Waves Software Edition

July 2008 Guitarist 133
WAVES GTR3 & iGTR £275 & £69
RECORDING
the knob sets the amount of drive.
The second switch selects one of
three effects – phaser, tremolo or
wah, the speed of the effect being
increased by the knob. Fully
counter-clockwise the effect is
bypassed. A similar arrangement
is in place for the third selector
and its choice of one of three
ambience effects – reverb, chorus
or delay. This time the knob
adjusts either reverb or chorus
mix or delay time.
Sounds – iGTR
Turn on the iGTR and the ‘i’ in the
logo turns red. With just physical
controls and no display or menus,
the iGTR is simplicity itself to
operate. Considering that you can
use the amps on their own or with
either one or two effects engaged
there are actually 48 amped up
combinations available (if we’ve
done our maths correctly). Add to
this the fact that, with the amps
bypassed, there is a different clean
sound available to which effects
can be added if desired and you
have even more options.
The three amps offer three
viable variations of tone. Bright
aims for a sparkly top end while
the other two options have a little
more body to the sound: normal
having more of a scooped mid-
range than warm ,where the
mid-range frequencies are more
prominent. All three, set at a low
setting of the drive control for a
really clean sound, are fine for a
bit of practice and benefit nicely
from a touch of reverb, which
counteracts the unnaturally dry
isolated sound that using
headphones can sometimes incur.
Turning up the drive control is
obviously going to add dirt to the
sound and there are some very
useful edgy and crunchy tones to
be had. Get the dial much past
two-o-clock though and the tones
start to sound somewhat less
natural. What’s on offer are fully
overdriven lead tones with plenty
of sustain, but tonally a little too
fizzy for our tastes and not really
in the same league as the super-
authentic overdriven tones in
GTR3. Having said that, we
wouldn’t be put off using the fully
overdriven tones for practice with
headphones, especially for playing
along with a track coming through
the aux input where the trebly
nature of the amp sims cut
through the mix nicely.
As previously stated, a little
reverb opens up the sound nicely
and six bass models. Bearing out
Waves’ claim that GTR3 delivers
the most realistic guitar amp
sounds ever, the authenticity of
the sound is consistently high
with the modelling responding
well to your playing dynamics.
The range of stompboxes is
equally wide, some of which can
do the job of studio processing in
a post-amp position. If you want to
get into some tweaking of effects
while playing, like using real wah
instead of auto wah, dynamic
automation is available via MIDI.
With GTR3 you get classy
sounds with a well-produced
sheen that would fit right into
polished commercial recordings.
iGTR
The iGTR is basically an iPod-
style personal amp for guitarists –
you plug your guitar into one end,
plug a set of headphones into a
socket at the other end and away
you go. The unit is powered by
four LR6 type batteries or a DC
power adapter which is not
supplied – anything from 6-12
volts will do the job. You can just
slip the iGTR into a convenient
pocket but it does come with a clip
on bracket so you can easily attach
it to a belt or guitar strap. An
auxiliary input socket is available
on a mini jack (cable supplied) so
you can plug in an mp3 player or
other external sound source and
play along – a volume control for
the aux input sits next to the main
guitar volume control on the side
of the casing. All the other
controls are laid out on the shiny
black front panel. So you get three
three-way selector switches, each
coupled to a recessed knob.
The first selector switch
chooses the amp model – either
warm, normal or bright – while
The Rivals
GTR3
NI Guitar Rig 3 software
edition (£229) and IK
Multimedia Amplitube 2
(£264) are probably the most
well known of their type.
Besides the amp and effects
emulations both also offer
phrase training facilities.
Softube’s Vintage Amp Room
($429) plug-in takes a more
purist approach by simply
having a choice of Fender, Vox
AC30 or Marshall amp models.
Pro Tools users now have the
new option of Digidesign’s
Eleven (£289) amp and cabinet
emulation plug-in.
iGTR
iGTR’s selling point is the fact
that it is so small and portable,
which leaves a very short list of
rivals. Korg’s Pandora range is
the only serious contender that
could easily slip into a shirt
pocket and the latest PX5D
(£189) has a very large number
of amps and effects plus phrase
trainer and rhythm patterns.
Line 6’s Pocket POD (£81) is
larger than the iGTR but it is still
portable and has a useful range
of POD sounds.
GIT304.rev_waves 133 16/5/08 10:11:33