When
describing Guitar Rig Native Instruments say this:
‘Guitar Rig is the future of guitar tone. Imagine having a room filled with every boutique amplifier ever crafted, endless arrays of cabinets (each with different microphones), any effect you desire, loop machines, and other amazing tools for crafting sounds at your immediate disposal. Guitar Rig takes this idea (which would cost you many hundreds of thousands of dollars) and puts them into a single program which can run as a standalone application, or a plug-in’.
Guitar Rig is exactly that - a brilliant concept! Using Guitar Rig has eliminated the need to test and re-test equipment and effects to get that all too elusive sound we long for. It’s got it all and ready to be used.
With Guitar Rig 3 NI have added 4 brand new amplifiers, 6 brand-new sound shaping effects, an easier to navigate interface and other features for making Guitar Rig more effective than ever. Included with the Guitar Rig 3 Kontrol Edition is the Rig Kontrol 3 hardware which has an expression pedal, nine footswitches, guitar preamp/impedance converter, and USB 2 computer audio interface. Unfortunately we only had the software edition to review so were not able to test Guitar Rig 3 with the foot controller - we can only imagine what an amazing experience that must be.
The operation manual has been presented in a refreshing, clear and concise way. Just reading through the manual even without looking at the software would give you a good understanding of what Guitar Rig is capable of and what you can achieve with it.
From the moment the software is loaded you get a clear picture of how to use Guitar Rig, the reason being is that you are presented with a sleek interface that has all the knobs and controls that you are used to seeing on real equipment – there is no need to guess, the knobs do exactly what they say they do.
The sounds in Guitar Rig 3 contain all the components in your rig as well as any necessary controller assignments, and the sync settings. Guitar Rig organizes these sounds into Presets and Banks and comes with many incredible sounding ones already set for you, but of course you can easily create more. Banks are used to save your edited sounds together or to create set-lists for your on-stage rigs. By using this system you soon realize how easy it is to call up any sound at any moment, whether they are ones already set in Guitar Rig or any new sounds you have created.
One of the great features of Guitar Rig is the recording facility. You get 2 so called tapedecks. One is optimized to load audio files to serve as backing tracks, or you can study solos by loading them into the tapedeck, use the tempo control to slow them down without changing the pitch, this will enable you to analyze the playing and learn the licks. Tape-deck 2 is optimized for overdubbing and creating backing tracks or riffs over which you can play.
You get an idea of how NI have thought of everything when you see the Live View feature, it consolidates and supersizes the most essential elements of the guitar rig interface, (including the tuner and metronome) for easy viewing – perfect for taking your Guitar Rig on stage with a laptop.
What can we say to sum up Guitar Rig 3? Well, it’s one piece of software that no guitarist should be without. Whether you want to use it as a plug-in with your favourite sequencer or add it to your live performance, it offers all you need and more and is bound to inspire.
‘Guitar Rig is the future of guitar tone. Imagine having a room filled with every boutique amplifier ever crafted, endless arrays of cabinets (each with different microphones), any effect you desire, loop machines, and other amazing tools for crafting sounds at your immediate disposal. Guitar Rig takes this idea (which would cost you many hundreds of thousands of dollars) and puts them into a single program which can run as a standalone application, or a plug-in’.
Guitar Rig is exactly that - a brilliant concept! Using Guitar Rig has eliminated the need to test and re-test equipment and effects to get that all too elusive sound we long for. It’s got it all and ready to be used.
With Guitar Rig 3 NI have added 4 brand new amplifiers, 6 brand-new sound shaping effects, an easier to navigate interface and other features for making Guitar Rig more effective than ever. Included with the Guitar Rig 3 Kontrol Edition is the Rig Kontrol 3 hardware which has an expression pedal, nine footswitches, guitar preamp/impedance converter, and USB 2 computer audio interface. Unfortunately we only had the software edition to review so were not able to test Guitar Rig 3 with the foot controller - we can only imagine what an amazing experience that must be.
The operation manual has been presented in a refreshing, clear and concise way. Just reading through the manual even without looking at the software would give you a good understanding of what Guitar Rig is capable of and what you can achieve with it.
From the moment the software is loaded you get a clear picture of how to use Guitar Rig, the reason being is that you are presented with a sleek interface that has all the knobs and controls that you are used to seeing on real equipment – there is no need to guess, the knobs do exactly what they say they do.
The sounds in Guitar Rig 3 contain all the components in your rig as well as any necessary controller assignments, and the sync settings. Guitar Rig organizes these sounds into Presets and Banks and comes with many incredible sounding ones already set for you, but of course you can easily create more. Banks are used to save your edited sounds together or to create set-lists for your on-stage rigs. By using this system you soon realize how easy it is to call up any sound at any moment, whether they are ones already set in Guitar Rig or any new sounds you have created.
One of the great features of Guitar Rig is the recording facility. You get 2 so called tapedecks. One is optimized to load audio files to serve as backing tracks, or you can study solos by loading them into the tapedeck, use the tempo control to slow them down without changing the pitch, this will enable you to analyze the playing and learn the licks. Tape-deck 2 is optimized for overdubbing and creating backing tracks or riffs over which you can play.
You get an idea of how NI have thought of everything when you see the Live View feature, it consolidates and supersizes the most essential elements of the guitar rig interface, (including the tuner and metronome) for easy viewing – perfect for taking your Guitar Rig on stage with a laptop.
What can we say to sum up Guitar Rig 3? Well, it’s one piece of software that no guitarist should be without. Whether you want to use it as a plug-in with your favourite sequencer or add it to your live performance, it offers all you need and more and is bound to inspire.
Native Instruments Guitar Rig 3 For Mac