Amp simulators is nothing new. IK Multimedia was early out with their Amplitube which most Pro Tools LE users probably have used, and HD users have been blessed with Amp Farm. Native Instruments, Waves and others have taken up the battle with their own amp simulators. I guess Digidesign got tired in seeing people shell out money for other plug-ins than their own, because now they’ve released Eleven.

The essence

First things first: Eleven doesn’t have a tuner. The monstrosity! Fortunately for us, once upon a time Digidesign decided to buy Bomb Factory and give away a lot of their plug-ins for free. Among them was the Essential Tuner. Thank you Digidesign.

I doubt this is the reason for not including a tuner in Eleven however. To better understand the horrors brought upon us with the lack of a tuner we must first grasp the very concept, or essence if you will, of Eleven which is: It’s an amp simulator. Yep, it simulates amps. Not effect pedals, rack EQs or tuners, but amps. Actually, it also simulates mics, but that’s only fair since the signal needs to be recorded somehow. In this way it’s actually a little like Softubes Vintage Amp Room. They’re both based on the philosophy “let’s not do a lot of shit, but lets do little shit and do it good”.

The top part of Eleven is very basic, and consists only of input, output and two menus for amp and cab type, along with a gate. Depending on what your amp and cab choices are (they are chosen independently of each other) the rest of Eleven will look a little different.

Digidesigns latest plug-ins have been visual and very good looking (Structure, Reel Tape Suite etc.) but Eleven is actually rather clean. Sure, the amps and cabs differ from each other, but they aren’t really detailed, and the entire cabinet isn’t even showing. Furthermore, there’s no visual for mic placement and so on. This shouldn’t be viewed as criticism however. There’s nothing wrong with a “clean” amp simulator… But know that clean only applies to the visual.

Let’s rock!

When I first tried the beta version of Eleven I noticed a lot of really brutal distorted sounds and looked forward to compare it to Amplitube 2. My first thoughts were that it sounded a little too hi-fi. I think that with the full version that opinion has changed, or at least been a little disrupted. The possibilities to affect the sound are few but important. Besides the obvious amp and cab selections there are eight mics to choose from. Four dynamics, three condensers and one ribbon. While they’re only named type+number (i.e. ribbon 121) it’s fairly easy to figure out what is what if you know a little recording history. You can also choose to set them on or off axis. These mics really sound different. Digidesign have the full list of amps, cabs and mics on their website.

Another thing that affects the sound is the speaker breakup feature. Very innovative, and to my knowledge the first time this is present in an amp simulator. It consists only of a slider for the amount of breakup. It sounds really cool with crunchy AC/DC styled sounds. It simply gives you the possibility to make Eleven a little more gritty.

Overall the distorted sounds gets a fairly good review from me. From 70’s rock crunch to good old fashioned satanic Scandinavian black metal works fine. I don’t know if it’s because the breakup feature alone or something else as well. But there is something about the playability of Eleven. It just seems a little more “alive” than I’m used to. But how is it for clean? The first cleaner sounds I used it on was actually a bass and not guitar. It turned out pretty good. It of course works well on guitars as well. My first impression – that the sounds at times seem a little hi-fi – is still there. Much of it is tweak able of course with the controls on the amps and so on so it’s not really that big of a deal. It could for all I know just be the default settings, but my intuition tells me otherwise. This slight high end boost seems to be something that happens in Digidesigns plug-ins these days.

The CPU usage of the RTAS version is beyond acceptance. It’s easily more CPU hungry than a full-blown Amplitube 2 rig (including effects and everything). If you’re thinking about doing a lot of guitar overdubs, then expect that you will have to bounce/audiosuite a lot. Good luck running four instances of Eleven alongside other tracks as well. This is the big drawback, and sometimes a show stopper for me. If you then take into consideration that you might want to add your own FX then you’ll see your CPU meter raise away.

Conclusion

Eleven is in a way in the same category as Vintage Amp Room. Not that it includes older amps only, but that it doesn’t bother with additional effects and stomp boxes. So if you’re looking for a full rig, then you should look elsewhere. Eleven have a lot of possibilities for combining amps and cabinets however, and the various microphones available can affect the sound a lot as well. A big plus to Digidesign for including the new and innovative speaker breakup feature. It really contributes to make Eleven feel more “alive” and to it’s nice playability. The big downer is the taxing on the CPU which is downright outrageous.

Digidesign