For this plug‑in, boutique New York bass specialists Aguilar teamed up with modelling experts Korg — and the results are impressive...

Despite being an enthusiastic and busy bass player, I have to admit that when it comes to recording my basses I’ve never really been all that sophisticated or adventurous in my methods. I’ve played with a few amp‑and‑cab modelling plug‑ins but never been entirely convinced or particularly inspired by them. Instead, I’ve stuck to a tried and trusted technique that involves DI via an old hardware valve compressor (configured to provide valve‑based colour more than actual compression), followed by plug‑in based EQ, compression, optional dirt, and sometimes a taste of very short reverb to add some air and room sound. Being asked to review the Aguilar Plugin Suite, however, had an element of ‘kid in a sweet shop’ about it. Where to start? What will I like?

If you wanted to pick a brand to embody the idea of a boutique backline manufacturer, you’d not be too far away with Aguilar. Founded in 1995 in New York, they began as specialist manufacturers of bass amps and cabs, but have since expanded their product range to include bass effects pedals, pickups, and internal guitar preamps (used by a good number of boutique bass luthiers) — and now, obviously, plug‑ins. You don’t see many Aguilar backline rigs at, say, metal or indie guitar gigs, but at jazz gigs or down in a musical theatre pit, Aguilar have secured a significant niche. And while their hardware is definitely not priced at the entry‑level point, it’s also not soooo expensive that it’s completely out of reach. As I write that, I’m glancing at my venerable old Gallien‑Krueger combo, wondering how much an Aguilar amp and cab would cost me... but I digress!

Suite Backline

The intent behind the Aguilar Plugin Suite is to model a range of Aguilar amps, cabs and pedals. Despite being billed as a plug‑in, it can actually also be used as a standalone application, and in that mode it offers MIDI for patch selection and, I guess, the possibility to be used in a live environment, assuming you have a sufficiently low‑latency computer and audio interface setup. The core modelling technology of the plug‑in is licensed from Korg, and it’s used to render 13 different Aguilar cabinets, ranging from a 1x10 to an 8x10‑inch and including various 12‑ and 15‑inch designs. There are also three different Aguilar amps, and nine Aguilar stompbox emulations. The library of pedals includes two compressors, a twin filter envelope, an octaver, a chorus, a phaser and three different overdrive/fuzz options.

There’s a wide range of presets, some created by Aguilar‑endorsing bass players of note such as Blu DeTiger, Derek Frank, Keithlen Foster and Lex Sadler. Some patches comprise amp and cab combinations, while others offer amps alone for DI modelling. Some also include various chains of virtual effects pedals. Along with being useful in their own right, factory patches also work well as launch pads on which custom patches can be created and saved because everything can be mixed, matched and modified as desired. The possibilities, if not endless, are not that far from being so.

On launch, the plug‑in opens to the amp/cab home screen (shown in Screen 1), with the last‑used patch enabled. The home screen also displays an image of the current patch’s amp and cab. Beneath this is a set of virtual knobs reflecting those typically offered by the chosen amp. In the patch illustrated here, that’s input gain, treble, high and low mid, bass and output volume. There are also switches to engage a ‑10dB pad and select bright/deep EQ options. Alongside the amp controls a further set of knobs enables both a mix between a DI and cabinet sound to be established, and some reverb to be added. The reverb controls offer just level and time adjustment, and although they can be used to create some reverb‑heavy washes of bass, I think their primary role is to add some element of miked cab and room character to the sound. If I wanted more than that, I’d add a more capable and configurable reverb plug‑in, probably as an aux send effect.

Along the top of the amp/cab home screen, running from left to right, are a couple of icons that select either the amp/cab (home) screen or the stompbox screen (which I’ll describe in the next paragraph), a patch recall box, some redo and undo buttons, a simple chromatic tuner, a one‑knob noise gate (useful, since some of the more compressed and dirty patches are somewhat noisy), and global input sensitivity and output level knobs. Finally, on the top right of the home screen, there’s a button that opens a preferences and general housekeeping menu.

A magnifying glass icon appears above the virtual amp controls when the cursor is close, and clicking on this opens an amp browser display. Similarly, clicking on the magnifying glass icon above the cab/DI/reverb controls opens a cab browser display. (These two displays are illustrated in Screens 2 and 3).

I mentioned that the amp/cab home screen provides a patch recall selection box, and clicking in that opens the display illustrated in Screen 4. All the factory patches are listed, and grouped into categories. User patches are also listed once saved. Recalling a patch is simply a case of double‑clicking. Patch favourites can also be assigned and are then listed in a separate category. Saving a user patch adds it to the User category.

Putting Your Foot Down

Screen 5 shows the stompbox screen. Up to eight of the modelled stompbox pedals can be added in any order, and enabled and disabled individually. Each has various adjustable parameters. Virtual pedalboards can be saved with a patch, and the pedals fully support DAW parameter automation; there really isn’t much in terms of configuration facility left off the table. The stompbox models, by and large, do exactly what you’d expect and generally they sound pretty convincing too. I really loved the warmth of the chorus combined with some dirt from the Agro valve overdrive.

The Bottom Line

There’s a richness and depth to the bass sounds that can be coaxed from the Aguilar Plugin Suite that I perhaps wasn’t expecting, and I found it genuinely inspiring.

I found the Aguilar Plugin Suite very intuitive in use and so easy to get the hang of. I was very quickly not just investigating the factory patches but also modifying them to create my own sounds. That process was helped along immeasurably by the inspiring quality of the sounds on offer and, for the most part, the eminently usable nature of the factory patches. There’s a richness and depth to the bass sounds that can be coaxed from the Aguilar Plugin Suite that I perhaps wasn’t expecting, and I found it genuinely inspiring. In particular, I’ve never been much interested in dirty, grungy bass sounds (the kind of music I tend to play doesn’t really call for such things), but some of the dirtier patches that the Aguilar Plugin Suite offers have a warmth and musicality about them that finally got me a bit hooked.

All this means that I suspect I’m going to be using the Aguilar Plugin Suite for tracking and mixing bass for the foreseeable future — and, perhaps more importantly, I think my bass sound palette is likely now to expand somewhat. My previously unsophisticated and unadventurous bass days are officially over!