Review: Digidesign Eleven Rack
All puns aside, even Spinal Tap will want one of these – it’s all about the sound… minus the Dobly.
9 November 2009
Review: Michael Carpenter
Amp simulators. They’re part of the digital revolution. They’ve been around in a variety of forms for ages, but in the last 10 years or so the science behind both the hardware and software emulations has become alarmingly refined. And, much like the discussion about digital and analogue multitracks and consoles, there are heated, passionate and sometimes ill-informed opinions both for and against their use and application.
One of the trickiest aspects of developing a decent amp simulator is finding a satisfactory modelling framework for capturing that unique, physical interaction between guitarist, instrument and amplifier. The relationship between these three elements is crucial to both the tone of a performance and the musical outcome. Playing electric guitar is an event – one that many argue is simply impossible to ‘model’. It’s a physical experience where creative energy flows between the performer and the instrument, and it’s this X-factor that’s one of the most elusive elements to simulate. There’s certainly more to amp modelling than simply developing something that sounds like the real thing – it has to feel good to play to be truly successful – a product’s success or failure depends on it.
ON THE RACK
In typical fashion, Digidesign – the industry leader in all things digital multitrack – has attempted to redefine the way the amp simulator works in the world of contemporary recording, with its release of the new Eleven Rack.
The idea is that the Eleven Rack hardware – a DSP-laden device that reportedly houses identical algorithms to Digidesign’s celebrated Eleven plug-in – integrates seamlessly with all current versions of ProTools software, but importantly, will also work independently as a ‘virtual amp head’ – so you don’t need to be anywhere near a computer to make it work. It’s a virtual combo amp one minute (as opposed to an analogue amplifier) and an audio interface for ProTools the next.
IMPEDANCE MATCH
Probably the biggest selling point of Eleven Rack is its ‘True-Z’ auto impedance-matching guitar input. To quote Digidesign’s literature, “It’s almost as if the True-Z input morphs into the 1/4-inch input jack of whatever classic stompbox or amplifier you’re using. When you plug into Eleven Rack, you get the same response – and same great tone – as when plugging in to a vintage stompbox or guitar amp.” It’s certainly a big claim – no surprises there I guess – but funnily enough, it works. Via a proprietary analogue circuit, the True-Z input (shame about the cheesy name) delivers impedances equivalent to that of individual loadings which occur when different combinations of a guitar, pedals and amps are patched together. The electronic relationship between these various components is a key aspect of the final sonic outcome that most modellers simply ignore.
Other ins and outs on the Eleven Rack include a USB 2.0 connection, support for eight channels of simultaneous high-res recording (up to 24-bit/96k), an XLR mic input with phantom power and pad, stereo XLR and 1/4-inch outputs (including the well-designed placement of output channel one on the front for easy connection to guitar amps), AES/EBU and S/PDIF digital in/out, an easily accessible 1/4-inch headphone jack on the front panel, two 1/4-inch line-level inputs and one MIDI in/out patch point. All in all, it’s a pretty comprehensive and flexible collection of ins and outs, allowing the device to be used in a multitude of studio and live configurations.
NEED TO KNOW
The rear panel of the Eleven Rack offers a wide choice of analogue and digital I/O, as well as inserts, MIDI ports and an external footswitch control.
THE EMULATIONS
Almost inevitably, the Eleven Rack emulates many of the big name guitar amp/speaker combinations, though the collection is far from extensive. It also offers a bunch of emulations of some of the most widely used effects, a whole selection of virtual microphones and control of the mic axis positioning (but not the virtual ‘distance’), tap control of time-based effects, an excellent, fast and accurate tuner, a selection of input impedances (for those who want to go beyond the clever ‘auto’ setting on the True-Z input), and finally, an effects loop. It also comes with ProTools LE v8 and a whole bunch of plug-ins and virtual instruments. Overall, it’s an impressive package.
I have to confess, when I first heard about the Eleven Rack, I wasn’t really sure who it was targeted towards or what it was trying to be. Was it an amp simulator with ProTools tacked on? Was it ProTools with an audio interface dedicated to running the DSP for the existing, resource-hungry Eleven plug-ins? Was the guitar amp-centric design (with additional mic input) meant to provide guitarists with a tokenistic demoing platform using just a single box, or was it designed as the next logical step for current Digidesign hardware users? In practice, it turned out to be all these things. Eleven Rack truly covers a wide range of bases. It’s an extremely well thought out device, functioning as a stand-alone amp simulator for live work, a high-quality addition to an existing ProTools setup that can be linked via the digital outputs to whatever your current Digidesign setup is (assuming your current setup has a digital in – otherwise, the analogue input will work fine), or the hub of your project studio, including the ability to record other inputs via the full-featured mic preamp.
STAND ALONE
I started my time with the Eleven Rack like most guitar players would with a new tool at their disposal – by cracking open the box, plugging in a pair of headphones [headphones? – Ed.] and seeing what this baby would do. With the usual plethora of presets available, I dived straight in and was immediately… underwhelmed. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but my first impressions of the Eleven Rack presets weren’t great. Many of them were too fizzy and overly driven-sounding, while other cleaner sounds seemed bright and two-dimensional. I was so disappointed in fact that I left it for a day or so, while I recovered from the experience, only to find I had a similar reaction the next time around, this time with a different guitar. Hmm… troubling. It did give me the opportunity to get to know the front panel controls, however, so that was something…
But then the tide slowly turned. While I twiddled the variety of buttons and dials, and engrossed myself in the excellent large display, I started to grow a little more encouraged by what I was hearing. Modifying the presets made all the difference and getting to the nuts and bolts of the sounds, effects, and mic placement options showed promise.
By this stage, in all fairness, there had already been a tangible sense of immediacy to the playability of the unit, which I definitely attribute to the True-Z input. The sense of the guitar reacting to the amp was definitely more apparent than on any of the other simulators I’ve tried. Even better, playing around with the impedance settings in the appropriate menu really brought out the tone of the guitar – definitely a bonus feature. I was starting to feel a little better about the Eleven Rack by this stage, but I was still sceptical, and keen to hear it through studio monitors via a ProTools session.
Stack ‘em up! The Eleven Rack has a clear software interface that’s a cinch to use. Each amp model is well crafted and easily tweaked to suit the occasion.
IN THE RIG
Rather than incorporating it into my current LE system, I was keen to see how the Eleven Rack worked as the front end to ProTools LE. The USB connection, along with the installation of the appropriate drivers saw ProTools boot up just as it always does. Opening up my work session, I went straight to the I/O menu and installed the default Eleven Rack setup. This was an important and revealing step. I’d read in the (excellent) manual about the ability to record a post Eleven Rack signal and a clean direct version easily at the same time. Sure – this is not the hardest thing to do anyway, but it normally involves a certain amount of wiring/patching before you go into your interface. By opening up two new tracks (in this case a stereo and a mono), assigning the stereo track as the ‘Eleven Rack’ from the input menu, and the mono track the ‘guitar in’, I was immediately recording an effected stereo track and a clean mono track simultaneously – simple, and extremely functional. Accessing the Eleven Rack’s editing functions was as simple as opening up the dedicated pane in the ‘Window’ menu, revealing all the editable functions on offer. The layout was appealing to look at, simple to navigate and a doddle to use. And as easy as the front panel of the hardware is to get around, this interface makes it all too simple.
After reaching for my favourite virtual amp, the AC30 emulation, I was struck by how much more impressive the emulation felt through speakers rather than headphones. I’m not sure whether it was the act of listening through monitors that changed things, but there was a tangible sense of depth to the mildly overdriven tone that was lacking through headphones. However, I still needed to get my hands dirty tweaking the default sounds to really bring out the nuances of the guitar. But things seemed to fall into place reasonably simply, with the controls working in much the same way as my real AC30 sitting in the corner of the studio. And it really was fun diving in there and working through the various emulations. The included effects were particularly useful, as were the various mic selections, which seemed far more extensive than others I’ve used. The ability to place the mic on or off axis was handled effectively, although I would have liked an option to vary the mic’s distance from the speaker cabinet, but I was hardly starved for options at this point. Once again, I found having the ability to modify the impedance of the input very useful.
So if I was impressed then, imagine how impressed I was when I realised that whenever I recorded a guitar part, the amp settings were embedded as metadata into the audio file, allowing for simple sound recall and even transfer of those settings to another user on the other side of the world? As the Eleven Rack software doesn’t strictly operate as a plug-in, but more as a process, I found this extremely useful. In a nutshell, if you want to return to a guitar part you recorded earlier, it’s simply a case of plugging in the appropriate axe, arming the track and recalling the sound from the drop-down list of stored sounds. This is a very easy and streamlined way of managing the recall of sounds.
HOW’S IT SOUND?
That’s the million-dollar question. I did a lot of comparing – not only to various other simulators, but also to the AC30 in the corner. The results, as expected, were all quite different. I think the mistake people make with amp simulators is they expect them to be a simple replacement for every amp they could ever imagine needing. That, of course, is way too much pressure to put on any product. In some ways, it’s like expecting one amp to cover all the bases – not really feasible.
Regardless, the Eleven Rack sounds fantastic… as you can see, my initial impressions were eventually swept aside and now I’m loving it. It’s great to place in a mix, and the sounds have a depth and playability that makes it feel very ‘familiar’. And to reiterate my earlier point, it felt more like playing into an amp than any other emulation I’ve encountered. It’s a subtle distinction in many ways, but I suspect the True-Z input and the zero latency within the DAW help to capture that feeling more completely. And despite my initial reticence, I felt like multiple tracks of Eleven combined well in a track also. I was initially concerned by the relatively small numbers of amps, cabinets and effects on offer when compared to some of the more celebrated modelling software options, but while less in number, these emulations seem to cover a lot of ground, and I never found myself wishing for much else. (And of course, being software, there is always the ability to add more emulations to the fold in a later update.)
Not everything is perfect though. The sounds definitely favour the more driven variety – and the gruntier the better it seems. Though there’s a great amount of detail in the overdrives and distortions, the Eleven Rack suffers the similar fate as many other simulators (and some amps) – the less driven the amp, the less convincing the model. Cleaning the amps up resulted in a sound that felt relatively flat and two-dimensional. After the successes of even the mildly driven sounds, I was quite surprised by this limitation. The ‘stomp box’ compressor certainly helped, as did fiddling with various impedances of the input, but my search for a clean amp simulator continues.
RACK SOFTWARE
Overall, I think the emulations are pretty amazing. They certainly compare favourably to other simulations, and while I still don’t feel the Eleven Rack absolutely nails the comparison to the real amp, its versatility and tonal quality more than compensate. The moral of this story is that the Eleven Rack will cover many, and for some people, all of your amp requirements. It can’t replace every guitar amp, but it does a really good job of ‘faking it’.
Oh, and before I forget; I must quickly mention the mic input on the front panel. This has phantom power, pad and a healthy looking gain knob. I had no problem getting good results recording vocals and percussion through it. It’s not the greatest sounding mic pre I’ve ever heard, but it does a more than satisfactory job.
THE LIVE GIG
Digidesign also claims the Eleven Rack can be used as the front end to a live guitar rig. I didn’t get the chance to use it this way at a gig but I did have some success plugging into a powered wedge. This scenario let’s the Eleven Rack do all the work, with the powered wedge just giving the unit the grunt needed for the gig. It’s also important to note that the outputs can be assigned to being either mono or stereo, despite their positioning on the front and rear of the unit respectively.
ALL THE WAY TO ELEVEN?
I could go on and on about a whole bunch more little things it does (including how simple it is to ‘re-amp’ the direct recorded guitar sound), but I think you get the idea. This is a deceptively well thought out piece of equipment: versatile, easy to use, inclusive of tons of little features that illustrate the amount of effort invested in the product’s conception, and it sounds really, really good. (A minor point – I was particularly impressed by the amp-like ‘power on’ switch. The devil’s in the detail, as they say!)
Eleven Rack may not replace every amp you’ll ever need, but it does a great job of providing you with a very convincing palette of amp sounds to get you working, either within, or independent of, the ProTools environment. At a street price of around $1200, the value is obvious, especially given that ProTools LE and a host of plug-ins and virtual instruments are thrown into the bargain. Eleven Rack would make the perfect complement to the recording guitarist, and not just those making demos at home. All in all, another substantial winner for Digidesign.
