Neural DSP Plugins (not the QC)

[Jarick]

Anyone using and enjoying these plugins?

Any that you love or any that you don't find all that great?

Playing around with the TGF song challenge, I've been really impressed how easy it is to create with the plugins. Especially the Plini, which has such a wide range out of the box. Only downside with the Plini plugin is there's no modulation effects, so gotta go out of the box for that.

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

Yep, I have six of their plugins: Soldano, Granophyre, Rabea, Nolly, Petrucci & Gojira.

Overall I like the sounds although I can‘t quite shake off the feeling, that there‘s some extra „mix-ready“ processing going on and that‘s why they sound so „pleasing“.

However, after my recent experience of being blocked by them from further interacting with their FB page just for asking about the promised M1 native updates for their plugins, I will never again recommend their software to anyone. Asshats.

 

[Lysander]

NDSP plugins are very good sounding - and come with great presets, which is an area most competitors fail at. A tad overpriced maybe, but nothing to complain sonically.

In fact, i'd argue they sound better than anything the QC has to offer, modelling-wise. See their take on the SLO for an example.

 

[DrewJD82]

Before the QC was shipping I tried the Parallaxe and Gojira, they were really good plug-ins and that had useable sounds right off the bat. I was just curious due to the word on the street about how great they were but had no real need for them.

A short while later I made sure there was no evidence they were ever on my laptop, I felt dirty.

 

[laxu]

I have enough plugins as is that I have never bothered to buy any NeuralDSP ones but I have probably tried all of them.

The ones I liked the most were the Petrucci, Soldano, Tone King Imperial and Nolly. If I had to buy just one, it would be the Petrucci or Soldano. Haven't tried the Rabea one.

The great thing about the plugins is the presets. All of them have some really good ones that you could pick and use right off the bat for satisfying results. But as an experienced tweaker there is nothing in them that I can't achieve with say Helix Native or ML Sound Lab plugins, the NeuralDSP presets for their plugins just shortcut that thing in a big way.

The good thing about plugins is that you can try nearly all of them for free and decide for yourself if they work for you. I feel some of the fx in the NDSP plugins are not that great, like the Petrucci if I remember correctly had a pretty terrible shimmer reverb.

 

[Lysander]

The great thing about the plugins is the presets. All of them have some really good ones that you could pick and use right off the bat for satisfying results. But as an experienced tweaker there is nothing in them that I can't achieve with say Helix Native or ML Sound Lab plugins, the NeuralDSP presets for their plugins just shortcut that thing in a big way.

Yeah, that's basically my take as well. The sounds are there, don't get me wrong, but i can't shake the feeling NDSP built their business mostly on great presets and beautiful UIs.

Some of NDSP's plugins are on the $120-$150 range; you can buy excellent full plugin suites for that price. Just two Archetypes put you in the range of Helix Native.

 

[laxu]

Yeah, that's basically my take as well. The sounds are there, don't get me wrong, but i can't shake the feeling NDSP built their business mostly on great presets and beautiful UIs.

Some of NDSP's plugins are on the $120-$150 range; you can buy excellent full plugin suites for that price. Just two Archetypes put you in the range of Helix Native.

Absolutely. However if you don't need the feature set of Helix Native, then you might be quite happy with the simplicity of the NDSP plugins. They look nice and are easy to use. I think I could do 95% of what I want with just the Soldano SLO or Petrucci plugin so no real need to buy more than one.

Helix Native is honestly kinda crappy for UI since it's made to reflect the Helix hw for better and worse. It doesn't even scale properly for HiDPI displays which is bollocks. But it's a really good deal for Helix hw owners especially when combined with the regular 30% discounts Line6 runs several times a year.

 

[the-trooper]

Just tried one back when it was all everyone was talking about, I think the Plini one.
Didn't get how something that sounds so thin, anemic and feeble gets so much attention.

 

[SeeD]

I got the Darkglass B7k and the Parallax and they sound good

And about the price for the plugins, I would think some go back to Saldano, Fortin , Tone King and maybe others ?

 

[Whizzinby]

I have Plini, SLO, Granophyre, and Cali.

Plini has great cleans. (I don’t like the higher gain stuff much on this plug, but haven’t gone too in depth here because of the other plugs I have)

Grano is maybe my favorite digital model regardless platform, for the brutalz.

The Nolly presets in the Cali plug are

 

[Elric]

The NDSP Plugs are pretty much superb across the board. IMHO. There’s definitely a lot of overlap, skews hard to the metal. They desperately need a unified interface like what Mercuriall did w/ amp box but it’ll never ever happen (Kinda like the new PSU for the QC ).

 

[Mongillo19]

I enjoy their plugins but tempted to sell them and get a new pedal or something lol

I don't like relying on my PC and prefer dedicated hardware in most instances

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

Not only the QC suffers from broken promises, but also their plugins. Rule of thumb: If you buy anything from NDSP, always be aware that it is essentially abandonware.

September 2022:

 

[Mongillo19]

Not only the QC suffers from broken promises, but also their plugins. Rule of thumb: If you buy anything from NDSP, always be aware that it is essentially abandonware.

September 2022:

View attachment 3709

Yeah I feel like even the pace of their plugin releases have slowed down as well?

 

[Jarick]

Not only the QC suffers from broken promises, but also their plugins. Rule of thumb: If you buy anything from NDSP, always be aware that it is essentially abandonware.

September 2022:

View attachment 3709

Yeah they have a bad track record. The upside of the plugins is less investment like the hardware platform.

Side note, are any of the big guitar plugins M1 compatible? I can't remember anymore as I think I probably run in Rosetta. I mean, I had about a dozen instances of Plini open in Logic without issues, and same thing with Helix Native. I did have a plugin keep crashing on me which I'm 99% sure was EZ Drummer 2.

Anyways, the NDSP plugins are fun and easy to use and generally sound very good with little tweaking. Working on my song this week I was getting very good sounds with minimal effort for writing and tracking parts. Flipping over to Helix Native I can also get really good sounds but usually requires more messing around to find the right models and settings.

I guess I should put some time in and build a library of presets for Helix Native as well as some favorites. What would be nice for Helix Native would be if they had a better interface that worked on high res monitors, as well as a standalone mode. And a better way to save presets, especially if I could link it up to the cloud.

Dream world would be a Fractal plugin but that won't happen.

 

[Los-D]

I like NDSP plugins for recording amp tones. I think they sound really good and are mix/recording ready. Have a few buddies that have recorded demo/albums with them and sound killer. Effects are good for the standalone versions, but in a DAW they get replaced by Valhalla and other (better) stuff. Best thing to me, BY FAR, are the presets / curated tones. Starting from scratch isn’t as satisfying as the plugins (especially the Archetypes) can’t be adjusted like typical real amps. Tried most of their plugins, sold a few and kept the Petrucci, though the Fortin Cali is still my favorite (but they aren’t getting another cent from me).

Interestingly enough, for standalone playing, not recording, my favorite plugin is still S-gear as it gets the closest to the FM3 in terms of feel and response (to me). For more complex stuff, Helix Native is the ticket and even better with the new cabs. YMMV

 

[Gearzilla]

I use them now and then. Generally drop some York Audio IRs into the cab block. Before the HX cab block update I was using the Tim Henson one additionally as IR holder with Native sometimes. Plugins are pretty convenient with a DAW.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Feels like a brave more to say anything positive about Neural DSP online.

Their plugins are GREAT, the accuracy and feel is as good as it gets. I have 20 or so real amps in my collection and have a lot of the stuff Neural have modelled - they are consistently REALLY close to how my amps sound, and IMO the best amp simulation plugins. Most of the negative comments above about the sound above can be attributed to the included IR’s which can vary a bit depending on who made them for Neural.

The early ones used ML soundlab and rely a lot on interpolating a small amount of IR’s. I never had much luck with those. The IR’s captured by Nolly are much better. The Petrucci ones weren’t to my taste (very dark, no sm57) and I believe Neural are mostly capturing the newer ones themselves (I don’t own Tone King or Rabbea so IDK what they’re like).

Each plugin being standalone can be a bit cumbersome if you want to combine FX, but I generally only use the “amp” part of the plugins and use external stuff anyway for the rest.

They’re an easy target for dudes online to pile onto at the moment, with valid reasons, but don’t let that take away from the fact that their plugins deliver a great user experience (simple layouts, easy to get great tones from, visually great and generally very stable). The prices are also pretty unbeatable when on sale. IMO they’ve been setting the pace the last few years.

Quite funny how the QC absolutely aped the Helix’s UI, and at the same time L6’s Metallurgy plugins returned the favour by taking more than a heavy influence from Neural’s plugins (which seems to be the standard format for amp emulation software in 2023).

 

[laxu]

Some of the effects in the NeuralDSP plugins are not great. I think like the shimmer reverb or something was downright bad in the Petrucci plugin. Most of the fx are solid and good tho.

 

[Mongillo19]

I fired up the Cali plugin yesterday. Idk if it's just me but I love the sound of the plugins for a little bit but something about the low end sounds off. At first it feels and sounds great but then becomes a little too much. Anyone else or just me?