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PRS SuperModels – Amp Simulation Plugins | Waves
ok, i sat with it for a little longer and trotted out the old byrdland and i can "officially recommend it, i guess". lot of qualifiers and pro/cons for this thing, but here's a quick summary:
pros-
sounds pretty nice
three amps included (blackface, dumble, pristine/high gain)
not that hard to use
it is also an ir loader, so you can use your own impulses, or the ones provided
run two cabs simultaneously, tuner, boost "pedal", bias/sag controls, noise gate
feels ok, seems to take pedals well
sounds awesome with your daw's effects
its $29 right now
cons-
its a plug in (has standalone mode i haven't tried)
you're going to need a computer, interface, headphones, daw and such to use it
have to be a part of the waves ecosystem
they recommend you use a hi-z or pedal that will bring up your impedance before you plug into the interface
you're plugging your guitar into a computer, for pete's sake
i haven't tried many amp sims, but i was never really pleased. and i'm still not, because i'm not a blackface or dumble guy. but i've found at least a couple of useable sounds in each amp, and that's rare. not super in love with the boost pedal, and many of the presets aren't for me, but if you like to dig and tweak, you'll be rewarded. and if you don't, the basic settings aren't bad.
but the bottom line it costs 29 damn dollars. you could sound a whole lot worse for a lot more. if you are tired of buying knickknacks and boxes and mics and di's and all that and still sounding mediocre, or just suck at recording, or need a quiet solution and just happen to have gear around already to pull this off, i think you should give it a shot. it clearly isn't for everyone, but i think a few of you here can benefit. i'll take this at $29 over a helix, kemper, or axe for a whole lot more any day. i may even put some of my amps back in storage.
there aren't any really great demos yet, because as you could probably imagine, mostly metal kids are jumping on this sort of thing. but the link has some demos that give you a vague idea of what's happening.
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11-26-2018 08:20 AM
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Did you try/buy it?
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yup. tested with my mini'd sheraton, brydland and now a jazz bass. as a toy, it's pretty neat. as a scratch pad for ideas, it is very handy. as a recording tool, possibly invaluable if you lack certain things (silence, an adequate space, mics, recording talent). there are some valid uses for it. and at its very simplest, you're just turning knobs on an amp. that part isn't hard to figure out. none of it is, really, but the very heart of it is butt simple enough for most.
already made a preset or two for each amp. though i don't like it as much when i'm playing, i think the dumble one sounds the best for recording. i prefer playing through the blackface one, but i think that the high gain one is the most potentially "jazzy", if you prefer those darker, more traditional tones.
not sure if it is an adequate solution for bass just yet. lucky to have some bass impulses lying around and those really helped a lot. but i got some ok bass tones from two of the amps and its fun to add some dirt to the bass as well. i don't super love the gainy sounds of the amp. they sound ok for leads but not for chords. generally too grainy for my taste. but the breakup tones are nice and it responds well to your picking hand. the high gain channel seems fun but i haven't really played with it yet.
the blackface amp has reverb; the other two doesn't. but they all come with an "air" control that acts as room reverb, essentially. luckily, since i'm using it with my daw, i can bring in those reverbs, delays (and whatever else) and play through those, and that's pretty fun. awesome sounds to be had. and if inspiration strikes, the thing is already armed and ready to go. just hit record. instant studio tones.
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I'm interested but a bit confused. What did you mean by having to " be a part of the waves ecosystem"? Does Waves have a way to record or does it have to integrate with a third party DAW? Which DAW are you using it with? Does he standalone version have a way to record? Can you explain the part about the hi-z pedal. I have a Scarlet 2i2 interface. Is that pedal supposed come before the Scarlet or can I increase the channel gain on the Scarlet? Thanks.
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This struck me as a very Jim thing to use, so I'll explain. Waves makes a lot of plug ins. A lot. They work with all daws but you purchase a license, and it's registered to your computer. I'm not sure that you could move it to another one later. It isn't just a thing you buy and use as you see fit, exactly. You have to jump through their dumb hoops and use their installer app and all that. I have a lot of their stuff so I know the drill, but it still sucks. Anti piracy and all that.
I think I read that there is a stand alone version, but I use it through the daw. Haven't tried it any other way. I doubt it records on its own. I use it with presonus studio one, which has been great with all my plug ins. But only because I bought the full version, which you need to run third party plug ins. Maybe reaper or something similar can run third party plug ins for free.
I'm not familiar with the scarlet, but if you switch it to instrument, you should be cool. The impedance for that is 1m. You could also use a boss pedal or similar, between the guitar and the interface. Something buffered, I guess. It still works otherwise, it just sounds noticeably duller. If you have any pedals you'd like to use, you may read will plop then in front. Maybe one has the buffer you need, and the thing is like using an amp, anyway. You can overdrive it with a pedal and such.
I'm not sure if theres a free demo, but I'd look for one and try that first, just to see if the concept is sound for you. I'm a little weird about it myself, but $29 is an utter pittance compared to what I've spent over the years on things that didn't yield results half as good.
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Another potential downside is latency. I'm using it on my dumpy old laptop because all my stuff is in storage, so I'm not sure if it's CPU intensive or just my stupid laptop. I had to lower the latency settings slightly to keep it from overloading my interface, but luckily not enough that the latency is an issue.
So keep that in mind if you're working in an older bucket of crap. But when it's running at top speed it sounds flawless. No perceptible latency to speak of. But that depends on your interface and computer, of course.
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I bought these awhile ago. Definitely some good clean tones in here, especially if you are experienced with using 3rd party IRs and the effects of mic position on tone.
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I'd like to hear an example. I build amps, but occasionally a track I put down in Logic with the built-in amp sounds gets kept because I can't play any better when the real amp gets mic'd. Here is one using Logic's plug-ins.
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Jim, if you're interested, check the waves.com site and read the FAQs. The PRS models plug-in is a VST plug-in that also runs stand-alone. Either way it's hosted on your computer.
Originally Posted by feet
There's a "Waves Central" installation manager (that works quite well, IMHO) that lets you leave your licenses "in the cloud," so that you can use your plug-ins elsewhere, or transfer them to your PC host.
Through Waves Central, you can get a demo version of any of their multitude of plugs.
Hope that helps ...
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the $29 deal is back if any of you silly geese are interested
after some reflection, i think the "dallas" model is the one i like the most with archtops, but i set it up pretty differently between archtops and my semis
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Thanks for the heads up. I just looked a few days ago and it was about $80. Originally Posted by feet
A bit of background ... I didn't buy it last time because I was using Audacity to record and I was uncertain about whether Audacity would work with it. (It seems to be hit and miss with add-ins). I'm now in the process of switching to Reaper so it should work just fine (I think).
I have one concern: the Waves eco-system. Just how "pain-in-the-butt" is it? I have tried a few things in the past that used their own eco-system for file installation and management and I found the incredibly confusing. (Specifically the software that was supposedly "included" with my Scarlett 2i2. I ended up just giving up on that half way through the installation just because it was so annoying. So I'd really appreciate some comments on what all is involved before I press the but button. Thanks.
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I'm a big Waves plug-in user. If you have *any* PC skills, I would say that the eco-systems is not a "PITA" at all. Their "Waves Central" software works fine and manages internet communications between your PC and Waves. When you make a purchase, the new software immediately is added to your account and is available to install from Waves Central. There are options to how you can install and manage licences, but, fwiw, I do online installs and then transfer the licenses to my local PC. Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
It's really simple and nothing at all like managing iLok licenses and such.
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I don't find it to be a big deal now that I have a fair amount of waves products. I think they let you have it active on only one or two computers at a time, which isn't a problem for me yet. And you can disable the license from one computer and move it to another, if you see fit. That's all handled from their app/ installer thing.
The way it works is you buy the license and it shows up in your account online and in the cloud and stuff. Then you use the app to register it to your computer and download it. Then, with any luck, your daw of choice will find it without issue. I use studio one and it came up automatically. It does "check" the license every time you start the daw, but that's pretty quick.
If it's your first time out, you may have to register and fill out online forms, but once that is done, it's all pretty easy. Every new thing you buy shows up in your list ready to be downloaded. As hassles go, it isn't as bad as other apps/hosts that I've used.
And although I haven't tried it, I brought there is a standalone mode that doesn't require a daw at all. But for me, part of the fun is running it through all the reverbs and delays and stuff I have, but you can use pedals for that. Only one model ( the Dallas,i think) comes with reverb, but they all come with an ambience knob, which is essentially a room reverb.
Ps- I forget whether or not you need an ilok account with waves, too. I already had one so it wasn't an issue, but hopefully you don't. It isn't tough, and it's free, but that's one more hoop to jump through.
Which software is included with your Scarlett? Is it the softube bundle? If so, I hate to be that guy, but those plugs are amazing, and use very little resources compared to waves stuff. But yes, they are a notch or two more difficult to install than the waves, because they use a third party or two for all that.
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If you go the VSt route it's well worth checking the Kuassa Vermilion amp, $39 !
I love mine for playing at night with headphones or for recording.
Very tweakable, many different circuitries, can load user's IRs.
PC & Mac – 32-bit & 64-bit – Standalone – VST – VST3 – Audio Unit – AAX compatible.
And the team is from Indonesia, pretty uncommon for a developer.
Amplifikation Vermilion | Kuassa
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I downloaded the stand-alone version last night and the sounds are nice but I'm getting a really significant amount of latency. Enough to make it pretty much unplayable. Is there anything I can do about that? (I've tried adjusting the buffer size but that didn't help). Originally Posted by xuoham
If you go the VSt route it's well worth checking the Kuassa Vermilion amp, $39 !
I love mine for playing at night with headphones or for recording.
Very tweakable, many different circuitries, can load user's IRs.
PC & Mac – 32-bit & 64-bit – Standalone – VST – VST3 – Audio Unit – AAX compatible.
And the team is from Indonesia, pretty uncommon for a developer.
Amplifikation Vermilion | Kuassa
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that's the second kuassa recommendation ive seen of late. i looked really hard at their bass amp, but went with the softube eden one. kinda pricey in comparison, but it is simple enough, the presets are great, it works well with pedals and the sounds are really good. very pleased. there's some redunancy with their amps and the ones included in the prs one so i may pass for now. really wish someone made a good standalone vst for vox amps. but i have plenty now and should stop.
jim- what are your settings and what are the max specs for the interface? does the daw set them automatically? i'd try setting them to the super fastest available to see what changes. maybe you'll get some crackling or something if it can't handle it, but i'd raise it incrementally until i found a sweet spot between noise and latency. i'm not sure at what point you start to hear latency, though. certainly by 30ms. maybe like 15ish ms, then? i doubt the vst is that resource intensive, but keep an eye on that resource monitor, too.
remember that you aren't just auditioning the vst, but the concept itself. if your interface or computer says no, that's either more money you have to spend or a sign to walk away unless there's a workaround. frankly, mine teeters on the edge of usability because my laptop is so dumpy, but it isn't an issue with my desktop that i'm not using right now.
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You can try to increase sample rate as well. There seems to be some trade off between lower buffer size and higher sample rate. For the time being I’ve settled on 48 kHz and (if I recall correctly a buffer size of either a 128 or 256). I have a 2017 MacBook Pro and a thunderbolt 3 focusrite clarett interface. With this setup I can get a reported round trip latency of 4-6 ms provided I don’t run more than one or two reverbs.
It might be confirmation bias, but I start to “feel” latency around 10 ms. It’s subtle but I’m pretty sure it’s there. Note that perceived latency is going to be even higher because it takes approximately 1ms per foot for the sound to reach your ears. I now keep my powered speaker about 3 away, on the floor and tilted up slightly. This minimizes the effect of room acoustics and speed of sound latency and gives me a real nice natural amp sound and feel.
I use S-Gear, Waves PRS, and a couple of others. Software modeling is very much a useable thing for most typical low gain jazz sounds. I just got a Victoria Ivy League amp and I was kind of feeling stupid because the tweed sounds I’ve been dialing in on software are nearly indistinguishable from the real deal in my environment while playing.
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Yes, as Feet and Wzpgsr said, the latency must be from your settings with your computer/audio interface.
I run this vst with veryt little latency. Imho, it is well worth the trouble, i think it sounds very nice.
One minor complaint, the bass/mid/treble knobs could be more drastic they are a bit weak.
Good luck.
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