AxlBrutality Posted December 14, 2019 Share Posted December 14, 2019 I posted a while ago wondering if anyone had had any experience with Audio Assault's stuff, as he was having another ridiculous sale (as he does a lot). For those who are unaware, he's a Mexico-based guy that makes sims and plugins geared mostly towards extreme metal: www.audioassault.mx Well, I went ahead and picked up several of his sims (I mean, for $5-10 apiece, why the hell not). Now that I've had a few days to really, seriously play with them, I figured I'd share some quick thoughts and impressions for anyone else in the future who might also inquire or be curious. Disclaimer: I use a variety of my own cab IRs from Ownhammer, who are pretty much the kings of cab IRs for metal. So I can't speak too much to any of the included cabs, and the usability of these sims may vary for you if you just stick with those stock cabs. Duality Bass Studio: Decent little sim for metal bass. Very nice low end and sub tones, lots of good fuzz/distortion options and tones. NOT a good bass sim if you're looking for pure, clean tones....even for death metal stuff, I've had to dial the drives down quite a bit to get a cleaner top end (although I'm admittedly not a big fan of fuzz/distortion on bass anyway, and really only use it if I need it to stand out in a dense mix). I'll probably continue using it on occasion for my extreme metal stuff, but not so much for rock or acoustic stuff. (In all fairness, again, most AA stuff is geared specifically towards extreme metal). The VST2 is extremely unstable in CbB, and I can't get the standalone to work at all. But the VST3 works beautifully, and is currently being used on an EP I'm working on. Dominator: Easily the best of the bunch that I bought. Takes some dialing in, but I've gotten some nasty rhythm tones for metalcore/death metal stuff. It's pretty on par with, if not better than, most of what's in Revalver for high gain stuff. I think it takes a backseat to the JST Toneforge series sims though. Emperor: A close second to Dominator for extreme metal tones...it loses out because it's one of the noisier high gain amp sims I've encountered. Even with gates, the thing just generates too high of a signal to noise ratio for most of what I'm doing right now. This would be a great sim for black metal, grindcore, crust, etc., but just isn't clean enough for run of the mill death metal, deathcore, etc. Hellbeast: Also pretty close to the Dominator, except that even after extensive dialing in, it's still got a bit of that boxy, old-school "Line 6 metal", solid state practice amp tone...that really isn't good for rhythms. Having said that, that same cheap boxiness, when put on leads/solos, actually separates them nicely from the rhythms while still sitting in a high-gain mix very well. (It's the same reason that some metal guys will run a lead guitar through a wah in the mid position and just leave it [the wah] stationary.) I'm currently running this on my leads and solos over Dominator rhythms, and things are sounding pretty gnarly (in a good way). So basically.... I wouldn't pay full price for any of these, and they take some dialing in. None of them are really good enough or versatile enough to be that "workhorse" that you can just slap on anything. I've found them each to be decent-to-good at very specific things, individually. Having said that, they're definitely worth the sale price if you want some specialty/niche tools or some more blending options at your disposal....or if you just want/need to try something different...or if you're on a budget. And they're a bit more user-friendly than things like Revalver...and the GUIs are pretty sexy. But I think there's a reason these are on ridiculous sale all the time (besides the insane dollar to peso conversion rate, lmao). You often get what you pay for, and these sims don't quite stack up against other modern metal options like JST's Toneforge series. They're more than usable, but only if you really know what you're doing and have lots of other tools (like other IRs) at your disposal. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christian Jones Posted December 14, 2019 Share Posted December 14, 2019 Are you on the hunt for the best amp sim for you, or do you already have that and you're just trying out other stuff? I had the Brainworx Deizel VH4 for a second and flipped it quickly on kvr before PA yanked the vouchers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AxlBrutality Posted December 14, 2019 Author Share Posted December 14, 2019 (edited) 7 minutes ago, Christian Jones said: Are you on the hunt for the best amp sim for you, or do you already have that and you're just trying out other stuff? I had the Brainworx Deizel VH4 for a second and flipped it quickly on kvr before PA yanked the vouchers. I have a pretty decent arsenal of stuff at my disposal these days; just experimenting with more stuff and figured I'd share my impressions. Particularly since death metal/core discussion isn't super common on here, and there's not a ton of reviews/info to be found on some of the smaller companies like AA. Edited December 14, 2019 by AxlBrutality Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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