UAFX’s superlative line of stompbox amp modellers has hitherto arrived with the tagline of “lose yourself in legit vintage tone” and that has been good as its word, but its latest pedal, the Anti 1992, launched today, presents us with an altogether different take on what we’d consider “vintage”.
It's vintage, but it ain't your granddaddy's vintage. The period in question is the early ‘90s, a great vintage for high-gain metal guitar tone as the “Block Letter” Peavey 5150 high-gain metal amps arrived on the market. Inspired by its 120-watts of ferocity, the Anti 1992 promises to add something vicious to your rig. And if it’s anything like its siblings, it could become an essential tool for today's metal player.
Having successfully emulated some of the most legendary tube amps ever made with its previous releases, it was time for the UAFX R&D team to turn to the dark side.
“With UAFX Dream, Ruby, Woodrow, and Lion amp emulators, we recreated four of the most famous guitar amps ever made,” says Tore Mogensen, senior product manager, Universal Audio. “Now with Anti, we’re giving rock and metal players an authentic emulation of this punishing high gain amp – with the exact mic/speaker pairings and boost/noise gate effects that were responsible for some of the most groundbreaking modern metal tones ever captured.”
Some of the metal community have already done their bit to make the Anti 1992 a success. It ships with presets created by Nevermore, Arch Enemy, Tetrarch and The Black Dahlia Murder.
But when you are talking about the early ‘90s Peavey 5150, you’re talking about tones from across the metal scene, from blue-chip mainstream artists such as Slipknot and In Flames to all manner of underground extremists.
“With Anti, you get the authentic sound of the 120-watt tube behemoth that gave rise to aggressive ‘scooped’ guitar tones, combined with perfectly-miked cabinets to unleash bone-crushing riffs, searing leads, crystalline cleans, and everything in between,” reads the blurb, and it’s hard not to get excited by that.
Under the hood, you’ve got that UAFX dual-engine pulling the strings. The pedal has everything you need for an über-metal fly rig, with an onboard noise gate, a Tube Screamer-style overdrive and a preamp boost for added oomph. You have six microphone and speaker pairings to play with, and an on-pedal user experience that is much like a regular amp.
There are controls for Pre Gain, Presence, Output, Low, Mid, and High, with some of these dials pulling double shifts. A three-way toggle selects from Rhythm, Crunch and Lead modes, while another toggle selects your speaker cabinets (a further three can be accessed via the app).
One of the beauties of this UAFX universe is how it integrates technologies from across the Universal Audio eco-system; the Dynamic Room Modeling comes straight from the OX Amp Top Box, and of course deep edits can be made by hooking it up with the accompanying mobile app.
The UAFX Anti 1992 is priced £380 / $399 street. See UAFX for more details.
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