Graphite

Name: Graphite
Author: Acustica Audio

by Acustica Audio · Amp Sim · Bass amp sim

Not rated yet

Graphite emulates the GR Bass One head and an AT 212 carbon-fiber bass cabinet with four microphone options.

It adds a 4-band EQ, deep and bright filters and a D.I. blend; the shop page did not show a price.

Best for: Bass. Genres: Rock & Indie, Metal, Pop.

Keywords: bass, tracking, clean, hardware emulation, low latency, modern, transparent, mixing, simple, bright, FET, punchy, samples & loops, zero-latency.

What it does

Graphite is Acustica's bass amp plugin, made with Italian bass amp company GR Bass and described as the developer's first Acqua plugin "fully dedicated to the needs of bassists". It samples the GR Bass One head, built around a "pure sound" idea of natural transparency, and the matching AT 212 cabinet.

Head: GR Bass One emulation with a 4-band EQ: low and high shelves plus two mid bands, each with three selectable centre frequencies.
Deep and Bright: filters for extra low-end punch and top-end definition.
Cabinet: the AT 212 (2x12") carbon-fiber cabinet, sampled with four microphones: American dynamic (57), American ribbon (R10), German FET condenser (47) and German dynamic (421).
D.I. blend: mixes the clean direct signal with the amp at the output.
Playing styles: the developer says it handles fingerstyle, pick and slap playing.
ZL version: a zero-latency version for real-time tracking, which the developer says "works like a dream when tracking".

It has a single-screen interface. The ZL version is sold separately.

Source: Acustica Audio product page

When to use it

Graphite models one modern head and cabinet in detail, so it is a focused tone tool rather than a rig builder like AmpliTube 5 MAX and Helix Stadium Native, which include many bass amps and effects alongside their guitar rigs, or Neural Amp Modeler, which can load captures of any bass amp for free. Among dedicated bass plugins, users in a VI-Control thread compared it with Plugin Alliance's Ampeg V4B and UAD's Ampeg SVT models: those model classic Ampeg heads, while Graphite follows GR Bass's modern, transparent design. Pick it if you want a transparent modern bass tone with a simple DI blend.

Best for: modern clean-to-driven bass tones, for tracking (with ZL) and for reamping DI bass in the mix.
Genres: rock, metal and pop.
Look elsewhere if: you want many amp choices or effects (AmpliTube 5 MAX or Helix Stadium Native), or a vintage Ampeg sound.

What producers say

Forum users like its lively sound and simple interface; the thread is small and has no hard criticisms.

VI-Control thread users noted "a liveliness to the sound", and the original poster said Graphite beat the Ampeg V4B for their tracking.
Interface: one user praised the UI and the D.I. blend knob as "Useful!".
Comparison: another user found they could get "almost the same sounds" from UAD's Ampeg SVT-3 Pro and SVT-VR, though they still liked Graphite's layout.

VI-Control forum thread

Where to buy

Acustica Audio: see store

Tutorials and reviews

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