Neural DSP launches refreshed and expanded Archetype: Gojira X plugin and prospect of Joe Duplantier’s city-levelling guitar tones on a Quad Cortex come closer

Neural DSP has launched the expanded and updated Archetype: Gojira X, adding some new features to Joe Duplantier’s signature guitar plugin and, tantalisingly, making it compatible with the Quad Cortex upon the much anticipated update to the brand’s amp modeller.

Available as a free download to existing users, and at €129 for everyone else, the Archetype: Gojira X can be run in your DAW or a standalone app, and as a one-stop shop for assembling Duplantier’s fearsome metal guitar tones, it doesn’t get much better.

“It’s incredible that Archetype: Gojira X is able to capture the essence of what we bring to music,” said Duplantier. “This tool will get you the wholesome sound and feel we’ve been crafting for years. Working with Neural DSP on the original Archetype: Gojira was a tremendous experience for me as an artist, and seeing what they have been able to accomplish with the updated Archetype: Gojira X is even more satisfying.”

At the heart of the plugin are a trio of guitar amps. Clean offers vintage tube amp tones. Rust has more gain. Indeed, as amp models go it has one of Neural DSP’s widest ranges of gain. But if you need more and, let’s face it, in the metal space we always need more, there is the Hot amplifier, which “perfectly captures the clear, defined, ultra-high-gain tone Gojira is known for”. 

Serving suggestion for the Hot amp is to pair it with the time-based effects for Duplantier’s signature lead tones, and with the pitch effects for the rhythm sounds.

Now, what’s new besides compatibility with the Quad Cortex once the next big update is rolled out? As with Archetype: Plini X, which was the first plugin to be made Quad Cortex compatible, there are some new features and an all-new look to enhance the user experience.

Neural DSP has added Transpose, Doubler, Metronome and Live Tuner features. The latter is particularly helpful, allowing you to access your guitar tuner at all times via the bar at the bottom of the user interface. 

Transpose, meanwhile, allows you to pitch your guitar up or down 12 semitones so you can effectively downtune – or uptune – on the fly. Metronome is unique to the standalone version and is self explanatory while Doubler is a neat feature for recording in that it gives you a simulated stereo field to add some width to your guitar tracks.

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Elsewhere, it is business as usual, with Wow offering a MIDI-programmable pitch shifter with three modes, each with a super-fast, low-latency response. Oct is a polyphonic octaver pedal for those octave-down skyscraper-smashing rhythm parts, and it has a range of one or two octaves.

Also included is a delay pedal emulation with tape-style saturation and a huge reverb with a dark voicing. There is a 9-band EQ, overdrive, distortion, phaser and chorus pedals. And there is the cabsim module, where you’ve got 100s of IRs designed by Adam ‘Nolly’ Getgood, and the choice of six microphones to choose from. 

There’s a lot going on here but, no question, the big feature is the future compatibility with the Quad Cortex. The ability to take the plugin and access its sounds on their Quad Cortex is what players want, and it is coming soon.

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Dan Davies, CMO at Neural DSP Technologies, said each plugin update will look to add more features and refine the user experience.

“Archetype: Gojira X is the next step in our continuing effort to bring the essence of the world’s great guitarists to a state-of-the-art digital platform accessible by anyone with aspiration and talent,” he said. “With every new iteration of our original Archetype plugins, we’re able to provide new features that give guitarists more creative options and avenues in a UI that’s effortless to use.”

The question is which Archetype plugin suite will be next to be updated with the X treatment? And when will that crucial update to the Quad Cortex arrive? Neural DSP says it is aiming for Q2 this year for the latter. For more details, head over to Neural DSP, where the Archetype: Gojira X is available with 30 per cent off its list price until 22 January.

• Neural DSP rolls out Quad Cortex CorOS 2.3.0 update and officially launches Cortex Control desktop controller – a “true milestone” in the amp modeller’s evolution