Sometimes the best things are also free, and the STL Tones Emissary bundle is one of those. The combination of a versatile amp plugin and an IR-loader, which makes combining different cabinets easy, offers an offer that is very hard to refuse.
(The videos above were initially released on June 23rd and July 8th, 2020.)
What is the STL Tones Ignite Emissary Bundle?
The STL Tones Ignite Emissary Bundle is a free guitar amp simulation and virtual cabinet (IR) management bundle offered by STL Tones.
What is the Emissary Amp?
According to STL Tones, the Emissary amp is their custom-designed amp simulation, not directly based on any amp on the market. Instead, it is based on a circuit of a custom amplifier design one of the employees had.
With its two channels, clean and lead, the amp delivers pristine cleans and crushing high-gain tones for a modern metal guitarist.
What is Nad IR?
NadIR is a dual impulse response loader that allows you to use two impulse responses and blend them together to create unique-sounding cabinet combinations for your recordings.
Using Emissary Amp & NADIR For Music Production
The first time you launch either of these plugins, you notice something right away: there’s a lot to tweak. Depending on your personal preferences, this could be a good or a bad thing.
While I personally usually lean into the ‘less-is-more’ camp quite often, the tones I heard from this combination sounded so great that I was motivated to figure it all out.
At the time of recording the videos above, I was also working on my first EP and decided to challenge myself by using this bundle for all the guitar tones on the record.
I guess you might call this a spoiler, but this decision turned out to be a great way of learning the ins and outs of this software and helped me release my first EP ever.
Emissary Amp
In my experience, the term ‘versatile’ many times means ‘it takes a while until you know how to use it.’ However, with this amp, that’s not the case. Sure, there are lots of knobs and switches thrown at you, but all of them are self-explanatory, assuming you’ve ever used a real amp with as many front-panel knobs as this one.
The Clean and Lead channels are nicely labeled, and you quickly get a sense of the depth they went to with this amp model. Hit the arrow on the right bottom corner of the amp to ‘flip’ it around, and you’re presented with the back side of the amp with more things to tweak.
You can choose between different power amp tubes, bias those tubes, and even disable the power amp simulation if you want to use something else instead. The clean sounds on this plugin are something you would expect from an amp like this: very clean to slightly overdriven.
The high-gain sounds are… modern. I grew up playing Mesa amps (Rectos and Mark series), and to me, it doesn’t sound like either of those. There’s a nice crispy high end that sounds a bit shrill when you solo the guitar track, but in a mix, it cuts through great.
NAD IR
I know it sounds weird to be excited about an IR loader, but this one comes with some clever features that make it super interesting.
At its core, the NadIR is simple: One IR on the left, one on the right. What made me excited was all the ways you can blend the two and the sonic possibilities it provides.
You can match the levels, add low and high-pass filters, tweak the resonance, add room reverb, and even add delay between the two cabinets.
For example, one of my favorite things to do is to take a mid-scooped 4×12 cabinet and blend it with a midrange-heavy 1×12 for some unique tones that sit perfectly in the mix.
Is the STL Ignite Emissary Bundle Good?
I love when free stuff is also actually good. I liked the sounds I was getting to the point where I used this bundle on my EP for all my guitar tones.
And because this stuff is completely free, there’s no risk for you to try these out.
STL Ignite Emissary bundle: https://www.stltones.com/products/stl-ignite-emissary-plug-in-bundle
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