“A monstrous amplifier that transcends the boundaries of imagination”: Neural DSP launches upgraded Fortin Nameless Suite X plugin – your new digital solution for atom-smashing chug

Neural DSP has unveiled the latest of its upgraded guitar VSTs and plugins, with the Fortin Nameless Suite X capturing all the fire-breathing power of the legendary Mike Fortin tube amp head, and bundling it with an array of digital features.

This is city-levelling tone in code, 1s and 0s arranged in formation to weaponise your extended-range metal guitar riffs. It’s chug on a hard drive. And for a limited time only you can get it with 50 per cent off. Neural DSP is presently running a special birthday promo with all plugins half-price.

Existing users can download the update free of charge, and when that long-awaited Quad Cortex firmware update arrives in Q2 of 2024 (which was the last ETA and thus it is imminent) the plugin will be downloadable to the unit and available to access from the floor.

The amp that headlines the Fortin Nameless Suite X needs little introduction. Like the Mesa/Boogie Mark IIC+, it is a legendary piece of work, a 50-watt gain monster that put the “urgh” in Meshuggah. In short, nuclear amounts of gain, lots of clarity, all voiced for precision blasts of audio brutality.

So with this you get a Neural Capture of the original Fortin amp, with Neural DSP working hand in glove with Mike Fortin to develop it. Fortin says he does not like amp modelling and we believe him but he says he likes this. It sounds like he made Neural’s DSP team work for it.

“Technologically challenging and artistically fulfilling,” was how Dan Davies, CMO at Neural DSP described it, and judging by the demo video, featuring rhythm guitar excellence courtesy of Car Bomb’s Greg Kubacki, this really is a serious piece of work. 

Besides the guitar amp model you get a trio of pre effects, digitally created stompboxes comprising the Grind distortion pedal, which adds clarity as well as ancillary gain, the Zuul “studio-grade” noise gate, and the Hexdrive, overdrive pedal, which can be operated as a boost or a drive.

There is also a new 9-band EQ with high-and low-pass filters, a transpose feature that can retune your guitar in an octave either way via constant intervals, and a doubler that widens your signal across the stereo field. Neural DSP boss Doug Castro says this is a “complete redevelopment” of the original plugin.

“It reflects the enormous advances that Neural DSP Technologies has made in that time,” he says. “Our modelling technology has been able to even more precisely capture the nuances and features of the Fortin amplifier. Mike Fortin’s sonic genius has been at the core of so many great metal guitarists’ signature sounds, and now we’re able to bring that exceptional capability to many more of them everywhere.”

Other features include cab sim and IR loader, with six virtual microphones that can be positioned around the speaker. Newly designed reverb and delay processors are bundled, as is a live guitar tuner and metronome. It is priced €119 which means it is just €59.50 in the sale. To order, head over to Neural DSP.