Guitar Multieffect Units

[zerocrossing]

I don’t need beautifully rendered photorealistic pictures of guitar amps and whatnot, but I feel like I’m adjusting attribute parameters on a stock market simulation when I’m using them. The way it deals with stereo is dumb. Amplitube looks better, but is also awkward in many respects. It went downhill, IMO.

So much this.

Helix's UI is awful and clumsy, while also being incredibly visually boring. Amplitube, on the other hand, got so much worse to work with between version 4 and 5. It became less intuitive and requires more clicks. The TONEX software also has an incredibly clumsy UI with far too many screens that can overlap each other and a bunch of bugs and unintuitive behaviors.

I don't know what's so hard about getting guitar software UI's right, but apparently it's very difficult. So much so, that even when a company had a pretty good UI, they feel the need to make it worse!

I think if Amplitube just went back and used some basic UX best practices, it could be brought back. One thing they all seem to miss is the ability to control basic amp functions while in the virtual cabinet-mic module. We don’t need big empty amp grills and cabinet graphics, complete with photorealistic rooms. There’s a compromise that could communicate the type of gear you are using and also let you easily access the controls.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I don’t need beautifully rendered photorealistic pictures of guitar amps and whatnot, but I feel like I’m adjusting attribute parameters on a stock market simulation when I’m using them. The way it deals with stereo is dumb. Amplitube looks better, but is also awkward in many respects. It went downhill, IMO.

So much this.

Helix's UI is awful and clumsy, while also being incredibly visually boring. Amplitube, on the other hand, got so much worse to work with between version 4 and 5. It became less intuitive and requires more clicks. The TONEX software also has an incredibly clumsy UI with far too many screens that can overlap each other and a bunch of bugs and unintuitive behaviors.

I don't know what's so hard about getting guitar software UI's right, but apparently it's very difficult. So much so, that even when a company had a pretty good UI, they feel the need to make it worse!

I think if Amplitube just went back and used some basic UX best practices, it could be brought back. One thing they all seem to miss is the ability to control basic amp functions while in the virtual cabinet-mic module. We don’t need big empty amp grills and cabinet graphics, complete with photorealistic rooms. There’s a compromise that could communicate the type of gear you are using and also let you easily access the controls.

I agree it would be nice to be able to tweak amp and cab settings at the same time, but I found their old text based menus in AT4 much faster and easier to navigate than the [prettier] graphical elements in AT5. Also the search in AT5 sucks. Try to find the Big Muff. You won't fund it under "muff" or "fuzz", you have to remember it's called "BigPig" and they categorized it as a distortion. Like, c'mon, use some behind the scenes tagging to make it easier.

AT4 also used the GUI space much better, presented the noise gate controls right in the GUI, had a much clearer signal path display and showed inserts better. I feel like they looked a bit at the Helix Native software, and stole all the wrong bits for AT5.

TONEX is alaso bad in terms of how IK organizes all the screens that appear. You can be in TONENET, then have the Cab screen open, and somehow you're in both locations at the same time for unknown reasons. There's a Cab Lock feature, but that doesn't apply TONENET for unknown reasons. You can make the preset browser or library full screen, but that's just confusing when you need to go into a different view. It feels like they should've used more traditional "tab-style" browsing versus a combo of tabs with separate modal-layers that take over existing screen elements. I'm in TONEX all the time, so I may be a little more sensitive to all of this, but I find it clumsy and have gotten lost a few times.

[vurt]

they called the big muff a distortion?
id have deleted the program immediately!

[zerocrossing]

they called the big muff a distortion?
id have deleted the program immediately!

I don’t think he’s saying that it shouldn’t be tagged as a distortion, he’s just saying that it’s obviously a sub category that we all know of as fuzz.

[vurt]

well im saying that it shouldn't be called a distortion, it's a fuzz. these things matter!

[Magic Russ]

I think if Amplitube just went back and used some basic UX best practices, it could be brought back. One thing they all seem to miss is the ability to control basic amp functions while in the virtual cabinet-mic module. We don’t need big empty amp grills and cabinet graphics, complete with photorealistic rooms. There’s a compromise that could communicate the type of gear you are using and also let you easily access the controls.

One thing they do that totally annoys me is when they have chrome knobs that you can't see the position on because they were too busy rendering the reflection of light on them.

Also in v4 every effect took a single slot. With v5 you might have a pedal that takes up twice as much space on screen because the original did. I can understand that you might want to give more space to something like a 10 band delay, but a Fuzz Face only has two knobs, wo there's no reason for it to hog so much screen space.

[zerocrossing]

well im saying that it shouldn't be called a distortion, it's a fuzz. these things matter!

Fuzz is a subset of distortion types, so that’s what’s happening when they put it in that category. I agree that it should be more granular and be able to recognize “fuzz,” but I guess we can just suggest that and hope it happens in the future.

[Magic Russ]

they called the big muff a distortion?
id have deleted the program immediately!

Wasn't it originally listed as a Distortion/Sustainer in the EHX catalogs?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

It's 100% a fuzz circuit. #TeamVurt

[kvotchin]

Still running with the HX Effects. That and a tube amp is perfection, for me anyway.

[Magic Russ]

I have had my GX-100 for about a year. In general I really like it. The amps are a definite upgrade from my old GT-8, the flanger has a bit more swoosh, and the dual chorus is a thing of beauty. It doesn't hurt that they threw in a Space Echo model, even if it just models the delay. The additional flexibility is nice too.

It also has a set of bass amps and effects. The bass drives seem to be fairly well focused without having to use the dry controls. The auto filter is good, not great, but tracks very well. In addition, I have run across some patches which do some credible simulations of fretless and standup basses which is a nice capability to have.

There are a few drawbacks.

First is that they left out a few effects from previous versions such as the slicer and the feedbacker. Second, they don't have as many options for fuzzes as other units. Finally, there is an issue regarding loading of impulse responses where many of them can sound much duller than they should. I'm happy with the existing cabs, but this is an annoyance because they supposedly had the same problem with the GT-1000 which they fixed, so I'm not seeing why it is taking so long to fix on the GX.

[Mister Natural]

RE : VST multifx
I really dig Tantra by D.Sches & still have a working copy of CamelSpace
Anyone else use these ??

[vurt]

boss me90 just dropped.
might be worth a listen.

[CoolGuitarGear]

I used to use the Axe Fx FM3 quite a bit, but have resorted to amp and preamps (a preferred sound and response). However, for quick jamming or the very rare time I might go somewhere to play around, I've been using the Sonicake Matribox. As good as the FM3? Not 100%, but I seriously like the dirty and hi-gain sounds of the Matribox enough (and it's smaller and lighter) that I tend to use that. And it has an expression/wah/volume pedal, which the FM3 does not.

[Bombadil]

boss me90 just dropped.
might be worth a listen.

Takes batteries, good. Too many parameter knobs? Meh.