Ample Guitar SC

Name: Ample Guitar SC
Price: 149 USD
Author: Ample Sound

by Ample Sound · Instrument · Sampled electric guitar (Fender Stratocaster)

Not rated yet

Ample Guitar SC is a sampled Fender Stratocaster 50th Anniversary electric guitar that runs in Ample Sound's own plugin.

It has four pickup-position libraries, 10 articulations, a built-in amp section, a riff editor and Guitar Pro tab import. It costs $149.

Best for: Guitars. Genres: Rock & Indie, Pop, R&B & Soul.

Keywords: guitar instrument, sample-based, chord generator, leads, classic, metallic, monophonic, clean, crunchy, polyphonic, sequencer, smooth, visual feedback.

What it does

Ample Guitar SC is a sampled electric guitar recorded from a Fender Stratocaster 50th Anniversary. It comes with Ample's own tools for writing parts, from a tab-style riff editor to a strummer and Guitar Pro import, plus a built-in amp.

Four pickup libraries: Neck, Neck plus Middle, Funk (Middle plus Bridge) and Bridge.
Articulations: sustain, palm mute, natural harmonic, hammer-on and pull-off, legato slide, slide in, slide out, pop, pinch harmonic and slide guitar, with left-hand noises included.
Legato and tuning: a polyphonic legato and slide smoother for legato at any interval and speed, and drop tuning down to D1.
Riffer 4: a MIDI riff editor with switchable piano-roll and tab views, a Strum Note system that treats a chord as one editable object, string visualisation that stops two notes landing on one string, CC and velocity lanes, MIDI import and export, and a riff library.
Strummer: two chord-detection modes plus custom chords, a strum sequencer for your own rhythms and speeds, and a rhythm library you can drag into the DAW as MIDI.
Tab Reader 4: imports Guitar Pro files from GP3 to GP8 into Riffer, keeping fingering and articulations.
Amp section: seven heads (Metal Double, Metal Treble, Lead 800, Jazz 120, 65 Twang, 65 Delight and 57 Delight) and eight guitar cabinets, each captured with eight microphones.
Effects: 8-band EQ, compressor, delay and convolution reverb after the amp.

The product page does not show a version number or a demo.

Source: Ample Sound product page

When to use it

Ample Guitar SC samples one Strat in depth, with four pickup positions, tab import and an amp section in the same plugin. It covers different ground from Heavier7Strings, the rated guitar instrument on the site, which is built around high-gain seven-string metal, and it is heavier on disk than RealGuitar (MusicLab, on the site), the other long-running sampled-guitar option. Within the Ample range it is the bright single-coil choice; Ample Guitar LP is the humbucker counterpart. Users on VI-Control describe a metallic top end with less midrange weight, which suits funk and classic rock.

Best for: clean and crunch single-coil parts, funk rhythm, and blues and classic-rock leads.
Genres: pop, funk, R&B, blues and rock.
Look elsewhere if: you want humbucker weight (Ample Guitar LP) or modern drop-tuned metal (Heavier7Strings).
Tip: in Strum mode, quantize your chord notes fully so the chord detection reads them correctly.

What producers say

Users and reviewers rate the Ample electric guitars among the best sampled guitars, with the main gripes about CPU load and the strum mode's chord reading.

Sample Library Review (2020, version 3) called the Ample electric guitars "some of the best on the market" and found the SC through the Lead 800 amp close to a live Marshall JCM 800 rig; its only listed con was noticeable CPU overhead.
VI-Control thread users liked the flexibility of the four pickup options and its "fairly metallic end"; one doubles rhythm parts with SC on one side and Ample Guitar VC on the other.
Criticisms: a Steinberg forum user found Strum mode played wrong chords until the notes were fully quantized, and noted it does not follow a chord track by itself the way some rivals do.

Where to buy

Ample Sound: $149
Plugin Boutique: $149

Tutorials and reviews

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