Amplitube Group Buy

wvandyck · Post by **wvandyck** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:28 am

SixStringGeek wrote: Guitar sounds, OTOH come in a rainbow of colors. I downloaded and installed the Amplitube, AJH, and UNO today and spent most of the afternoon just playing the patches to see what was there. I think I'll be putting my VOX ToneLab LE on the market - this thing sounds better. The thing I'll miss is the wah/volume pedal - anybody know of a good MIDI hardware controller replacement? ?

I reached the same conclusion regarding my blue desktop model which I really like!

Regarding the bass amp sounds, it's pretty cool that AmpliTube includes some bass presets. The Ampeg SVX UNO gives me just enough of a range of excellent sounds.

The included tuner in both Amp2 and UNO is a real bonus. Glad I posted postponed my purchase of either a hardware or software model.

Haven't auditioned the drum loops yet.

Also a note of thanks to the folks at EZSounds. Once the ball started to roll, everything fell into place.

Overall rating of this experience:

wvandyck · Post by **wvandyck** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:37 am

monkey man wrote:From my perspective (someone sitting on the outside looking in at VIs and 3rd party plugs), it all looks mighty scary and unnecessarily complicated.

Folks like me (if there are any left) won't take that leap until some sort of palpable certainty has permeated the market.

It was definitely not a leisurely read of the newspaper in the comfort of ones.... tree.

Although all went well, the whole process required my undivided attention. Even then, it was not a clearly marked, do this first, then this, etc. It was almost like some Mission Impossible or 007 code reading situation. Maybe a a survival of the fittest experience. Whatever.

But again, the effort was worth the prize given the $$$

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:00 am

Thank you for sharing that, Flash.

You know, it's embarrassing to admit this, but my fear has never been of not being able to get a 3rd party plug to work.
It's been of not being able to get it to work... tomorrow, and after the inevitable future OS and DP upgrades, and the unavoidable new-standard setting that begins with the biggies of the business and results in the overhaul of our studios, and so on.

My MIDI gear still works fine, and will do in 10 years.
I can't guarantee a plug I buy tomorrow will even work next week.
This is why I keep harping on the hope that MOTU will provide a decent enough set of comprehensive tools so that worry-pots-on-a-budget like I can leave the heavy lifting to MOTU.

An exit from GuineaPigVille, if you will.

PS: So... bring on the SimSet, MOTU. Please!

SixStringGeek · Post by **SixStringGeek** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:09 am

mhschmieder wrote:Aha! That clears it up; I was only checking my esoundz account.

I do already have an account with IK Multimedia (I bought Miroslav Philharmonik in December), so I'll login to that site tonight.

Thanks for clearing that up; maybe it was described this way earlier and I missed it.

They totally could have done a better job explaining that. I exchanged half a dozen emails with Allen before I got hold of it all.

SixStringGeek · Post by **SixStringGeek** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:31 am

monkey man wrote: You know, it's embarrassing to admit this, but my fear has never been of not being able to get a 3rd party plug to work.
It's been of not being able to get it to work... tomorrow, and after the inevitable future OS and DP upgrades, and the unavoidable new-standard setting that begins with the biggies of the business and results in the overhaul of our studios, and so on.

My MIDI gear still works fine, and will do in 10 years.
I can't guarantee a plug I buy tomorrow will even work next week.

I hear you. Although, one by one, my vintage synths are losing their minds (memory batteries are dying - sheesh, its only been 20 years - cheap things).

The solution I think (and this is true for software archivists as well) is you have to take your workstation to a certain level where you are comfortable and then freeze it - I mean you save and mothball the machine itself. Store all your projects and backup archives with the ID of the machine, and when you upgrade the machine, warehouse the old one. Its the only way to be sure you'll always be able to access the bits.

BTW, I tried using AmpliTube last night at band practice in place of a regular amp. I played it through a Roland KC-550 (which is a kickin keyboard amp BTW - really happy with it) and I blew Mr Marshall fanatic away with the quality of the tones I was getting.

On a whim he launched into an impromptu Led Zep jam of Heartbreaker and Ocean - I pulled up the patch labelled "Early Zep" for grins and totally matched his tone - he was all "That is EXACTLY the sound!".

The AmpliTube stuff really rocks. And the price we got is AWESOME. Now I just gotta figure out a foot controller setup for it. Oh, and I had just added audio routing and handling of external MIDI devices to JambaLaya - so I was totally having fun using it in that with a MOTU UltraLight as my IO/Patchbay. It was super way cool.

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:55 am

Geekster, I've been following your pedal quest at some distance, but can you use any MIDI CC pedal that connects through a MIDI interface?
I'm guessing that anything that can spit out CC4 should work fine, as it seems to be some sort of standard along with CC4's also being used for high hat CC.

Just curious.

SixStringGeek · Post by **SixStringGeek** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 5:08 am

monkey man wrote:Geekster, I've been following your pedal quest at some distance, but can you use any MIDI CC pedal that connects through a MIDI interface?

Since I wrote the host, I can make it work with anything - translating events as needed - so long as I know what events are getting sent.

I'll find something I'm sure. The Behringer is looking like my top pick 'cause its cheap. Zzounds has a 30 day return and they've been cool about other stuff I've sent back. I'd like to sell off my ToneLab first to get some cash ahead though.

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 5:33 am

Thanks man.

I'll follow your progress as I'm using a POD for bass and guitar, and the mere thought of reamping tires me.

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:57 pm

At this rate, I hope there's no timeout on getting the freebie and/or registering the ones I actually paid for already.

Haven't heard back from IK yet, and still can't send bounce-proof email to esoundz.

SixStringGeek · Post by **SixStringGeek** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 7:03 am

mhschmieder wrote:At this rate, I hope there's no timeout on getting the freebie and/or registering the ones I actually paid for already.

Haven't heard back from IK yet, and still can't send bounce-proof email to esoundz.

I've had no troubles reaching allen - you want I should relay a message?

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 5:09 pm

Yeah, still no response from either party, even after using the trouble report page at both sites as well... surely it's a matter of them being overly stringent on blocking all emails from unknown servers?

Spikey Horse · Post by **Spikey Horse** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 3:23 am

X-gear is out ... anyone with 2 registered amplitube products (ie all group buyers) should find a D/L link their IK user area download area. I'm downloading mine as I type. Or rather, my mac is. Downloading I mean.... not typing. I'm typing and my mac is downloading.

mhschmieder, have you tried doing it the 'demo way'? ie Download demo versions and then register them... you have the auth codes from esoundz, just can't set up an IK account, right? ... is that it or is it worse than that?

One option if you haven't tried it would be to post a message in the group buy thread on KVR ... I'm sure 'Squids' who is organizing it all can help sort out your probs ....

dbender · Post by **dbender** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 3:26 am

with x-gear out now, the last thing is the patches from esoundz, which I'm hoping we'll be seeing in our esoundz user area in the next day or so. Anyone have any info on when we get the patches? (back to x-gear.....)

Spikey Horse · Post by **Spikey Horse** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 3:29 am

I'm sure I read on the KVR thread they (patches) were ready ... certainly I would expect them to appear this week

dbender · Post by **dbender** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 3:32 am

cool. think i read the same thing too. i'm diggin the xtra patches inside x-gear right now, and have a rare thing -- b i g g r i n from the killer tones!!!