Review: Audio Assault Sigma (with video sample)

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we're reviewing a new guitar amp simulator from Audio Assault, which has been released for free for a limited time to the subscribers of the mailing list, and now it's available for everyone (but it's paid now): the Sigma!

Sigma is a simulator of a modern high gain boutique head (judging by the name and the look I guess we're talking about one of the 2 Omega heads, the brand used by one of the Slipknot guitarists), a single channel head in which the gain knob goes literally from clean to very high gain, there is a 3 band eq section, presence (which regulates the high frequencies between 4000 and 7000hz), focus (which emphasizes low and high end), depth (which controls the low end resonance of the power amp section) and master.

In addition to that there is a boost function which adds a fixed setting tube screamer in front of the amp, a noise gate (with pre and post amp knobs) and an IR loader.

Aesthetically the plugin looks very nice, with a clean and minimal interface as I like, with the right amount of scheumorphism that doesn't get too much in the way of functionality (for example I have really enjoyed the fact that the booster is just a switch instead of dialing always the same setting in the stompbox interface), or the way the noisegate works: just one knob to choose the threshold for the the input and one for the "loop" of the amp.

How does it sound?
It sounds very good! A modern, american metal tone which has a lot of beef but also clarity, tightness and note definition, and it sounds so aggressive that is perfect for death metal and similar tones, but also for fat overdriven cleans, At The Gates style.

Also, SeaCow cabs did a great job offering a set 12 of cool, usable IRs which goes very well with this amp simulator and lets you achieve many different types of tone, but if you have some specific Impulse you use often, the IR loader of Sigma allows you to create a "list of favorite impulses" which lets you recall them quickly, instead of having to browse through thousands of folders, and I think this is a genius idea, and it's absurd that noone has ever thought about it until now.


Specs taken from the website:


- Versatile Gain (Get from clean to a lead tone with one knob)

- Focus Enhancer

- 3 Band equalizer, Presence & Depth Controls

- Master (Power Amp Saturation)

- Noise Gate, In & Out Controls

- Screamer Emulation

- 12 Wild Built-In IRs (by SeaCow Cabs)

- IR loader with favorite slots

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