is greatest identified for its high-quality amp fashions, whether or not that’s its Quad Cortex flooring modeler or plugins in your DAW. Its newest providing is the €139 (roughly $142) plugin. The Archetype sequence is a set of artist collabs the place Neural builds out a set of amp sims and results to seize the essence of that exact musician’s sound. While a wide range of artists throughout genres have labored with the corporate, the Archetype sequence has positively trended towards the heavier finish of the spectrum, with names like Megadeth, Meshuggah and Gojira getting concerned. Rabea Massaad positively falls into that class together with his band , and backing up . But Archetype: Rabea provides an fascinating new wrinkle to Neural DSP’s method – a synth.

Before we get to the synth half, let’s run by way of the core options. There are three amp sims in Archetype: Rabea – clear, rhythm and lead, which cowl every little thing from shiny Fender chimes, to dying steel chug, to unadulterated shred. There are round 100 presets included that make dialing in tones easy. Neural takes a really skeuomorphic strategy to interface design, and should you’ve ever used a guitar amp earlier than (which I’ll assume you may have should you’re studying this), you’ll really feel proper at dwelling. All three amps sound fairly good proper out of the field and it’s simple to tweak them to your liking.

Archetype isn’t only a handful of amp sims bundled collectively, although. You can mix these amps with numerous completely different speaker cupboards, simulated completely different mic placements, and there’s a four-band EQ for additional high quality tuning the tone.

The backside finish is sort of tight and the distortion satisfying. I don’t assume anybody is more likely to mistake Neural’s plugins for a real-deal tube amp. But that’s kinda irrelevant, so long as it sounds good. The sound straight out of the field could be very full and sounds nice by itself, however wants heavy EQing to sit down proper in a mixture. Also, the amp sims can get fairly noisy, nearly such as you’re standing proper in entrance of an actual cranked amp. Thankfully, there’s a noise gate builtin – make associates with it.

The complete level of Archetype is to be a whole guitar rig, so that you additionally get a bunch of results with every installment, too. Rabea comes with a compressor, octaver, overdrive, fuzz, delay and reverb “pedals,” in addition to pitch shifting and doubling results. Again, whereas these cowl all kinds of tones, they actually excel on the heavier finish of the spectrum, which is the place many different digital amp and results sims can fall flat in my view.

All of the consequences are fairly strong, however the octaver and reverb are simply my favourite. The octaver helps you to mix in each an octave beneath and above what you’re enjoying, and has each a classic and fashionable mode. The former is nice should you’re in search of that dirtier, glitchier old-school vibe. The reverb has a freeze operate, with unbiased pitch management which – when mixed with the octaver and doubler – delivers actually lush pads that can drone on ceaselessly. You may even change the pitch whilst you’re enjoying over it to create progressions. It’s an enchanting solution to begin sketching out concepts for songs, but it surely’s probably not sensible for performing.

But what actually units Archetype: Rabea aside is the Overlord Synth. It’s a twin oscillator, monophonic, subtractive synth that follows the pitch of your guitar. This is a primary for Neural DSP, and the corporate claims it’s a “world-first,” although I couldn’t independently verify that declare. What I can say is that there are pitch-tracking and that may management synths, there are additionally that you may pair with a softsynth to regulate it with a guitar, however I wasn’t capable of finding an all-in-one pitch-tracking guitar synth VST.

The sound engine itself is nothing too fancy: two oscillators with 4 waveshape choices, a low move filter with 4 completely different modes, a reasonably fundamental arpeggiator, and a pair of envelopes to regulate the amplitude and filter. You can coax dreamy and delicate plucks out of it, but it surely actually shines as a synth bass machine. Because the choices are restricted, even somebody new to synths ought to have a reasonably simple time coming to grips with Overlord.

Of course, the large query is how properly it tracks enter out of your guitar. And I’m completely happy to report that it’s practically good. Now, it’s monophonic, so you’ll be able to’t play massive synth chords the way in which you would possibly with a MIDI controller, but it surely had no hassle maintaining with groove steel riffs and mid-tempo pentatonic solos. The demos on Neural’s website even make it appears like it might probably deal with finger tapping, however my finger tapping expertise are principally non-existent. There was hardly ever a stray observe, or odd abrupt lower off. It’s simply a number of the greatest pitch-tracking I’ve seen in a plugin. There is the occasional artifact when sliding across the neck, however when you alter your enjoying model it’s fairly to attenuate them.

The actual magic begins taking place, although, while you mix all these numerous components collectively. You can mix within the synth along with your guitar, pitch the oscillators one fifth and one octave beneath, activate the doubling impact and create only a large wall of sound. You can then freeze that utilizing the reverb pedal, retune the synth to play the identical observe and an octave up, and solo over that drone in equally bombastic model. Archetype: Rabea is principally guitar tone maximalism at its most interesting.

If you’re already a fan of Neural DSP’s merchandise, Archetype: Rabea is a simple promote. It’s a high-quality digital guitar rig with a really wonderful synth in-built. Even should you’re primarily within the synth aspect of issues, the €139 isn’t too unhealthy. Yes, the synth is pretty fundamental, however you get a handful of results to course of it, and the pitch monitoring is prime notch. You’re most likely gonna pay at the very least $99 for any respectable, so an additional $40 to have the ability to natively management it along with your guitar is a small value to pay.