Product Description
There's a new king in tone, and its name is AmpliTube 3. A massive upgrade of the leading guitar and bass tone gear modeling software, AmpliTube 3 raises the industry standard of sound variety, realism and creative power. If your recording or playing "rig" is lacking in that rich, lush expressive analog warmth, then you need to check it out. With over 160 precisely modeled pieces of vintage and modern gear available in one package, AmpliTube 3 is the ultimate tone gear collection for the player/producer/engineer suffering from tone angst.
AmpliTube 3 gives you more.
Infinite Combinations
AmpliTube 3 contains over 160 pieces of gear, more than double the amount of other packages, including models from the most sought-after vintage collections and modern day workhorses. You'll get 51 individual stompboxes and effects, 31 amplifier preamp & power sections, 46 speaker cabinet models, 15 high end stage and studio mics, and 17 post amp rack effects. Plus, with the new AmpliTube 3 open architecture, you can add more packages as you need them, like AmpliTube Fender(tm) and Ampeg(r) SVX.
True Dynamic Response
AmpliTube 3 gear models give you THE most realistic playing feel -- not just the tones -- but the actual dynamic response of their hardware counterparts. Nothing comes closer to the feel and touch of playing through a real rig than AmpliTube 3. Plus, with IK's proprietary VRM (Volumetric Response Modeling) technology, you can add ultra-accurate rotating speaker effects, free dual mic placement plus room ambience and response to custom craft your tone.
Creative Inspiration
Face it -- the better you sound, the better you play. AmpliTube 3 unleashes more creative power than ever, helping you to easily carve new, truly unique voicings for your guitar, bass, keyboard, drum and vocals. The new creative effects let you create sounds you never heard before, and the new "drag & drop" effects configuration feature lets you quickly experiment with effects in the signal chain to get that totally unique sound.
Every Sound You Can Imagine
AmpliTube 3 is the voice for your soul. With the largest collection of ultra-accurately modeled gear, creative effects and flexible routing features, you'll never run out of sonic possibilities. Every sound you've heard, and ones you haven't are here...your sound is in here.
AmpliTube 3. The New King of Tone.
What's new in AmpliTube 3? Everything!
1. Now includes over 160 models of vintage and modern gear
Packing in more than ever before, AmpliTube 3 has nearly 100 more gear models than its predecessor AmpliTube 2, all accurately modeled down to the finest detail with renown IK craftsmanship and third generation DSM technology. Not only is there an addition of tons of new amps and effects, but all of the legacy models of AmpliTube 2 have been reworked providing greater efficiency and even more dynamic response for that "real amp" touch and feel. AmpliTube 3 offers the widest palette of effects, amps, cabinets and microphones of any guitar amp and effects product on the market. Together with the inclusion of nearly 70 top amp and effects models from AmpliTube Metal and AmpliTube Jimi Hendrix, plus over 30 all new premium gear models AmpliTube 3 is the most powerful and complete anthology of guitar and bass gear ever.
2. 30 all new vintage gear models - 5 creative effects
Over 30 brand new previously unreleased models are now included in AmpliTube 3. Together with a collector's selection of some of the all time finest amps and cabinets (including accurate replica models based on vintage Vox(r), Orange(r), Mesa(r), Roland(r), Trace Elliot(r), Acoustic(r), Gallien Kruger(r) and more) along with must-have new analog modeled stomp boxes (models based on Electro-Harmonix(r), Marshall(r), Ibanez(r)) a series of new, "creative" effects has been added! AmpliTube 3 also includes innovative effects not found in other modeling packages such as: StepFilter, StepSLicer, TapDelay, Rezo and Swell in both stomp and rack versions. These inspirational effects can open a whole new sonic panorama to your performance and push forward the creativity of what you can do with your guitar, bass or any other instrument both live and in the studio.
3. New cabinet/room module with freely movable microphones
The cabinet module of AmpliTube 3 has been entirely redone. Sporting a redesigned GUI, not only now you can mic and mix each cabinet with 2 microphones, but the microphones also can be freely moved around the speaker making it easier to find that magical sweet spot. Cabinet "size" can now be also controlled so you can enlarge and shrink your cabinet behind the limits of the physical world. Additionally now you can adjust the room ambience and room mic positioning for an ultra-accurate modeling of the cabinet in the natural recording space.
4. Incredible new rotary speaker simulation with VRM
The new AmpliTube 3 speaker cabinet module contains one of the best sounding models of a rotary speaker ever, thanks to the exclusive VRM technology (Volumetric Response Modeling). Never before has a software rotary speaker sounded so much like the original. Based on a pristine model of a vintage Leslie(r) 147, the cabinet features both new and vintage original matching speakers, and is able to give to your sound that timeless magic characteristic of this must have gear.
5. New Stomp & Rack FX "drag & drop" configuration
A feature largely requested by AmpliTube users, now you can reconfigure your pedal board and rack effects chain simply by dragging & dropping the effect into its new position. Setting up your effects has never been easier, and this feature makes sonic experimentation fast and easy.
6. Now includes both mono and full stereo signal paths
Now you can add AmpliTube 3 effects to your stereo recording of drums, vocals, keyboards and more! A new full stereo-chain signal path has been implemented that allows you to use AmpliTube 3 as a multi-effects unit on every instrument in your DAW session. Plus you can now use AmpliTube 3 on two instruments simultaneously, each one with their own rig.
7. New advanced preset management
AmpliTube 3 sports a new preset browser that allows you to quickly search and organize the huge number of presets that are included in the package, plus the thousand of presets built by a growing community of users through the online Preset X-Change sharing services. Presets can now be saved and recalled using a series of user-defined keywords and attributes, plus a new "copy & paste" feature allows to quickly re-position your amp or effects retaining all existing settings and tweaks. Additionally presets now can be saved for a single model simply by right clicking on it.
8. New MIDI learn for compatibility with any controller
AmpliTube 3 makes it easier than ever to control it using any existing MIDI gear. Simply click on the control knob/parameter of any of the gear and the new MIDI learn function will allow to immediately set the selected control to respond to the corresponding MIDI control function of your gear. And of course no set-up is needed when it is used with IK's new StealthBoard, StealthPedal and StompIO controllers and interfaces.
9. New 4 track audio recorder/player
In Standalone mode the new SpeedTrainer module offers the possibility to play or record up to 4 track, with independent pitch-shift/time-stretch. Now you can record your band all within AmpliTube 3, use it to learn difficult licks, or to quickly capture and layer your musical ideas at the moment of inspiration.
10. New eco-mid-hi quality mode
To help managing the best balance between sound quality and CPU usage, Amplitude has designed 3 new modes (eco-mid-hi) that are accessed with a simple click. These allow to get the minimal possible CPU, a good sounding medium set up and the best possible sound quality accessible via the main interface.
11. Improved overall performance
In AmpliTube 3 they also have greatly enhanced the CPU usage efficiency of all new models and "remastered" the legacy models in order to be more efficient and take advantage of latest technologies. The result is better sounding ultra-accurate gear models with more available computational resources for other tasks.
12. New built-in expandability
Now you can expand your collection of gear directly in AmpliTube 3 by adding individual pieces, or entire collections like AmpliTube Fender or Ampeg SVX. This also allows you to purchase "singles" on an as needed basis in the future, and have them all available in one plug-in from within the AmpliTube 3 structure.
Infinite Combinations
AmpliTube 3 contains over 160 pieces of gear, more than double the amount of other packages, including models from the most sought-after vintage collections and modern day workhorses. You'll get 51 individual stompboxes and effects, 31 amplifier preamp & power sections, 46 speaker cabinet models, 15 high end stage and studio mics, and 17 post amp rack effects. Plus, with the new AmpliTube 3 open architecture, you can add more packages as you need them, like AmpliTube Fender and Ampeg SVX.
- 51 Stompbox effects, 31 Amps, 46 Cabinets, 15 Studio Mics, 17 Rack effects
- Over 160 gear models included (with nearly 100 added models), more than double the amount of other packages, from the most sought-after vintage collections to modern day workhorses
- 30 brand new models for the most complete anthology of gear ever
- 70 reworked and superior sounding models from packages like AmpliTube Metal and AmpliTube Jimi Hendrix
- A new collection of bass gear models make it also the most complete package for any bass recording or performance needs
- Can be directly expanded with packages like AmpliTube Fender, Ampeg SVX and future packages
- New preset management and keyword system allows you to organize and quickly recall the massive library of included and custom preset tones.
True Dynamic Response
AmpliTube 3 gear models give you THE most realistic playing feel -- not just the tones -- but the actual dynamic response of their hardware counterparts. Nothing comes closer to the feel and touch of playing through a real rig than AmpliTube 3. Plus, with IK's proprietary VRM (Volumetric Response Modeling) technology, you can add ultra-accurate rotating speaker effects, free dual mic placement plus room ambience and response to custom craft your tone.
- All models in AmpliTube 3 have been ultra-accurately remastered with this 3rd generation modeling technology (the same found in AmpliTube Fender), using IK's exclusive DSM technology (Dynamic Saturation Modeling), then painstakingly A/B compared with the originals in this massive collection of gear (that's right, Amplitude owns the pieces they use to create the package) to ensure that the sound you hear from the software is the sound you hear from the gear
- New cabinet module now provides double miking per cabinet with freely movable microphones thanks to IK's VRM (Volumetric Response Modeling) technology, giving you a level of control and sound accuracy never before experienced in software
- New impulse based reverbs are now used in the entire chain, from spring reverb to room ambience which ensures the most realistic possible representation of your recording environment
- New rotary speaker module sets the new standard for accurate emulation of these types of cabinets - until now, there had never been such a great sounding rotary cabinet in software.
Creative Inspiration
Face it -- the better you sound, the better you play. AmpliTube 3 unleashes more creative power than ever, helping you to easily carve new, truly unique voicings for your guitar, bass, keyboard, drum and vocals. The new creative effects let you create sounds you never heard before, and the new drag & drop effects configuration feature lets you quickly experiment with effects in the signal chain to get that totally unique sound.
- New creative Effects featuring the new StepFilter, StepSlicer, TapDelay, Rezo and Swell stomp and rack effects that allow you to sculpt your sound and create inspiring rhythmic patterns or amazing drone and pad-like effects
- New full stereo path allows you use the huge collection of analog and digital effects on your vocal tracks, keyboards and drums
- New Drag & Drop function in the stomp and rack modules now makes experimenting with effect combinations a breeze
- New MIDI Learn feature allows you to assign any software control or parameter to an external controller with a simple click on the parameter's knob
- New integrated 4-tracks recorder/player allows you to capture and layer your ideas quickly and easily right at the moment of inspiration.
Every Sound you can Imagine
AmpliTube 3 is the voice for your soul. With the largest collection of ultra-accurately modeled gear, creative effects and flexible routing features, you'll never run out of sonic possibilities. Every sound you've heard, and ones you haven't are here... your sound is in here.
More Amps
With over 30 amp models included, AmpliTube 3 offers the widest palette of core tones and sonic personalities than anything else on the market. Imagine your amp room filled to capacity with historically and musically significant vintage and modern must-have amps and effects. AmpliTube 3 offers a unique models collection of Fender, Marshall, Vox, Mesa Boogie, Peavey, Randall, Orange, Roland, Supro, THD, Silvertone, Ampeg, Trace Elliot, Acoustic and Gallien Krueger. The design and coding of these amp now spans three generations of IK modeling technology, giving you the most accurate and precise replica of all the tone, controls and behavior found on the originals. All amps also sport their unique, original matching cabinet. 15 microphone models are also available to mic the cabinets, with all the must have models from Neumann, Senheiser, AKG, Shure, Royer, Electro-Voice, GrooveTubes represented. Plus, AmpliTube 3 sports also one of the best physically modeled Leslie speaker models in the industry.
More Effects
With over 50 precision-modeled stomp boxes and 17 rack effects, AmpliTube 3 includes all the standard effects for guitar and bass sounds and more. Every major type of effect is represented in multiple flavors giving you the most incredible arsenal of Fuzz, Compression, EQ, Distortion, Overdrive, Flanger, Phaser, Delay, Modulation, Pitch Shifter, Harmonizer, Filter and more. All the masterpiece vintage and modern stomp models from Boss, Electro Harmonix, Ibanez, Vox, Arbiter, MXR, Digitech, Roland, and Marshall are represented, plus some rare pearls including models based on the extremely hard to find Univibe, Maestro, Mossrite, Roger Mayer, and ProCo stompboxes. Additionally a series of exclusive IK designed effects give you superior creative potential --with StepFilter, StepSlicer, Resonator, TapDelay, and Swell effects, you'll generate inspiring rhythmic patterns and amazing drone and pad effects.
More for Players, Engineers, Producers
AmpliTube 3 gives you the sonic edge you need to carve new, truly unique voicing for your guitar and bass - and now also for your keyboard, drum or vocal.
Player - Tone. Tone. Tone. At its core, AmpliTube 3 is all about tone -- rich, lush, fantastic goose-pimple-causing, back-of-the-neck hair-raising tone. If you only use AmpliTube 3 on your guitar and bass tracks, you'll be completely and utterly satisfied with the results.
Engineer - AmpliTube 3 is incredibly intuitive and easy to use, and all the tools you traditionally use in the studio are built right into the software -- tuner, pedal board, amp, cabinet, mics, racks -- they're all there. From the pedal board routing path to the incredible selection of microphones, room sizes and placement options, you'll be amazed with how easily it integrates into the signal and project flow. AmpliTube 3 allows you to focus more on the results than the process, and is destined to become the recording engineer's best friend.
Producer -- With its powerful engine, routing flexibility and new creative effects, you'll create that new sound that sets you apart. AmpliTube 3 is designed for the right side of your brain, enabling you to get in the flow without getting in the way. You'll be more efficient, flexible and thus more creative.
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IK Multimedia products.
System RequirementsPower PC based Macintosh(r):
- Minimal: dual 1 GHz G4 processor, 1GB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
- Suggested: dual 2 GHz G5 processor, 2 GB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
- Supported Plug-in formats: AU, VST, RTAS.
Intel based Macintosh(r):
- Minimal: 1.5 GHz Intel processor, 1 GB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later.
- Suggested: 2.3 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later.
- Supported Plug-in formats: AU, VST, RTAS.
Windows(r):
- Minimal: Pentium 4 / Athlon 64 processor, 1 GB of RAM, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7.
- Suggested: 2.33 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7.
- Supported Plug-in formats: VST, RTAS.
CrossgradeIf you are a registered owner of at least ONE IK product (Free versions excluded), you are now eligible to crossgrade to ANY other IK product at the discounted crossgrade price and save big! Both retail and special bundled versions of IK products, such as SampleTank 2 SE, AmpliTube LE and T-RackS EQ, qualify you for the extra savings you receive from the crossgrade prices on full versions of IK products.
SpecificationsWindows and Mac OS X Plug-in and Standalone application
Supported Plug-in formats: Audio Units, VST, RTAS (Mac OS X) - VST, RTAS (Windows)
5 separate modules: Tuner, Stomp effects Pedalboard, Amp Head, Cabinet + Microphones, post Rack effects
Over 160 included gear models
51 Stompbox effects
31 Amp models
46 Cabinet emulations
15 Studio Microphone models
17 Rack effects
High-precision Tuner
Cabinet module with two freely movable microphones and cabinet size control
Room ambience with microphones' stereo width control
Ultra accurate analog modeling with DSM(tm) technology
Ultra realistic cabinet emulation with VRM(tm) technology
2 series/parallel rigs with 8 configurations, selectable mono/stereo input and true stereo processing
Drag & Drop functionality in the Stomp and Rack modules for quick effects re-arrangement
Advanced preset browser with guitar/bass dedicated keywords plus user keywords and smart search function
Global and single gear presets
Easy to set, one click best quality/performance settings
Host/DAW BPM synchronization
Freely assignable DAW automation
Up to 96 kHz supported sampling rate
Can be directly expanded with more "Powered by AmpliTube" software like AmpliTube Fender(tm) and Ampeg(r) SVX
One click MIDI CTL assignment, compatible with any standard MIDI controller
Direct integration with IK's range of interfaces/controllers like StompIO, StealthPedal, StealthBoard with zero setup needed
4 track recorder/player with independent time stretch/pitch shift (Standalone version)
Non destructive recording allows post effect processing of the recorded audio (Standalone version)
2 instruments can be simultaneously processed with independent audio settings (Standalone version)
Imports any Wav, Aiff, sd2, Apple Caf, Flac, MP3 audio file (Standalone version)
Metronome with selectable sounds (Standalone version)
- Dimensions and Weight in Packaging
- Shipping Weight: 1 lbs
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Shipping Dimensions:
10 x
7 x
3 in
zZounds Expert Review
In the late '90s, Line 6 ported their modeling know-how into a Pro Tools plug-in called Amp Farm. It was the first of its kind, offering quick and easy re-amping and giving access to a wide range of quality guitar tones without the expense, care, and setup of a bunch of vintage and boutique tube amps. Great for Pro Tools users, but the home and project studio revolution was beginning to blow up and users of other DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software were out of luck. IK Multimedia identified this untapped audience, and developed their original AmpliTube software to run as a plug-in compatible with all of the popular audio applications of the day. With the release of AmpliTube 3, this popular modeling software is still going strong.
I jumped on the digital recording bandwagon pretty early but couldn't afford Pro Tools, so I've been using AmpliTube since its inception. I've tried many other modeling applications, and comparatively AmpliTube ranks right up there with the best of them in terms of the quality of tone and the expressiveness of feel. To my ears, their approach seems to be less concerned about nailing all the specific little details of a given amp or effect and more about giving users a massive selection of tones that embody the typical character of a certain brand or amp/effect style. IK Multimedia's expansion sets are a good case in point. Their Metal amp and effects models aren't necessarily meant to make you think "Hey, that sounds exactly like a JCM800", but rather they make it easy to dial up something that sounds plausibly like a rig Judas Priest or Metallica or Pantera would have run through.
Third Time's The Charm
If you're familiar with older versions of AmpliTube, the latest iteration is well worth the investment. You get more than double the amp and effects models of AmpliTube 2, and the Metal and Hendrix expansion kits are now included as part of the standard program. The SVT and Fender expansions are still available as separate add-ons, but they now open seamlessly in AmpliTube 3 without the need for IK's X-Gear application. The interface has also been streamlined, and a bunch of the redundant tabs have been removed for more straightforward navigation between windows.
Much more emphasis has been placed on the cabinet section of the software. You used to only have 16 speaker/cabinet models and six virtual mics to choose from, but now you get access to 46 cabinets and 15 microphones. You can close-mic your cabinet with up to two of the virtual microphone models, and use your mouse to adjust the positioning. Additional controls let you mute either of the mics, adjust their relative volume, and set their phase relationship. Two more virtual mics are set up as a stereo pair out in the room, letting you control the amount of ambience in the track. As if that's not enough, you can pick the room size too.
All this virtual control may seem like marketing jargon, but after spending some time playing with these variables, I found the corresponding changes in the tone to be very believable. I've watched engineers get up from their console and walk out in the room to make tweaks enough times to appreciate how much of a time-saver this level of control provides. Especially since it actually seems to deliver what it promises. If you're not an engineer and don't have much experience with mic placement in a real-world setting, you'll appreciate IK's helpful presets. They allow you to dial up several tried and true mic techniques and make a great starting point. I think the main reason IK's solution is so effective is because they use convolution modeling, which is a fairly complex set of algorithms compared to the simple EQ compensation or filtering techniques other programs use to accomplish the same type of thing.
Careful, It Looks Hungry
The one beef I have with AmpliTube; it's a real system hog. I suppose it probably has to be to maintain this level of quality, but it can put a damper on trying to build a bunch of tracks in a given session. Running AmpliTube 3 as a plug-in into Ableton Live, for example, I created a basic amp/cabinet model and set up the mics. Ableton's resource monitor showed over 30% of my CPU power was gobbled up by this one track. If you plan to stack a bunch of guitar tones in your project, I highly recommend you run a Quad-core or higher machine with tons of RAM.
If, like me, you don't have access to this kind of Uber-Computer, all is not lost. AmpliTube 3 offers three levels of resolution to help ease the CPU burden. Running the above settings in Economy mode brought the processing load down to just over 10%, and greatly reduced monitoring latency. The sound quality was definitely reduced over the High mode I originally used to create the tone, but it was good enough to give me the flavor I needed to record the track. I checked the track again in Mid mode, and it bumped the processing crunch up to around 20%. Still noticeably lower quality than the High mode, but to my ears it sounded better than some other applications' best. I would suggest laying down your tracks in the Economy mode, then using Mid for the mixdown. You can then switch to High for final rendering, and get the desired results.
Custom Tone
Creating your own amp and effects chains is pretty easy, and AmpliTube 3 gives you the option to enter a whole bunch of additional information when you save the rig. Not only do you name the preset, but you can provide a description of the tone, the artist or genre it reminds you of, the pickup and selector settings you think it sounds best on, and more. Why would you go to all this trouble? Because you can access IK Multimedia's online Preset Xchange from within AmpliTube 3 itself (assuming your computer is connected to the Internet, of course). The search tools access this information to make it easy to find the types of tones you're most interested in.
The AmpliTube manual wasn't much help in figuring out how to grab or share presets, but it turned out to be fairly intuitive. When you've found a preset you want to try, double click on it to download. Similarly, the Post Preset tab lets you scroll through your custom creations and upload them to the Xchange whenever you feel the need.
Workin' Hard Now
One of my favorite new features in AmpliTube 3 is the Speed Trainer function. This is available when you run AmpliTube in standalone mode. It lets you import a bunch of different audio file types (WAV, MP3, AIFF, and more). You can slow the tracks down without changing the pitch to work out tricky passages at a comfortable tempo, or transpose the track if your singer wants to do the tune in a different key than the original. You can do this kind of thing in some DAW applications, but I found the process to be a lot easier to manage straight into AmpliTube.
As I said, I've been using IK Multimedia's AmpliTube software going all the way back to the beginning, and with the power and flexibility of the latest Version 3, I see no reason to change. The ease of creating (and now sharing) tones is fantastic, and the output sounds even better. If they can figure out a way to do all that on a fraction of the CPU power it currently requires, AmpliTube will take over the world.
