NUX Solid Studio IR & Power Amp Simulator, 8 Cabinets, 8 Mics, 3 Tubes, Classic Style, Model 173.333, Guitar Effect Device

After spending years trying to get multi effects pedals to produce a nice solid sound out of a PA (as opposed to using a guitar amp) I tried this IR loader using Boss pedals in front of it and have found true tonal versatility. The sound out of the PA is now more present and 'in the room' than I've experienced with multi effects pedals, and of course you can put any pedal you like in front of it. I favour the V412 setting using an SM57 mic at the cone, and then adjust the brightness using the presence control on the amp section. You can get a tiny bit of grit from the gain but really you want to leave volume and gain at noon and adjust the other pedals settings. I think the casing must be generic because the two footswitches are pretty pointless, you switch them on and leave them. This is a pedal that will free you up from bulky and heavy guitar amps if you want to go that route. Totally worth the money.

I was looking to improve and expand my guitar tones. I’ve been using a Behringer V-Amp 3 for years, and I have been quite happy with it. But the fact that everything is in a single box makes tweaking and finessing a bit difficult, so from the hundreds of possible combinations I was just using the same three custom presets for everything (clean, dirty or dirtiest!)I began assembling the beginnings of a pedal board, and I wanted to use the Solid Studio as the last stage before my audio interface. My idea was that the Solid Studio should allow me more flexibility with amp and cabinet sounds than the V-Amp 3. This has worked out quite well, but I’m not sure the Solid Studio is exactly the creature that the many reviews and demos on YouTube led me to expect. Most of those reviews are from 2018, so things may have changed since.First impression is good, with the unit seemingly very well made. It is indeed “solid”. There’s a brief user manual which covers the basic functions, but I had to go on-line to find out about the editing software and the firmware updater.Ergonomically, the unit is fairly logically laid out, and it’s obvious right from the start that the emphasis here is on the cabinets and microphones rather than the amps themselves. In fact, there are no amps! What you have is a selector that allows you to select from one of 3 valve types. I imagine there must be a lot more to an amp than the valve, but here any further colouring of the sound comes from either the drive and presence knobs, or from the mics and cabinets.(Other users elsewhere have suggested using a pre-amp to fill in this gap. I’ve successfully used a variety of overdrives and fuzz boxes, so what you use will be determined by the kind of sound you are going for.)I initially had a problem powering the Solid Studio, and here is where I met -Anomaly #1. The manual says the unit draws “<240mA”, which means the channel of my power block spitting out 300mA should have sufficed. The results were extremely unpleasant, with a whole series of speaker-ripping digital artefacts and distortion threatening to shatter my headphones! Checking the back of the unit revealed that the power consumption was 500mA, and so another power block with that spec was used, and things were much improved.Anomaly #2. The Solid Studio is set up as a pedal, with big buttons to stomp on (thankfully, the non-clicky kind!) This suggests that the pedal might be used in a live situation, probably residing on the stage in a pedal board. But the EL34 valve and the JZ120 cabinet (to use just two examples) are both at least 6 to 9 dB louder than the other valves and cabinets. You are not going to be playing with these settings live, not if you want the sound guy to continue speaking to you! If you are simply going to choose a preset for the gig and balance things from there, then fine, but that would seem to negate the pedal nature of the thing.Anomaly #3. The unit has a normal jack output as well as a balanced DI Out. The signals from these two outputs are very different. The jack output is a little subdued, meaning I had to turn the audio interface input up quite a bit. The balanced XLR DI out was incredibly hot, meaning that the input stage of my interface was clipping. Turning down the fader on the interface helped, but no matter what I did I could not get the XLR feed to reduce to silence using the audio interface input gain control! I’ve never had this happen before, but then I usually only use balanced cables with microphones, which work as expected.After a few days of experimenting I have settled on a valve, cabinet and mic selection that I like and will serve as the standard setting for my current project. It’s easy to fiddle with the master, drive and presence knobs to hone the sound as required.So, in use this tiny unit functions with almost the same redundancy as a physical amp and cabinet in the way that it just sits there doing that one thing, whilst the sounds going through it get tweaked and changed elsewhere.Overall, the Solid Studio seems to colour the sound in a pleasant and familiar way. A more cynical reviewer might suggest the same effects could be had in any number of software plug-ins, and that what it ultimately amounts to is a series of simple EQ and distortion models.I do think there’s a little more than that going on, but try as I might I could hear no time-based alterations. I’m sure the impulse responses (IR) used here are reasonably authentic, and you can check out the EQ curve for each (and load in your own) using the editor, which you can download from the NUX site.This is where I encountered -Anomaly #4. In many of the YouTube videos I watched there was clearly a short room-type reverb included. I imagined this would be part of the IR, but it’s not, and no reverb was audible on my unit. However, the editor has a virtual knob called “Space” which allows you to dial in the reverb.You don’t need to re-save the impulse you are editing to retain this reverb. The reverb now operates (according to the level set by the Space knob) even when the unit is not connected to the PC. The reverb is exactly the same for each cabinet/valve/mic, and the colour it adds is completely unnecessary. It just adds a bog standard room ambience that would be better applied elsewhere.There is also a means of flashing the firmware through a download on the same web site. I updated mine, but it seemed to make little difference to the sound. Probably worth doing though - just to be safe.In summary then, I’d say the Solid Studio does more or less what it says on the box, even though some of the functions are a bit different from what I expected from reviews elsewhere. Does it successfully replace “the real thing”? Yes, to some extent it does. The extended functions are more comprehensive than I have been able to test, but as the end point for a guitar pedalboard when recording direct into a computer audio interface, it seems to sound quite authentic.The mitigating factor for some will be the cost. It’s clearly a lot cheaper than “the real thing”, but it’s still over £130 (at time of writing). That’s not a budget pedal, but then I don’t really think this device should be thought of in the same way as an effect pedal. There is no “effect” as such, just another way of getting a familiar old sound.

Perfect cab sim for guys like me who prefer a few tangible knobs to dial in rather than lots of digital screens to scroll through. It has a ton of useful applications for a home studio and I cannot imagine ever wanting to part with it, it’s too useful. I’ve owned the mooer radar, line 6 hx and Hotone Ampero, to my ears I can’t tell much difference between the cabs sims on all of them, they all sound really good, modern guitar technology is in a golden age I think, this pedal certainly holds its own among all those mentioned, it happens to be my favourite but that’s more because of the analog, hands on feel of the unit, no screens, just knobs, although you can plug it into a pc and do all the fancy IR loading stuff, I’ll never do that, it’s got a handful of useable tones that are more than enough for my home studio recording. Highly recommended.

This may be a budget item that purports to do a lot of things but I didn't find it to be all that good. The worst aspects were that the item didn't connect properly to my computer and daftest of all, the suggested downloads on the site's product web page don't work with the item.I contacted their customer support. The first time, my enquiry was completely ignored, the second time was when I got told that their software didn't work with the item and the reason the pedal wasn't connecting was blamed on the cable I use (which works perfectly well on everything else I've used to connect with a phone, computer etc etc).You get what you pay for I suppose.

Oh, wow. What can I say! When used for recording or playing through monitors it just works brilliantly. It is very subtle & just makes the guitar sound & feel like you're playing through a valve rig. It works extremely well with slight overdrive. The whole experience just feels real rather than just faking it with a pedal. It's very transparent. I can't recommend it enough for a grown up seasoned guitarist. Having said that. It won't be wasted on young thrasher, although I'm not sure if they'll appreciate the subtle difference it makes.