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Overloud demonstrated that their plug-ins deserve to be taken seriously when they launched Breverb, a high-quality reverb package that was light on CPU overhead, and with TH1 they’ve taken the same approach to guitar amp and effects modelling. Based on what Overloud call fourth-generation analogue emulation technology, TH1 follows an similar visual paradigm to competing amp-modelling packages: you assemble your custom combination of amps, effects pedals, speaker cabinets and microphones on a nicely rendered piece of wooden stage, and you can open the detailed front panel of any selected piece of gear in the panel below to make adjustments. TH1 also allows you to do things you wouldn’t do in the hardware world, such as put two power amps in series!
TH1’s additional MIDI functionality and Smart Controls make the GUI that bit different from the competition, but more of that later. There’s also a neat option that allows the user to choose two amp models and then morph between them, not unlike the concept behind the Digitech Genesis 3 hardware guitar modelling device released some years back, and if you wish, you can split the signal via two morphing amps, each with its own chain of effects. The cabinet modelling includes Overloud’s own ReSPiRe technology, which aims to produce the sense of punch and moving air you get in front of a real speaker, though this can be switched out if not needed, and of course you get an accurate guitar tuner.TH1 supports RTAS, AU, VST and stand-alone operation for Power PC and Intel Macs, and RTAS, VST and stand-alone operation for Windows PCs. Overloud claim that in stand-alone mode, an amplifier module introduces only four additional samples of delay and that additional effects modules don’t increase this.
While we’re talking numbers and specifications, TH1 comes with eight amplifier models providing a total of 15 amplifier channels, and these can feed any of 21 cabinet models, miked with a choice of 18 microphones. The position and distance of one or two mics per cabinet can be adjusted seamlessly in three dimensions. An optional studio/room ambience can be added that varies correctly depending on the mic distance. There’s a choice of ‘studio’ reverbs based on the Breverb technology, and there are 50 pedal and rack effects to choose from. Where relevant, effect rates or delay times can be sync’ed to the host DAW’s tempo, though there’s also a tap tempo mode.
The Overview provides a pictorial view of the entire TH1 audio chain, while the Module view shows a detailed control panel for a selected device within the chain, and the Smart Panel provides eight assignable controls. Each of these can adjust one or more user-programmable parameters, making it easy to bring the key controls for any rig down to a manageable number of knobs and buttons. Finally, the Footer panel is where you access tempo and sync options, preferences, help files and a full version of the manual.
The TH1 signal path is pre-configured as a ‘Y’ arrangement, so you can insert a single amp before the divide or two after it splits. The same is true of effects and cabinets. At the end of the chain is a simple mixer to recombine the two arms of the ‘Y’, each having its own volume and pan controls, and there’s also a fader to balance the two paths.
