Nembrini Brown Sound

[Larry Shelby]

Legendary BROWN SOUND
(Intro offer $39! until July 4, 11:59PM CEST, reg $137)

(modeling based on Marshall Super Lead 1959* 100W)

Nembrini Audio is proud to announce availability of its MRH159 BROWN SOUND guitar amplifier plugin, meticulously modelled on a vintage Marshall Super Lead 1959* which is arguably the most famous amp of all time.
In the Mrh159 Brown Sound Guitar Amplifier plugin there is the possibility to switch to a modded Marshall Super Lead 1959* for achieve the legendary BROWN SOUND.

Changes on the stock amplifier for achieve the legendary BROWN SOUND:

Variac Variable Transformer to reduce the main voltage to 90V

EL34 tubes changed with 6CA7 Fat Bottle

Middle tone stack potentiometer changed to 50K ohm

Fat cap 25uF on V2 tube

https://www.nembriniaudio.com/products/mrh159-brown-sound-guitar-amplifier

[Marshall]

Couldn’t help noticing that almost 24 hours in, no responses to Larry’s post. Are we all getting a little overexposed to Nembrini amp sims? Don’t get me wrong, I own a few and the quality is generally excellent, but he does seem to be churning out a new one every few weeks. I truly don’t need (or even want!) another one, let alone another Marshall. Even for us GAS heads, am I right in thinking the Nembrinis are getting easier to resist with every release? 
Unrelated, but has Honest Amp Sims Reviews disappeared? I liked that site but seems to be no more…

[Bapu]

I'll pick this up before the intro price goes away.

[Piotr]

I don't know. Maybe it is only me but I find their cabs sims pretty harsh.

I bought their Slo 100 v1 and v2 as kind of liked it but after STL Tones released their approach and especially NeuralDSP I just lost interested in it.

Any their sim I tried had the same issue. Cab sims were harsh so in fact I gave up after trial. What's funny they added even option to decreases harshness in their latest release but still I believe they should rather to redesign their cab sim.

[Mesh]

3 hours ago, Piotr said:

I don't know. Maybe it is only me but I find their cabs sims pretty harsh.

I bought their Slo 100 v1 and v2 as kind of liked it but after STL Tones released their approach and especially NeuralDSP I just lost interested in it.

Any their sim I tried had the same issue. Cab sims were harsh so in fact I gave up after trial. What's funny they added even option to decreases harshness in their latest release but still I believe they should rather to redesign their cab sim.

That was my experience as well and I gave up on them.

On a different note, I'm very happy with the versatility of Archetype's Gojira and now on my way to get Scuffham.

   

[Marshall]

I have to say I was SO looking forward to the Vox. I didn’t see one negative review. Fortunately I tried the demo before pulling the trigger, because I couldn’t get it to sound halfway good. I felt I was in a minority of one! Just shows how subjective amp sims are.

[Piotr]

1 hour ago, Marshall said:

I have to say I was SO looking forward to the Vox. I didn’t see one negative review. Fortunately I tried the demo before pulling the trigger, because I couldn’t get it to sound halfway good. I felt I was in a minority of one! Just shows how subjective amp sims are.

True. It cannot be objective thing as we all are hearing and liking a little differently. Maybe for some guys some harshness somewhere is nothing bothering while for the others is something like a deal breaker.

The only objective comparison it could to be analyze and compare in exact way those harsh bands real amp against amp sim. If it is also at the same proportion hard to blame developer he wanted to be exact.

My personal feelings are many amps sims are adding harshness not encountered in real amp, though. But I can be wrong.  Anyway if for any reason I feel not quite ok with sound it has no point to buy and suffer. Nowadays we have so many options.

 

[Craig Fowler]

3 hours ago, Marshall said:

I have to say I was SO looking forward to the Vox. I didn’t see one negative review. Fortunately I tried the demo before pulling the trigger, because I couldn’t get it to sound halfway good. I felt I was in a minority of one! Just shows how subjective amp sims are.

I still plan on picking the Vox up at some point when it's on sale, just because there are so few halfway decent sims out there covering that ground. But I agree; there's part of me that really likes Nembrini stuff, but I like the Kuasa set up + a few others that they don't get much use.

[TheSteven]

You really don't know how good or bad an amp sim is until you've tried it with your axe & rig.
I've found that guitar, pickup(s) used, audio interface/D.I., playing technique and gain staging prior to amp sim have a tremendous effect on how good or bad an amp sim plugin can sound.
The Line6 Amp Farm tones for example turn crappy if the level is hot where as with other sims that level is not hot enough.

Edited June 19, 2021 by TheSteven

[Marshall]

7 hours ago, TheSteven said:

You really don't know how good or bad an amp sim is until you've tried it with your axe & rig.
I've found that guitar, pickup(s) used, audio interface/D.I., playing technique and gain staging prior to amp sim have a tremendous effect on how good or bad an amp sim plugin can sound.
 

That is so true.  It’s all of those things, not just the amp sim. 

[Piotr]

11 hours ago, TheSteven said:

You really don't know how good or bad an amp sim is until you've tried it with your axe & rig.
I've found that guitar, pickup(s) used, audio interface/D.I., playing technique and gain staging prior to amp sim have a tremendous effect on how good or bad an amp sim plugin can sound.
The Line6 Amp Farm tones for example turn crappy if the level is hot where as with other sims that level is not hot enough.

Let me disagree a bit   I am referring to comparison/judging  methodology.

Of course, all of these things have a big impact on the sound, but ... we were talking about the quality of the plugs, right?   So including its workflow, presets, readiness to use just after loading.

Of course if one doesn't know how to play guitar, it would sound weak using plugins but also using real amps. If there's a plugin that can turn bad skills into good sound, it's a great plugin anyway

If a person (hence the same skills), DI, guitar, etc. has very different quality scores, isn't that a sign of some underdevelopment of the plugin? Sure, you can use the dynamic multiband equalizer, trial and error check with different plugin settings, but the point is, that's the part the developer should do.

Do you prefer to use a plugin that sounds great right away, or do you have to fight its settings and maybe even improve its sound with other plugins?

I think almost any amp simulator can sound decent if a good skilled guitarist spends some time with its setup.  But each shoe can also be used for walking, and yet we can distinguish some as comfortable from the moment of purchase, and others that require 'spreading' in order to be comfortable. Many are looking good but after few weeks are losing its usability. But that tells us about the quality of the shoes.

If I have to sit and rummage in the plug-in settings to make it sound decent, then I would probably prefer to buy a more expensive one, but it will give me good results right away, because the developers did the job for me, so that the end product would not have any nuisance or sometimes workflow issues.

Sometimes developer if he is brave enough can also exclude real thing issues (or make as switch on option) in plugin - the most obvious example button to switch on/off noise in many plugins simulating consoles. Nembrini went into right direction - they noticed probably their plugins had some harshness and added option to reduce it.  But still I am not quite happy with their plugins.  I don't trying to bash them. Just believe there is some work needed to improve. But as I said before (we don't have the same hearing so maybe I am oversensitive for some frequencies, who knows).

One disclaimer to what I said. Because of GAS I am buying probably many plugins which break what I have written but well... this is another story

Anyway I believe we would like to have a plugin ready to use from start with all potential problems addressed by developer not pushing an issue to be solved by user

 

[Christian Jones]

On 6/15/2021 at 6:05 AM, Marshall said:

Unrelated, but has Honest Amp Sims Reviews disappeared? I liked that site but seems to be no more…

Hey Marshall, how've you been man? Yeah, the HASR site is gone and there was a whole thing about it earlier this month on his (Tyler's - the former runner of the HASR website) Facebook HASR amp sim user group, which also pretty much got abandoned as well, though a great number of users in that group are doing their best to revive the Facebook group as well as getting a new website going. Basically Tyler, for personal reasons, pretty much just shut his website down out of the blue one day. He was partnering with a guy named Johan who apparently didn't receive prior warning. Johan has since changed the name of the Facebook group to remove the "HASR" portion and is now temporarily called "The Amp Sim User Group." Johan, with the help of a few members of the Facebook group, is currently working on a new website to replace the popular HASR one. 

The long short of it was that Tyler was burnt out and said that running the HASR website basically killed his creativity and he just made a rash decision one day to shut it down with no explanation and no goodbye etc. Johan reached out to Tyler and Tyler responded with a detailed letter which he asked Johan to post on his behalf on to the Facebook amp sim group, but that letter has since been deleted, but I read it. In the letter Tyler talked about what he referred to as the ugliness of the amp sim industry which he referred to as "Black box" where a lot of developers don't actually try to simulate the inner workings of an amp but mainly just try to get a close approximation to the overall sound and focus on modeling the output.. Idk, it was all very scientific and over my head, but he also mentioned that he wanted to get back to making original music and stated that running that website just pretty much drained him. The vibe of his letter was basically that he needed to cut and run immediately, kind of like ripping a t-shirt off rather than just taking it off and hanging it up to be worn again later. A lot of the posts and responses to this in that Facebook group were respectful and concerning, and a few others wondered why he would burn his whole legacy down like that in one fell swoop. But pretty much everyone expressed their appreciation for the work that he did do and of course I myself wouldn't have heard of or even tried the Nembrini MRH810 Marshall if it weren't for Tyler and his website. I've chatted with Tyler in the past and he's a totally cool dude all around and he owes no one anything of course. Basically he's just struggling like a lot of us are and needed to find/center himself and be relieved of the thing that was draining him.. not to speak for him or anything, but.

Here's a couple of posts from his former partner Johan:

"[June 3] 

Hi everyone. Tyler left the group and pulled the plug on the website a bit unexpectedly. Being the only admin for the group I changed the name to remove the "Honest amp sims reviews" part. The new name is temporary. 

I'll spend some time the next couple of days to see if there's an interest in keeping the group and continuing reviewing amp sim software. 

HASR helped me a lot in starting with amp sims and the site was one of the biggest resources for ppl looking for amp sim information. If possible I would like to continue this. 

I'll post updates here in the group on what's going on."

 

"[June 4]

Todays update. Thanks for all your interest and concern guys. I think I never had so many messages in 24 hours before! ?

All I've had contact with seem to like this group so it would be silly to delete it. So we'll keep the FB group going just as before. Feel free to continue posting videos, questions and just interact with the nice crowd we have here. 

I've also had discussions mostly with the new reviewers Tyler appointed before leaving. We have decided to put up a new site, continue the reviewing and try to make it just as good a resource for amp sim lovers as HASR was, maybe even better..

Stay tuned for further developments on that."

Edited June 20, 2021 by Christian Jones

[Christian Jones]

As for this Nembrini "Brown Sound" amp.. I never liked Eddie Van Halen's tone.. let me rephrase.. I never wanted his tone for myself, so I totally will pass on this amp. I mean, I've got the MRH810 1 and 2. Don't need this, and I don't collect amps. 

[Christian Jones]

21 hours ago, TheSteven said:

You really don't know how good or bad an amp sim is until you've tried it with your axe & rig.
I've found that guitar, pickup(s) used, audio interface/D.I., playing technique and gain staging prior to amp sim have a tremendous effect on how good or bad an amp sim plugin can sound.
The Line6 Amp Farm tones for example turn crappy if the level is hot where as with other sims that level is not hot enough.

I've found this to pretty much be gospel. Amp sims--aside from the sound they're modelling--are a totally different beast when it comes to plugging into one with all the various gain-staging stars that need to be aligned, not to mention devices like the DI box you use, vs just plugging into the front of a real life amp. The modeled sound, if done right, may be very close if not indiscernible from the real thing, but how you get there with an amp sim can have a huge impact on whether or not it sounds good to you vs the real thing. I'm reading more and more producers saying that they hate to admit it but that they stopped micing up real amps and are just using top of the line amp sims these days to get the job done, because to their ears pulling out the big amp is not warranted anymore.. not in every single case, but more often than not, they're saying. 

Edited June 20, 2021 by Christian Jones

[Marshall]

@Christian Jones I’m good thanks, hope you are too. Yeah, HASR was a great resource but I can totally see that from Tyler’s viewpoint it would have taken over his life - probably for little return. He is clearly a very knowledgeable guy, and it was generous of him to share that knowledge with the rest of us.
 

Us guitar players all have an inner-geek to a lesser or greater extent, but sometimes I think that worrying about the minutiae is distracting from the real issue (for me anyway), and that is writing and recording music. 99.9% of listeners won’t notice or give a hoot about subtle differences  in the quality of your guitar tones. Is it a good song? Does it move me?  Don’t get me wrong, I love conjuring up a great tone even in the knowledge that no one really cares apart from me, and I’ll always pursue that. But I am absolutely done collecting amp sims….Well OK, IF I can get a Vox that works for me (since the Nembrini didn’t) that may be one final purchase. 
 

[Esteban Villanova]

Sad about HASR. I won some great plugins there on there giveaways when they just started out and it was a great resource. 

[Christian Jones]

@Marshall maybe I missed it but why didn't the Nembrini Vox work out for you? I haven't tried it but in general I could maybe use a really good chimey amp, idk though.. maybe when he comes out with version 2 of it ?

[Marshall]

35 minutes ago, Christian Jones said:

@Marshall maybe I missed it but why didn't the Nembrini Vox work out for you? I haven't tried it but in general I could maybe use a really good chimey amp, idk though.. maybe when he comes out with version 2 of it ?

I wish I could put my finger on it. I found the sound quite harsh, and impossible to conjure up a that glorious jangle I remember from 40 years ago. But…maybe my memory is playing tricks on me! When I bought my AC30 in 1981, I was broke and the bank wrote  me a stinking letter something like “ because you used your bank guarantee card, your payment to XYZ Music (who I bought the Vox from) was honoured. However, you are now £ (enter random figure, long forgotten) overdrawn and the bank will not permit any further use of your account until such time as sufficient funds are deposited ….blah blah blah.” I had no job, there weren’t any available and I soon lost my flat! Kept the amp a good few years though and it was good to me.
 

Through the passing of the years, my memories of what an AC30 should sound like are probably tarnished. 
 

Coming back to the present day, I tried the Nembrini version with an SG, a Strat, and an Ernie Ball JP6 loaded with DiMarzio Liquify/Crunchlabs and none of them worked for me. Perhaps it’s me, because as I say, I was in a minority in not getting along with it. Try the demo - I hope you enjoy it! 

[Christian Jones]

@Marshall hmm. Well have you been able to get a good chime from any other amp sim?