Headcase by AcmeBarGig is finally released.

You would have to post this...

Wow, that one was in gestation for a long time. I wonder if he was modeling a 12AX7 or building one from scratch using only gum and common household cleaning products.

mike_mccue
It'll be nice to see it take it's place on the back line. 

Well Danny Danzi once endorsed it. Not sure if he still does.


Funny.... it's 32bit only.

Not an endorsement of this CAD, but I do like this company's iFace; it is economical and works great for cabinet IRs.  I know you can load IRs by using other tools including Reverbs like Cakes Perfect Space; still the iFace is handy and well thought out.  I would suspect that the CAD will be decent, but right now I am still saving for other toys. 

Do let us know what your think of this new CAD.

ampfixer


Something bad going on with this site. I had a corrupted demo D/L and when I tried again it got 99% of the way and then a virus warning popped up within Chrome. If anyone got the demo, how is it?

I got the full product and it's working fine.

JB, 

Thanks for the insight. I was not aware of that.

FWIW, it was not a complaint. But not knowing the development issue, I just thought in 2012 it was *odd* to start out at 32bit (only) but now it makes sense.

I suspect there may be a few developers (regardless of development platform) who may still only think in terms of 32bit and it really does not bother if smaller developers stay there. I may even continue to use some 32bit plugs if they serve my purpose or have no problems being bridged.

For me it's always been about the big/bigger boys (UA, IK, Rayzoon, Wavemachine Labs (drumagog) & Antares) lagging behind for soooooo long. Truth be told I never had any issues when using bridged stuff from any of them.

Glyn,

It's the 21st century.

Go for 12.

This is one instance where the SynthMaker association shouldn't be a concern for anyone. I generally avoid SM- and SE-based plugins because they can be problematic (e.g. conflicts with some video cards and drivers), and many of them are created  by hobbyists who don't quite know what they're doing. These folks do not fall into that category. For them, SM is just a convenient framework for packaging up mostly hand-crafted code.

And I wouldn't be too concerned about the 32-bit only thing, either. Even Alembics sound no different through a 32- versus 64-bit plugin, regardless of what Freddie says.

Hi everyone.. I guess I'm late to the party..

So obviously you know head case has been released.. Woo Hoo, Finally got through all the hoop jumping!

Anyways, it was supposed to be a soft release to test the waters but it turned into a full fledged release. Some of you may have tried to download it, but all the demo download requests as well as the copies being sent out to our pre-purchasers crashed the server and many people did not get a copy. We have since gotten better hosting and all should be fine now. Funny though this was the same hosting service we have been using all along, we released Shred, Preampus, etc and we never had a problem before.

I want to get to some of your questions and remarks
Bitflipper

I wonder if he was modeling a 12AX7 or building one from scratch using only gum and common household cleaning products.

No, good guess though, we pioneered the Chicken wire and duct tape 12AX7 technique. We are going to see if we can do a 6L6 with it next haha :)
 
Bapu

Well Danny Danzi once endorsed it. Not sure if he still does.

Danny Danzi endoursed the earlier version, like 1.01. For all intents and purposes that was like an upgrade to Shred and had very little to do with Head Case as it is now.
Having said that, I did get an email from Danny a day ago and he did say "Totally killer man!" about the new suite..
 
Glynn Barnes

Does this mean I can finally have one that goes up to 11??

Its funny you mention that, You know how many times through development I was asked to make the knob label dsiplays settable? Anyways, I never did make them so that you can specify the number. They all say 0 - 10. This of course is just the display, you can completely set the max values for any knob.
 
Anyways guys.. Feel free to download the demo and check for yourself. And bitflipper thanks for the kind words. Yes SM was used, but just as bitflipper says, it was a framework where the underlying code is hand coded assembly language. I'm not sure whether we will be using SM for much longer, frankly the stuff we're doing is getting quite difficult to do in it with all its limitations. Granted the new version of it has some pretty interesting capabilities like Ruby scripting for starters, but I have not used it yet so I cannot say. I will say its starting to make more sense to just put up with the VSTGUI and be done with it..
 
 

Its awesome, I just got a license to it.  Its sound is totally awesome.  IMHO, "the best one."  Without a shadow of a doubt.

synkrotron


Stupid question, and please forgive my ignorance.

How does this compare to the likes of GR5 and TH2?

I mean, is it even the same thing?

And if you're a bit thick when it comes to crafting your own amps and the like, are there some presets just to get us going?

Thanks

There are no stupid questions only, "stupid answers."  :-)  

1.  Yes.  The user community amps that come with Head Case will provide you with infinite tone.  There is a huge variety of them.  They are here:

http://www.virtualampstash.com/

2.  I haven't tried TH2 yet, because I haven't upgraded Sonar yet, but let me compare Head Case and GR5 for you.

A.  It all comes down to tone.

  B.  Guitar Rig imparts a very, "plastic," very, "nasal," tone over the sound of your guitar.  It covers your guitar in a cloak, and what you hear is Guitar Rig.  With Acme Bar Head Case, what you hear is, "the sound of your guitar, coming through an amp."  

This is deceptively complicated, and I am not sure how many people would be able to pick up on it.  So I will give my experience:  Three years ago, I bought a Custom Shop Carvin Electric Guitar.  For the first year I owned it, I played it through a vox amplifier.  It sounded absolutely wicked.  Then I didn't play for a couple of years, because I got heavy into producing, and the audio card I bought did not work proper.  ( Big mistake on my part. )  So I bought this Komplete Audio 6, just before Xmas this past december, and I got a Free Guitar Rig PRo License as part of the NI Promo.

But you know what?  For the last two weeks, I kept saying to myself, "damn, I thought my Carvin Guitar had a better sound than this."  I started to second guess my guitar purchase.  Now that I have Head Case, I can tell you, "wow, there is a huge difference in these software amplifiers."

Head Case is written by people who know, "what a guitar is supposed to sound like."  This is huge to me.  Head Case is on a tone level closer to having a really awesome Digitech Pedal Board, or Rack Fx.  Except with Head Case, "the possibilities to design your own tone, are exponentially more extensive."

Revalver is damn good ---> Head Case bests it in tone.   Amplitube is a joke, Guitar Rig can best it in tone.

The line6 Pod Farm is good.  It is, "Line6," but it uses the oldest of what is, "Line6' technology," and therefore is easily bested in tone by Head Case.

So..   I am so happy that I did not, "give up," on Head Case.  The software does not have, "a quickstart guide," and its GUI is a little, "rough around the edges," and in terms of luxury features, "a tuner, a virtual tape deck," Head Case is without those too.

But I sensed something, "very awesome," in Head Case.  I had several conversations with one of the Lead Dev's.  And hey, "I was able to get my head wrapped around it a little bit,"  I got accustomed to its GUI.  And last night, I found out about its, "marvelous tone."  And I bought my license.

And you know..  Over the next few months or whatever, "I'll get to amp building."  OMG, "Reaktor," for Guitar Tone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Awesome!!!


They need a PDF Quickstart..   Here are the official forums:

http://guitarampmodeling....85fc758a0d379d1f3d5ef5

Holy crap! The audio demo sounds fantastic!


Must investigate...

Cool. I checked out several when I read a thread about them here some years ago. They sounded great but because of the 32-bit thing I let it go. Is Headcase 64-bit? I can't see any info on this on their page. 

I sure like the look of this thing. I'm a very happy TH2 (full version) user but this might have to go into the arsenal. I just know that Amplitube and GR won't be worn out this year in my studio. And for 60CAD I'm happy to let them go;) 

Ok..  I have some audio up..   The differences in tone are astronomical.

Fair warning:  At your small town, open mic blues jam, I usually get thrown off stage.  I am a noisy, messy, hi-gain freak.

The first is a guitar rig preset, that I wrote.  It took me well over an hour, perhaps two.  I am using this preset as an example of, "the type of tone I can get from guitar rig when," I work away, and work away, and chip away at it.

https://soundcloud.com/au...-rig-my-preset-192-mp3

The second example is, "me loading up head case," opening up a Soladano Head, setting the gain and eq, and slapping a reverb on it.  K?  I tweaked this head case amp for like 2 seconds, and got this tone.

https://soundcloud.com/au...case-my-preset-192-mp3


So in Guitar Rig..  "I'm working at it, working at it, working at it."  In Head Case, "I'm just dialing in monster tone."

Here is what you need to listen for:  In Guitar Rig, somewhere in the hi-mids - lo-highs, is a nasal sounding cloak.  It cloaks the sound of your guitar in, "nose noise."   I dunno how else to explain it.

Ok and finally, just on 32 vs 64 bit............   32 bit plugins still work just fine.   If you saw a 1964 Fender amp, in a music store, and you needed its tone, you would buy it in a heartbeat.   Said amplifier is not going to work 64 bit, "shucks, its not even software."

I'm going to practice Head Case, till I can really, really, really dial up some great tone.  But you know, "the tone is hardcoded in there."  Whatever tubes I choose, or poweramp I go with, or impulses I want for my cabinet, would all be nothing if the developers did not create, "what really works, sounds, noises, and feels like an amp."

I thought S-Gear was really good.  It is really good.  But I'd never get the tone I wanted from it.  

I thought Pod Farm was really good.  It is really good, "but it sounds like Line6, and it is their older technology, and its not completely amazing."

Head Case is completely amazing tone!!   It even edges out, "revalver."  and Revalver sounds..  Damn frikking good for software!!

Head Case is on a Digitech Level.  It sounds like a Digitech box.   You will pay more than $400 for the sweet sounding Digitech gsp1101...  You might get, "less latency," out of the Digitech, but you will not have the infinite abilities of Head Case...

( Btw, with the extra cash, I would definitely consider that digitech gsp1101 )  Only because of latency..   but...   Maybe thunderbolt audio cards will become cheap and common soon???????   We can hope!!

Thanks LP, your enthusiasm is amazing.

I'll check out those links and do some more research.