Overloud THU Essentials

[Marc Cormier]

TH-U Essentials

Turns your computer into the most realistic and flexible Guitar Amp Sim ever!
FREE with any Rig Library purchase, from Nov 11th to Nov 20th

https://www.overloud.com/products/th-u-essentials

I used to have THU Premium and really only missed a few of the amp heads but now I can buy the Friedman Naked Rig collection for @$25 at JRR and get a few heads and the Rig Player for free.  Great way to get into the vortex of Rig Library if you really enjoy that sucking noise when your wallet runs dry.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Marc Cormier

[MusicMan]

What's Essentials normally worth and are there any other real standout rigs?

[Marc Cormier]

I hadn't heard of Essentials until today - it might be totally new.  There isn't enough in it to really warrant a high cost as you still need to buy Rigs to get the most out of the Rig Player.  If it's a base (free) version like Bias Amp LE or Amplitube CS then bravo I say, and about time.  I didn't have too many Rigs - it's one of the reasons I walked away from THU, honestly.  I would rather have liked to see improvements to the stock product vs. continuously churning out more Rigs.  The Friedman Naked Rig is fantastic though, so no trouble for me to plop down $25 to get it and a few other bits and pieces from the full THU.  The Petrucci Boogie Rig is also quite nice. 

[MusicMan]

Thanks Marc! That explains why I had a bit of trouble finding a price and info for it. I haven't jumped into TH-U yet. I do like the Overloud Gems though, which is what made me curious.

[fitzroy]

I just messed around with rigs for the past 3 hours or so. It's great that you can actually demo the rigs without owning TH-U, I had no idea you could do that. I've only demo-ed a couple of TH-U versions before, and wasn't too impressed, but the rigs are something else, there are some real gems in there. I picked up the TAF Summer Sunshine rig, but I might get some more in the future. Some personal/subjective notes:

- some of the rigs/patches sound/feel at least as authentic as any other amp sim I've tried

- comparatively limited options for usable tweaks; once you start playing around with the knobs (particularly with gain, for example with the Fender's) in the rig player, that authenticity quickly disappears (I guess that's what you'd expect, given that rigs are based on sampled amplifier signal chains)

- there are only a few basic effects included in TH-U Essential, so TH-U Essential + rigs is mostly about the amps and cabs  

- the interface is meh, but workable 

- there doesn't seem to be a TH-U Essential installer; the installer Overloud links to is the same as the full (demo) version, so I guess that the entire package has to be installed, with only the activated bits becoming available in the interface; not ideal, if this is the case 

Edited November 12, 2022 by fitzroy

[Marc Cormier]

2 hours ago, fitzroy said:

I just messed around with rigs for the past 3 hours or so. It's great that you can actually demo the rigs without owning TH-U, I had no idea you could do that. I've only demo-ed a couple of TH-U versions before, and wasn't too impressed, but the rigs are something else, there are some real gems in there. I picked up the TAF Summer Sunshine rig, but I might get some more in the future. Some personal/subjective notes:

- some of the rigs/patches sound/feel at least as authentic as any other amp sim I've tried

- comparatively limited options for usable tweaks; once you start playing around with the knobs (particularly with gain, for example with the Fender's) in the rig player, that authenticity quickly disappears (I guess that's what you'd expect, given that rigs are based on sampled amplifier signal chains)

- there are only a few basic effects included in TH-U Essential, so TH-U Essential + rigs is mostly about the amps and cabs  

- the interface is meh, but workable 

- there doesn't seem to be a TH-U Essential installer; the installer Overloud links to is the same as the full (demo) version, so I guess that the entire package has to be installed, with only the activated bits becoming available in the interface; not ideal, if this is the case 

I don't think they were always demo-able, thus I found my self with some Rigs that didn't really suit my needs.  Having said that, I found the Plexi, DM Mark, and Randall heads to be excellent and very flexible.  They're not included in the Essentials package but I'm also more interested in just a few of the Rig packs.  If they're captured separately from the cabs, the Rigs can be blended nicely with IRs that you can load into any of the speaker cabs that are provided outside of the Rig Player.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Marc Cormier

[Heath Row]

I have TH-U Premium or whatever they like to call it, pretty much the only thing I use it for is a glorified IR Loader with SuperCabinet.  That's another bottomless pit you can get into. The Jensen's are very good, well suited to Fender/Fenderish tones, but also others. The Amp Factory (TAF) and of course ChopTones are also very good, the latter's Boogie and Bogner and Friedman being among my fav's of theirs. But as for TH-Us standard amps and cabs, they do nothing for me, they just sound horrible, always have, don't know why I've kept upgrading since TH2, probably the same reason I stuck it out with NI's Guitar Rig since GR3, Guitar Rig, now there's a S.P.O.S if ever there was one, FX are ok I guess, I think I was just hoping they would come good, alas . . . 

I don't mind some of the stuff available for the Rig Player, I have a shit load of them. These are some of my fav's

BHS Friedman Hand wired 100W
BHS Friedman Naked
Choptones Fried Jackie
Choptones Fried Jerry
Mad In Italy MK50
MF TB 3Classic
MF TB 008
TB Puncher
Vocs 30 Heratige Hand Wired
LRS The Snake
Choptones Bogie Alone
TAF 80's Hair High Gain, not as hi gain metal mania as it may sound, personally I like it alot.
BM Filmprojector which was surprisingly good and very usable for an old Film projector amp/amps. Very good.

There's just so many, but they are some of my fav's, some of the middle ones from Mad in Italy to TB Puncher are kinda like 'Boutique' style amps.

Sorry for wondering off, back to normal programing.

 

[ALC]

1 hour ago, heath row said:

I have TH-U Premium or whatever they like to call it, pretty much the only thing I use it for is a glorified IR Loader with SuperCabinet.  That's another bottomless pit you can get into. The Jensen's are very good, well suited to Fender/Fenderish tones, but also others. The Amp Factory (TAF) and of course ChopTones are also very good, the latter's Boogie and Bogner and Friedman being among my fav's of theirs. But as for TH-Us standard amps and cabs, they do nothing for me, they just sound horrible, always have, don't know why I've kept upgrading since TH2, probably the same reason I stuck it out with NI's Guitar Rig since GR3, Guitar Rig, now there's a S.P.O.S if ever there was one, FX are ok I guess, I think I was just hoping they would come good, alas . . . 

I don't mind some of the stuff available for the Rig Player, I have a shit load of them. These are some of my fav's

BHS Friedman Hand wired 100W
BHS Friedman Naked
Choptones Fried Jackie
Choptones Fried Jerry
Mad In Italy MK50
MF TB 3Classic
MF TB 008
TB Puncher
Vocs 30 Heratige Hand Wired
LRS The Snake
Choptones Bogie Alone
TAF 80's Hair High Gain, not as hi gain metal mania as it may sound, personally I like it alot.
BM Filmprojector which was surprisingly good and very usable for an old Film projector amp/amps. Very good.

There's just so many, but they are some of my fav's, some of the middle ones from Mad in Italy to TB Puncher are kinda like 'Boutique' style amps.

Sorry for wondering off, back to normal programing.

How would you compare TH-U rigs with TONEX?

[Heath Row]

21 minutes ago, ALC said:

How would you compare TH-U rigs with TONEX?

[fitzroy]

5 hours ago, Marc Cormier said:

I don't think they were always demo-able, thus I found my self with some Rigs that didn't really suit my needs.  Having said that, I found the Plexi, DM Mark, and Randall heads to be excellent and very flexible.  They're not included in the Essentials package but I'm also more interested in just a few of the Rig packs.  If they're captured separately from the cabs, the Rigs can be blended nicely with IRs that you can load into any of the speaker cabs that are provided outside of the Rig Player.

I'm going to try some more rigs, but they're so many, and you can only demo them for 1 day (I have no idea when/if that resets?), that I feel I have to be strategic about it, or I'll lose track of what I liked and what I didn't. IRs, yes, that should be fun, as normally I use a selection of IR's with everything, so things might only get better with them. ?

 

4 hours ago, heath row said:

I have TH-U Premium or whatever they like to call it, pretty much the only thing I use it for is a glorified IR Loader with SuperCabinet.  That's another bottomless pit you can get into. The Jensen's are very good, well suited to Fender/Fenderish tones, but also others. The Amp Factory (TAF) and of course ChopTones are also very good, the latter's Boogie and Bogner and Friedman being among my fav's of theirs. But as for TH-Us standard amps and cabs, they do nothing for me, they just sound horrible, always have, don't know why I've kept upgrading since TH2, probably the same reason I stuck it out with NI's Guitar Rig since GR3, Guitar Rig, now there's a S.P.O.S if ever there was one, FX are ok I guess, I think I was just hoping they would come good, alas . . . 

I don't mind some of the stuff available for the Rig Player, I have a shit load of them. These are some of my fav's

BHS Friedman Hand wired 100W
BHS Friedman Naked
Choptones Fried Jackie
Choptones Fried Jerry
Mad In Italy MK50
MF TB 3Classic
MF TB 008
TB Puncher
Vocs 30 Heratige Hand Wired
LRS The Snake
Choptones Bogie Alone
TAF 80's Hair High Gain, not as hi gain metal mania as it may sound, personally I like it alot.
BM Filmprojector which was surprisingly good and very usable for an old Film projector amp/amps. Very good.

That was my surprise as well, having demoed TH-U Premium before, that the rigs are quite a step up in quality. I haven't tried many of the rigs in your list yet, but I'm with you on BM Filmprojector, I really liked it. I'm more into cleans/crunch, yet I found some excellent heavy patches as well; I liked the Bogie Dual Reverb 25 a lot. Is 50% off the best/target sale for these? They add up quickly, even when discounted. 

[Heath Row]

7 hours ago, ALC said:

How would you compare TH-U rigs with TONEX?

I would say that TONEX has a fuller sound, more feel, and generally closer to what it's targeting.  Example, if you play a Fender amp you know it's a Fender amp, it sounds like a Fender it has that Fender signature, same with Vox, and Orange, probably most if not all. Not to say the TH-U rigs don't sound like what they are supposed to, just to me it's there to a lesser extent. Having said that, I don't really care how close something sounds to its target, as long as it sounds good, and they both have plenty that sound very good, and a number that don't. I was playing a Vox in amplitube 5, and it wasn't one of the Brian May ones, running it out ot a Vox 2x12 IR, and I was actually liking it more than some of the Vox's in TONEX, maybe I've burn't out? na, it just sounded good you can't argue with that. 

TONEX has the TONEnet where you can download free captures made by users, TH-U has a large supply of professionally done packs to purchase. I'd prefer the professionally done packs for purchase myself, so for me that lessens the argument for you can make your own with TONEX but not TH-U.

I've started having a taste for the normal type of amp sim and have been playing Amplitube 5 and the Softube and Nembrini amps a lot lately, something I thought I wouldn't do again. I would hate to have to choose between TONEX, TH-U Rig Player, Amp5, Softube, Nembrini, Kuassa, I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, it's 3 minutes from midnight here, my eyes are getting weary, but yeah, I'd hate to have to choose.

 

@fitzroy you might see a little cheaper especially in the next few weeks, but 50% is just about as good as it gets. I hear you with the cleans and crunch's, I'm heading that way more and more as time goes by, not that I was ever into seriously Hi Gain, 

[Heath Row]

There was a time not that long ago where if I were asked what amp sim I thought was the best, I would have just TONEX without a doubt. It's not that my opinion on TONEX has waned or anything, I think it's just that my appreciation of other amp sims has grown significantly.

What a time to be alive and be a guitarist, the stuff we have at our disposal is just mind blowing.

[ALC]

I've had TH-U Beat Edition and TH-U installed with with Gig Performer (from Deskew, not the PA version), and it seems that TH-U Essentials is equivalent to those.

On 11/11/2022 at 8:54 PM, heath row said:

I don't mind some of the stuff available for the Rig Player, I have a shit load of them. These are some of my fav's

...

There's just so many, but they are some of my fav's, some of the middle ones from Mad in Italy to TB Puncher are kinda like 'Boutique' style amps.

Thanks for sharing your favorites.

On 11/12/2022 at 6:07 AM, heath row said:

I've started having a taste for the normal type of amp sim and have been playing Amplitube 5 and the Softube and Nembrini amps a lot lately, something I thought I wouldn't do again. I would hate to have to choose between TONEX, TH-U Rig Player, Amp5, Softube, Nembrini, Kuassa, I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, it's 3 minutes from midnight here, my eyes are getting weary, but yeah, I'd hate to have to choose.

Each ecosystem has strengths.   For Marshall, I like Softube.  For Fender, AmpliTube.  Nembrini/BX I prefer when working with individual amp and stomp plugins (mixing and matching the best of each category).  I actually dislike Nembrini's Live Rig environment.  I currently run the plugins in Gig Performer.

Having played with Kuassa Amplifikation 360, it seems to be a clean and quick workflow, but I have yet to buy into the ecosystem.

I've been impressed with the low CPU usage of TONEX.

On 11/12/2022 at 2:17 PM, heath row said:

There was a time not that long ago where if I were asked what amp sim I thought was the best, I would have just TONEX without a doubt. It's not that my opinion on TONEX has waned or anything, I think it's just that my appreciation of other amp sims has grown significantly.

What a time to be alive and be a guitarist, the stuff we have at our disposal is just mind blowing.

I like to get stuff to fill in holes in my collection, that is, amp sims that haven't been covered by what I already have.

What do you feel each product does well?

[Xoo]

I do wish Overloud would sell the additional effects that some of the Rig Libraries come with separately - I've never had any real joy with the rigs getting a sound I like, but do get what I want (usually!) from the amp/cab/effects models, so expanding the effect palette wouldn't go amiss.

[fitzroy]

5 hours ago, Kevin Perry said:

I do wish Overloud would sell the additional effects that some of the Rig Libraries come with separately - I've never had any real joy with the rigs getting a sound I like, but do get what I want (usually!) from the amp/cab/effects models, so expanding the effect palette wouldn't go amiss.

Which effects, though? As my case is the opposite (I like the rigs, not so much the regular patches) and only have TH-U Essential, I was looking through the rigs to see if I could identify the ones I like AND maybe come with a nice effect or two as a bonus. Bus as far as I can tell, only the BM rigs have two additional effects (the parallel compressor and a reverb). They used a bunch of pedals to sample most rigs, and they list them with the rigs ("boosted with"), but those are not available as separate effects inside TH-U. Or am I missing something? 

[Xoo]

I'd quite like the Bass Envelope from BASS RIGS VOL. 1