Impulse loaders may not be the sexiest part of digital musician production, but if you’re a guitar player using amp sim vsts, they’re almost certainly essential. While there aren’t a huge amount of options out there, the options that do exist differ significantly, so it would pay to get up to play with exactly what’s on offer.

Here’s an option a little different than most: The Voxengo Boogex has a bunch of tone-shaping features, far more than anything I’ve come across in a cabinet impulse loader.

“With Boogex it is possible to get a heavy distorted sound as well as slight “jazzy” saturation sound.  Boogex is also able to apply any speaker cabinet impulse response (selection of built-in impulses is available).  The processing latency is close to zero making it possible to use Boogex for real-time guitar processing.  Boogex also includes reverberation module derived from Voxengo OldSkoolVerb reverb.”

The filtering stage of the Boogex is where the power lies. You can pre-filter the incoming signal (great if you’re running short on CPU and an additional EQ is eating into your processing power). The signal is then run into the impulse stage and here’s another difference for the Boogex: it comes with a ton of great-sounding cabinet impulses already included. If you’re hanging out to try using impulses yourself, but are a little lost as to what’s involved, the Boogex is a great way to bypass some of that confusion.

Also included is powerful post-impulse processing, with tone, drive, dynamics, phase and overall output functionality.

This is an awesome impulse loader that’s as easy to use as a traditional amplifier.

PROS: A comprehensive package with all the bells and whistles
CONS: None

DOWNLOAD: http://www.voxengo.com/product/boogex/