Vee Guitar Amp 2 is a guitar tube amp simulator, designed to deliver clean-ish, crunched and distorted signals in a lo-fi, warm, vintage style.
It includes a noise gate, a speaker cab emulation, a studio ambience emulation, a flanger and a unique "widening/doubling" effect. It is a strongly coloring low-gain amp, created to add a realistic vibe to electric guitar/piano tracks.
NOISE GATE (hidden). Everything below -55 dBFS is muted.
TUBE PREAMP with an overdrive circuit. It responds to playing dynamics, i.e. the hotter the signal, the more harmonic content and distortion will appear. If the signal is too hot and the amp breaks up too easily, use the -9dB PAD switch. If the signal is too quiet, use the +15dB BOOST switch (NOTE: you will effectively bypass the noise gate). Use both switches to achieve a +6dB boost. Use the GAIN knob to fine tune the preamp signal strength and overdrive.
BRICKWALL LIMITER (hidden). The 20:1 FET type compressor. The more you hit it, the more harmonic distortion and clipping it produces. The limiter is an integral part of the amp sound, contributing greatly to crunch and distortion.
SEMI PARAMETRIC EQ. Low Shelf and High Shelf EQ controls are independent from Low Mid and High Mid Peak controls. The signal is divided into two identical streams and recombined after the EQ section. This is known as "parallel EQ'ing", commonly used in analogue domain devices.
SPEAKER CABINET (hidden). The operating range of the driver is a classic 75Hz-5kHz range. The sound resembles a 2x12 cab, miked in an "off-axis far" manner. The cab was designed to attenuate the most troublesome frequencies, lowering risk of bad, ringing resonances, thus helping to achieve decent sound without too much EQing and notching.
SPRING REVERB. A "VeeSpringVerb" circuit, emulating a mono spring reverb. The circuit is included in the bundle as a separate VST plugin.
FLANGER. A stereo flanger. Its main purpose it to change mono signal into stereo and color it with a classic and popular flanger effect.
STUDIO ambience emulation. Designed to create a realistic vibe by injecting a "room" reverb into the dry signal, as if the cab was miked with an additional condenser mic.
WIDENER. A unique "VeeWide" circuit (also included as a separate VST). The idea behind the effect is very simple and was widely (pun intended) used in the '80s. This knob delays the right channel signal by 0-2000 samples, benefiting from a certain psychoacoustic phenomenon: human brains cannot distinguish echoes when they are 20-50 ms away from the main signal. When used on strings/pad track, it creates a "widening" effect, giving illusion that sound comes from "everywhere", tightly filling the entire stereo scene. When used on guitars/keys, it creates a doubling and slapback effects. As you turn the knob clockwise, you will notice that signal "moves right". This is an illusion - check the VCA meters of your DAW to see that L/R levels are perfectly leveled. Combine this effect with the flanger (which tends to "shift" signal to the left) to create a unique and interesting stereo effects. Experiment and have fun!
THANKS go to Antress (for generously shared tube overdrive algorithm, FET compressor "circuits", low and hi shelf eq circuits and GUI knobs, Christian W. Budde for his awesome VST Plugin Analyzer, David Gibson for showing the classic delay trick used in "VeeWide" plug.
