“… I think people overemphasize the importance of gear in their search for tone. Your sound comes from how you pick and dampen the strings, and from your attack as much as anything…” – Eric Johnson

“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
- H.L. Mencken

“The culture of the country has been hijacked by life-style hotshot pimps who join with consumer fascists in selling you back to yourself.”
- Ry Cooder

Anyway, that’s why free demos ar so much fun — they’re free! The download is definitely good for ten days worth of “gettin’ your Hendrix on,” even if you have no intention of actually buying it.

I’ve used the Amplitube stuff for years, and while it does sound very good (even on vocals sometmies)…they continue to charge almost as much as a “new” version for an upgrade. Then they also have the 3 computer limitation to the license key. I have a laptop (which seems to get upgraded by work every 9 months), and a dedicated music workstation which I upgraded to in December (2 years since my last workstation upgrade). So I run through three computers every 18 months or so. I wish they used dongles like the more expensive plug-ins….. also, when I compare version 1.4 to 2, there has not been a compelling enough reason to change (2 channels at once? just run the plug in twice into two channels!)

Why the Hendrix version? Why can’t they just add new models to Amplitube 2? Line6 adds new models to Pods all the time. The big reason why the Line6 stuff doesn’t sound as good is that it is being converted through at least 2 A/D-D/A stages before it comes out of your speakers. When you go to a big ProTools HD studio they are using Line6 AmpFarm, and you are only converting the guitar signal to digital once, and have as many DSPs as you need to do the processing. You can now buy a VST plug-in from Line6 to do this in your workstation software (althought it’s $200)….if you do this, you could run it through a nice emulated mic pre and match just about any recorded guitar sound. Mic Pres and channel strip emulation (compression/EQ) have more to do with matching a “classic” recorded tone than an amp model does…. in my opinion.

I have no doubt that the Hendrix thing sounds good…if not great, but as a working producer/engineer, I had to throw in the ding about the relentless marketing this company does, expecting its existing customers to practicially re-buy software when there is a minor tweak to it. I’d probably pony up the money if they went to dongles.