STARK Amp Simulator

This is one of those “oh my stars I wish I’d found this before all those other GUIs with their extortionate IAPs” apps. Really, this pretty much does all the amp sim I need, and with the addition of one or two top-drawer FX apps my world is complete. One small issue is just that- the size of the text, especially in the menus, is hard going for a chap of my age, but I’m not taking a star off just because I’m not as young as I once was.

Can’t say no to klevgrand !

I bought this app on the strength of YouTube reviews on using it with keys. I’m glad I did, it’s amazing. Despite warning of high CPU usage it runs really well on an iPad Mini 2 with no noticeable effect on performance. I initially reviewed this and gave it four stars, however following swift help and guidance from the Developer, I have changed this to five stars. I contacted them by email over the Easter bank holiday and received a response first thing on the Tuesday after. They were extremely helpful and patient with my newbie queries. Buy this and you won’t be disappointed, simply outstanding value and more than justified at full price given the level of complexity beneath a seemingly simple GUI.

The sound from this is EXACTLY what I was looking for. I’ve been stacking effects on effects to get sounds only half as good as this. I bought a bunch of distortion effects the day before this came out (typical) trying to chase sounds that this can do effortlessly. My one gripe is turning the knobs on the 4 interchangeable effects slots ends up with me moving the whole effect unit instead.

Klevgrand have been very smart with this app, firstly by releasing it as AU3 before any of the established Amp app developers, and secondly offering it at 50% into price. I would not have bought it at just under £20, because I already have ToneStack, and others. However, at under a tenner this is too good to miss. Nic

… But this is not one of them. It’s completely useless for guitar in my opinion. It’s brittle, it’s sterile, it’s lifeless. This developer has done a lot of good apps for the App Store but this just isn’t one of them. I have to congratulate them that they’ve gone so long without a strikeout but this one is a bomb. Not to be mistaken with "da bomb". I’ve been playing guitar for more than 40 years and I know for a fact I can use a preamp pedal into an IR loader into my interface and get a better tone. I was thinking maybe this is supposed to be for keyboard players who want to add distortion to a tone. It might work for that because it kind of has a harsh bit crush kind of thing happening. Other than that it just doesn’t work well.

Huge fan of all of Klevgrand’s other products. This one just...isn’t good. Sorry.

I jux wanna say that I need update

Simply put, this app is beautiful, but you can’t get a useable sound out of it no matter what you do. Save your money.

Two stars for putting out an amp sim AUV3 but after many hours of trying, I can say I won’t be using this for anything. I desperately wanted to find some useful sounds here and figured I’d at least be able to dial in some really weird stuff that sounded cool. Not so. The presets are pretty much as good as it gets and that’s not a good thing. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly why it’s so bad. Thin, brittle, cold, lifeless, or just weird and off putting. It’s almost like a DI guitar signal with weird processed signal somehow layered separately on top of it, if that makes any sense. Additionally, the bass, mid, and treble knobs are only remotely useful through about 10 percent of their range. I suspect the biggest problem is with the cabinet simulation because when bypassed and used with another cab sim app, it sounds somewhat better. But then you’re out of AUV3 land. I’ll hold out hopes for a massive update/overhaul someday.