Guitar Rig 7 Pro: Product manager answers your questions

Kaiwan_NI

Discover Guitar Rig 7 Pro and find answers to the questions from our community. 

Meet Guitar Rig 7 Pro

We’re thrilled to announce that Guitar Rig 7 Pro has landed! Now with new additions of amps and pedals powered by machine learning technology (Intelligent Circuit Modeling, also known as ICM), lo-fi components, and the new Loop Machine Pro, Guitar Rig 7 Pro has everything you need to jam and experiment. See more details here.

https://youtu.be/X4XJdG15pY4

Your questions, answered

Joining us for the launch of Guitar Rig 7 Pro is Tobias Fricke, the Lead Product Manager and mastermind behind Guitar Rig 7 Pro. We know you’re curious about the latest happenings in the Guitar Rig world, and Tobias is here to address burning questions and feedback that have been posted in our community over the past year. The questions have been reformulated from the original post, which you can access by clicking on the link provided at the end of each question.

Let’s jump right in.

Will there be any acoustic amps added to the line up in the future? The ability to have some type of IR loader would be cool. Team Green

While we didn’t include a dedicated acoustic amp with version 7, we did include an IR loader. This makes Guitar Rig much more versatile and even gives you nice options for acoustic guitars since you can always just use the IR without an amp.

When a component is collapsed you have no idea what's going on. There should be a way to save space but still have insight in what's going on? Wouter De Muynck

Thanks Wouter! We built in the new side bar with Guitar Rig 7 Pro which should solve for this problem and make navigation much much easier.

What is the usage NI is targeting for Guitar Rig? If NI focuses on the use in the studio, Guitar Rig 6 is configured correctly. For use on stage, Guitar Rig 6 has thrown all the good features of the previous versions overboard. Can we expect Guitar Rig to get things that are needed for live use? Gandi

Hey Gandi! Some of the Live features in Guitar Rig 5 were deeply connected to the Rig Kontrol hardware integration. As that hardware was discontinued many years ago, we decided to remove this part when launching Guitar Rig 6. Your question about intended usage is thoughtful, and for us, we decided to focus most on in-studio and jamming/rehearsing use cases.

That said, with some workarounds, some users still use Guitar Rig live on stage with great success. And we see value in supporting that because the creative possibilities and inspiration you get from Guitar Rig are outstanding in the market.

To summarize, yes, we hear you and have many ideas about this ourselves. If there comes a point where we feel ready to expand use cases again, live features are of interest to us, too. However, we don't want to make any promises on future features or timelines.

The new Amp 'Fire Seeker' shares a lot of the aesthetic with the existing 'Fire Breather' model, but it sounds and reacts quite differently. Is it a worked over reboot of Fire Breather? SjD

Yes, well noticed, Fire Seeker is a sonic companion to the Fire Breather, adding a new flavor. They share some components, but we put in a creative spin to get to a different sound which we found quite exciting.

The looper is missing under Guitar Rig 6. It was promised as a component of Guitar Rig 6 but has not yet been implemented? Gandi

We apologize that an error on our website when Guitar Rig 6 was launched gave the impression the looper would return for certain – there was a wrongly set checkmark in the version comparison chart. (We fixed it as soon as we realized, but we understand the confusion.) We really did hope to get a new version of the looper in as a potential v6 update, but the timing did not work out with our development cycles. On the bright side, the delay was caused by us being extra-ambitious – rather than just bringing the old looper back in, version 7 now has a drastically improved new looper that should solve for far more use cases than what we had before.

I love the visual of Guitar Rig 6, I really do, but it would be better to get a better sound quality in ten years rather than a visual quality. In my opinion, Guitar Rig 6 is just a stylish GUI. There's no live performance mode, nor guitar IR loader. There are also no new ICM amps getting added to Guitar Rig 6 until January 2023. I remember it was said new amp models will be coming in updates? iKalamaZoo

Thanks for sharing your frustration, iKalamaZoo. We’ll touch on a few items here, along with some general comments.

For Guitar Rig 6, we were excited to deliver free updates like Doppel-Filter, Supercharger, Supercharger GT, Replika GR, Replika Shimmer and Driver. In terms of ICM components, we also released Red Fuzz and Fire Seeker. We can understand you wishing for more, and we wished we could have offered more, too.

To share some background on why this happened, this type of feature became more challenging for us during the pandemic. To begin with, lockdown introduced logistical limitations on how we could do our typical modeling and measuring of physical amps. We simply couldn’t do all the prep work we need to do for new amps. Beyond that, it’s worth mentioning that ICM is deeply technical and specialized, which means it takes time and care to get just right. (We’re excited to be back on track now with Guitar Rig 7 Pro, where we have 4 new ICM amps and 5 new ICM effects.)

Another barrier to delivering more updates for Guitar Rig 6 was the work our Engineering teams needed to do for the Apple Silicon release. This work is so important from a compatibility perspective, but often very time-consuming – and these updates took longer than any of us anticipated. We recognize it is frustrating when that type of necessary work holds us back from delivering features that offer more delight and excitement. Thanks again to everyone for your patience on that.

When it comes to some of the other changes in Guitar Rig, we believe it's always within a customer's right to disagree with our decisions. While we hope we can please all our customers, we also know this is not always possible. Music software development is sometimes a little bit like making music itself. Some people love your tunes, some people don’t, and some people prefer the older tunes, even though you're working hard on your new material. 

Our hope is Guitar Rig 7 Pro is a chance to re-set  for you, and that you might be inspired with some of our new improvements, like the new looper, the cabinet impulse response loader, new ICM amps and pedals, as well as new effects and the new sidebar with the signal flow and the context help. And not to forget the more than 200 new presets. Our sound design team has done an incredible job there! Thanks again for being open and honest with your feedback.

Integration with Maschine software and making Maschine+ finally support Guitar Rig would make NI enter the Looper market and bands with backing tracks. I really would love this, having Maschine+ on a stand besides me. Wilmar Boer

Some of these ideas certainly fall in the category of “I wish the days had more hours”. :)

In Guitar Rig, heads, cabs and distortion pedals are all dual mono capable. This is very convenient for dual mono double-tracked DI guitars on a stereo track, but the problem are compressors. Many of them are not dual mono capable. It would be very nice to have also all compressors dual mono. They all affect dynamics. bFooz

Thanks for this valuable feedback. You are right the only workaround is the Splitter and that’s not ideal. Added to the wish list.

Just wanted to to say Thank You to the NI Guitar Rig Team and express appreciation for the work everyone has put in. Really glad for the updates such as the improved standalone/plug-in open times for those who have an integrated graphics card like myself. And very much appreciate the Tapedeck auto-names file fix. The auto-naming of newly recorded files is a time-saver indeed and keeps things in the moment. Mikey T

Thanks Mikey, that’s nice feedback. While we certainly listen to our customers, we wish the day had some extra hours to make everything happen. Looking at our backlog there are so many things we are hopeful we can get to. Between our community and our internal teams, we certainly don't lack ideas.

A big thank you to Tobias for sharing your thoughts, and our incredible community for posting all the thought-provoking questions. We hope that this interview provides more insight into Guitar Rig's direction and a sneak peek behind the scenes of our work. We'll keep this post open until September 11th, 2023!

Kaiwan_NI

@Team Green @Wouter De Muynck @Gandi @SjD @iKalamaZoo @Wilmar Boer @bFooz @Mikey T Your questions and feedback have been chosen for this article. Thank you for sharing the questions and honest feedback with us. You can find answers from the Guitar Rig Product Manager above 👆

SjD

Well, despite the - frankly - 'burned' experience around the GR6 upgrade, I took my GR6 lic. out of transfer on the strength - literally - of the GR7 product launch info, and the YouTube info.

I've played with GR7 only a short time but .. wow. First impressions -

a: Big, big surprise. I genuinely thought GR had become 'abandonware'. Obviously not.

b: NI seems to have knocked this release out of the park. The new ICM amps and effects are frankly superb.

And .. it has the looper again, - at last.

Am I pi***d that at least some of this didn't happen in my GR6 upgrade? - yeah... maybe the worst 'upgrade' ever.

But this upgrade seems .. hugely satisfying.

I also have Scuffham, Amplitube and a couple others. This product sounds / reacts so, so much better - than any.

I hope that somehow this is not all too late, and that the GR7 modelling / product gets some global traction.

It's been disappointing in my opinion, but much has been addressed.

Thank you NI 👍️

Wilmar Boer

Thanks for answering my question, nice to see that feedback is actually red and used.

Wouter De Muynck

Hello Kai, Tobias and the NI Guitar Rig team,

Let me start by supporting the feedback of @SjD.

The last few months GR was on a dead-end street for me and I have been looking for alternatives like Bias FX and Neural DSP to move on. I was tired of repeatedly asking for feedback about the same topics and noticing the hands of the moderators were tied regarding feedback. When Guitar Rig 7 Pro was released, it came as a big surprise and of course I was curious about how GR improved (as it is my main NI product for many years), so I installed the upgrade the same day. My positive findings on the new version can be found here:

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/191/missing-the-looper-in-guitar-rig-pro-6/p5

I appreciate the transparency in the article and the fact that user feedback was indeed forwarded to product management, I was under the impression it was a default reply instructed to the moderators to keep the herds silent. On the other hand, I can’t grasp why the decision was made to postpone any kind of proper communication/insights until the new release. It must have been a real burden for the moderators to always be the first in line to collect the negativity/complaints/… without any support from NI management. So, a big shout out to the moderators, and a spank on the bottom for NI for the lack of ownership. As @SjD also mentions, I hope the damage can be reverted, because damage has been done and GR users have left the building. Regaining the customers will be a big challenge! Fingers crossed GR7 Pro is a step in the right direction. A suggestion from my side: Provide a demo version of GR7 Pro so people can play around with the new version to be convinced about the potential. (@Eddie_NI already informed there is a demo version btw!)

The participation between NI & iZotope to build the Maximiser in GR7 is an eye-opener and is showing forces are united instead of creating business units living apart together. I hope to see more of these improvements, f.e. a very nifty equalizer in GR showing which frequencies trigger the effect(s), shows LP/HP filter impact, and so on… just saying 

But to end on a positive note:

• Glad to see Guitar Rig is still on the radar
• Integration between iZotope & NI is reality (Maximizer)
• Customer feedback is taken into account
• ICM technology is alive and kicking (new amps/effects)
• Side bar is a blast!
• The collapsed view was integrated in the metronome 😊
• The IR loader is born
• The looper is back and is looking great (the backlight on the active loop is most cunning!)
• ...

Feature requests:

• Live view alternative
• Maschine integration
• Customizable Macro’s so you can map these to the layout of your Midi controller
• Bi-directional MIDI (so the MIDI controllers matches the state of the effect when switching presets)
• Nifty equalizer 
• …

Thanks to the entire NI Guitar Rig team, the moderators and looking forward to what the future will bring!

Wouter

iKalamaZoo

Hello everyone, and thank you so much for the answers!

So, first of all... few days before Guitar Rig 6 release NI has launched a pre-release promotion promising that NEW AMPS WOULD BE ADDED, this was, indeed, said by the a famous NI BETA TESTER and that's why a lot of users believed... A lot of users bought Guitar Rig 6 (October 1st, 2020) even BEFORE they could test the software. Which is a very, VERY, crazy idea.

When finally Guitar Rig 6 was launched all users figured out that ICM amps was nothing more than OLDER (GR5 modules) amps with HQ option turned on, which was very frustrating to all users who bought the software, they bought AGAIN the same software to reach THE SAME SOUND with only a new "cloth"/GUI added. It was very unfair. It's like to buy the same thing twice. A lot of years has passed and GR6 still has a lot of bugs, it's like an incomplete project, it's more like an "eternal beta software", and, the most important, ONLY 1 amp was added despite the fact of all companies was growing and evolving their software technology while NI slow down regarding guitar technology with GR6...

Guitar Rig 7 should be considered the next Guitar Rig above GR5. In other words, Guitar Rig 6 is, in my opinion, a beta version from Guitar Rig 7.

This GR7 update must be FREE OF CHARGE to all Guitar Rig 6 users in order to redeem all dissapointment to all users with Guitar Rig 6 sell in all those years, it's just my opinion.

So, looks like NI is planning to become gradually "back in the game" with this release. I think Guitar Rig has a low credibility nowdays, but, this 7th version could be a gamechange to NI, and finally there is a GUITAR IR loader, users has claimed for it THREE YEARS AGO...

Since Guitar Rig 6 release (October 1st, 2020 - THREE YEARS AGO!) I've sold everything I've purchased from NI, except Kontakt related, and in this meantime I've found better solutions to my guitar recordings, like Amp Room from Softube, Amp Box from MercuriALL Audio abd others.

Woul be better upgrade Guitar Rig 5 making it compatible with modern systems and bring back Rig Kontrol. Guitar Rig 5 was not only a popular software, it has versatility with a lot of hardwares, which makes GR5 a real solution, not only a guitar software... When we bought GR5 we acquired a versatile solution to our daily recording problems and a powerful software which could integrate itself with a lot of guitar MIDI pedals effortless.

I love Guitar Rig, really do, this software helped me to improve my sound when I was just a guitar beginner, but I can't spend money with projects that will never fill my needs.

That being said, I hope Guitar Rig could get better in next years, maybe a Guitar Rig 8 could reach closer than Guitar Rig 5 in its popularity and versatility.

Eddie_NI

@iKalamaZoo

You are welcome to share your experiences and opinions in this forum. But please refrain from posting factually incorrect information about NI products here. I would like to kindly ask you to remove or correct the section in your post about the ICM amps, they are completely new modules that have never been in Guitar Rig 5 and have been created with a completely new technology.

iKalamaZoo

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/93381#Comment_93381

Ok, but I can't edit my post... so, I'll quote and "correct" accordingly you asked me.

Where you read in my post:

"When finally Guitar Rig 6 was launched all users figured out that ICM amps was nothing more than OLDER (GR5 modules) amps with HQ option turned on..."

Read now this new and corrected text:

"When finally Guitar Rig 6 was launched all users figured out that ICM amps are completely new modules that have never been in Guitar Rig 5 and have been created with a completely new technology."

mattz

I just got the sound I wanted from Fire Breather in GR 6.4 , basically copying my fave clean tone from archetype Plini, and am stoked to try the new ICM amp and pedals. I'm not too upset about kicking down for GR6 - which I propose now be called Guitar Rig Vista (for those who remember the very rough release between Windows XP and Windows 7). But I too thought we were abandoned after GR5 and I'm very grateful to still have this going. As an effects suite, it's by far the best in terms of interlinking LFOs and modifiers and other integration.

My question is about patch switching - it got better by 6.4, but Containers were still the only way to go for live playing IMO. Is patch switching faster in GR7?

Kaiwan_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/93525#Comment_93525

Hi @mattz I checked with the GR team for you and they confirmed that there was no change in that area for GR7, but also we're not aware that there's an issue with patch switching. 🤔 If you haven't already, can you please get in touch with our support team with more details?

Kaiwan_NI

Thanks for all the comments everyone.

If you've taken Guitar Rig 7 for a spin and wanna write a review, feel free to create new threads for that and don't forget to tag Guitar Rig 7 so we don't miss them! This thread is now closed.

EvilDragon

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/93458#Comment_93458

I think what you wanted to say in your original statement was: "When GR6 was launched, users thought that ICM amps were nothing but old modules running in HQ mode", perhaps?