As many of you may have noticed, the long awaited Paul Reed Smith amp models from Waves were released. 

From the moment I downloaded and plugged in a guitar (In this instance a cherry red 1998 Godin LGxT) I was completely hooked. Finally the holy grail of smooth satisfying clean tone was available at my fingertips, and I can honestly say I was more than a little surprised.

The reason I was caught off guard was in part due to my experience with the ageing GTR3, which offers a great selection of amps and pedals but never really felt like I was playing through an amp.

But mostly, it was because the instant I hit a string with the default setting in the Waves Archon model, I was surrounded by this beautiful clear tone that (up to this point) I had only been able to obtain from a physical amp! It felt like I was in the room with a real amplifier!

The responsiveness and playability of the Waves SuperModel series is something that you have to hear and play for yourself to believe. I had considered doing a video review showing through some settings, different models, features etc and decided that it would better serve this review to simply urge you to try it for yourself! After all, you cannot demonstrate through a video exactly how these amps respond to your own playing style. I could expound on all of the advancements in technology that have made this possible, but that again would pale into insignificance the moment you fire these up for yourselves and hear the tone nirvana that is delivered by these amp models!

They deliver all you would expect from an amp sim line. From ultra loud Metal and Djent tones (with all kudos given to a really effective built in gate), through Rock and Texas Blues tones, right down to the ultra clean Country, Pop and Jazz tones that are generally the most difficult to get right (even through a real amp!)

The mid-gain and high-gain tones can easily present the character and response of a real amp, which is something many modern amp sims do quite well. But the Waves SuperModel line delivers more than I would have expected from a boutique amp line being modelled! Given that I can have all three for the price of a few sets of new strings, it’s a no brainier in my opinion.

With clean tones, the truth is easier to hear. There is nothing to hide the lack of character. Even with cheap physical amps, you can drive a distortion pedal into it and get a reasonable sound. But with a purely clean amp tone, it’s all on display for the whole world to hear. It’s here that these amps deliver a pure tone unlike any other software solution I have used to date! If, like myself, you have been longing for the day that you could have a true clean tone in a plugin with a feel that entices you to continue playing…this is the software you having been waiting for.

Get your copy of the new WAVES PRS AMP MODELS HERE!