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The resizeable 'gear room' is pretty much the same as version one, but we liked it then and still like it now.

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• Review

Italian developer Overloud made a stunning debut with the TH1 software amp simulator, prompting us to brand it "a serious contender for best all-round guitar amp package". The tones on offer were impressive and expressive, coping particularly well with the challenging sounds of full-on rock and contemporary metal.

TH2 ups the ante by adding fully authorised modelling of Randall, Brunetti and THD amps, collectively providing 25 new amp models on top of the existing mob of unofficial imitations of Fender, Marshall, Mesa Boogie, Vox, Peavey and Soldano amps.

"Flicking through the presets reinforces the fact that TH2 falls into the bells/whistles/kitchen-sink bracket."

Anyone who's played through a real Brunetti or Randall amp will attest that they're among the finest-sounding valve amps on the market. If TH2's simulations live up to their real-life sound then this will be the main draw for both newcomers and upgraders alike.

Additionally, the new version includes a spring reverb (based on Overloud's SpringAge), a revised cabinet module (providing eight new Randall cabinets), a refreshed interface, and generally improved sound quality.

It must be said that the interface doesn't offer much improvement over TH1. We liked the resizeable 'gear room' design of the original, though, so we're not complaining too much. However, careless details like the names on the amp switches sometimes being too small to read are annoying.

Overloud and proud

Flicking through the factory presets reinforces the fact that TH2 falls very much into the infinite possibilities/bells/whistles/kitchen-sink bracket of guitar amp packages. It features numerous processing modules and effects, a mic/cabinet modeller and a parallel signal mixer for 'dual' tones.

The presets are good starting points, but you often need to tweak, tweak and tweak some more before getting into the right ball-park for a desired tone. This is frequently worth the effort, but you might want to skip straight to building a signal chain from scratch.

TH1's dual morphable amp module is still available, with most amps having two or three channels to choose from, and the option to create a hybrid of any two using the SLR slider.

On top of the ten pre-existing amp models are two new efforts: Tumble ODS (a Dumble amp sim, we presume) and High Wattage (which has to be a Hiwatt model). These additions are decent, if not amazing, and we're still not impressed with the fizzy Peavey 5150 emulation.