Just did extended evals and subsequent purchases of their Cory Wong Archetype and their Fortin Cali suite.
I didn’t think I’d live to see the day that modelers could convince me given my hardware and IR collection, but these two did. They are to real guitar amps what the IK is to a real B3 imo.
Neural uses a different paradigm for their collections that isn’t nearly as flexible as something like Helix Native, so Cantabile makes to perfect solution for wiring in other plugs when needed. And I’m really liking being able to tap one pedal to get an entire preconfig’ed rack of stuff along with amp setting and cab choice come up for a particular passage…
I’ve got all the Neural DSP products except the Cory Wong. I’m endorsed buy them! I’m really looking forward to the Quad Cortex floor model. Then they with have all the flexibility you’ll ever need!
I played the guitars in the last scene of the new Bill and Ted Face The Music movie and used the Fortin Cali plugin. It kicked ass!!!
I use Archetype Plini quite a bit - to me the most universal of the bunch (I’m not too much into the heavy stuff) - works well for a broad range of applications.
What I like about Wong is that it’s Clean Machine can perfectly cover pretty much any tone on U2’s Joshua Tree but Bullet the Blue Sky which requires a real amp and cab to get the feedback. But it can nail everything else, and that has always been the acid test for me as far as modelers go…clean to on the edge. Liked the cleans in it much better than Plini, though that likely has to do with what I’m plugging into it.
As for the Cali, I almost passed on even demoing it when I saw the skulls on the stomps and listened to the YouTube. But I wanted something Plex and the “No Name” that looks like a Plex doesn’t really sound Plex to my ears, so I went ahead and tried Cali. Good thing I did, it nails it. Can even do a great sounding cool Plex. So lol, I can ignore the stomp graphics…
I saw in another thread you’re using Helix…are you noticing any significant tonal differences between the hardware and Native? I listened to some comparisons on YouTube (not reamped) and heard some fairly big differences, but my best guess is it was the user plugging into a lower impedance interface for Native as opposed to the products sounding different…I know a lot of interfaces with preamped 1/4" inputs are only about 10K and that would do it…
The 30% off worked a couple of days ago when I bought Wong and Cali…so maybe this one still works for you.
Also, might want to give Wong and Cali a listen with your rig before pulling the trigger. Plini was my original thought until I demoed Wong and Cali. LOL, don’t let Cali’s stomp graphics fool you, it can do great sounding “dirty cleans” and Plex tones as well as the chugga chugga stuff it seems to be marketed towards. Also, Wong’s wahs are credible IMO if you want/need those…
FWIW I’ve been messing with disabling the onboard speaker sims in the Neural plugs (Cali has a known performance issue with its cab sim) and trying different IR loaders and IRs behind the amps. I’m really liking what I’m hearing from Melda’s freebie MConvolutionEZ and OwnHammer Evolution stereo IRs. Of course ymmv…
