Audiobus: Use your music apps together.

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THU - the biggest sleeper in guitar tone

joegrant413joegrant413
in Other Music Content

On another thread, I said I was going to try out the Helix Native plugin on my Macbook. I finally did try the demo last night. And while I was at it, I also tried the "Archetype Nolly" plugin from Neural. And then switched over to a few TH-U banks I have as plug-ins.

Geeeeezzzzzz.

Unbelievably, the TH-U more than holds its own. It still feels better!

I didn't AB compare or ABC compare using the same models, I was just flaying about. But IMHO, the TH-U stuff felt the best, Neural second, Helix third. "Feel" mostly means how much the sound is responsive to my hands strumming and bending the strings. How organic it seems.

Soundwise, apart from feel, Neural edged out TH-U. Helix Native third.

Again, very unfair and flaying about and initial impressions. But I leave with little doubt that TH-U is excellent, both VST and iOS versions. Maybe a stretch, but TH-U could make a claim to be the best software guitar modeling company. (Not including Fractal, since they are basically a hardware company.)

Anyway, putting it out there. There are plenty of good, in-depth threads about TH-U / THU on this forum. And Nembrini. Guitarists who haven't checked them out are well-advised to do so.

Cheers,
Joe

Comments

  • richardyotrichardyot

    THU sounds great, and I love the ChopTones rigs, but the UI is really clunky IMO and puts me off using it.

  • yellow_eyezyellow_eyez

    So your “friend” must really appreciate all the research you did for him ;)

  • joegrant413joegrant413

    Agreed about UI being clunky. I hadn’t used THU desktop for a while and got lost.

  • joegrant413joegrant413

    Still might try a few demo Neural plugins.

  • espiegel123espiegel123

    For strictly amp and distortion, I used to favor TH-U but I now find TONEX my preferred amp sim . It takes some hunting to find the gems in ToneNet but there are some really great captures up there. To me they feel more responsive in my hands…a difference more while playing than while listening to playback.

    With some time spent crafting the settings, the Nembrini XTasy still strikes me as the most versatile and great sounding single sim there is.

    GigFast Lite is pretty impressive too and can load NAM profiles.

    TH-U has a lot to offer and I think there are other sims at its level.

  • yellow_eyezyellow_eyez
    edited August 31

    @espiegel123 said:
    For strictly amp and distortion, I used to favor TH-U but I now find TONEX my preferred amp sim . It takes some hunting to find the gems in ToneNet but there are some really great captures up there. To me they feel more responsive in my hands…a difference more while playing than while listening to playback.

    With some time spent crafting the settings, the Nembrini XTasy still strikes me as the most versatile and great sounding single sim there is.

    GigFast Lite is pretty impressive too and can load NAM profiles.

    TH-U has a lot to offer and I think there are other sims at its level.

    Especially considering you can buy a pedal my vote is for Tonex too. THU and the others mentioned are all great, but Tonex is a little special(er) lol

    (GigFast is impressive for loading IR, just hope they do more fx)

  • michael_mmichael_m

    For desktop I think Blue Cat Audio is hard to beat. It’s as simple or as complex as you want to make it, and really nails some great amp types.

    https://www.bluecataudio.com/Main/Home/

    I have other software licenses for amp sims but uninstalled them all.

  • joegrant413joegrant413
    edited August 31

    So is TONEX cross platform? As in having software you can use just with the desktop, or iOS, or the hardware pedal?

  • joegrant413joegrant413

    Haven’t heard of blue cat. Will check them out.

  • espiegel123espiegel123

    @joegrant413 said:
    So is TONEX cross platform? As in having software you can use just with the desktop, or iOS, or the hardware pedal?

    I don't know about the pedal. But I believe the desktop and iOS are cross-platform. The wrinkle is that the desktop version has the ability to load Tonex captures from third-parties that aren't on ToneNet but the iOS version doesn't have a way to do that.

  • joegrant413joegrant413

    OK, I had forgotten (ha!) that I have ToneX on my iOS and on my Macbook. So I've updated them.

    Worth noting that ToneX doesn't do a pedalboard, just one virtual amp or virtual pedal.

    Nice that Tonex had hardware pedals that are small form factor and only $180.

  • michael_mmichael_m

    As far as amp on a box pedals are concerned I’m extremely happy with my NUX Amp Academy.

    https://www.nuxaudio.com/ampacademy.html

    It’s got some great amps that are supported by high quality cab IRs, and is very reasonably priced.

    Check out reviews on YouTube - almost all of them have really good things to say about it.

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