GR4, impressions?

Thanks. That hadn't occurred to me until after my demo session had shutdown.

 

+1 for not liking the interface changes. I liked the little x to remove a module and was happy single clicking to load a preset.

I seem to be the only one who does not like the new sounds. I only have the demo but the presets I have tried with it so far all sound very harsh, with the overdriven sounds breaking up in a very digital/brittle way. I'm going to spend some more time with it, but at this stage I won't be upgrading.

 

I haven't had that, but (as usual) had to tweak the input gain a little to cope with my guitar so as to not overdrive the front end.

Have you tried putting the GR3 cabinets back in to see if it's the new cabs you don't like? In the matched cabinet section, all the GR3 ones are still in there. I was swapping between versions 3 and 4 last night and in all cases prefered the V4 ones. Different strokes I guess.

 

I have GR3LE so I buy immediately the 4 version to have more possibilities but I fint this new version very harsh in comparison with the 3. The input gain is a lot higher in 4 version so I put it down but also my old GR3LE presets are very different in the GR4 version, very harsh and I can't understand why. If I use the GR3LE version it's all ok (I have both on my PC)

 

... where are the good old functions of GR3 ?

I'm working with GR3 on my host (iMac) and on my client (MacBook), one licence on each. I use the client version out of my home environment during live sessions, easy to create sound-presets before on my host also as studio-versions with the nice compare function, to export and import the best of them afterwards on my client.

I installed GR4 on my host yesterday, first impression:
- nice look and feel
- better soundquality
- jump amp is great
- controlroom is fantastic

... but i'm still missing my good old functions like:
- compare
- export sound-presets
- flexible sounds-presets save-location definition

... any hints ? ... thanks in advance

 

Overall ... impressed!

PLUSes:
- Sound has improved TREMENDOUSLY: you can now control distortion with your Guitar volume pot as with real equipment from clean to crunch (tested with AC Box and Tweedman)
- better sustain and overall response (e.g. feedback)
- great new reverb effects

MINUSes:
- conversion of self designed GR3 Rig setups is manual work ... if you want to use the new modeled cabinets etc.
- new user interface: well, for us GR3 users it seems less intuitive ... I really started reading the pdf manual to understand the concept. Perhaps we should ask some newbies about their experiences - but disabling the dropdown selection of presets (only SAVE options instead) seems awkward as this is common standard on all OSes.

Bottom line is - GR4 is worth the upgrade and brings it back to a competitive level (I tested Overloud a while ago and the sound was better than GR3 - GR4 is at least as good sounding and has far better interface & features).

 

I'm going to have to agree with the clunky interface... I did like the little 'x' to remove an item and don't really understand the update to get rid of it. I understand you can drag and hit the delete button to accomplish the same thing, but you could do the same in GR3...

I like the concept of the preset attributes, but I can't figure out how to move them and arrange them... Are they fixed? Also, when I create or import one from my GR3 I can't figure out how to rename it... Do I really have to hand move all my set lists for my venues? And if I need to rename the set, I can't - just completely recreate it?

I don't understand the fixed size nature of the software... I DO like the fact that in Live mode it expands to the top and bottom of the screen in GR4 - that's a huge plus for my Live performances. What I don't understand is why the foot pedal can't be hidden in the Live mode. I know how I set up my foot pedals - The cheat sheet is so much more useful than a picture of my pedal board. After a 100 songs doing live performances - cheat sheets can be a life saver.

I Love the minimize all button, but don't understand a "clear all" button. That just looks like an accident waiting to happen.... Maybe a maximize all, but not clear all. I kept a blank preset for that function... I don't understand the need for that.

I'm keeping it due to the new improved underlaying functions. I'm sure there have been a number of improvements on the sound, design and such. It's such a great product, but for live and custom use - this one is most definitely a step sideways...

Oh... and another issue is that unless you are using all the same guitar brands with the same pickups... the fixed input is a pain. I can't change a bank set for different guitars to control the input - thus if I switch between my Strat and Les Paul either the Strat is under optimum level or the Les Paul is clipping... Do I really have to learn the inputs every time I switch guitars? Not very live friendly.

I hope there is more attention to the live aspect of this product as that is one of the big reasons it went stand-alone in the first place. I was really expecting a lot more in this new version... it feels like an update.

 

I ran the demo and everything went great. Bought the activation and it has been miserable ever since. Lost all patches and banks, etc. Didn't do anything special other than activate it. I am using vista. Anyone else have this problem or know of any fixes? I have not heard back from tech support so I am thinking of initiating a charge back. We'll see. By the way, I uninstalled and reinstalled. Same issue after activation.

 

Having played around now for some time switching between GR3 & 4, GR3 interface is so much cleaner and clearer from closing/deleting modules to saving racks. Most of my niggles with GR4 will appear to be addressed in the 4.08 update. The pain of the manual conversion of presets and controller assignments from GR3 to 4 is a pain, but this was the case going from GR1 to GR2 then on to 3. However in this case the component preset names for the most part were lost (in my case anyway), in GR3 you could import your component presets.
My real bugbear at the moment is in this day and age of wide screen monitors 16:10 & 16:9 the only way to expand the GR interface is vertically!, the module width remains the same, it's progressively getting harder to clearly see everything, I'd much rather have an option to expand the rack width than expand vertically.

 

Guitar Rig 3 have been doing all guitars for my two bands, so I was planning on buying guitar rig 4. I have tried the demo of the new Guitar Rig 4 and the only thing I heard was .. "ehh.. is this the old Amplitube 2 sounds?".

My Guitar Rig 4 impressions:
+ Better sounding old amps
+ Waaaaay better sounding clean amps
o The new interface is different, but not bad at all, just different
- Have to dial "master" to 2-4 for some amps, weird volume levels overall, my pickups are EMG 81&85
- Muting sounds weak, like there is no drive at all at most metal presets. This is crucial for modern metal och punk music!
- Tried to set up my old set up .. was again dissapointed.
- None of the metalpresets (there are like 25 of them) sounded impressive. Only digital, like the sounds come from a little box =s

Actually I loved Guitar Rig 3 because it sounded SOOO SWEEATTT for metal .. So im gonna stay with it.

 

+1 on that one.

 

Glad someone brought that up, Who doesn't have a wide screen nowadays.

Also the output volume for certain amps and presets seems very low.

 

so far I'm really impressed with the sound!

I think that it looks worse and worse with each revision.

-The Control room is so great. NO IT'S NOT FOR YOU if you have no idea what you're doing. That's what the Matched cabs are for!

-Grain delay is super cool! I don't what I'm going to do with it yet but I'm going to put it onto one my sends on my Live set and see what happens.

-presets sound better than ever to me. I usually build all my sound from scratch but some of the new presets are going in my regular banks.

 

I think it sounds great! But... I relied heavily on snapshots for my live setup... so I either have to re-engineer my existing top 5 live rigs (that's all that I really use live) or wait for the snapshots to become available again before I use GR4 for live use. I still have GR3 available so not a big deal.

Regardless, I think it was still very worth the upgrade fee.

 

Ok, good clean sound but I want again my old GR3 sound, GR4 it's very different also if I import my old banks. I miss my Lead800 presets and I can't recreate it with the new version and I don't know why.

 

Totally agreed. I have a good David Gilmour tone on GR3 and tried to get the same thing going on GR4 and it's a LOT quieter. I narrowed it down by shutting off all components and turning them on one by one - the High White amp (at least) is a LOT quieter with the EXACT same settings between GR3 and GR4. This is with 2 tracks set up in Logic with the same input, one track with GR3 and one with GR4. The GR4 track is a LOT quieter.

What's up with that? I'm about to email support.

 

Got it installed and activated. Theres Kore player and also a freebie on the disc (pop drums). Good value really.

One thing though, does anyone have a tapedeck content folder in GR4? I don't seem to have one. Mind you, I'm using the upgrade so if it's the same thing as GR3 tapedeck content then thats ok.

 

WOW!

This thing sounds amazing and is a huge step up from 3. I've only fiddled with it for about 2 hours total, but I've had 3 for years, so I know the GR drill pretty well. Some of the tones are easily on par with my AXE-FX (which I would love to be able to replace).

I do have some gripes though:

1. I want the [X] button back on each rack component. I get that you can drag it off or highlite it and hit 'delete,' but I'm an old dog and this is one new trick I shouldn't have to learn. Don't upset the workflow, people!

2. Why did everything get so small? I have 20/20 vision and still have to belly up to my desk and squint to see some things like the learn buttons. I haven't the foggiest what I would do if I needed to change something on a laptop on stage.

3. Speaking of learn buttons, where did they all go?

4. Why is there a reflection right on top of each knob on the Twang amp so you can't see what number is there unless you squint?

5. Why is everything so dark now?

6. I think I like the preset manager better now, but why do I have to double-click?

I'm going to keep banging on it, but so far my impression is that the sounds are MUCH better. The GUI is worse. The workflow is not better or worse really, just different.

 

i just got it today, and the Control Room is phenomenal. so far it's been my launch pad for creating new presets. the x64 version is powerful and smooth, and the fx are very very rad, and i'm sure they will be used even when guitar is nowhere to be found. thank you NI for teaming up with Cakewalk to provide GR4 Pro at a fantastic deal.

 

I haven't tbh. For me, the only reason to upgrade would be for the supposed improvement in sound, as none of the new modules were that attractive to me.

Everyone else seems happy with the new sounds, so I guess it's just me. Not a problem, though, as I'm pretty happy with GR3 and I've saved myself the upgrade cost.