VoLum probably has the most unique layout of all amp sims. It looks like it’s from another era. That’s not to say the layout is bad. No! It just looks like VoLum is quite old. Which, I suspect, might deter some people from giving VoLum a try, because they think, “Nah, that’s probably outdated—I’d rather use a different plugin…”

That would be a real shame, because with the latest update to version 1.2.0, VoLum has taken a big step forward.

The layout and organization of the individual features were already well-designed. There’s no unnecessary waste of space, which is a problem with some plugins. As a result, VoLum has a fairly small and uncluttered window, which is a big advantage. 

The biggest and most important enhancement in the 1.2.0 update

Until now, you could only use the predefined NAM captures and IRs, which was limiting. Surely everyone—or at least many NAM users—has their own NAMs and IRs that they like and enjoy using when playing guitar. So VoLum could quickly lose its appeal if you found yourself having to fall back on NAM Loader plugins after all.

That has now changed. A NAM loader and an IR loader have now been implemented in VoLum. And the implementation is really well done. Importing and selecting a NAM or IR is very simple and very practical. You can also save the whole setup as a separate preset, which means you can save one preset per amp. You have 8 channels that you can assign. In previous versions, the channels were used for the different gain stages.

There is, however, one catch. Unfortunately, you can’t save all the other settings individually for each channel. This means that all channels have the same settings for all amps and for all pre- and post-effects. That’s a real shame. If these settings could be saved individually per channel, you could set up your very own sound on each channel for every amp. For example, a clean sound on channel 1, a crunch sound with more reverb on channel 2, and a high-gain sound with a phaser on channel 3, and so on. That would make VoLum even more interesting, because the big advantage of VoLum is that it’s a small, lightweight plugin that takes up little space and uses few resources.

Maybe this will be included in a future update. That would certainly be great, because VoLum has made significant strides with the 1.2.0 update. Many NAM players don’t offer the same range of possibilities as VoLum. Either they lack a standalone version, or they’re missing key guitar effects like reverb, compressor, chorus, etc. VoLum has all of these—and now also the NAM and IR Loader.

All the new features in the 1.2.0 update

• Bring your Own
• (NAM) Amps/Rigs
• IRs
• (NAM) Pedals
• Presets per Amp
• Tremolo POST effect with 3 Modes
• Low Latency Transpose & Octaver in PRE
• Gave the UI some more swag
• A2 Lite Support

Conclusion

VoLum has evolved into a very interesting plugin. Hopefully, the developers will continue to build on this.

Highly recommended.

Links

• VoLum releases and download on GitHub
• VoLum repo on GitHub
• all News articles form GuitarLum on guitar-sims.com
• all Software form GuitarLum on guitar-sims.com

Videos

Here is a video about version 1.0 without A2. A2 has since been implemented.