Preset Rant

I highly appreciate Amplitube and it's large library of amps, stomps, and innumerable choices.  When you select combos that work well together the sound is awesome.  But either selecting a preset (and getting that pesky kind of "but you're missing this piece" message), or wading through a seemingly endless list of presets does take some energy.
 
Although I'm a huge fan of Amplitube, I also value and appreciate GTR3 from Waves.  It has a fraction of the selections.  Somehow though I can get to a really suitable sound fast with GTR3 and I often find the presets on the mark.  Since it's a complete purchase, I never get that message about needing to add something more to enable the preset to work. 
 
Long story short, I save presets that work in Amplitube in my personal presets section so I can recall them quickly - enabling me to work quickly in Amplitube.  In addition, if I'm not feeling up to navigating in Amplitube for the day, GTR3 often gets me rolling quickly when I have a creative spark and don't want to get mired down in navigation.

Thanks for the response guys,
@lawa, key is definitely to save presets that you know will function with what is included in the reduced purchase.
 
@ Grim, don't own the whole Revalver suite, so the same bait and switch is irritatingly alive and well. At least Revalver marks the unpaid requirement with a big red D. Example is clearly obvious. Fire up Revalver 4. Select anything in the Angel bank. Have the credit card ready if you want any of them to work.
 
Just creates confusion and time waste. IMHO would be better to advertise the after the fact exclusions in some remote shop if you want them. Open the program and use what you bought and paid for, not having the marketing hard stops merged in with what you thought you were getting.
 
John
 
(edit)... Big plus on my end for GTR from Waves. Old program but digital vintage.

I'd prefer the approach were if you bought a preset - it works, if you don't own the module then you can't modify the preset but regardless of whether you own the module or not the preset/patch works.
The preset then also serves as an advertisement for the module.
 
I've seen AAS use this approach with their sound modules and I ended up buying Chromaphone which I originally had no interest in.*
*I know you're not talking about synth modules but the concept is the same.

Exactly. At least be able to confine or hide them, not scattered in with the ones that work. Alchemy synth threw everything at you randomly mixed in but had a button to hide all the unpurchased stuff.
 
Revalver has no indication of what is crippled until you open a preset and it throws the program back into the demo mode with the irritating whistle every so often. You either have to manually delete the thing or take a crap shoot with the next preset and hope it was purchased. Seems like short of buying everything, saving personal presets or deleting the fake ones is the way to go.

JohnKenn
Just blowin off some steam. Frustration with what I feel to be unethical practices.
 
Getting back in touch with Amplitube 4 and Peavey Revalver.
 
Each program great and the standard install dumps hundreds of presets.
 
Problem is, you try to bring up a preset and get the hard stop. Can't load because you have not gone to the custom shop and purchased whatever needed to make the preset work.
 
So much garbage to wade through. All I want is to fire up the damn thing and use a preset as a starting point. I bought the license and didn't see that it was a marketing scam.
 
Maybe an unreasonable request for honesty in this fast lane day and age.
 
John
 

 
I agree - I'm using plugs from companies that use this tactic less and less in my workflow.

I'm done with IK because of this.

I find it funny anyone would not use these great sounding amps because of presets. Kinda like not using a real tube amp because they don't have presets.

When you buy a pack, you get presets that work with that pack. How is that too hard to understand? I can't figure out how a company goes through the expense and time and effort to bring to market a very good product and then alienate your customer with a goofy, convoluted, BS preset system.

What a goofy thing to have your loyal customer base get flushed down the toilet because of.
 

It's not that th

RSMCGUITAR
I find it funny anyone would not use these great sounding amps because of presets. Kinda like not using a real tube amp because they don't have presets.

It's not exactly that. It is the constant barrage of "buy this" while trying to use them. At this point, there are better plugins that don't feel like adware that I have to pay for.
 
Dan

I'm the same, I don't bother with presets in Amplitube and never have. Their presets are just a tacky marketing tool, nothing more. I think I looked at them once when I first bought it, then never touched them again. To be honest though, I don't need presets when dialing in a guitar tone. Except the ones I make myself for convenience. 
 
Guitar Rig is a different matter. It's a fully featured effects rack as well as an amp sim, and I use it all the time for things other than guitar. So it is kind of fun to go through the presets and see what they sound like on, for example, horns or vocals. And since I have Komplete, there's nothing in those presets that I don't have. 

bapu

The Grim
i wouldn't know because i don't come across it as i own everything available for both products

This ^^^^

[edited for clarity]

Bought Revalver 4 - quickly got annoyed with the "oh, you need to buy *this*, too" nickle-and-diming and gave up on it.
 
Bought BIAS FX Pro for $199, and at the time it included everything there was to have. Since then, they've added some expansion packs for additional money, but I don't have presets that expect those packs to exist, so not a problem. (I suppose it'd be an issue if I used their Sound Cloud thingy, but I don't.) 
 
Would have liked to see them make me a "hey, as an FX Pro user, here, have all 3 expansions for, say $79 or so", rather than $50 each. If only for the 'completionist' collector thrill of "having it all". I don't need them, and $150 for all 3 is irritatingly close to the price of the (far more useful to me) product itself, so...
 
Briefly looked at Amplitube when I read about their Fender 2 pack modeling lesser-known Fender amps of the '50s and '60s. Downloaded the demo and played with it a bit, but could see the "insert more money here" game that soured me on Revalver. And wasn't so enamored of the modeling or the UI that I wanted to spend $499 for the "gimme all the crap and stop screwing with me" bundle. 
 
Anyhow, I'd say BIAS FX Pro is the least annoying of the guitar packages I've seen. For what that's worth.