Native Instruments Guitar Rig 1

I'm a drummer. I'm originally from Brazil. I play in a band called Glint.

This was a recommendation from my brother whose a guitar player. I purchased this software a couple of years ago and I've being surprised with how much you can do with it since. This piece of software simulates various amps, microphones and effects, including distortion, reverb, modulation and equalization. It simulates so perfectly that it will make you sound like a couple grand, literally, reproducing famous microphones like Shure and Neumann and amps like Fender and Marshall. I've recorded not only guitars through it, you can do a lot with drums and vocal tracks as well.
You will find this software in the market for a price of $99, not including the control pedal or interface (both parts of the guitar rig pro package).

<a href="http://www.glintonline.com">http://www.glintonline.com</a>

I would say the great advantage of owning this software is the ability of getting the sound of your guitar or bass through all these well known brands of amps, mics and effects without having to owning them. It probably it would cost you a few grand to have a real version of every single one. Besides that, all the customization you can do with it, gives you great ways to achieve the sound you are looking for.

These are the requirements for this products: Windows® XP (SP2, 32bit) / Vista® (32/64 Bit), Windows 7® (32/64 Bit), Pentium® or Athlon XP 1.4 GHz, 1 GB RAM and#8232;Mac OS® X 10.5 or higher, Intel® Core™ Duo 1.66 GHz, 1 GB RAM

For it's price, owning a copy of this software is a great buy. For guitar and bass players into the home studio music production.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Native Instruments' Guitar Rig is the first version of the popular guitar modeling software. I've also used the newer versions of the software but first used this one a number of years ago now. I don't remember having any issues with installation, but that's about as much as I can remember from it now. Learning to use Guitar Rig isn't too hard, but it's definitely going to take a little bit of use and isn't the type of software where you'll immediately understand everything right off the bat. It's not too far off from this but I still remember needing a little bit of time to become fully comfortable with it. The presets are a good way to get started with it as it gives you some great sounds and starting points without having to have too much knowledge about it. The manual might be a good idea if you've just bought it and are looking to learn all the ins and outs of it, but I haven't seen it for myself.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

When I was running Native Instruments Guitar Rig, I was doing so in Cubase SX and on a Hewlett Packard Pavilion dv8000 Notebook. The computer consisted of a 3.0 Ghz processor and 2 GB of RAM. Guitar Rig definitely takes up a good amount of processing power, especially on a system like the I one I was using it on. I am now running Guitar Rig 2 in Pro Tools on my Mac Book Pro and it runs a lot smoother than this version did on my old computer.

OVERALL OPINION

Native Instruments Guitar Rig was definitely a great first effort for this series of guitar modeling effects and processors. It's great in it's own right but the newer versions definitely sound better and run smoother in my opinion. If you can get a cheap version of the original Guitar Rig it might be worth it, but if that's not a factor you should definitely go with one of the newer versions. The effects in here are for the most part pretty realistic, but in general virtual guitar processing is only going to take you so far. If you rely totally on Guitar Rig for your sounds I think you'll suffer a little bit, but if you use it in tandem with real amps and effects, it's going to sound better of course. I didn't use this with the controller, but if you buy it new it will come with that. Guitar Rig in all of it's forms is software every DAW owner and guitar player should be at least aware of.

Tons of cool features to play around with. Lots of cool presets with awesome effects. I love the audio player built in. You can load a song, and jam along with it. You can even slow down the song and keep the pitch, so you can learn guitar parts very easily. You can also basically build your own Guitar Rig with lots of different effects, amps and cabs. Everything is tweakable too.

Price paid: $449 USD

Very easy to use. Just plug in and go!

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

Cleans sound great through the computer. Throught the computer Distortion is ok, but not as good as IK multimedia's Amplitube. I often overdub guitar with this program and it really thickens up the guitar sound. When you put the distortion through an amp however, it sounds like crap. Really thin and weak.

The rig control seems well built. Works fine. The program works fine too, except it is a MAJOR cpu hog. Watch out when you put the vst version in your channel.

OVERALL OPINION

It is a vital part of my studio. I use it alot for practicing at night, and for fattening up guitar parts. This program rocks!

Originally posted on FutureProducers.com
Posted by: moogman ( 7-, 2005)