy going while we got to know how wordpress worked. To be honest, none of us had even one second of web design experience before this so we sort of went off the cuff and learned as we went. We plan to redo the page design while also adding soundclips sometime in March. The quick links on the right side cover most of the main destinations and hubs so we thought that might be enough.

To Burillo, you made a lot of amazing points. I am going to personally redo the Amplitube review and add to the current review. I will personally get more in depth with the product. When we started, we didn't take the time to really fine tune a review/scoring system for the full amp suites like Amplitube. You are correct in assuming that not enough time was spent with some of the full amp suites. I too find they are lacking. As a result, the reviews for the full amp suites really aren't overly uniform. I have it on my list to add to some depth to all the full amp suites. Lesson learned on our part. The other thing I want you to keep in mind is that we try not to be negative if we don't have to be and in my opinion, a plugin can have 9000 features but what good are they if they aren't executed with quality? I am not saying this is the case because the review is light for sure but I just wanted to give you our perspective at times.

To Abi, thanks for all the solid points made as well. Again I would like to mention the uniformity issues we had. We had a reviewer that wanted to be the "edgy" personality of the bunch. You know, the type with no buffer that tells it how it is but really he's just trying to be a dick? I was ok with it to a point until I decided the reviews just didn't need to be rude to be honest and he is still determined to make his own page of venting style reviews. We aren't going to help anyone or ourselves by being unprofessional. That said, the few negative reviews on the page that I have approved and two that I did myself were honestly really difficult for me. I personally reviewed one pretty rough sim in particular and I tried everything in the book to get a good tone but the quality just wasn't there. Reviewing a sub par product on a page where your mandate is to review everything is difficult. Where many pages are selective in their reviews, we don't have that luxury. It becomes even more difficult when the bar is constantly being raised with higher quality stuff. How is one to review a below average amp sim that sounds unfinished or perhaps has become too dated to use? Yes our whole deal here was to write simple and to the point reviews. Reviews that are aimed at the average user rather than beginners or advanced users because that way everyone of all levels can hopefully pull something from every review.

To Funkybot's Evil Twin, I also sent you a PM but I wanted to respond to the great points you made. Regarding Helix and Amplitube, for me personally, the gap between the two is the size of a canyon, that's only my opinion. I haven't spent a lot of time with either one but even with minimal experience, the tones from Helix Native outperformed Amplitube by a considerable margin. I am taking a rip through all the full amp suites this weekend. I'll be putting a lot of time into each of them so let's see what more I can add to the reviews while trying to stay simplistic. Reviews on the Glue and Scream plugins from Cytomic are coming. I personally didn't like the fact that Cytomic was basically selling a scream beta with a lot of bugs in it and I still find it a little buggy at times but the potential for a really great plugin is there. I also struggled with reviewing tube screamers being that they are quite simple and there's a ton of tube screamer and boost plugins with very similar levels of quality. Personally I'd like to see companies stop making TS plugins for a bit and instead focus their efforts and talents on expanding the variety of pedals on the market. Regarding the Sknote stuff, I am reviewing the deluxe but we will have to wait on their pedal offerings. We buy most of our software so when we request an NFR and get denied or no response at all, the plugin goes on the "to buy" list. Since we are ad free, we can't always get stuff reviewed as quickly as we would have liked. We may set up a donation link eventually but I honestly don't really like the idea of begging for money for a venture I opted to start while fully knowing the potential costs involved.

To everyone, thanks very much for your help, suggestions and for even just stopping in to check out the page. We aren't all going to agree on everything but what I can promise you is that every product that we review is tested properly and thoroughly by people with experience that care about developers and consumers alike. I really do like to have the reviews read like a simple conversation that goes over the most notable features and generally how we felt about using the product. Ideally, when I read a review, I want to know one thing above everything else... "does it sound good?". In our reviews, we really focus more on the sound quality and joy of use than simply spilling you a features list copied from the product page.

We also review partially based on the developer's pitch. When a developer lists features in their product pitch, we make sure to review and analyze all of those features but we usually only talk about the ones we liked the most. Why am I going to tell you about a feature I didn't like? If I do that, the same people will come after us for being negative so why not try and stick to the positive aspects of the product? Our Positive Grid reviews for example are quite negative but the marketing behind the software can really tend to be intentionally misleading. I redid them and really put everything I could towards being positive.

(deeeeep inhale)... ok that's about it I think. Please, anyone and everyone, if you'd like to message me direct to discuss the page or a review etc, please don't hesitate. It may take me a couple days to reply but I will always reply.

ATTENTION: ALL of our giveaways will take place on weekends for the rest of the month instead of during the week. It will be easier to schedule and easier for people to play along if we do it on the weekends. This coming weekend we will be giving away a copy of STL Tones Tonality along with a ton of other prizes. We are also going to plan trivia and prize hunts for times that allow participation from overseas. The next prize hunt clue will be on Friday, Jan 4th at 8am

[Burillo]

To Funkybot's Evil Twin, I also sent you a PM but I wanted to respond to the great points you made. Regarding Helix and Amplitube, for me personally, the gap between the two is the size of a canyon, that's only my opinion. I haven't spent a lot of time with either one but even with minimal experience, the tones from Helix Native outperformed Amplitube by a considerable margin.

i agree that Helix's tones are better at default settings. however, it is important to note that (and i say this as a long time Amplitube fan and power user) Amplitube's biggest downfall is its cabinet section. if you bypass it and use your favourite impulses, it is much easier to get good tones. don't get me wrong - Amplitube's cab section is great at its core, however you have to know your cabinets (a lot of them just plain suck), and you also have to bear in mind that mics aren't phase aligned (meaning, the moment you start moving them around is the moment the sound goes to shit). IOW, you really need to get to know it very well before you'll be able to get good tones out of it. this is a huge problem, and is largely the reason why many people think Amplitube sounds like ass - because it does, unless you know what you're doing!

you might want to use this method for current and future reviews (i.e. bypass built-in cab section and try it with other stuff), as that way you can assess the amp tones themselves without cab's influence. that said (and this is where being familiar with the software you're reviewing comes into play), not all software behaves the same. for example, Revalver 4 does some kind of electrical simulation with built-in cabs that you won't get with external impulses unless you know about the cab bypass trick.

also, i really don't think you should lean one way or another. like, i don't care if you are trying to be positive or negative. all i care about is if you can back up what you say. if you don't like a feature - please tell me why, don't just omit it. if you like the feature - please tell me why. if you're "trying to be positive" you're not honest anymore

[SirkusPi]

It's become very clear that HASR should hire Burillo on as a reviewer - I'd definitely enjoy reading some in-depth guitar plugin reviews from him!

[Hewitt Huntwork]

HASR, keep doing what you're doing. Your positive attitude, transparency, and attention to users is all great and will take you far. I agree with Burillo that honesty requires addressing a sims shortcomings. I think you can do that without being negative. As software users, we're accustomed to seeing features or lack thereof listed as pros and cons. It's not an attack to address a shortcomings, especially for someone as thoughtful and respectful as you are.

As time passes and you're not as backlogged as at the site launch, maybe it would be cool to let everyone on your team weigh in on any sim they want, and we can get to know each reviewer's taste and style and use that knowledge to form broader opinions? Just a thought! I think you are kicking ass, keep going!

[HASR]

Loving the positive and helpful responses and suggestions everyone. We are down to three of us at the moment and all of us will be having a go at pretty much everything on the page eventually so there will be more uniformity across all of the reviews with the three of us weighing in on things. Many of us share a similar set of expectations when it comes to gear and as a result, it's worked out pretty well since thinning the herd.

[HASR]

To spread out the wealth and give more people a chance to win stuff we are going to be doing the giveaways a bit differently moving forward. It will no longer be the first person to email us. Readers will have a time frame to contact us and then we will put the names into the randompicker.com software. From now on users will have a 12 hours period for each prize giveaway to contact us with the answers to trivia or to find prize links and contact us.

This weekend all you need to do is share our giveaway post on your facebook and on Sunday we will announce the winner of STL TONES TONALITY!! Tonality is one of the better amp suites ever made in our opinion. This will be the ONLY facebook sharing based prize simply because we aren't huge fans of FB in general. https://www.facebook.com/Honest-Amp-Sim ... 2128924232

Two giveaways today (Jan 5th) on our facebook and website. www.honestampsimreviews.com

[surferman]

I've used Amplitube for years and while you can get decent sounds right away it is very important to adjust the inputs and settings to get the best sound. I also recently started using positive grid's Bias FX and Bias Amp2 and find the ratings for those packages don't match my experience at all. I understand you are trying to get going in a hurry but the reviews seemed rushed.