NI’s Citrus is an emulation of the Overdrive master–volume head, and there is something typically ’70s about its tone: a ‘springy’, rounded clean sound gives way to a friendly, middly crunch when you boost the gain.

If you want your guitars to cut through a mix, the Hi–Watt emulation is a good starting point.Orange amplifiers have always had a good reputation, but never quite achieved the mass acceptance of brands like Marshall or Vox. The two sounds are not a million miles removed from one another, but the Tweed Delight somehow feels more involving and responsive to play. Backing off the volume on the guitar cleans up the sound nicely, and although I thought I detected a fizzy edge creeping in on occasion, switching back and forth between Tweed Delight and the AC Box model from the original Guitar Rig provides a good illustration of how NI’s amp modelling has progressed. There are only two volume controls and a Tone knob, but these are enough to move from a thick clean tone to a warm, rich overdrive, with a barking mid-rangey sound that’s different from the brightness of a Twin. Utterly different, yet also impressive, is Tweed Delight. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to try the new system out on stage, but it’s clearly a good idea, and I’m sure I would use Live View rather than the conventional interface in any kind of live context. The remaining space at the top left shows the patches in the selected bank, in nice large type, with a bold orange bar across the one that’s currently active. The lower half of the window shows you what all the switches do in the selected preset, while the area at the upper right can display either the metronome, tuner or Loop Machine loop recorder. Live View thus presents only the parameters you can access via the Rig Kontrol floorboard, and puts them on screen in high-visibility, easy-to-read orange and white. NI have recognised that when you’re on stage, there’s not much point in being able to view hundreds of knobs and sliders, because you’re in no position to mouse around and select them.

The biggest development to the Guitar Rig interface is probably the new Live View.

Guitar Rig Preset Bank Collection