We can’t get no sleep

Well then, the Vandal VST & AudioUnit Plugin is out since almost a month. We’re again (or still?) busy here, refining the current state and including new stuff. We are doomed to 😉

Here’s a quick view on what can be expected next:

Nothing spectacular on the UI, but the small LED saying ‘yes, there’s MIDI coming in‘ shall also serve as an indicator that we take MIDI seriously. We got to finalize certain parts of the architecture somehow, but such things are naturally not that visual.

 

Another thing we included was having the virtual microphones selectable on & off (now, is THAT rocket science or what???).

 

And we also added ‘delay’ knobs to the ‘tweak’ view of the cabinet simulation. These let you shift each mic in time to up to 25ms and offers for a vast palette of new sound textures. That can range from slight phasing artifacts to a complete twist of the cab sound. And you can easily create convincing stereo effects this way (engineers call this the ‘Haas effect’). The old ‘mic phase +/-‘ switches were replaced by simple push buttons to flip either phase, as we needed to save space. What was of minor importance before (the phase), can now have a dramatic impact in conjunction with the added delays.

Vandal VST / AU: Official website launched

We’ve finally managed to launch the new Vandal VST & AU plugin website! 🙂

www.vandalamps.com

http://www.vandalamps.com

While this blog will be kept updated with any non-marketing stuff, such as ongoing development details, vandalamps.com will probably your first point of interest concerning product orders, demo downloads, updates, additional presets and such.

We also have a bunch of audio & video files ready for you to listen to and watch. Within the next weeks/months, we’ll set up more content, providing more presets, additional videos etc.

We’d like to encourage everybody to get in contact with us, especially if you’re using the Vandal plugin and made cool presets or audio/video demos that we could post. If we can find you & Vandal on myspace or youtube, let us know as well. We want vandalamps to be as alive and vital as the plugin itself.
See ya! 🙂

Vandal PC & Mac Release facts

Okay, it’s been a while since we left any info here. We’re almost through with development (still some last-minute tasks left). So here’s just some quick frequently-asked-over-and-over-again info:

• Vandal will be a boxed product (but download version is also planned)
• Regular retail price (boxed) will be 169 EUR / 199 USD
• Contains Windows (VST) & Mac (VST & AU) plugin
• Also contains Samplitude 11 Silver (Windows)
• Release on March 24 (Day 1 of Frankfurt Musikmesse)

The official release date will also be the start of www.vandalamps.com. Gonna be cool as well 🙂

New stomp pedals under construction

We’re currently about to finalize the code for the upcoming VST version of the Vandal plugin and managed to include a couple of new stuff. Here’s a pic of what recently was added to our effect pedal collection:

New modulation effects, dynamics, filter stuff, delays, etc.

These stomps are as thoroughly modelled and programmed as every other part in the plugin, so not just a bunch of cheap off-the-shelf algorithms. Each of them is capable of recreating the naturalness and unique sound texture associated with stomp box fx as usual.

More news coming soon.

VANDAL survey (win a Samplitude 11 Pro copy!)

Preparing the coming VST version of Vandal here currently (and perhaps Mac AU if we got resources), we’d like to gather more feedback and information from potential users on what they expect from a good amp-simulation product.

Help us to make Vandal the best native amp sim! Just answer a couple of questions (which popped up during development), send them in and – with a bit of luck – win 1 out of 3 copies of the new Samplitude 11 Pro (the current Vandal version already included ;))!

These links take you to the survey (choose your language):

English

German

Don’t hesitate. Even if luck isn’t on your side, there’s at least the chance to apply for beta testing through the survey, so that we perhaps get back to you sooner than you think 🙂

VANDAL starts shipping (partly)

The VANDAL Guitar & Bass Software is currently bundled exclusively with Magix Samplitude 11 Pro & Sequoia 11, which were released in Germany a couple of days ago. International versions of these products will appear in late summer / early autumn (TBA).

A seperate/standalone product release is being evaluated at the moment. At this time, we can’t precisely say when or whether it’s VST, AU, or both, a boxed product or download-only. But we’ll let you know ASAP. As this blog is development-only, decisions are up to teams other than ours.

In the meantime, we continue developing the software further. We’ve recently refined the amp & cabinet parts, tweaked the stomps and fx, and we’ve also concentrated on gathering presets and templates (the latter serving as a starting point for new amp & cab endeavours on the users’ side).

Here’s how VANDAL sounds in its current state (courtesy of Dimi Nalbantov):

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• Magnetic Storm
• BritCrunch
• CleanClean

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Small snippets of audio fed through various parts of the plugin:

• Unprocessed
• Small Cass-A Combo + 1×12 Vintage
• Small Brit Combo, Crunch Channel, 2×12 Vintage
• Small Brit Combo, Lead Channel, 2×12 Vintage
• Modern HighGain+4×12, stereo miking (real-time movement of the virtual mics)
• Modern HighGain+4×12, distance miking (turning the ‘distance’ knob on the CabSim in real-time)

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Some of the stomps:

• Clean Amp, no stomp
• La Crema Overdrive in front of Clean Amp
• Halvar Preamp/Overdrive + Amp
• Hellfire Distortion + Amp
• Fuzz + Amp
• Guitar Amp in ‘classic’ preamp mode + Chorus stomp
• Chorus more extreme
• PhaseShifter/Tremolo: Phaser 70%, Tremolo 0%
• PhaseShifter/Tremolo: Phaser 0%, Tremolo 70%
• PhaseShifter/Tremolo, both dialed-in

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Some rack-unit FX (behind the CabSim):

• Phaser
• Room Reverb
• Hall Reverb
• Hall Reverb, long + modulated

VANDAL AMPS at Musikmesse Frankfurt

For those of you visiting the Musikmesse 2009 (April 1 – 4), there’ll be an opportunity to see & hear the coming Vandal software in action.

Come on over at hall 5.1, booth D41.
We’ll supply stuff (axe, 4 string, Midi pedalboard) so that you can test the plugin for yourself. While we won’t have everything up & running at that time, you can freely get your hands on the current development state and have a personal chat with us. We’ll be happy to explain in detail what else can be expected from the finished product and look forward to all kinds of feedback.

See ya 🙂

Bass Amp Redesign & Sound Clips

We’ve made some slight changes to Vandal’s bass amplifier recently.
It’s still an all-tube design, coming with 3 tube gain stages in the preamp section and delivering a fat tone through the push/pull pentode power amp stage.
Here’s the new pot layout:

So, we’ve changed the preamp a bit: Now, the signal first enters the first gain stage, then can be shaped via the ‘contour’ knob (kind of loudness / lower mid dip; an interactive / passive filter network), then gets some compression.
The compressor is a FET-based feed-back model, similar to some stomp designs or vintage studio rack gear. It’s ultra-transparent and musical; you can kick it hard and it still doesn’t do strange things.

The ‘drive’ control feeds an extra tube stage for extra harmonics and extra oomph 🙂

The EQ section is a split design: a passive low/high baxandall network followed by an active 2-band mid control. All filter slopes are 6dB/oct, which in our opinion is the best compromise between being versatile and retaining the character of your bass guitar.

Here are some audio clips:

basstest_dry (VANDAL completely disabled. A bit of silly & aimlessly fingered playing)

basstest_vandal (the amp setting from the picture above)

basstest_vandal_chorus (VANDAL’s stomp guitar chorus in front of the amp)

basstest_vandal_tubedrive

Here’s a clip by Dimi, certainly in a more sensible context: 😉

vandalbass

Coming next: Vandal Bass Amp

This morning was the birth of Vandal’s 2nd amplifier. The bass amp is currently being added to the plugin’s main architecture. This is how it will look like:

Although it already pops up on the screen (upon choosing it from the ‘amps’ list), there’s currently not much coming out of it. It’s work in progress. Soldering lots of wires here… 😀

The architecture we’ve set up the last couple of weeks allows for ‘amplifier mainframes’, which means a generalized architecture of amps that have to be specified in detail. That was quite a bunch of code lines, lots of coffee and headaches… but now we’re prepared for a new beast 🙂

The bass amp is designed to serve a broad range of players and music styles. It’s an all-tube design, btw., housing a highly-interactive passive filter circuitry. The amount of knobs might appear limited at first sight, but we’re certain this baby becomes at least as versatile as the guitar amp. 😉

We’ll see within the next couple of days. Stay tuned.

Vandal stomp box collection

We haven’t had much going on here for a month. During that time, the main architecture of the Vandal software has been developed futher. That’s a lot of stuff under the hood that might be of minor importance for users, but it’s very important for all coming features that we equip this thing with.

One of these features is the ability to deal with user-defined stomps setups. Currently, our arsenal is planned to offer between 18-20 different stomp boxes, of various type and origins. Here are some that are already working:

The LaCrema Overdrive manages to recreate the famous mild crunch tones associated with famous blues/rock-type pedals, like for instance the TS9.

HALVAR was inspired by the DOD250/308 Distortion/Preamp Booster stomp, which allows to tighten up the signal when doing shred and heavy riff-working, cleaning up the bass & such.

Hellfire is a no-compromise attempt at high-gain sounds, features a classic (passive) tone stack and multiple gain stages. Max gain is ~70dB 🙂

Fuzz has that certain sound: ‘muff’, Jimi, Satisfaction, you name it. A love/hate thing, as usual.

CHORUS is, well, a chorus. A typical stomp pedal unit, rich, colorful, distinctive, analog.

The phase shifter is pretty unique. Actually a phaser and a tremolo (can be both simultaneously). Allows for subtle washy phasing, wah-type resonating as well as sounding completely ill-psycho-something.

The CheWahWah is pretty traditional; characterful, rich, screaming. A wah like one would expect but is rarely offered in the digital realm.

All stomps incorporating distortion/overdrive are oversampled (4x at 44/48k). We want them to not behave like digital zombies just because you’re doing a bending in the 24th fret… 😉

To do: adding Midi CC to all controls. As with all Vandal knobs/buttons, Midi messages (from pedal boards and such) can be used to drive various units and their parameters. We will explain the concept in detail as soon as the time is right.

Here are some audio snippets of the OD/distortion stomps, courtesy of Dimi Nalbantov:

vandalcrunch

vandalhalvarcrunch

vandalhellfirecrunch (featuring Vandal’s internal delay + reverb)