IK MULTIMEDIA

IKMULTIMEDIA Productions is an international music software company directly operating in 3 countries (Italy, US and UK), privately founded in 1996 for the purpose of developing a new generation of music software designed to take advantage of the fast growing personal computer performance and revolutionize the way people compose and play music.
Since its formation, IK has produced a wide range of breakthrough innovative products, from consumer to professional music software, that have been awarded by users and media worldwide as well as referenced partners such as Intel®, Apple®, Digidesign®, Mackie®, EMU®, Roland®, Cakewalk®, MOTU® and many others.
Our unique approach to innovative music software has allowed the development of one of the widest and fastest growing range on the market: from DJ and re-mixing to loop and sound collections & high-quality effects processors for the studio to cutting-edge software musical instruments for keyboard players and guitarists.
Today, IK employs an international team of more than 40 people in 6 countries for marketing, sales, product development and research.
IK products are available in more than 30 countries and are used by hundreds of thousands of users worldwide.


AmpliTube METAL Features:

AmpliTubeMETAL

A metal distortion powerhouse software/plug-in

Based on IK’s award-winning AmpliTube 2 software, AmpliTube Metal is the first guitar amp and fx modeling software entirely dedicated to heavy metal gear, with an arsenal of 48 highly acclaimed models of modern and vintage amps, cabinets, stompboxes and rack effects.

AmpliTube Metal offers an ultra-realistic software recreation of 14 stomp boxes, 5 amp models, 13 cabinets, 6 mics, and 9 rack FX for a complete high-gain arsenal of sounds from the late 70’s through today. With extremely rare and collectible models of metal stomp boxes, amp heads and cabinets, from the legendary, hard-to-find Japanese originals to classic British and American essentials, including models based on* the ProCo RAT, Electro-Harmonix® Big Muff Pi, Digitech® Whammy™, several vintage BOSS® effects, Randall® Warhead, Peavey® 5150™, Mesa/Boogie® Triple Rectifier®, and other great emulations based on metal gear.

AmpliTube Metal is based on IK’s award-winning DSM™ (Dynamic Saturation Modeling) technology. The product of over 10 years of research and development, DSM™ delivers unmatched realism and tone in recreating classic analog gear like guitar amps and stompboxes.

AmpliTube Metal is perfect for gain-heads of all styles, from early heavy metal and hard rock to today’s nu metal, thrash and speed metal.


AmpliTube METAL • Review

Live your Metal Maniac dream and buy a car with the money you saved purchasing AmpliTube METAL.

Amplitube METAL is the answer to the recession blues many musicians are suffering from in today's economy. A stimulus package all on its own, AmpliTube METAL is a solid investment that will not leave you wondering were your 401K went. When it comes to investment many of us are apprehensive at the least, knowing who to trust with our hard earned money has become more like a bad trip to Las Vegas rather than a sound financial making decision. Speaking of Sound decisions AMG has a serious tip on saving money and a way to get a return worthy of bailing out a couple hundred bucks for, AmpliTube Metal. $229.99 USD.

Other than AmpliTube METAL's affordable market price any savvy investor will look at more than just face value, sure METAL has an interface that looks like candy. At first glance your heart begins to excite at the prospect of authentic looking amp heads, stomp boxes and rack gear. Your visual senses come alive with excitement immediately upon opening the program. One cannot help but ponder the cost involved in purchasing the same gear in reality apposed to virtually and then attention turns to the test, will this be too good to be true or will it burn my face off with distortion and high gain screams? Can one get that vintage Metal sound? Will it be able to make me sound like Eddie Van Halen? The fact is this software is award winning for a reason, so yes it performs beyond expectations, truly. You can get any Metal tone your heart desires and those pinch harmonic screams never sounded better. Will you sound like Eddie Van Halen, well your tone will.

I recommend that before purchasing AmpliTube METAL, make sure you have the computer hardware necessary to get the most out of the software. I used the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Fidelity I/O Drive audio input interface to plug my guitar directly into a high performance PC. The sound system is further enhanced by using a high end 2.1 surround sound speaker system. If your computer is optimized for gaming you probably will not have any problem running this software. Having a sub woofer helps you get rich low bottom end punch and in my opinion a necessity for quality palm muted crunching.

It is necessary to tweak the software settings to best match your computers performance so as not to have any latency issues. When you open the program you can click on the "settings" tab located upper left and select the "audio MIDI set up" drop down tab. Set up your specific hardware driver profile but pay special attention to the sample rate and buffer size. I found that a sample rate of 44100 and a buffer size of 880 work best for my rig. There are no latency issues using these settings, so when I play the notes transfer instantly, no lagging. Ready to shred!

METAL Tone:

Taking into account that I'm using a high fidelity sound system and a high performance computer my results with the softwares tonal attributes are stellar performance and tone. It is very easy to run a line out to a main board system and use this rig live. To say I'm impressed is the least that can be said. I can shape and tweak tone in a multitude of various ways switching and swapping components with reckless abandon. You can within a few minutes run through dozens of configurations. This is what I did at first. Playing a simple riff and clicking through each head, stomp box and rack effect. After getting to a configuration to die for I started tweaking the components by switching cabs and trying different mic positions. In the end I was blistering solos with better response and tone than I could ever have imagined possible coming from a computer software program.

I have to credit IK’s award-winning DSM™ (Dynamic Saturation Modeling) technology. It has a smoother more responsive signal than anything else I have tried in the past. It continuously adapts the “shape” of the analog circuit instead of applying a static snapshot. By using more complex mathematical functions, a more articulated and musical response is possible, making DSM™ ideal for modeling tube preamps and tube power amps.

Using the EQ only helps you achieve the sound that best fits your ear and the system your using, so use it.

You may wonder if this software is for geeks and the answer is, HELL NO! Anyone can use it. The interface is intuitive to anyone who has turned a knob or pushed a button, simple and sleek.

Watch this video demo and if your not impressed then I guess people like me and JD Deservio of Black Label Society are missing something about IK MULTIMEDIA products, I think not. This video takes you through all the various amp heads, stomp boxes, racks and other features offered in AmpliTube METAL.



AMG final analysis of IK MULTIMEDIA's
AmpliTube METAL.

It performs greater than expected, it's easy to use and there is no learning curve to slow you down, it looks sleek and realistic, it is option rich with a few surprises, it has tone on par for use in a professional recording environment or on the road, it is compatible with the best main stream recording software as a plug-in or it can be used as a stand alone. It is very affordable and holds up to the value centric penny pincher scrutiny of AMG. In addition, IK MULTIMEDIA is a great company that employs fanatical tech support.

"AmpliTube METAL has the Rockness Monster in it's Lake of Sound."

Five star rating, * * * * *
http://www.americanmadeguitars.com

Find IK MULTIMEDIA on the web!
http://www.ikmultimedia.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/ikmultimedia
http://www.myspace.com/ikmultimedia

Review by Gary Housley 03/25/2009

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