Native Instruments Guitar Rig VST PC

I have played guitar for about 15 years. I have owned several amps and currently own a boss VF1 and Pod 2. Guitar Rig absolutely massacres both of these. I also cleans up any other software, Amplitube, Simulanalog guitar suite, Rock amp legends, Revalver, etc.
In all fairness, the most impressive 2nd place software would be Sumulanalog because it sounds quite good and is free. Amplitube and Rock Amp Legends are only toys. They may sound like an amp to someone who has never played guitar but certainly don't sound real to anyone who listens to guitar based music. Guitar Rig responds dynamically to a guitar player very similary to an amp. It seems to have a touch of high end sibilance but so does an SM 57 at the grill. With a bit of EQ and distortion tweaking it can be brought into line with any tone you're looking for. I think the reason for some of the poor reviews on various forums is due to people not optimizing or matching the impedance on their input to Guitar Rig. I first tried it as a DX plugin on a high vol DI guitar track though a tube preamp. I was not impressed. It sounded sloppy and severly overdriven. I finally set up my Sound card for a latency of 2 ms and played right into G. Rig. The sound is amazing. If G Rig is 90% of the sound of a well recorded real amp then POD 2 is 60%
That would put Amplitube at about 45%, Revalver at 50 % and Simulanalog at about 80%

Soy un joven musico, he realizado musica para comerciales y videos. Aparte de producir 2 albumes de mi banda alternativa-electronica. Cuando adquiri guitar rig (version 1.2), yo utilizaba pedales multiefectos y unos cuantos analogicos. Lo he utilizado para hacer musica de todo tipo: rock, electronica, grunge, punk, etc. Lo utilizo como stand alone, y en varias ocasiones como vst en FL producer edition y en SONAR 4. El sonido es excelente. Las cajas y los moduladores trabajan perfectamente. Lo que mas me agrada es el ahorro de tiempo (ya no tengo que conectar/desconectar mis pedales independientes, microfonos y cajas). Guitar rig lo hace todo.

La interfaz grafica es super bakan. Facil de usar. El orden de la cadena de efectos es super facil de editar. Solo hay que arrastrar y soltar. Puedes crear combinaciones y seteos limpios, o utilizar el canal saturado de varias cajas. Es totalmente profesional la calidad del sonido. Ademas, el rig kontrol (pedal controlador) te ayuda a cambiar de bancos utilizando cualquiera de los footswitches, ademas de un pedal wah (que tambien puedes usar como pedal de volumen, whammy, etc).

El sonido es impresionante. Limpio y cristalino. Saturado y distorsionado. En cualquiera de los casos, es excelente!!!
La entrada de mi tarjeta de sonido (audigy 2 ZS platinum pro) es monoaural. Pero el guitar rig reproducen la se?al en stereo.
Nada mas que decir. Lo recomiendo si quieres grabar rapido, sin estudio y sin muchos cables y conexiones que te quitan tiempo valioso.

El precio me parecio justo. "Pagas por lo que obtienes", esa es la regla general. Cuando lo he utilizado como standalone, no he tenido ningun problema. Pero al usarlo como VST, se me ha caido un par de veces el programa host (FL studio).

I've been making music for about nine years. I play mostly keyboards and that's what I often run through Guitar Rig. I might hook up a guitar every now and then. I use a very good interface, the Delta 1010, to put audio into my computer. I make pop, rock, and hip-hop types of music. My primary host is Ableton Live. I monitor with some cheap Roland monitors.

Registration is easy. Installation is easy. The manual is useful if you need it.

The interface is definately easy. Not all of the components, (speaker cabinets, amp heads, effects) sound very convincing on their own. But when combined together they can be used to create warm and usable tones.

I believe the reason some people are saying that the program hisses and has artifacts is because they have a cheap crap soundcard with cheap crap pre-amps and what you put in you get out. If you put a clean, loud signal into guitar rig, you are going to get an even better and warmer sound out. As for the sounds, this program covers all areas and is better in some areas than others. The clean tones are warm and sparkly and the distorted tones can be usable, but this software, in my opinion, is better at less distorted sounds. This plugin sounds great in a mix, unlike other amp modelers.

I know this plugin is expensive but it has the ability to do it all. If you need good nu-metal tones, Steinberg Warp VST is better for that. But for what it does when you put a loud clean signal in, you will get a warmer and more realistic sound out than any other software amp modeler or hardware modeler. Try the demo version for yourself. Like other reviewers have touched on, the ability to instantly and easily add the sound of guitar rig to your productions after your guitar has been recorded, that is a big plus. You can have a dry original track, then one affected by Guitar Rig. Then you can mix those two tracks to create an ultimate guitar tone. Luckily, my CPU can handle many instances of Guitar Rig without a hitch. As I stated before, download the demo and see how well it performs on your computer.

I've been making music for around 15 years now, playing guitar, bass and piano. I've been playing in bands an mixing other bands stuff, but not on a professional level. I not fixed to any musical genres - but I'm mainly playing blues, rock, metal and some jazzy stuff.

I was using the Guitar Rig 1.2 Demo as standalone version and VST-plugin on a Windows XP Home laptop system with an ESI QuataFire 610. So far I did not have the opportunity of testing GR through anything else but my AKG K141 Monitor Headphones, which I'm quite used to though.

The installation and setup of GR is no problem at all. The authorisation-stuff is annoying, but very straight-forward - and you basically have to go through this for any software anyway.
Concerning the easiness of getting a sound out of there, well just install, plug the guitar in and it works.

What can I say - can an interface be more intuitive? Everything works perfectly and logically. Of course, GR is more difficult to use than e.g. Amplitube due to it's higher degree of flexiblitiy and complexity.
However, even if you're using a very simple setup (e.g. just an amp+speaker-simulation) it takes some time to get the right sound - Amplitube is much faster.

Well, and a 4-Band-Parametric-EQ would be much nicer than alway having to throw in two of these strange 2-Band things.

It sounds great. The only mistake you shouldn't make is rely on the presets - most of them suck like they do in most amp-simulations (too much FX). But as the probability that the programmer used the same guitar with the same settings and the same playing style is extremely low you have to do it yourself anyway.

The sounds are very real - even the marshall sounds as shitty as old marshalls sound like, and they sound great when using a booster or OD pedal. Especially the different mics and cabinets are great. It's definitely unavoidable to play around with it a bit, but the results are worth it!

Well, it's definitely worth its price, especially when considering that it's a modular system, which can easily be updated (which already happened at least once) and that it comes with that pedal. I'm almost sure that I'll buy it.

I've tried a lot of free or demo versions of other amp-plugins as well, and besides Amplitube and GR everything just sucked. As I'm currently not at home I could not compare it to other amps or hardware-simulations, but the comparison of recordings of these through the same headphones makes more sense anyway.

So far, GR didn't crash, but it eats a lot of CPU-Power when you're building big setups. But the cool thing about all Plugins is, that you can change the sound after recording.

Finally, I must say that GR is the best simultaion I heard so far! Just hope that NI will include some more amp-models in the future (which isn't a problem due to the cool modular system). Some special feature for Bass (e.g. synth) would be nice as well....

10 Years making music
I play a lot of instruments, mainly guitars
I use the plug-in with cubase SX 2.0
I am mainly addicted to Neil Young stuff
My computer is a 2Ghz with 1024 RAM - Running XP SP1
My monitors are AKG hedphones, cant recall type.

The interface is 100%
The installation is straight forward
Havent used the automation function yet, I supose that it should be no problem
It is a good looking user interface, but it is really hard to get good overdrivem sounds out of this software. The clean sound is OK, but I havent found anything usable for at serious project.

The sound could be manipulated by using a row of modelled amps in a row. 2 voxes and 3 fenders in one channel sounds quite OK
The stereo splits are cool.. this is really a toy..

Very easy. The virtual devices (amps, cabs, effects) are displayed and you can use their knobs and switches like of a real device.

I don't give a rating, because I only used it with headphones. Clean sounds are very good. Special FX sounds are amazing. I'm a bit disappointed concerning crunch and lead sounds. My old Johnson J-Station is a lot better in this category.

I'm really p***ed because the guitar rig stand alone application (and I think the rest of the programm, too) doesn't run on a AMD Athlon 1400 GHz. It does run on a Intel Celeron 1.5 GHz witch is significantly slower! The AMD CPU doesn't have a strange thing called altivec or something like that. It is needed by the programm. So make shure, that your pc fullfills the requirements of the guitar rig.

The quality of the sounds are professional, but the price is too high. Also, the presets aren't too good.

Use on Powerbook with Logic Express

Very Easy

Unfortunately the sounds are on Par with a POD II, useful but swamped in DDL and chorus etc. to hide the real sound.

Because of the price (very expensive) I couldn't give it more than 5. You can buy a POD 2 for 130 in the UK or even better buy a tech 21 TRIAC and add FX on your DAW.

At this price it is too much for something that will not retain it's value. Buy Modelling pedals instead!

I'm playing the guitar for many years now, had a lot of gear, touring and recorded with tons of (tube-)amps, effects and guitars. Right now I'm 'retired', just doing Homerecordings, based on a Win-XP PC with a RME audio-interface and DSP-Cards.

Guitar-Rig needs a fast Computer! Modern PC or MAC hardware is required for a smooth, stressless working. A audio-interface with less latency is also required.

Guitar Rig 1.2 is a great piece of software! It's a Guitar-Studio by it's own and you don't have to struggle with those tons of hardware to get great realistic sounding Guitar-Tracks. You can't compare to the real things (Tubeamps & Cabs recorded with Microphones), but Guitar Rig as a Modeller comes very, very close to it, if you are willing and able to tweak the presets depending to the guitar you are using.

With it's two Tapedecks you can record dry or processed audiofiles in Tapedeck one, while playing/jamming with drumloops (Tapedeck two) or the metronome for exact synchronized tracks. These feature is fantastic and haven't mentioned out here yet. And it's even remotecontrolable with the Rig-Control. You can import your tracks to your Host-Sequencer later on, recorded in Guitar Rig's standalone-version (e.g. with a Laptop) first.

Guitar-Rig is easy to understand, even for those who are not practiced in Sequencers like Cubase, Sonar, Logic... or other audio applications. It's absolutely easy to install and you just need to read the Manual, if you want some special informations like e.g. using the EQ's the best way or how to do the Registration process.

Guitar-Rig sounds great!

If you are doing (Home-)Recordings and want realistic sounding Guitartracks, Guitar-Rig is the closest to the real thing. Clean, Crunch and Punk sounds fantastic. You can hear the difference (comparing with other Guitaramp-Modellers) in the mix - you can tweak it very 'threedimensional', because of the air and distance settings. The Amps are modelled very accurate and they react like they have to. The Speakersimulation is gorgeous!

The greatest thing of all is, how the four Amps are playable: they play and feel (react) like Tubeamps (wich can be a struggle for someone... ;-) You can hear a Filtertron-Pickup, if you play a Gretsch, a '50s Strat Pickup on a Alder-Body, a Swampash Tele-Twang, a Rickenbacker... all these special characteristics and individuality in Guitars tones keeps Guitar-Rig software alive as only a real Tubeamp can.

For Hard & Heavy 'Highspeed-Fiddlers' (Metal) Guitar-Rig is still missing something at Version 1.2

Well, it would be 100% worth the price, if Native Instruments updates this software for free again, plus adding some new components! Guitar-Rig needs some more amps and other components to get perfect, Imho. Rig-Control hardware with it's inbuild Preamp (a preamp is a must for Guitar-Rig) is included.

How long have you been making music? What instruments do you play?
20 years, all kinds of guitars/string instruments

What is the software version number of the plug-in? 1.2

What application(s) do you use the plug-in with? Logic 5.3, Standalone and Ableton Live 4.14

What are you using the plug-ins for? What kind of music do you make? Making Demos or complete recordings for my Folkpunk-Band and other kinds of guitar driven music

What kind of computer and what operating system are you using? windows XP on a Sony Vaio 1.6 GHz Notebook

What is your primary listening equipment? (soundcard to headphones, digital monitors, etc.)
guitar to bypassed digitech preamp, phonic 8-channel mixing desk, RME Hammerfall, computer, RME Hammerfall, Denon (Solid State) Hifi amp, Quadral Hifi boxes

Do you find the interface intuitive?
absolute easy

Did you have any problems installing the plug-in? never ever

Copy protection to deal with? no problem

Is automation supported? yes

Is there any MIDI controller implementation,etc.? yes

How easy is it to get a good sound out of it? very easy

How is the manual (if there is one)? never needed one

How does it sound? How does a Marshall sound if you put your ear to the middle of a speaker? Painful.
In a mix? That's its point! It's sits very well in the mix! You get a Marshall simulation and it's painful as the original. And you can hear you guitar even though the singer sings and the drummer plays crash cymbals constantly! Other emulations as well

Any tricks to make it better? More preamps.

Do you find the presets adequate, or do you find yourself needing to tweak every time?
I always tweak the presets, I don't expect that the programmer has the same guitars as me. I enjoy it, it's my job as a guitar player.

If the plug-in is an instrument, is it expressive? Absolute yes.

Was it worth the price tag? Absolute worth.

What made you choose this over another plug-in? IK Multimedia amplitube sucked, no alternative at this time, no alternative yet.

What did you compare it to? Marshall DSL 2000 Head, IK Multimedia amplitube

But: It's a CPU hog! Always bouncing or freezing.

Never crashed

It is the best software 2004 and made homerecording (when you have no studio) really possible.

Been playing for 30 years. See my other reviews around here, for history. Applcaitons used, Cubase SX. I make all kinds of music. Library music, film music. Blues, jazz and rock. Experimental avant garde. New age, ambient and electronica.

using Tannoy reveal monitors, Music XPC with XP Intel 3,2 ghz CPU 1GB RAM. Soundcard M-audio Firewire Audiophile. Monitors are ACTIVE so they connects DIRECTLY to the outputs of the soundcard and not through a mixer first.

Quite easy but could be much better. I had problems installing the software, because on my authorizsation card was stated TWO different serial numbers (!??!?!) And in the manual it said I could register for authroization code by sending mail from another computer. However, when doing this is sent the wrong system ID number from the computer I was not using GR with, and thus got a wrong authorization code. Took me a weekend and a half before they bothered to send me right information. The PC that I am using for music will not EVER be hooked up to the internet at all.

Also, their mail policy, set up and authorsiation does not simplify for the users at all. Especially not since you have to send SYSTEM ID information of your computer. If I change mailadress then? If I change computer or hardware then? This is true to all Native Instruments.

So the manual states very ambiguos information.

The UI input rack has some confusing things. On the Rig Control pedal board and on my soundcard, all inputs are labeled 1 and 2. But on the UI input rack the inputs states L & R. Left and Right, yeah, but which of the 1 or 2 are L & R? You can easily swap them and get the annoying control signal buzzing loud in your speakers. They should change the display to 1 & 2 to instead, so one didn't have to guess.

Automation is supported but only to a certain exent. I haven't found out any way - YET - to use MIDI controller pedals instead of the RIG kontrol. It's very easy to accidentally overwrite patches. And, I agree with others here. It should be resizable. It's either too tiny, or too big.

It excels all other models just in certain areas, and those are

1. Half cranked Fender Twin Reverbs. half distorted sound that has responsivness to your pick attack, and volume on guitar changes. Excellent.

2. You can actually hear much more difference between single coils and humbuckers AND difference between neck/bridge pickups. Unique among software modellers.

3. Clean sounds, and special FX sounds.

4. Since no amp brand name are favored, future plugs can hold ANY amp /effect out there. This item is "brand" neutral. Others, like Vox Tonelab seems to hype or plug their own brand name "vox", and are limting themselves somewhat.

All other areas, it's just, well decent, and adequate.
It seems that distorton and modelling of old pedals still makes it too much of a chore for anyone out there. Full tilt mega distortion for nu metal isn't this plugs forte. And I seriously doubt that the Marshall amp modeling has been made from a healthy amp! The Vox ToneLeb makes a better Marshall sound.

Tweaking is needed on all of the presets. User groups and libraries on the internet, can prove quite useful. The sounds - overall - cuts through a dense mix of music. One can hear low notes pop out through a mix. This is very rare. Vox ToneLab does this too though.

Depending on your soundcard and resolution, this plugin can get a little fatiguing after a while, due to it's digital haziness, BUT less so than Amplitube and all other modellers. The Rig Kontrol pedal board, makes this worthwhile. You can assign anything to anything without any USB,FW, or MIDI cable. Soundwise: It's not the be all end all plug for every guitar sound there is.

I like small things like metronome, tuner and the tape decks, actually. Extremely convenient. And you can SYNC delays, modulations to the tempo of a track, or do a tap on the pedals, and play along to echoes and things.

A 10 for this category is only given in 10 years. I mean that a 10 rating could only be given again in 10 years time, and it has not been surpassed by anything else. A real Fender Twin hasn't been surpassed yet, or easily replaced by anything else that tops it. I doubt this Guitar Rig will stand the same longevity...as with any other pedal or modelling software as well.

One of the few things - in spite of it all - that I actually thought was worthwhile buying brand new. The registration and installation things discovered, makes that part NOT worthwhile. If I'd knew this in advance, well... let's put it this way: Little wonder there's so much piracy and illegal copying going around! I'd hesitate to buy it, until they changed installation and registration process.

I love the graphic UI and the racks. I would love to see actual settings on all knobs, and not just displaying them when just browsing the mouse over any button. I would love to be able to nail in a 320 ms delay setting without turning the knob with the mouse all of the time. The knob values seems to be a bit too coarse.

It has crashed a couple of times, as well. Alas, here's no advantage to having bought all software for real and using real license and having a clean conscience. They bug out as well as any other cracked software.