Neural DSP plugins for practise?

[70Seven]

Anyone use neural plugins for practise at home? Do they sound as good as how YouTube reviewers(influencers) make em sound?

I only play at home. Don’t gig and don’t record. I don’t like to play that loud so my 100 watt tube amp and 2x12 is total overkill. And because I keep the master volume so low it’s probably why I have a hard time finding tones I like from my amp. Considering selling it all and going plugins or amp modeler in studio monitors.

Any tips? Or did something similar?

Thanks.

 

[Blytheryn]

I’ve got the Nameless, Cali, Granophyre and Gojira. All you need in addition to any of those is an EQ so you can cut some nasty shit in the 4K range, and you’re good to go. Get some third party IR’s if you’re feeling boujee and you’re set.

If you get any, get some before the 19th. They’re all like 50% off.

 

[xzyryabx]

I have my kemper in one room and use my mac with neural plugins and a set of monitors in the other. Works more than well enough for a practice setup.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

You can demo them for free. Give it a try.

 

[70Seven]

You can demo them for free. Give it a try.

Yeah I know. But I don’t own an audio interface or monitors. Just asking first before I Order some from Amazon to give those plugins a try.

 

[budda]

Yeah I know. But I don’t own an audio interface or monitors. Just asking first before I Order some from Amazon to give those plugins a try.

Order and find out. You can use monitors and an interface regardless of whether or not these plugins work for you .

 

[4Eyes]

I'm making my transition to "in the box", sold my amp, cab and pedals after testing and comparing Neural DSP plugins side by side with my rig

 

[makecamera]

They're fine for practice. Personally, I don't find them to feel as good as an amp or my FM3. Perhaps I need a better interface or DI box.

If you play a variety of music, I find them limiting, unless you buy several plugins, so you can have a variety of amps, pedals, and effects.

Either way, I'd recommend some 8" studio monitors for that satisfying low end thump when you play.

 

[Deadpool_25]

My default answer here: FM3 into tube amp return. Super simple to control volume. There are tons of good presets out of the box too so you could just plug it in and be off and running.

Another good option as mentioned above: get an interface and monitors (Amazon ain’t bad and has easy returns) then try some of those free trials from NDSP. Also check out Keyan Houshmand’s channel. He has quite a few videos on free plugins.

 

[budda]

I mean ask local to price match but other then that yeah.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Yeah I know. But I don’t own an audio interface or monitors. Just asking first before I Order some from Amazon to give those plugins a try.

Like @budda said, it's nice to have an interface and monitors aren't bad to have around either.

Once you have those, even if you hate the NDSP stuff, there is a whole world of plugins to try.

 

[narad]

Quite frankly, there's enough to try out that you can bounce almost endlessly from free trial to free trial, and if you ever actually ran out you could just register a different email. My gf's on her 4th or 5th NDSP trial and still hasn't found anything better than those $45 vox plugs, but her total cost on the stuff for basically three months of trials has just been $125 for the interface.

It's kind of at the point where if I had to do a business trip or something for 2 weeks I'd just take that along and grab a free trial, and use the stuff around my house when I'm here, which is kind of cool until a totally free option surfaces.

 

[SamSam]

For learning songs or guitar pro tabs the NDSP plugins are my go to.

I own the QC and FM3 but I still find plenty of use for the plugins outside of recording.

 

[budda]

There's also a whole thread here on free plugins.

 

[X1X]

if you ever actually ran out you could just register a different email.

This won't work, unfortunately. ILok detects some sort of a hardware ID of the computer. You need to change hardware (in addition to having another email) to register the same plugin again.

 

[Matt08642]

I recently tried the NDSP Granophyre, Nameless, and SLO100. The initial thing I noticed using all 3 with their stock IRs is the stupid amount of gain even without an overdrive on. Keep this in mind if you don't want balls to the wall gain it might be kind of hard to dial in unless you get a plugin with clean/crunch amps included like Plini or Nolly

My current favorite is the NDSP Granophyre using my actual TS9 pedal or a free TS plugin like the TSE808 (Rather than the built-in Earthquaker OD) and some OwnHammer IRs that just sound better to my ears.

 

[narad]

There's also a whole thread here on free plugins.

Booo! Influencers don't use those!!!

This won't work, unfortunately. ILok detects some sort of a hardware ID of the computer. You need to change hardware (in addition to having another email) to register the same plugin again.

Ah I thought it was based on MAC which is easy to spoof.

 

[X1X]

Ah I thought it was based on MAC which is easy to spoof.

Maybe you can try that, I never looked that deeply into the issue.

 

[Emperoff]

Yes, Neural DSP plugins sound really good. Way better than Helix to me. They're not on par with Fractal stuff, but as you can guess you can get them much cheaper.

Since you already have your thoughts pretty clear...

1.- Buy an audio interface. Always a good investment.
2.- Buy a pair of 5" monitors. Usually the best size for home. You can get bigger ones if your room is very large.
3.- Enjoy the convenience of the digital world at home.

A great advantage of going this route is that you can also use this setup for your everyday music or computer usage. If you don't like to play loud, you will never get those 12" speakers to move anyway.

Then you can add any plugins, modellers or preamps to your interface. If buying something like an Axe FM3 you could skip the audio interface (although I don't know how it behaves as a full audio driver for your computer).

Obviously, if you're going the "in the box" route, I would suggest to get decent stuff. A 150$ interface with a 150$ pair of monitors won't give astonishing results. Set yourself a budget and maybe we can recommend you some stuff.

 

[budda]

I like my $150 monitors