Teknoise: computing, music, computer music

A Four Amp Shootout with the Toneport

So, with all of our introductory concerns out of the way, we can worry about how the Toneport actually sounds.

i decided the best way to approach this question was to compare it side by side with other amp emulators at equivalent settings.  It’s like shopping for an amp, only without the Guitar Center guy breathing down your neck, trying to sell you Distrubed’s guitarist’s all-in-one pedal.   I compared the Gearbox to two major players in amp sims–Amplitube 2 and Guitar Rig II.  I also compared it with Frettedsynth’s FreeAmp.

I used an American Standard Strat with Red, Silver and Blue lace sensors through one generic cable into the Gearbox’s unbuffered input for the test.

For the emulations themselves, I used approximations of Fender Amps.  The Gearbox is a Deluxe Reverb, and the Amplitube is through a squeaky clean setting on their American Tube II amp.  I used FreeAmp’s only available amp model on a clean setting.  For Guitar Rig II, I used their clone of a Fender Twin Reverb.   The EQs on all of these amps were set at 12 o’clock.

I recorded myself playing very loose and sloppy approximations of a chord progression and I did all of this recording in the same session of my audio program, on to 4 audio tracks with no effects or eqs.  All of these clips are using an emulated condenser microphone (if this option was available).  The tracks were normalized before output in my audio host.

You can download the clips in a .zip here. They are four very short, labeled .wavs.

You can also listen to the Toneport and the other amp sims here , as streaming .mp3s.

What do you think?  My opinion and conclusions in part III.