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STL Tones Unveils the Howard Benson Guitar Plug-In Suite

STL Tones Unveils the Howard Benson Guitar Plug-In Suite

The suite dedicates all of its power to the five classic amps that form the core of Benson’s collection, as well as the production duo’s personal array of cabs, mics and speakers.

Nashville, TN (October 19, 2018) -- STL Tones, the leading commercial seller of Kemper Profiles, has expanded its offerings with the launch of the STL Tonality Howard Benson Guitar Plug-In Suite, the first in the ongoing STL Tonality series of plugins.

The incredibly well crafted guitar tones from GRAMMY®-nominated producer and multi-instrumentalist Howard Benson, with the award-winning engineer/mixer Mike Plotnikoff, have powered a string of multi-platinum hits from Bon Jovi, Santana, My Chemical Romance, Daughtry, All-American Rejects and countless others. Now, these rich, distinctive tones have been meticulously captured from Benson and Plotnikoff’s private amp collection in a VST/AU/AAX plug-in that gives guitar players a fully mixed, hit-ready guitar sound—including vintage overdrive, delay, and reverb effects. The Howard Benson Guitar Amp Plug-In Suite, with 40 exclusive presets crafted by Benson, Plotnikoff and STL, is available for pre-order until November 8th at a special introductory price of $89.99 ($129.99 post-sale).

STL chose not to compromise sound quality for variety. Instead, the suite dedicates all of its power to the five classic amps that form the core of Benson’s collection, as well as the production duo’s personal array of cabs, mics and speakers. The modeling algorithms work on a component level to prioritize the expressiveness of physical amps, and offer the smooth breakup from clean to distortion previously found only in the best tube amps. Phil X of Bon Jovi, an early adopter of the Suite, says “This plugin is really responsive, especially when turning the volume knob down on my guitar – not a lot of plugins do that. When you clean the gain up on the plugin, it stays so smooth, the EQ voicing is great, and the low end is beautiful.”

Howard Benson believes that amp models need to be just as satisfying, and plug-and-play, as physical amps—and STL was the team that could accomplish this. As Benson states, “In the studio, we can’t afford to watch inspiration evaporate with endless tweaking. That’s why we’ve refined our collection of amps, cabs, effects and mics so guitarists can just plug in, play, and be inspired. The Suite follows the same rule and delivers mix-ready tone the instant you load an amp’s default preset—which, of course, you can customize further as well.”

The STL Tonality Howard Benson Guitar Suite Plugin is compatible with all major 32- and 64-bit audio hosts, on both Mac and Windows.

For more information:
STL Tones

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Boss streamlines the size, features, and price of the already excellent Waza Tube Expander with little sacrifice in functionality.

Many of our younger selves would struggle to understand the urge—indeed, the need—to play quieter. My first real confrontation with this ever-more-present reality arrived when Covid came to town. For many months, I could only sneak into my studio space late at night to jam or review anything loud. Ultimately, the thing that made it possible to create and do my job in my little apartment was a reactive load box (in this case, a Universal Audio OX). I set up a Bassman head next to my desk and, with the help of the OX, did the work of a gear editor as well as recorded several very cathartic heavy jams, with the Bassman up to 10, that left my neighbors none the wiser.

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- YouTube

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