Nembrini Audio

Not my favorite guitar fuzz/distortion pedal, but obviously still popular and liked from others.

Good, if not meanwhile legendary vintage Fuzz/Distortion/Sustain pedal with a nicely unique sound, which you can like or also not, the highlight of the pedal certainly is the combined high pass / low pass tone control, called Filter here, which allows a good - or even better, compared with other units from the same time - adjustment to the used guitar and amp.

Nembrini typical very good, authentic and convincing sound, the -15dB option is a nice addition for some cleaner tones.

A Nembrini version of a Small Stone, Small Clone, but also maybe of a Pitch Fork would more be my taste, but this plugin is freeware and (not only) for a freeware the sound and programming quality is excellent.

By the way, this unit also sounds fantastic in front of eg. a Taurus, Minimoog, OBX or other (vintage) synthesizers, but also in front of a Hammond! In front of them I like it even more than as a guitar pedal.

Certainly not an amp (plugin) for everybody. But also much more than just a Metal amp plugin, although for this specific use this plugin is excellent, of course.

Not only, but also the perfect choice for guitars with dropped tunings, seven- or eight-string or baritone guitars, due to the tight basic voicings, even more in combination with the additional Tight control, which the plugin, but not the real amp offers.

Typical, maybe even more "metallized" Engl sounds, but due to the several switches (Bright, Bass boost, Mid boost, ...) also more decent, not only Metal compatible voicings are adjustable.

The Clean channel also already offers nice crunch sounds, but also some good. more modern voiced cleans, of course, but certainly is no vintage clean channel, although you also can adjust some more vintage character to it, by adding the Bass boost and/or reducing Treble and Presence, while the Crunch channel already offers as much overdrive as the Lead channels on some other amps, Lead I and II sound even heavier, if not to say, brutal, nevertheless very musically.

This plugin proves, why a lot of great guitarists use an Engl on stage. Maybe not especially this one, but in principle the typical concept is very much the same, only the basic voicings can differ between more vintage oriented and more modern and aggressive.

These amps simply sound excellent, are capable of cutting through every mix and the voicings are more intensely individually customizable or adjustable to different guitars and cabinets than the amps of some competitors.

This is no amp, on which every setting automatically sounds right, but once you have adjusted the controls right - in combination with the used guitar and cabinet - you can get absolutely fantastic sounds.

Also due to the immense gain, but also treble reserves sometimes less is more here, especially concerning preamp Gain, Treble and Presence. Nevertheless treble sounds excellently, never too shrill, scratchy or too digital.

Even better, if not to say, iconic is the harmonics reproduction and reaction to pick attack of this plugin, which lets you completely forget, that this is "only" a plugin and not the real amp itself. Very much like a real good, old Plexi, but only on double steroids and much, much hotter and heavier.

Due to the tons of gain this plugin is comparably more noisy than some others. I also found, that adjusting threshold alone, which usually works fine for me, is not always enough here. If I want to let some tones ring out, the tail still included some noise again or the signal was cut off too early, but with the three controls you can adjust the Noise Gate to your playing style well, it only lasted some time to find my personal best setting.

I am not really a Metal or drop tuning player, but this amp / plugin sounds awesome and also is a good choice for other sorts of overdrive and high-gain, due to the fantastic harmonics and also the very flexible sound shaping options, which allow a lot of sonic customizations.

One of the best Engl-based plugins, which I have heard up to now. I also find the Engl typical concept with the additional voicing switches sonically more flexible in comparison with competitors. A Rectifier, 5150 or SLO have their very unique sounds, which you can fine tune more or less, while this amp / plugins also offers more different voicings than the basic ones, also due to the wide range of the single controls.

If the plugin sounds a little bit too sharp, too aggressive and direct in mono mode, try using it in combination with eg. a good adjustable mono to stereo widener plugin, which smoothes out everything a little, adds some more dimensionality and chances are good, that you land in high-gain heaven, even without needing any additional delay or any other improvements.

This plugin also proves, that a really talented, skilled and experienced programmer even in 2023 does a better job than any AI based neural network. Unfortunately there are not very much programmers existing worldwide, which are comparable with Mr. Nembrini. Therefore I am very grateful, that programmers like him still exist and that they do such an excellent work, even if some marketing hypes rather lead into a different direction during the last years.

Highly, highly recommended.

Very versatile distorsion, which can be use for guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, etc. I particularly the Mid Side and Spread features.

This delay plugin offers a lot of options (digital or analog style, filter, ducking, chorus or tremolo, etc.) but remains eay to use.

First of all, as JEN as well as Thomas Organ are mentioned in the description:

As far as I know the history and even if it seems to be desribed and written wrong in Wikipedia, Thomas Organ did not invent the Wah, but Vox. (But this would be a longer story...).

After my first testing of this plugin I therefore really was very pleased, that this plugin really simulates the tone of a real Vox/JEN wah and not a Thomas Organ design based Dunlop, which I never liked.

The very first time, a Wah tone really made me grin all over my face, was, when I got my first JEN white Fasel Wah. This was this specia, uniquel Cream, Hendrix, Trower, .. tone, I always had been looking for and never got out of any other Wah pedal, especially not out of one based on the Thomas Organ design.

Therefore it is great for me, that this plugin sounds very authentically, just like my own real JEN.

So far, so good, but:

The GUI looks wrong, typical for a JEN is the yellowish-white border around the bottom plate, while the GUI seems to show just an ordinary Dunlop.

Even if this plugin is freeware, a wah pedal simulation plugin makes little sense to me, if it has no on/off swich and even more, if it has not option to control the wah sweep with a midi-expression-pedal while playing.
What sense makes especially a wah plugin, which you only can use as a fixed wah or as a post-editing effect, which only can be adjusted manually? Especially, if the sound itself is excellent.

This plugin would be the best sounding wah plugin, I have heard up to now, but without a pedal control option it is - at least for me - hardly usable. Unfortunately. How shall I use and control it, while playing, without a third hand?

Maybe also implementing an additional auto wah option could be a good idea, not really authentically, but if digital simulations can even be better or more flexible than the real thing, this might not be completely wrong, I think.

Also nice would be an option to be able to select between some different original Fasel inductor coils, a white and red would be a good choice, or if some customizing anyway happens, also alternatively a Halo coil.

Would be nice, if this plugin still could be upgraded with these features, as the tone itself really is very good. I would not mind to pay for an upgraded future version with these options. With them implemented, this immediately would be my favorite wah plugin. As it is, I unfortunately have hardly any use for it.

At the moment it is easier for me to plug my own JEN in front of my audio interface instead. (I still have kept my old Stealth MIDI pedal, as I was hoping for a really good sounding wah plugin like this one somewhen, but unfortunately I still cannot use it, due to the missing MIDI control option. What a pity!).

I have a few midi-expression-pedal-controllable wahs (Strange enough for me, that most wah plugins are not), but they unfortunately all do not really sound like a Vox/JEN does.

This one sounds, as a Vox/JEN wah should, but unfortunately is not pedal controllable, which is hard for me to understand. Is like a guitar without strings or a tube amp without tubes for me. May look nice, but does not really work, as it should.

For the excellent, authentic tone I would have given five stars. But at the moment one star is deducted again, because of the missing on/off switch and most of all the missing MIDI expression pedal control option.

In my opinion the by far best and most authentically sounding and behaving simulation of this legendary preamp.

A lot of additional features make this plugin even more versatile than the real unit. In fact you get a complete, well equipped rack tube amp system plus a lot of good sounding and working effects.

Can be used as a preamp alone, with the included power amp and cabinet section as a complete (rack) tube amp or also in combination with another power amp.

Beautiful, highly dynamically reacting British clean to crunch tones, authentic, typical British overdrive to high-gain tones with a very flexible tone control and a lot more.

I just have been considering to buy the real preamp, but this plugin offers even an additional complete professional rack for much less money and sounds, behaves and reacts - in my opinion - exactly like the real device, so the decision was easy.

A must have for every Marshall sounds fan, I think, but not only for them.

The Nembrini plugin version of this legendary amp the first one, which gave me - after having learned how to tame this "beast" and adjust it properly - a convincing impression, why an ODS really is so legendary.

Some sort of Blackface on Steroids, I would say.

After having tested the plugin, I first was a little disappointed, until I found out that this plugin is not the sort of "You press the button(s), we do the rest!" plugin, some controls need to be adjusted properly, but if you do it, you can get a lot of really excellent, also very differently sounding tones.

My PAF-Humbuckers obviously already had been too hot for the default setting, so I had to reduce Input and Output a lot, so that the signal levels did not start to distort. Concerning these controls here less definitely seems to be more, but afterwards the "sonic sun" was starting to rise.

The basic tones are very American / Fender voiced, nice, very transparent, open, fresh, dynamically reacting tones with really a lot of treble, but also enough mids and bass, if you need them.

I personally found a proper treble adjustment essential for really good tones, as the amp can offer more treble reserves than you most probably will ever need. Also the microphone, speaker, cabinet selection affects the tone - in my impression - much more than usual.

The Overdrive itself sounds nicely harmonious, American voiced, but - depending on the individual gain and tone settings you can change this basic character also to a more dirty, rougher sounding one, even more if you deactivate the tone stack. Nevertheless you will not completely reach this typical British brutality and aggressive tone, also because of the existing mid-scoop, but you can come a little closer.

What makes the difference to a lot of other amps are the incredibly intense, vivid harmonics, which here have their own, unique character, different to the harmonics from modern high-gain amps or Marshalls, the overdrive is a typical, but intensely beefed up vintage overdrive with a sweet and at the same time really biting tone, intense treble and a lot of sustain, but without ever sounding too flat or over-compressed, quite the opposite.

The clean sounds are equally good (of course), also very flexible adjustable, the Clean channel alone is capable of producing a nice vintage overdrive, so you also can not only adjust a good clean but also alternatively an excellent crunchy rhythm sound and a more intense overdrive lead sound and do the rest with guitar volume. The possible combinations of Volume (first gain stage) and Lead (second gain stage) allow a lot of different tones.

Certainly not the perfect amp for modern Metal or really heavy stuff, but most probably for almost everything else. For me the typical SRV, Carlton, Ritenour, Ford, Sayce tone, which even alone sounds great, without any additional pedals or reverb.

Interesting speaker/cabinet selection. For me the 15" Faceman / JBL became the best choice, buat also the Vox / Fane combinations sounds very good, only completely different. If using external IR's, I found that alnico Creams or Rubys as well as Creambacks do a good job, but also an ET65 or ET90 harmonize well with this amp / plugin, maybe even better than Celestions, as they add some nice, decent compression and sweeten treble a little.

For me personally most probably the most convincingly sounding and working simulation of this legendary amp.

But - it needs more proper adjustment, especially concerning Treble, Presence, Input and Output, as much as the right cabinet/speaker/microphone combination, to find the really great sounding sweet spots.

I usually only use tape echoes as I do not like the tones of modern delay units very much.

So I was very positively surprised about the tones which this delay is capable of. All the different features not only allow good, flexible modern delay sounds but also really convincing vintage delay to echo tones, which you additionally can refine with Grit or Smear, so I was capable of recreating some nice vintage echoes with the advantage of some more additional features like the modulation, ducking and filter sections, if necessary.

The only things I miss are more detailed informations about the different patterns of the pattern control in the manual.

Would be helpful in maybe the next upgrade.

Nevertheless one of the most flexible and best sounding delays, which I know. Highly recommmended.