PEDAL
The first of the four key tone shaping sections of the AMPX, “Pedal”, is just like a pedal board as you know it! This means it includes all your good old analog effects - like wah, compressor, boost, overdrive, distortion, but also time-based effects like modulation, delay and reverb.
The wah, boost/compression and drives are 100% analog – they consist of our proprietary BlugPrints, and AMPX has a consistently growing library of effects to choose from.
Meanwhile, the time-based effects like modulation, delay and reverb pedals use a 100% analog dry signal mixed with digital effects signal. We are utilizing all our expertise and experience in analog technology to replicate the authentic sound of analog effects in digital form when creating digital models of analog effects.
A fourth, multipurpose slot serves for all kinds of effects including all digital effects like pitch shifting, with or without any analog dry signal.
The four X CONTROL knobs give you direct access to the parameters of your chosen and activated pedal. More parameters can be accessed, and deeper editing performed, using the PUSH DIAL and AMPX’s main display screen.
AMP
AMPX’s Neural Analog Preamp and Nanotube-X Power Amp allow us to edit and save circuit parameters at component level. From a technical point of view, that’s like changing the circuit.
With this new approach AMPX can authentically reproduce all kinds of classic tube amps in a true analog circuit. These defining parameters can then be stored as what we call BlugPrints (more on them later in this guide!).
The use of extremely small and lightweight components, allows you to have a complete guitar rig in just one unit.
With AMPX, our BluGuitar engineers have direct access to all sound shaping parameters like power amp saturation or current feedback, and they can edit and save them. This means we can authentically recreate the sound and playing feel of different amps. This “neural” analog flexibility enables us to produce any amp circuits you can imagine from the past, and from the future!
AMPX comes factory equipped with the renowned sounds of the AMP1 Mercury Edition and Iridium Editions. AMPX can also be expanded by downloading additional BlugPrint files, available in the BluGuitar web store.
New tube amp and effect classics are constantly being added to this library. This makes AMPX a convertible and permanently expandable “Tube Tone Chameleon“, a collection of the best tube amps and effects of all time, in fully analog original quality, united in a single device.
FX
The FX section gives you access to the post effects in your signal chain. These are typically the FX you’d expect to find in an amp’s FX Loop, or in the studio. This section consists of three stereo FX slots: MODULATION, DELAY and REVERB.
Modulation offers all kinds of effects like chorus, flanger, tremolo, phaser and more. When it comes to delays, AMPX offers you everything from simple old school analog and tape options, through to modern varieties like stereo ping-pong delays. Finally, the reverb module offers a variety of reverb types, including spring, plate, hall, and more.
More effects will be regularly added to the BlugPrints library, meaning you have an ever-expandable list of effects to choose from when creating your musical soundscapes.
In case you want to insert your beloved effects devices, AMPX offers a mono send stereo return FX LOOP in front of the built in post-effects section.
CAB
Today’s standard in guitar speaker simulation is that of convolution technology using impulse responses - or, to shorten it, IRs. IRs deliver a precise frequency response of the chosen speaker. Their one limitation is that they reproduce the sound of a speaker at a static volume level.
In the real world, if the volume changes, the sound of the connected loudspeaker also changes. Standard IRs cannot capture these dynamic sound changes, because they are static.
BluGuitar has solved this problem with our new DYNAMIC IR technology, which simulates the dynamic characteristic changes of speaker tones at any volume level. The DYNAMIC IR technology delivers vibrant direct sounds as you’ve never heard them before.
And there’s more. BluGuitar‘s DYNAMIC IR algorythm works equally with the complementary IR‘s as well as with your own or 3rd party IR‘s.
With AMPX, you can use up to five DYNAMIC IRs at the same time. These IRs can be freely applied to several outputs: for example, the stereo recording outputs, the line output, and even the speaker out.
In this way, you can create any setup you can think of - from a maxed-out recording setup with a mix of five different speakers running through the same recording out, to wet/dry/wet setups, even with full range cabinets! And of course, simpler setups are usable too!
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