AmpliTube 5 Max - Full Review and Demo

If you haven't come across AmpliTube before, it's a piece of guitar modeling software. This essentially means it's a way of having a ton of equipment to your guitars without having to have a massive house or a ton of money.

Firstly, there's the AmpliTube 5 Custom Shop, and this is the free version that comes with 39 models. Secondly, there's the AmpliTube 5 SE version, and this is the next version up costing about €150 (prices may change). This comes with 77 gear models. Thirdly, there's AmpliTube 5, which is kind of a middle ground, and this costs about €200 (prices may change) with 177 models.

Finally, there's the one that I'm reviewing today, which is AmpliTube 5 Max. This is the maxed-out version and costs about €400 (prices may change).

It's worth saying that with each of these versions, you have access to the custom shop, which lets you buy additional equipment. This means that if you've got a free version of UNCLEAR, you can add extra models to that. However, if you buy each of those separately, it does work out more expensive.

As I'm reviewing AmpliTube 5 Max, let's talk about what you get with that. To start with, it's largely about the amount of equipment you get, and a lot of the features are common across versions.

For example, features like being able to move mics, changing amps and cabs, adding UNCLEAR boxes, the looper, the recorder, and the tuner are all common across different versions.

What you do get with AmpliTube 5 Max, as the name suggests, is the maxed-out amount of equipment. With this version, you get over 400 gear models. This includes both Fender Collections, the Orange Collection, the Mesa/Boogie Collection, the Brian May collection, and a load of other collections as well.

Each collection is typically a mix of amps, cabs, effects, and stunt boxes, and there's also a load of different mics and rooms as well. In practice, this means the maxed-out version really gives you limitless possibilities and at times it can feel quite overwhelming.

Firstly, the interface of the AmpliTube 5 has been completely redesigned. In my opinion, this new interface is much more intuitive and much easier to get your head around. The other nice thing about the new interface is that you can resize the window, which is great.

When you're using it with an audio recorder like Logic Pro, you do lose the looper function and the recorder function, but it's not something you need because you're using it in that software that does that already. If you want to use those features, you will need to use it as a standalone app.

The top panel of AmpliTube 5 is where you adjust your equipment. The right hand panel is where you browse equipment, and the base panel is your signal chain.

The newly designed preset browser is also much easier to use. You can pick ones based on the version of AmpliTube that you want. You can pick ones based on a particular package, or you can go through and use the full browser.

If you've used AmpliTube 4 before and maybe you've created a load of presets, you really like, it's really easy to bring your presets across to the new software. I've made a tutorial video on how to do that.

In addition to all of this, there's also a new mixer. This lets you blend the cabs, mics and DIs and adjust volumes and look at your racks and your mixing effects.

One of the things I really love about Amplitude 5 is how real the equipment feels just to play around with and use. They haven't just made UNCLEAR sound good, but they've created something that lets you feel like you're using the actual equipment. They've also spent a lot of time re-recording the equipment to make it sound even better with this version, and there really is a noticeable difference.

As you can see and hear, the new and improved sound quality is absolutely incredible, and it goes with a really good looking app. Coming at this from version 4, version 5 is just so much better.