In my usage, Amp Room proved capable of being whatever I wanted it to be. Knobs are large and easy to adjust, metering is clear, signal flow follows an intuitive pattern, and the plugin feels incredibly smooth and well-designed. Branded amps from Marshall will look instantly familiar to any guitar player, and many of the pedals and other processors, while not name-branded, are relatively easy to match to their real-world analog counterparts. While I love Amp Room for creating complex signal flows, I do hope Softube opens up each processor as VST/AU plugins later on: sometimes, it’s just quicker to load up a single pedal or amp rather than the larger host plugin.Īmp Room’s GUI is clear, modern, and intuitive. The GUI is beautiful and intuitive, routing is self-explanatory, and the host plugin feels snappy. Having used a range of these host plugins from different developers, I do believe Softube has created the best single-plugin processing environment I’ve seen to date. Amp Room is a host plugin which supports a range of proprietary Softube models of amps, cabs, pedals, EQ’s, compressors, and much more, but it does not (at this time) allow each processor to be loaded in your session as a standalone plugin. In the case of Amp Room, Softube has taken the latter approach. There are two high level approaches a developer can take when creating a plugin that offers emulations of more than a single analog device: one is to model each device into a discrete VST/AU/AAX plugin, and a second is to build a range of devices and processors into a single plugin ecosystem, enabling the user to mix and match units within one ‘host’ plugin. Using Softube Central is a breeze, and I much prefer this approach to trying to keep track of updates and individual installers manually. Now, all installations and updates can be managed from the slick Softube Central app for Mac or PC, which checks your iLok for all available licenses and makes sure all of your licensed plugins are installed and up-to-date.

Softube deserves kudos for significantly improving the installation workflow since 2018/2019 when you often had to download individual installers from the Softube site or Gobbler. Softube Amp Room is available for $149, installs in all major plugin formats (AU, VST2/3, AAX), and, like all Softube plugins, is protected by iLok (dongle or hard drive) copy protection. As I’ve come to expect, Softube once again delivers a stellar-sounding offering with Amp Room, offering a wide range of processors that should appeal to discerning producers in every genre. Naturally, when I saw Softube was rolling out a fully-featured guitar amp plugin ecosystem, Amp Room, I was extremely excited to get my hands on the software and give it a try.

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