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moosers
Published on 05/11/10 at 14:09
Voxengo's TubeAmp is a free VST and Audio Units plug-in, designed to warm up your digital sound. There is a newer updated version of this plug-in other than the one pictured, but I haven't used this plug-in in years and the one I've used is indeed the one in the picture above. You can go onto Voxengo's website and download the newest version of this plug-in, which looks more in depth than the one this review is for. I'm not sure where you could get this older version however. As far as the interface goes, it's simply got parameters for drive, tube, bias, and output gain, so as you can probably tell it is a fairly simple plug-in to use. A manual wasn't included with the download if I can remember correctly, but one isn't needed anyway.
SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE
While I am no longer running this plug-in in my home studio, when I did run it, it was in Cubase SX and as a VST plug-in. A number of years ago I switched over to a Pro Tools based system and didn't have a need for this plug-in anymore, although I could convert it from VST to RTAS with the FXpansion converter if I wanted to. The computer that I ran the plug-in and Cubase on was a Hewlett Packard Pavilion dv8000 lap top that had a 3.0 Ghz processor and 2 GB of RAM. This wasn't the type of plug-in that I was using very often, but really just had it around because I could, so I never tested it out to see how many of them I could run within a single session. I don't think that I ever had more than one instance of it running in a session.
OVERALL OPINION
While free, I really never found much use in the Voxengo Tubeamp. When I was running a PC and Cubase I downloaded and tried just about every free VST and Direct X plug-in that I could find to see what would work best for me. While I used the TubeAmp initially a number of times, I didn't end up using it too much after that. While sometimes it can add a bit of thickness to your sound, most of the time it wasn't necessary and really only ended up subtracting. While this freebee wasn't for me, I'd encourage those who have VST or AU based DAWs to download it and check it out anyway, as the newer version could be more useful.
SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE
While I am no longer running this plug-in in my home studio, when I did run it, it was in Cubase SX and as a VST plug-in. A number of years ago I switched over to a Pro Tools based system and didn't have a need for this plug-in anymore, although I could convert it from VST to RTAS with the FXpansion converter if I wanted to. The computer that I ran the plug-in and Cubase on was a Hewlett Packard Pavilion dv8000 lap top that had a 3.0 Ghz processor and 2 GB of RAM. This wasn't the type of plug-in that I was using very often, but really just had it around because I could, so I never tested it out to see how many of them I could run within a single session. I don't think that I ever had more than one instance of it running in a session.
OVERALL OPINION
While free, I really never found much use in the Voxengo Tubeamp. When I was running a PC and Cubase I downloaded and tried just about every free VST and Direct X plug-in that I could find to see what would work best for me. While I used the TubeAmp initially a number of times, I didn't end up using it too much after that. While sometimes it can add a bit of thickness to your sound, most of the time it wasn't necessary and really only ended up subtracting. While this freebee wasn't for me, I'd encourage those who have VST or AU based DAWs to download it and check it out anyway, as the newer version could be more useful.