The STR-X was built to be a simple, powerful, digitally-oriented guitar amp, one which isn’t based off any pre-existing analog models. If you’re looking for “vintage tube warmth” or “British bite”, look elsewhere. It’s not your grandpa’s guitar amp.

Features

Hi Gain: New in v1.2! This switches between the standard, high-gain channel of STR-X, and a more clean, rhythm-guitar oriented tone. Don’t worry, it isn’t too clean! Works great for punchier rock tones or a more mild, bluesy overdrive.

Mode: The Mode control in the center of the amp changes the crossover point that feeds the pre-amp distortion (after the “X” pedal-style distortion).

Normal will give you a solid low-end, with retained clarity in the mids and highs even when cranked.

Thick drops the crossover point lower, resulting in greater intermodulation of the distorted signal, and a fuzzy tone ready for a sludge or doom sound.

Finally, Open separates all of the low-end from the mids and highs for a tight and bright tone, perfect for fast palm-muted playing or any situation where the low-end of the other two modes might be excessive.

X: This mysterious knob works like a one-knob distortion pedal (inspired by the Ibanez Tube Screamer), with filters that focus the tone on the mid-range the further it’s driven—good for an extra bump before the amp, dialing in a lead tone that cuts through everything else, or for tightening the bass on Thick mode while still remaining truly Thick.

Gain: This is the pre-amp drive section, ranging from not-quite-clean to a heavy wall of distortion. At high gain, the texture varies significantly, depending on the Mode used. This stage generates asymmetric distortion and both even and odd harmonics.

Master: This knob provides the output gain of the amp, with added distortion as well. Although not claiming to emulate any particular type of tube, it does generate the symmetric, odd-harmonic distortion you’d expect from pentode tubes. With low pre-amp gain, you can use this knob to dial in fairly clean tones down low, and bright crunch up high.

Hear it in action

STR-X Demo | Arboreal Audio

WILD guitar tones! | Alessandro Arzilli

Doom Metal With STR-X | Resington

Master Of Reality Guitar Tone | Amner Hunter

System Requirements

Recommended Minimum of 4 GB of RAM & Dual-Core CPU

Changelog

v1.2.1

• Fix Linux GLIBC version by compiling on Ubuntu 18.04
• Fix Linux display issues by updating to JUCE 7.0.5
• Compile against OSX 12.3 SDK to ensure OSX 10.9 minimum target
• Fix volume slider color bug
• Improve button text contrast

v1.2

• New “Low-Gain” amp mode
• CLAP plugin format support with non-destructive parameter modulation
• Linux support (including LV2)
• 32bit Windows support
• Stereo in/out support
• Improved parameter smoothing
• GUI refactor and new theme for Low-Gain mode
• General optimization and code cleanup

v1.1

• macOS support (including native Apple Silicon support)
• 4x oversampling with option for higher-quality, linear phase oversampling when rendering
• Fix aliasing in distortion algorithm
• Expanded range of tone controls
• Allow option for using v1.0 tone controls
• Fully resizeable GUI (in hosts with resizeable plugin windows)

NOTE FOR WINDOWS USERS: The actual plugin file for v1.1 has been given a different name so as not to overwrite the previous version. The plugin will now appear under the Arboreal Audio tag as well.