I want to start this Guitar Rig 7 Pro review by saying that compared to a lot of my musician friends, I’m a mediocre guitar player at best; while I can find my way round the essential chords, and the odd simple solo, I am far far from commanding a session player’s skillset. I do have a good set of ears however, as a producer, and know what sound I’m looking for.
This is the seventh iteration of NI’s guitar amp and effects simulator. It has been boosted by both new algorithmic technology (The proprietary “Intelligent Circuit Modeling” (ICM) ) and with the partnerships of other software companies, with the inevitable crossbreeding of technology that occurs.
What’s New In Guitar Rig 7 Pro?
Guitar Rig 7 Pro packs four new amp models with matching cabinet modules to inspire your sound, each with Impulse Responses from Ownhammer and 3 Sigma Audio, and a “direct” to “room” slider. All amps are faithfully recreated from their analog originals with our ICM technology.
- The Super Fast 100 is a legendary 100W all-tube amp that defined the sound of modern rock with its shiny cleans, creamy leads, and high-gain sounds.
- The Reverb Delight is a timeless classic from the mid-60s, used on countless hits, and regarded as one of the most essential workhorse guitar amps ever made.
- The Bass Rage, an iconic all-tube bass amp that delivers 300 watts of classic bass tone, is designed for players who are looking for a vintage tube sound for low-end frequencies.
- The AC Box XV, modeled after a legendary 60s tube amp renowned for its clean tone and gritty breakup, features a meticulously designed “point-to-point”, hand-wired chassis produced in the UK. This two-channel tone monster shaped the sound of Liverpool.
Sound Quality
Immediately on loading up and jamming with the software, I was impressed by the marked improvement in quality of emulation. I could never quite get there with previous iterations of the software, and would always turn to my business partner to re-amp any guitar parts I made through his physical amps and cabs in his studio. He will be pleased to know I won’t be bugging him any more.
To my ears, the emulations of creamy cleans to rich overdrives you get through the classic amps, are good enough for most use cases. One of the main things I noticed was the reaction to dynamic playing was a massive improvement. The tone change as you dig into the strings and play harder is a very satisfying moment for sure. I also liked the change to the cabinet section – instead of the matching cabs for the amp, you can load IR’s from (currently 5 different companies) to get a lot closer to the original hardware tones. The control room is also still there – with different choices of mics, and positions to alter the tone.
CPU Hit
The understandable downside to the number crunching needed for this meticulous emulation machine is the munching up of CPU. I have an M2Max studio, and it was knocking up to 15, 20% off my ceiling when a fully loaded instance was up and rocking. But the tonal and timbral payoff makes it so so worth figuring out the processing delegation!
A Smorgasbord of Effects
Now that the foundation to the tonal characteristics of amp/cab simulation is rock solid, the effects unchanged just sound better. But there are more additions, taking it to over 100 different pedal choices, covering anything you can think of. A lot of the pedals have had the ICM treatment to, making them much more responsive to playing. There are loads of vintagey lo-fi left field additions, from Kolor, to tape wobble, and vintage vibrato. With the popularity of knob-twiddling pedals from excellent companies (see our recent Chase Bliss Generation Loss review) in the market currently, it’s a good move from NI to add these effects in.
Not Just For Guitar and Bass
To me, where Guitar Rig truly shines, and is incredibly useful, is with sound sources other than guitars and basses. Bringing in synth sounds, drums, or vocals, and running them through this software is incredibly rewarding. Not only because of the quality of sounds, but because the approach to creating the sounds is necessarily different, with different UX to the plugin chain on your typical DAW.
I found myself taking routes I would not usually take when playing around with effects for my synth sounds, and coming up with very fresh ideas as a result. Of note is the new layout for the presets, which are usually a good jumping off point when you’re in the sonic playground of an effects unit. These presets didn’t disappoint either – A new filterable menu allows you to filter down by genre, character, FX type, and even input source (which shows that the software creators are intentionally widening the use case potential for Guitar Rig) So if you’re looking for lo-fi, warm dusty pad chorus type sounds, a couple clicks will narrow down to a handful of preset starting points for your journey. Extremely useful!
Conclusion
The new additions of amp and cab emulations with the ICM technology, and IR loader, mean the tonal qualities and responsiveness to playing far exceed previous iterations. I did find that the strengths of these new emulations made the older ones slightly pale and 2D in comparison, which leads to hints of feature bloat. It would be nice to be able to remove the stuff you don’t use, so you can focus on the few elements that really stand out to you.
But that aside, Guitar Rig Pro is a bedroom producer’s dream effects box. Not only useful for guitars and basses, it is a sonic playscape for anything you throw at it, and the unique pedal-rack layout encourages a different approach to sound design, with typically fantastic results.
Guitar Rig 7 Pro is available currently for approx. $/€199, but is often on sale, so keep an eye out. You can learn more on the NI web page.
FYI: Guitar Rig 7 Pro is also part of the awesome Music Production Suite bundle, which includes more than 30 plugins across NI, iZotope, and Brainworx product lines and new versions of flagship products such as Ozone and Nectar.
