Wow! What a great update!

It's like my perfect amp just got better.

If you never update S-Gear again, I can be happy.

Thank you Mike! Great update. Since I use S-Gear I never touched another amp sim. When it comes to pedals. A Fuzz would be awesome. Also a Pitch Shifter pedal.

Hi Mike,

Uninstalled 2.9, tried to install v3.01 but asks me for a new app to open this .pkg file.
Tried running the "MicrosoftProgram_Install_and_Uninstall.meta" troubleshooter app but it couldn't fix as it didn't list S-Gear?
Any ideas?
Thanks

It looks like you are running Windows but tried to use the Mac-Installer.

No, thanks but not that

Resolved,.was a Windows installer service corrput file.

Thanks for the great update Mike. I really like the new Drivethru pedal into Duke with single coil pickups.

Re: what I'd like to see for future petals, you may recall an old post I did asking for a DriveThing module. It could provide parameters to control:

• Transparency: transparent (mixes clean signal with distorted signal), non-transparent - how much the pedal changes the original tone of the guitar
• Gain: how much clipping, low vs. high gain, how much saturation the pedal can produce
• Headroom: low vs: high headroom - dynamic range and the ability to push downstream devices
• EQ: mid hump, no mid hump, possibly bass cut before distortion too. pre-dist EQ will change the clipping character of the distortion, but post-dist eq will only shapes the already-distorted sound. The way that pre-dist eq interacts with the clipping stage is known as distortion voicing
• Symmetry: symmetric or asymmetric (for more complex even and odd harmonics)
• Clipping: clipping characteristics: hard: the signal is strictly limited at the threshold, producing a sharp, flat cutoff. soft: clipped signal continues to follow the original at a reduced gain. Hard clipping results in many high-frequency harmonics; soft clipping results in fewer higher-order harmonics and less intermodulation distortion.
• Clipping Device - contributes to the the amount and distribution of overtones produced.

But ultimately, like there are three basic guitar amplifiers: Fender, Marshall and Vox, there are just a few basic distortion pedals:

Tube screamer style

Tube Screamer

non-transparent

mid-hump/mid boost

more saturated compressed

soft clipping, not fully clipping the signal, diodes in the op-amp feedback loop

medium gain

Better for single coil guitar and Fender amps because it replaces the missing mids

Bluesbreaker style

King of Tone, Morning Glory, Pantheon

transparent, no mid-hump

soft clipping

medium gain

better for mid focused guitar (Humbucker) and mid heavy amp (AC30, Marshall)

Hard clipping

MXR Distortion Plus, Fulltone OCD, Rat

diodes on output of op-amp

overdrive - distortion

Klon

gain control is a blend of clean and distortion

mixes in some clean low end all the time that isn’t distorted

has some mid-hump

Tumnus

Transistor based overdrive

no op-amp, no soft clipping section, not hard clipping

cascaded transistors, works like a tube amp with gain staging

Blues Driver

touch sensitive

I would would be nice to cover these options.

Dear Mike,
Congratulation for this update!
S-Gear is and will be the best sounding amp simulation in the world!
Best regards
Werner

Future pedals please:

TrebleBooster, Uni-Vibe, EQ, compressors, fuzz, auto-wah, octaver, pickup simulators, various drive and dist alternatives

S-Gear is the ultimate guitar tone solution!
The sound quality has always been and continues to be exceptional.
The dynamic response is so good that it is easy to forget that your guitar signal is being processed by software instead of some really well designed, high dollar tube amp (or in this case, collection of amps). It is extremely expressive. I can not begin to describe how much enjoyment I have gotten from playing my guitar through S-Gear. I can honestly say that I have never gotten such good tone from anything else that I have ever played through. The only thing that I find difficult after plugging in to S-Gear is putting my guitar back down.
With regards to this update, once again I am super impressed.
The virtual pedal board is perfectly located on an already very well designed UI. I like that you can show/hide it. The Drivethru pedal sounds really good with each of the amps. It has effectively doubled the versatility of every preset in S-Gear. Another feature new in v3.0 is the ability to have different input settings on different instances of S-Gear. This is an extremely useful feature and makes it easier to do things like set multiple instances of S-Gear in a stereo configuration. I am including a couple of Reaper track template files as an example. To use them, put them in the TrackTempates folder in Reapers resource directory (Win and Mac). If you're not sure where that is, click "Options" in Reaper and select "Show REAPER resource path in explorer/finder".

Thanks to everyone for all the super feedback and enthusiasm towards this release, it really means a lot!


Drive thru was a difficult pedal to develop. The modelling of high saturation distortion pedals presents a particular challenge, despite the simple electronics, the mathematics can be difficult to solve efficiently. With Drive thru I experimented with several techniques, and my preference fell with something a bit unusual! which I felt it added more character and life to the quality of the distortion. I'm very happy with the result and it's good to hear that others are enjoying it too.

I'm looking forward to delivering the next pedals. This is an exciting new chapter for S-Gear.

Cheers all,
Mike

Jim90 wrote:

I'm guessing the pedal rack is all between guitar and amp? I don't know if it would be useful to allow custom pedal assignments to after pre-amp too (pre-amp loop)?

Absolutely. The pedalboard has a facility to place pedals in the effects loop (between pre-power amp sections). You will see this in a future release with pedals that are appropriate for use in the effects loop.

David S wrote:

Another feature new in v3.0 is the ability to have different input settings on different instances of S-Gear. This is an extremely useful feature and makes it easier to do things like set multiple instances of S-Gear in a stereo configuration. I am including a couple of Reaper track template files as an example.

Glad you are finding this useful!

S-Gear is by far the best IMO. I've tried them all, it's unbeatable. I mainly play clean and the Wayfarer is painfully better than anything. Painfully, because I'd like to have a compressor before it, which I don't. I had to resort to the other clean plugin, which has been heavily advertised and is more expensive, but no. S-Gear is hauntingly good. Please, add a compressor pedal...

I am pretty sure Mike will eventually develop a compressor. In the meantime I use separate compressor in front of S Gear. Kuassa is good and not expensive. I can also put studio type compressor from other softwares.

Got the V3.0 up and running. Sounds Great with the drive thru. thanks a lot Mike.

Very happy with the new release!! I did an experiment running the drive on a clean amp (the Duke), rolled the volume off on a strat (position 4), and the dynamics were all there. Fantastic tone, and the pedal reacts as the best pedals in real life, very natural sounding.
This is indeed a great achievement... I have tried a similar attempt of a pedal by Mercuriall, and much prefer yours.

Now, regarding the pedalboard and the future additions, you might be entering a can of worms, because people will keep pestering you for more pedals, and your GUI will have to be able to extend or make space for more pedals very quickly if you try to please everyone.

With that being said, if you ask me, I think a treble booster will indeed be interesting and very challenging as well. There was this attempt by Rangebastard, which sounds similar to the real pedal with low gain, but if you turn the boost way high, it just shuts down everything, so you cannot really get the gain level you need for a proper Brian May tone. I personally love a treble booster on tube amps and would love to see what you can get from it.

Other suggestions: a graphic EQ to shape the tone from the drive pedal (as you have in the Wayfarer, but more bands), a tremolo (as you have already in the Wayfarer), and a clone of the classic MXR Flanger, which nobody has been able to accurately recreate in a VST format.

Congrats Mike! It keeps getting very difficult for me to use another amp sim, because nobody has come close to what you have achieved.

I'll list a few pedals that I use consistently, that I'd love to see in digital form:

-Pete Cornish G2 Fuzz
-Tim by Paul Cochrane (please make it the Tim and the Timmy doesn't quite capture the same full flavor)
-BJFE Emerald Green Distortion Machine
-Klon
-Tim Schroeder "Blister Agent" OD
-Fulltone OCD
-BJF (Mad Professor) Tiny Orange Phaser
-Chase Bliss Mood (this one's a stretch to recreate but it's on my wish list)
-EarthQuaker Devices Bit Commander Octave Synth
-BJF Mint Green Mini Vibe (uni-vibe)

I wouldn't be against lending some of these out to be modeled.

Now that we have a good drive I would go for the followings:

A Good guitar compressor with 2 or 3 type of compression. This would be good for clean sound and a good complement for the Drive Thru pedal and amp drive channels.

A good WAH THING.

A GOOD EQ

May be simplified version of your post effects (MOD THING; DELAY THING)

Keep the good work!!

Thank you, Mike, for your continued development of an outstanding amp sim!

I would like to see a PEQ pedal and a 7-10 band graphic EQ. (Preferably with the option of pre-amp, post-amp, or post-effects placement)

EQ is one of the most important ways to change your sound.