User Manual

Table Of Contents

Introduction..... 1

The Technology Behind ampLion..... 1 System Requirements..... 1 Installation...... 2 Uninstallation..... 2 ampLion Overview..... 4 Signal Flow Diagram..... 5

Using ampLion.... 6

Common Controls Panel..... 6 Amps and Speaker simulation.... 7 Effect Pedals...... 9 Effect Racks...... 11 Working with Presets...... 14 Organizing Presets For Live Use.... 16 Live Mode..... 17 Tuner...... 18 MIDI Control..... 18
Conclusion....18 Appendix: Included Models....19
Amp Models..... 19 Power Amps...... 19 Speakers...... 19 Microphones...... 20 Pedal Effects..... 20 Rack Effects...... 21
All product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated with Audiffex. Copyright 2011 Audiffex

AuDIFFEX

Introduction

Dear musician,

www.audiffex.com
Thank you for purchasing ampLion. We do believe you will be satisfed with its possibilities and hope that it will bring you new inspiration and productivity. Please read through the whole manual to learn and fully understand the features of ampLion.
The Technology Behind ampLion
The core of the ampLion simulation is a specially designed realtime solver of nonlinear circuit equations. Using this technique, the equations that entirely describe the simulated circuits are solved in real time. This means that we can get the simulated nonlinear circuit to behave realistically under dynamic conditions. This unique technique is applied to all amplifer and distortion circuits present in ampLion. In addition, we have used an interconnection compensation between several parts of the signal fow, providing you with maximally trustworthy simulation results when connecting preamps, power amps, speaker cabinets and so on. Last but not least, models of speaker cabinets and microphones are based on highly precise measurements of real devices.

System Requirements

To successfully run ampLion, you need a computer that meets the following requirements: Windows: CPU with SSE2 support (Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 64 and newer) Mac: PowerPC G4, G5 or Intel Core CPU speed 1.6 GHz, recommended 2 GHz 150 MB of HDD space ASIO (Win) or CoreAudio (Mac) compatible audio interface VST/RTAS host application

Installation

Windows Unzip and run the installer and follow the on-screen instructions. You can select the destination path and the installed plug-in format (VST/RTAS) during the process. Mac Unzip and mount the provided disk image and run the installer. You can select the installed plug-in format (VST/RTAS) during the process by clicking the Customize button:

Uninstallation

Windows Navigate to the ampLion's program folder in the Start menu and run the uninstaller.
Mac Delete the following fles/folders: ampLion Pro:
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/Audiffex/ampLion Pro.vst /Library/Audio/Impulse Responses/Audiffex/ampLion Pro/ /Library/Application Support/Audiffex/ampLion Pro/ /Library/Preferences/com.audiffex.ampLion Pro.plist

ampLion Demo:

/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/Audiffex/ampLion Demo.vst /Library/Audio/Impulse Responses/Audiffex/ampLion Demo/ /Library/Application Support/Audiffex/ampLion Demo/ /Library/Preferences/com.audiffex.ampLion Demo.plist

ampLion Overview

The user interface (UI) consists of six main parts fve panels assigned to the top buttons (Effect Pedals, Amps, Effect Racks, Program Manager and Live Mode) and the Common controls panel. Their functionality will be further described later on in the text. But frst of all, lets quickly go through all of them.
Effect Pedals Panel is the frst out of fve panels accessible by the top buttons. Contains 8 slots for stompbox guitar effects and the tuner. Amps Panel introduces the actual amplifer, speaker and microphone modeling. Two speakers with independent microphones can be used at the same time. Effect Racks Panel is a virtual 6U effect rack. The middle four positions can be engaged by a userselectable effect units. The frst and the last position contain the noise gate and the limiter, respectively.

Program Manager Panel Here you can place and organize your presets in 128 positions for playing live. The defned order is then used in the Live mode. Live Mode Panel brings you the opportunity to play live with ampLion. Two buttons allow you to quickly switch between the programs according to their order in the Program Manager panel. Common Controls Panel occupies the left part of the screen. Using its controls you can set the input/output volume levels, work with presets, etc. It also contains an information display.

Signal Flow Diagram

For better understanding of ampLion, take a look at the following diagram. It shows the path of signal across ampLion.

Using ampLion

Common Controls Panel
This part of ampLion's UI contains controls whose functionality relates to the whole plug-in, in other words, that are not related to any of the fve panels. The topmost part of the panel is occupied by the PRESET section which provides the preset management. For more on this topic, see the chapter Working With Presets. Whenever you change any parameter of ampLion, the value is displayed on the PARAMETER DISPLAY. To adjust the INPUT or OUTPUT volume level, use the appropriate slider. Both of them are accompanied by their signal level meter allowing you to visually check if it doesn't exceed the maximum. The rest of the panel's controls consists of the following buttons: CHANNEL select the input channel to be processed (left/both/right) LEARN set the output volume optimally. After pressing the button, play your guitar with maximal intensity for fve seconds. The level will be measured and OUTPUT slider set appropriately. BYPASS turn ampLion on/off MEMORY MODE: ECO - only current amp's data is loaded in RAM. Lower memory consumption, suitable for use in DAW. LIVE data of all of the amps is loaded. Provides smooth amps switching at the cost of higher RAM use. LOCK SPK locks the arrangement of speakers when changing the preset LOCK EFF locks the effects when changing the preset QUALITY selects the simulation quality by internal resampling (1x/2x/4x) ? fnd the help you need or check for newer ampLion versions
Amps and Speaker simulation
The core of ampLion are the models of amplifers, speakers and microphones. All of these are placed in the Amps panel:
Amplifiers To select the preamplifer of the guitar head, use the PREAMP button. By default, the matched (belonging to the selected preamp) power amp is used. To use another one, click POWER AMP and select the type you want. Bypassing the power amplifer is also possible. Speakers The signal from the amplifers can be split and processed by two speakers. The following parameters are set independently for each of them: speaker type microphone type, position and angle signal level and panning 7

The SPEAKER button opens a list of available speakers. If two speakers are not required, select Single Speaker in either of the positions.
The signal coming out of the speakers can be panned across the channels with the appropriate PAN knob. Similarly, the speaker signal level is controlled by the OUTPUT knob. Microphones Select the suitable microphone from the list inside MIC MODEL. The mic position is adjustable by two ways: either by dragging the mic itself or using the sliders alongside the speaker image. To adjust the mic distance, use the vertical slider on the left; the angle towards the speaker membrane is adjusted by MIC ANGLE. If you wish to bypass the microphone simulation, select the Flat microphone.

Effect Pedals

Up to eight effect pedals can be placed into the signal path before the amp:
To place an effect to a desired slot, click the down arrow button and select the effect from the list:
For a list of all available effects, refer to the Appendix.
There are two ways of arranging the two rows of pedals: in series or in parallel. In the frst case, all of the effect pedals are simply daisy-chained:
The second option creates two parallel chains of 4 effect pedals:
The selection is performed using the PEDAL CHAINING button.

Effect Racks

Besides the aforementioned effect pedals, you can use additional six effects in the rack.
The choice of available effects is limited to those commonly used in an effect rack. You can select the effect for the middle four positions of the rack. The frst and the last one are always occupied by noise gate and limiter, respectively. Their operation will be described in the next section. Just like the effect pedals, you can select the rack effect by the down arrow:
Noise Gate There are always several amplifcation elements involved along the signal path of ampLion. Each of them amplifes not only the effective signal but the noise as well. That results in disturbing noise present at the output. To limit the effect of noise, the noise gate comes into play. Its principle is straightforward: when the signal falls below the defned threshold, the gate attenuates the signal in ratio defned by ATTEN. This is indicated by the LED.
The speed of closing and opening the gate is determined by the remaining two knobs, ATTACK and RELEASE. There are 5 controllers that infuence the function of noise gate. Taken left to right: THRESH. ATTEN. ATTACK RELEASE LEARN Threshold - signal level necessary to open the noise gate Attenuation - level of suppression when the gate is closed Time necessary to reach the full attenuation, after the signal falls below the threshold level Time necessary to open the gate after the signal exceeds the threshold level Useful for optimal threshold setting. Keep the strings silent and press the button. The threshold will be set just above the noise level.

The Limiter Another consequence of multiple amplifcation elements in the signal path is that the output signal level can easily exceed 0 dB, which introduces an audible distortion. To prevent such situations, the limiter can be used.
Until the signal reaches the threshold, it passes the limiter unaltered. If it gets above the threshold it is attenuated to the threshold level. In other words, the limiter is a compressor with the ratio of infnitive:1. The activity of limiter is indicated by the LED. Three parameters are user-adjustable: THRESH. ATTACK RELEASE Threshold - signal level necessary activate the limiter Time necessary for limiter to take full effect after the signal exceeds the threshold Recovery time from limiter activity to normal operation after the signal returns below the threshold

Working with Presets

When you have set your sound according to your needs, you can save ampLion's state to a preset (not to be confused with a program). All information will be stored, i.e. amps, speakers, microphones and the effects. Saving a Preset Open the list using the STORE button and select either Save for saving the current preset or Save As for saving the settings to a new preset. In the second case, New Program will appear on the display. To enter the requested preset name, click this label. When fnished, click the SAVE button. Loading a Preset Click the PRESET button and select the requested preset. The settings will change to refect the preset. Note: The presets are grouped by the used amplifer:
Deleting a Preset With the appropriate amplifer in use, click STORE and select the preset to delete in the Delete list.
Presets Backup ampLion stores the user presets in the following folders: Mac: Win:
[Home]/Library/Preferences/com.audiffex.effects/
[Home]/Documents/Audiffex/PlugIn Presets/
To backup your presets, save the following fles to a safe place: ampLion Pro:
ampLionPro.plist ampLionProBank.plist ampLionDemo.plist ampLionDemoBank.plist
Organizing Presets For Live Use
For live use, it is convenient to have the presets organized in a single chain (playlist), disregarding the amplifer type they belong to. This need is addressed by the Program Manager panel:
There are 128 rows that can be assigned a preset. Each row represents a program (hence Program Manager) that can be renamed, e. g. according to the song name played with it. The resulting order of the programs is subsequently used in the Live Mode panel. Several operations can be performed with the programs in the list. All of them are accessible after right-clicking the given row:

Alternatively, you can drag a row to change the order of programs, hold Command (Ctrl) while dragging a row to copy a program, activate any of the programs by double clicking its row.

Live Mode

ampLion has been designed not only for home practicing or recording in studio but for playing live as well. Therefore, it includes the Live Mode panel:
Its purpose is to enable you to quickly switch between the programs and to minimize the amount of displayed information that could distract you while on stage. Thus, there are only four clickable elements: the frst two are related to the tuner (see the next section), the second two (PRESET + up/down arrow) serve to browse the presets. The presets can also be quickly switched via MIDI. For more information, go to the MIDI Control section. The remaining portion of the screen is occupied by signal meters (input on the left) and the information about the selected program.
As you probably have already noticed, ampLion is equipped with a tuner. It is accessible from two different places: Effect Pedals and Live Mode panel. In either of the cases, it has a different user interface, taking into account the purpose of the panels.
The tuner can be calibrated in the range of 340 Hz to 500 Hz (frequency of A4). To do so, use the -1 and +1 buttons (in the Effect Pedals panel only). The calibration remains the same, no matter which panel the tuner is accessed from. The MUTE OUTPUT button comes in handy especially while on stage when both the button and the tuner are switched on, the output signal from ampLion is muted.

MIDI Control

There are over 200 assignable MIDI parameters available in ampLion. In fact, every task performed by the mouse can also be done via a MIDI controller or automated in a DAW. Switching the programs via MIDI in Live Mode There are two options of changing the program. You can either select the preset number (0-127) directly using the Program parameter or map two controllers (most probably foot switches) to the Program Up and Program Down parameters. In this case, the program number will be increased/decreased every time the plug-in receives the maximal value of the respective parameter (127).

Conclusion

We believe that you are now able to successfully work with ampLion and use its full potential. However, should there be something unclear to you feel free to contact us at support@audiffex.com.
Appendix: Included Models
The following is an exhaustive list of all modeled devices present in ampLion. The second column denotes the real-world model.

Amp Models

Super Clean Deluxe Clean Bass Crunch 800 Lead 900 Lead Rect HiGain 650 HiGain 530 HiGain 530 Clean Fender Super Reverb Fender Deluxe Reverb Fender Bassman '59 Marshall JCM800 Marshall JCM900 MesaBoogie Dual Rectifer Engl Ritchie Blackmore Signature Engl Tube Preamp 530 Lead mode Engl Tube Preamp 530 Clean mode

Power Amps

6L6 Super 50W 6V6 Deluxe 30W 6L6 Bass 50W EL34 Classic 100W EL34 Classic 50W 6L6 Silicon Rect 100W 6L6 Tube Rect 100W Fender Super Reverb Fender Deluxe Reverb Fender Bassman Marshall 100W Marshall 50W MesaBoogie Dual Rect solid state rectifer MesaBoogie Dual Rect tube rectifer

Speakers

Classic 1x10 Combo FBlues 1x12 Combo FrocPro 1x12 Combo Modern6 1x12V30 Combo ModernE 1x12V30 Combo Classic 2x12T Combo Classic 2x12(V+H) H Open Marshall MG30FX Combo Fender Blues Junior Combo Fender RocPro 700 Combo Line6 Spider Valve Bogner Engl E320 Thunder 50 Combo Marshall JCM900 Combo Marshall TSLC 19
Rect 2x12V30 Closed Back Rking 4x12 C90 Half Back Rking 4x12 V30 Half Back Rect 4x12 Closed Back Classic 4x12T Closed Back
MesaBoogie Rectifer 212 MesaBoogie RoadKing - left speaker C90 MesaBoogie RoadKing - right speaker V30 MesaBoogie Rectifer 412 Slant Marshall 1960A

Microphones

Flat Dynamic S57 Dynamic A5 Condenser 1A Condenser 1000 Condenser 451 Condenser kh40 Bass Dynamic 6 Bass Dynamic 112 no simulation Shure SM57 Audix i5 Rode NT1-A AKG C1000 AKG C451 Sennheiser MKH40 Audix D6 AKG D112

Pedal Effects

Drive Pedals Treble Booster XXL Distortion+ BAT Distortion OverDrive SuperDrive 9 Screamer 808 Screamer Metal Tone Chorus Pedals Super Chorus Chorus Ensemble Brian May Booster Dunlop MXR Distortion ProCo Rat BOSS OD1 BOSS SD1 Ibanez Tube Screamer 9 Ibanez Tube Screamer 808 BOSS Metal Zone

BOSS CH1 BOSS CE5

Flanger Pedals EH Flange EH Flange Deluxe Wah Pedals 60's mcClyde Wah Cry Wah V847 Wah EH Wah 1 EH Wah 2
Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress Deluxe
VOX Clyde McCoy Wah Dunlop Cry Baby VOX V847 Wah Pedal EHX Big Muff Crying Tone Pedal (high) EHX Big Muff Crying Tone Pedal (low)

Rack Effects

Noise Gate Limiter Chorus Units (see the chorus pedals) Flanger Units (see the fanger pedals) (fixed in the first rack position) (fxed in the last rack position)