Neural DSP is a brand that focused primarily on bass and guitar plugins. They worked with various guitarists and in this guide you learn more about these plugins!
Let’s dive in, we are starting with Archetype: Gojira:
Contents show
1. Neural DSP – Archetype: Gojira
More Info & Price (Trial Available)
A collaboration between one of the leading amp sim companies and one of today’s top metal bands. What else could be better for those who need a quality heavy guitar tone? It is Archetype: Gojira by Neural DSP.
Neural DSP is a Finnish amp sim company founded in 2017. In recent years they have become one of the major players in these products on the market, providing software of very high sound quality.
Neural has become very popular thanks to their collaborations on plugins with artists likeAdam Nolly (Periphery), Tosin Abasi (Animals as Leaders), Plini Roessler-Holgate, and Cory Wong. They also created other amp sims that immediately won the hearts of producers and guitarists –the Omega Ampworks Granophyre, the Fortin lineup, and more.
The release of the Archetype:Gojira plugin in early 2021 was a tangible furor, both among fans of this French metal band, musicians, and metal producers alike.This software got three amplifiers and three cabinets that you can combine.
But the real trick is the effects that you can activate both at the beginning of the guitar chain and the end of it. The developers also made sure that the plugin could be used not only by those engaged in recording music. That’s why they provide it as a standalone version as well.
Key Features:
- Amp section
Among the number of amplifier emulations available,Clean is the first.It was based on a vintage tube amplifier, both with clean tones and the ability to get a natural tube saturation.Second on the list is Rust, a crunch amp featuring one of the most significant gain sweeps Neural DSP has ever worked on.
The last amp is thehigh gain Hot. It is the main one and will give you that most famous Gojira metal guitar tone.
- Cabsim
The cabinets emulation section of the Archetype: Gojira plugin, which includes three units, is the well-known Adam Nolly from Periphery. It containsseven virtual microphones, which can be easily placed on the speakers. In addition to thehundreds of IRs,you also can load your impulse responses.
- FX
Archetype: Gojira is equipped with Pitch Effects, including Wow, a MIDI-programmable pitch shifter pedal with three different modes, and Oct, a polyphonic Octaver pedal capable of adding two independent octaves.
The Pre Effects section has anOverdrive pedal, Distortion, Phaser, and Chorus that you can adjust to your liking. There are alsoTime Effects with Delay, and Reverb, and a 9-band graphical EQ.
Character & Sound:
Gojira is known for its heavy riffs and massive sound, like a wall of sound crashing down on you.The plugin perfectly captures the whole character of the French metal band’s sound.
But the developers assure that despite the possibility to copy the Gojira sound,you can also create your unique guitar tonein the software. Just dive into the settings and experiment with the sound.
Compatibility:
The plugin is available forWindows 7 or higher and macOS 10.14 or higher, both 64-bit only. It comes inVST,AU,AAX formats, and as a Standalone host.
Summary:
Archetype: Gojira will be an excellent find for those trying to reproduce the sound of a French band, as well as for those looking for their heavy tone. You’ll get access tothree premium guitar amp emulations and extensive options in the cabinet section.
The “cherry on the cake” will add awide selection of pre and post effects. Even more variety and fun will be added by the possibility of using thevirtual Wow pedal with a guitar MIDI pedal and experiment with the sound in real-time.
2. Neural DSP Archetype: Cory Wong
More Info & Price (Trial Available)
You can get from nice and crisp clean tones to biting overdrive with Neural DSP’s Archetype: Cory Wong plugin.
Finnish company Neural DSP constantly surprises its customers with different collaborations with famous artists. Their products have become real hits in the amp sim field. For example, you can see their incredible line of Archetype software, which includes Gojira, Adam Nolly, Tim Henson, and others.
Another nugget in this series is Archetype: Cory Wong, a collaboration with American guitarist and bassist, producer, and Grammy-nominated artist. This software incorporates his favorite equipment, including guitar amps, cabs, pedals, and effects. The plugin is unique and striking in its sound.
You get three amplifiers and three cabinets with the ability to switch between them. In addition, you will have microphone options that you can move around the speakers. Need to add grit to your guitar tone? You can do it with top-notch effects pedals.
Key Features:
- D.I. Funk Console
It is the name of the first amp of the plugin. With it, you get the classic “bubble tone,” as it is the sound of an electric guitar just connected to the console. However, you will be able to adjust Tube Saturation, EQ, High & Low Pass Filters.
- Clean Machine
The following amp will give you the cleanest guitar tone you can imagine. It will have a beautiful warmth in the upper frequencies. You will also be able to control the presence and other standard amp options.
- The Amp Snob
This third and final plugin amplifier is an emulation of a first-class tube amplifier. It can also give you a nice clean sound, but you will immediately hear that edge of breakup tone as soon as you crank the gain.
- Use Your Wah
What’s funk without a Was-wah pedal? The plugin also has this feature, and you can use it with the MIDI pedal. And if you don’t have one, you can use the auto-wah function.
- Pre & Post Effects
In the Pre-Effects section, you will have the opportunity to use four pedals: The Postal Service (Envelope Filter), The 4th Position Compressor, The Tuber (Classic tube overdrive), and The Big Rig Overdrive. In addition, at the end of your guitar chain, you can also use Delay-y-y and The Wash, a powerful reverb.
Compatibility:
The plugin is available for Windows 7 or higher and macOS 10.14 or higher, both 64-bit only. It comes in VST, AU, AAX formats, and as a standalone host.
Summary:
Archetype: Cory Wong is a genuinely first-rate plugin that brings you the stunning sound of one of today’s guitar heroes. This software is perfect for fans of funk, indie, and other similar subgenres of rock music. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to experiment with your sound, thanks to various guitar amp emulations and the implementation of effects.
3. Neural DSP: Archetype: Petrucci
More Info & Price (Trial Available)
With Petrucci’s guitar amp, you can get a beefy distortion and an outer-space clean tone with just a few clicks.
Neural DSP worked with the legend himself, John Petrucci, to create a virtual amp that can becomea game-changer for your tone. This monster amp with an impulse response loader brings you all you need to take your sound to a different level, as it brings you four effect pedals, four amps, six mics, and more.
In addition to that, Archetype: Petrucci comes with some pretty incredible and unique features, such as a built-in transposer tovary the pitch of your playing in a surprisingly transparent way, a doubler effect with an adjustable spread control, a metronome, and so much more.
Archetype: Petrucci includes a standalone version to use outside your DAW and without any additional software. This plugin has afuturistic graphic interfacebut keeps it simple while adding some special switches that can enhance your tone even further, as if it wasn’t enough.
Key Features:
- Impulse response amps
Archetype: Petrucci brings you four great-looking amps with dramatically different sounds that go from a heart-felt spacy melody to djenty modern metal distortions. This plugin includes aPiezo amp,made explicitly for piezo pickups and single coils, just like clean, rhythmic, and lead amps as usual.
- Effects
They could not make an amp simulator without adding next-level effects, so they made them on three separate processing stages for a more controllable administration. You’ve got pre effects, including a compressor and a wah pedal, stompboxes with the usual chorus, flanger, phaser, drive, and a post-effects panel withthree rack-mounted post-effects unitsfor more definition on your tone.
- Cab and microphone simulations
With Archetype: Petrucci, you geta comprehensive cab sim module with impulse responses and a handful of virtual microphonesthat you can position anywhere on the cabinet if you have a particular stereo amp-micing technique that you’d like to try.
It also provides you with a selection of two new microphones with adjustable level and distance controls.
- Special features
This plugin’s unique features include a four-band semiparametric EQ fortotal control over the frequency responseand gives you one for each clean, rhythm, and lead amp separately. The plugin is also MIDI controllable, enabling you to use it live and facilitate performance. And of course, it comes with the transpose and doubler that we mentioned before.
Compatibility:
It supportsWindows 10orhigherandmacOS10.14orhigher, runs on64 bitonly, and comes inVST2, VST3, AU, and AAXformats.
Summary:
Archetype: Petrucci by Neural DSP is a top-notch and top-technology amp simulator with many incredible features and traits that are perfect to craft the ultimate guitar tone, especially if you’re into djent and progressive stuff.
The sound is unbelievable, and thedual rectifier emulation is freakishly accurate. However, regardless of how good, it’s been reported by several users that it has some loading issues when you open it, so I strongly suggest downloading the14-day free trialand testing it out for yourself before making any purchase.
4. Neural DSP Parallax Multiband Distortion
More Info & Price (Trial Available)
A great bonus on our list is the Parallax plugin from Neural DSP. This plugin will make your life easier and drop a mellow and punchy bass tone.
The Finnish company Neural DSP is one of the flagships in terms of amp sim software these days. They released many great guitar plugins collaborating with famous musicians and bands like Gojira, Adam Nolly Getgood, Tim Henson, Tosin Abasi, and others.
These guys have not ignored the bass players and created some fantastic plugins – Darkglass Ultra and Parallax. As for the last one, it is multiband bass distortion, which gives an outstanding sound quality. The point is that to get the best bass tone, and many engineers use parallel processing.
That is, they divide the bass line into several tracks and process them separately. Now you can do all this with only one plugin. It is important to note that this software is not a MIDI instrument but a processing one.
Key Features:
- Distortion
You will be able to handle high and low-frequency distortion separately. Just use the Mid Drive, Mid Level, High Drive, High Pass, and High Level knobs. It uses tube modeling technology to give you a rich harmonic sound.
- Low Compression
To build the foundation of your tone, you can separately influence the low frequencies. The Low Compression section is responsible for this. Here you will have three knobs for Compression, Low Pass and Low Level. Important to know that the Bus compressor algorithm is used here, providing you with quality signal processing.
- EQ
With this tool, you can achieve an even greater sharpening of your tone. You will have a graphic equalizer with a range of 200 to 1.5 kilohertz. After processing the mid and high frequencies, bringing the overall tone in line with your desire is handy.
- Cabsim
As with its other software, Neural DSP offers first-rate cab impulses. The Parallax plugin has a separate Cabsim section that will allow you to move two virtual mics around two speakers.
- Presets
If you don’t want to deal with the settings, you will have the opportunity to play with ready-made presets. There are over a hundred of them. These are custom settings from musicians like Nolly Getgood, Kane Churko, Forrester Savell, Tom Doyle, etc.
Compatibility:
The plugin is available for Windows 7 or higher and macOS 10.14 or higher, both 64-bit only. It comes in VST/3, AU, AAX formats, and as a standalone host.
Summary:
Parallax Multiband Distortion is a premium plugin that will give you a great bass tone suitable for metal and other heavier genres. Its separate frequency processing provides a mix-ready sound as if a professional mixing engineer worked on it. You’ll also get to use the great cabinet impulses in this software.
5. Neural DSP Archetype: Nolly
More Info & Price (Trial Available)
Neural DSP managed to make what they call to be Adam “Nolly” Getgood’s sonic vision for the perfect guitar sound.
If you don’t know who Adam Nolly is, he is the former bassist, guitar player, and producer of Periphery from 2009 until 2017. He’s also well known for his production skills, running GetGood Drums and drumming sample packs.
This plugin includes four different tube amplifier models taken fromNolly’s personal collection of modified amplifiers, which are re-engineered versions of his favorite amplifiers built by himself, trying to find his idea of the perfect tone.
Another outstanding feature of this plugin is the capability tolink/unlink each head with its matched cabinet, which lets you combine the four amplifiers with the 640 IRs this amp sim has to offer. Let’s talk about all of these in more detail, shall we?
Key Features:
- Unique amps
Right off the bat, the sound it’s as unique as it gets since Neural DSP didn’t model any famous amp, like all other amp simulations out there, but models Nolly’s personally modified amps instead. You cantake your guitar sound from dreamy dynamic playing to massive distortionswith just enough dynamic range for definition.
- Cabinet impulse response
You have fourcabinets that you can combine with a wide array of different microphones,settings, and positions that total over 600 IR files just for this plugin that you can also modify, so it’s virtually aninfinite variety in sound.
- Pedal FX
You have four effect pedals in front of the amp, compressor, delay, and two very different overdrives.The first is a crisper low-gain-tube-screamer-style overdrive, while the second is more like the extreme version of a tube screamerwith a higher gain.
Compatibility:
It supportsWindows 10orhigherandmacOS10.14orhigher, runs on64 bitonly, and comes inVST2, VST3, AU, and AAXformats.
Summary:
Archetype: Nolly is another example of an overkill amp simulator by Neural DSP. It’s mind-blowing the endless amount of possibilities it gives you with the impulse responses to shape the tone to whatever it is you might be looking for and get it just the way you want it with a mix-ready sound quality that feels like you’re actually playing through the amp.
6. Neural DSP Archetype: Tim Henson
More Info & Price (Trial Available)
Neural DSP combined the virtuosity and style with top-notch technology and created this insane feature with the guitar genius, Polyphia’s Tim Henson.
Tim Henson’s contribution to Archetype brought all his sounds, like hisharmonizer multi-voice and characteristic cleanbut slightly crunchy tones, and packed them all with a tastefully aesthetic layout.
As soon as you open it, you instantly notice that clean, wide, and crunchy tone that’s so characteristic in all Polyphia’s records, verydynamic and airy, with the right amount of break up to keep things even.
It includes all features on previous Neural DSP plugins, like various amps, the adjustable mic position, and so on, but what makes this plugin so tremendously different from the rest is the harmonizer section. It has four voices, and you cancontrol it with the presented parameters or with MIDI mode.
Key Features:
- Multivoicer
This section is modeled after Tim Henson’s harmonizer, which you can hear in several Polyphia records. It lets youcontrol the intervals of each voicingas much as their panning, detune, and delay. You should give it a try on vocals.
- Acoustic simulator
It’s the black amp from this plugin, and it’sa faithful recreation of Tim’s studio signal chainto bring back the harmonics of your acoustic instruments. It can also closely simulate the bright sound of the acoustic/piezo on regular pickups.
- Versatility
Although this is a plugin that you might say is meant for more harmonious and heavenly music styles, you canget some serious dirt out of it, which says a lot about how versatile it is. If you crank up the pink amp’s gain knob, you’ll instantly notice a chunky guitar tone that you can crush even better with the overdrive. The more you experiment with it, the more you can get.
Compatibility:
It supportsWindows 10orhigherandmacOS10.14orhigher, runs on64 bitonly, and comes inVST2, VST3, AU, and AAXformats.
Summary:
Archetype: Tim Henson is another monster amp simulator by Neural DSP, which I know it’s turning repetitive, but they’re just that good. Its default sound is alreadymix-ready without needing to tweak anything, all three of these amps are outstanding, but the real jewel is the multivoicer. It’s not as synthy, and its four voices and panning possibilities behave great even with vocals and bass.
If I could pinpoint something that might be problematic about this plugin, it would be that it can seriously be too much for your computer specs. There’s afree 14-day trialthat I suggest you download before making any purchase so that you can have a clear idea of how it’s going to flow with your system.
7. Neural DSP – Fortin NTS Suite
More Info & Price (Trial Available)
If you want a real high gain monster in the form of an amp sim plugin, the next one on our list is what you need. It is the brutal Fortin NTS Suite from Neural DSP.
Finnish company Neural DSP is one of the top producers of amp sim plugins. Their list includes Archetype: Gojira, Archetype: Nolly, Archetype: Tim Henson, and many others. A few years ago, they decided to team up with Fortin to get one of the demon heads in plugin form.
The Fortin NTS Suite plugin is based on the famous Natas guitar amplifier. The name speaks for itself if you read it backward. Still, the software has absorbed all the power and fury of the physical prototype.
It’s a two-channel amp with additional gain settings, a pedal booster, and an excellent cab sim. In short, everything you need to get an aggressive metal sound.
Key Features:
- 6RIND & 6IRTH Controls
You will see these knobs on the front of the amplifier. These frequency selective gain controls interact with the 6AIN knob to control the saturation and distortion characteristics. With them, you can get a tight crunch or a complete high gain distortion.
- Grind, Zuul & Hexdrive
These are the pedals that are located in the chain before the amplifier. Zuul will give you Noice Gate, Hexdrive will act as an overdrive pedal, and Grind will add an amount of clarity and articulation to the sound, making every note defined and present, even when highly distorted.
- Cabsim
The cabinet emulation in the plugin is very comprehensive and adaptive. In addition to good-sounding speakers, you can choose between six virtual microphones, which can be positioned around the speakers. In addition, you can load your impulses or disable this section altogether.
Compatibility:
The plugin is available for Windows 7 or higher and macOS 10.14 or higher, both 64-bit only. It comes in VST, AU, AAXformats, and as a standalone host.
Summary:
The Fortin NTS Suite from Neural DSP would be fabulous for those who want the most brutal yet clean and transparent guitar sound. Although, this amp sim is versatile and can also serve for dirty tones. It is where the 6RIND and 6IRTH controls help you.
Also, a good attraction of this plugin is the pedals for even more expressive distortion and the fantastic cabinet emulation section.
