Thoughts on PI-FREE (Two Notes Free Version of PI-101)
Being Following Two Notes products for a while (torpedo loadboxes), I was glad to know that they've released a plugin version of their amp and cabinet modeling technology.
PI-FREE is the free version of PI-101, a plug in which offers several poweramp topologies and cabinets models involving Impulse response processing. The Free version seems limited to only 2 poweramp topologies with EL34 tubes, and one cabinet (4x12 Brit through a Shure SM57). It comes with several processing abilities, such as an EQ, comp, exciter, and others...
PI-FREE VST Plugin intregates easily in my Cubase SX2 Setup
I think it actually sounds great, as the only cab matches well my tube preamp (Engl E530). If you don't touch the overload knob, the CPU usage is very low, and there's no audible latency with this plugin. However, with this free version, you won't be able to save your presets, and even worse, Cubase SX2 do not save the plug-in configuration, so every tweaking is lost when quitting workspace, making the free version difficult to use on a big project.
But these are only user experience flaws that do not alter the audio processing. And the sound is good, really good, with a lot of tweaking possibilities. I enjoyed the sound of this plugin and created this small clip you can hear above. What's noticeable with this clip is how articulate guitar sound is (hear riffs around 0:45, lots of palm-mutes with bare notes, but everything is tight and audible), and how chords are defined and not muddy unlike others I.R. plugins.
Signal Audio chain was Guitar > ENGL E530 (ISP Decimator in FX Loop) > PI-FREE
PI-101 and PI-FREE can be found at following addresses :
