Searing tone and an authentic hard rock vibe make IK’s AmpliTube Metal a great tool for exploring rock’s extremes.
A selling point of guitar modelers is that they can recreate any sound you, your family, your friends or a casual passerby could ever want. That degree of variety and versatility is great when you’re producing music in many styles, but it can be overkill when your focus is on one type of music.
IK Multimedia’s AmpliTube Metal, which can run as a stand-alone or as a plug-in, is a slimmed-down version of its flagship AmpliTube software. Like the company’s AmpliTube Jimi Hendrix, it eschews the kitchen-sink approach and focuses on one style. Which is not to say it doesn’t deliver sonic variety: AmpliTube Metal can go from a whisper to a scream and do everything in between.
FEATURES
Like other versions of AmpliTube, Metal offers a complete signal path—actually, two signal chains that can include different amps, cabinets, stomp boxes and rack effects. At its core are four hard-rocking amps, including the Peavey 5150, Randall Warhead, Marshall JMP1959 Mk I and the Mesa/Boogie Triple Rectifier, (IK offer separate amp models for the Recto’s “green” and “red” channels). One of the program’s coolest features is its ability to mix and match amp components, allowing you to use, for example, the Marshall’s preamp with the Peavey’s power section.
Amps are automatically matched to appropriate cabinets, but there are actually 13 to choose from (in addition to Peavey, Mesa and Marshall fare, there are a couple of Fenders). All of these are variations on the 4x12 configuration, and while that definitely upholds the law of the metal jungle, it would have been nice to have some other options. Cabinets can be miked close or far with a range of virtual dynamic and condenser and dynamic mics from Shure, AKG, Neumann and Sennheiser. You can really sculpt the sound by changing and/or moving the mics.
The stomp box collection leans to the heavy side. Among the 14 included pedals are seven high-gain distortion boxes, including the Pro Co Rat, five Boss pedals and an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff π so realistic I could smell the Seventies when I powered it up. Other floor effects include generic 10-band EQ and delay plus models of Boss and MXR flangers, an MXR Phase 90, a Vox wah (which has Pedal and Auto- Wah modes) and the DigiTech Whammy Pedal. These effects all go in front of the amps (there’s no virtual effect loop) but you can also add effects like digital chorus, flanger, reverb, delay, harmonizer, pitch shift, graphic and parametric EQ, and tube compressor in the rack effects section.
In addition, there is a speed trainer that lets you load in audio files in a variety of formats, change their speed and pitch and play along—just the thing for mastering those Yngwie licks. It’s a very cool feature, although it’s available only when Metal is running as a stand-alone application.
PERFORMANCE
I've tested versions of AmpliTube in the past and have always come away impressed with not only its sound but also its “feel.” The amps are fun to play through, and some of the presets are inspiring.
Despite its focus on hard rock, Metal has enough range to cover any musical style, and many of the presets are good right out of the box. The high-gain tones are very compressed and tend to color the guitar’s tone—I couldn’t hear much difference on my S/S/H Strat when I toggled the pickup switch—but that’s the case with hardware high-gain rigs, too, especially when driven by a monster like the Big Muff. The effects sound great, and it’s nice to have a choice between the grungy stomp boxes and the cleaner rack gear. I would have liked more variety among the speaker cab selection, and it would be nice to be able to slide stomp boxes around the virtual pedal board to change their order, but other than those small complaints, Ampli-Tube Metal was pure gratification.
You don’t need IK’s slick StompIO to use AmpliTube Metal effectively, but it does add to the experience. In addition to providing 24-bit audio I/O via USB, the sturdy foot controller has 10 buttons and a built-in expression pedal, letting you turn effects on and off, operate the wah and whammy pedals, and select presets. Its metal chassis is tough enough to survive onstage.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Searing tone and an authentic hard rock vibe make IK’s AmpliTube Metal a great tool for exploring rock’s extremes.
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