iK Multimedia amplitube Fulltone Collection

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In creating in-app purchases for its AmpliTube software to suit your musical needs, IK Multimedia regularly hooks up with manufacturers to create product packages. While we’ve looked at some of the amp packages from Orange, Mesa/ Boogie and Fender, the company has now teamed with US boutique stompbox company Fulltone for three effects that you can buy as a package or individually (TERC and SSTE, €41.98 each; OCD €29.98).

The three models include Fulltone’s best known stompbox, the OCD, and a software recreation of its Solid State Tape Echo (SSTE), which in its physical form is itself a modern version of the Echoplex EP-3 tape echo. Rounding out the three is TERC, otherwise known as ‘That 80s Rack Chorus’, Fulltone’s recreation of a rare rackmounted chorus unit, the Dyno My Piano, which is synonymous with LA session players from the 1980s such as Steve Lukather and Mike Landau.

In Use

All three slot into your AmpliTube rig of choice, the OCD going into the Stomp section on a pedalboard, something that the other two can also do, as well as slotting into the Rack section. The rendition of both the SSTE and TERC on the pedalboard is of a remote footswitch, but you can click on it to see the rackmount layout for editing. Like the hardware pedal in front of real amp, this OCD nicely fulfils the same function in front of a simulated amp, with Volume, Drive and Tone knobs plus an HP/LP switch – HP (High Peak) offers increased bottom-end, more distortion and an increase in upper mids (3.5kHz) for a more aggressive sound.

As a software recreation of an EP-3, the SSTE works really well in offering vintage flavoured echo sounds with the advantage of digital precision. Besides moving the tape head slider, you can set exact delay times in milliseconds or via beats per minute to suit the song you may be recording in your DAW. Delay time runs from a tasty slapback up to 900ms with a choice of ‘Brilliant’ or ‘Vintage’ high-end to your repeats, reasonably authentic tape saturation via a Record Level knob, and no annoyingly obvious tape wobble. You also get a choice of preamp sound, either Fulltone’s version or the altered EQ of the original EP-3 preamp, which certain guitarists swear by.

The TERC, with mono or stereo chorus, has Preset or Manual mode with Left, Centre and Right Intensity controls and a Speed knob. If lush 1980s-stye chorus is your thing, this delivers it.

Verdict

Although they are quite different from each other, these three effects stand together as a collection that goes a long way towards expanding the versatility of your AmpliTube rig – the package price for all three is worth paying even if you only fancy a couple of them. Individually, the overdrive and chorus models are probably more niche, but we reckon that the Echoplex emulation has a universal appeal that guitarists who record on computer could find hard to resist, especially with a few instances stacked together. [TC]