Update | Soundshed Guitar Version 1.4.0 | Guitar Sims

Update | Soundshed Guitar Version 1.4.0

Published: 11.07.2026

When something great gets even better. Soundshed Guitar received its 1.4.0 update on July 3, 2026. The long-overdue review.

If you’re a guitarist who likes to use NAM Captures with a plugin in a DAW, you can set up your signal chain—including all your plugins—exactly the way you want. Basically, no problem.

But if you just want to play guitar without having to open a DAW, using a standalone guitar amp sim, then it naturally has to include all the effects and pedals you need to play. Not every NAM software offers this.

The original by Steven Atkinson, for example, only lets you load an amp and an IR. No reverb, no chorus, no effects.

There are plugins, such as Dusty Tube, VoLum, Altar, and the Amp Locker from Audio Assault, that include all of these features. But they don’t necessarily include the specific effects you’d like to have.

Added to that is the problem that, sooner or later, you end up with a whole bunch of *.nam and *.wave files for the NAM captures and IRs scattered across different folders. This quickly turns into a bit of a mess, and you’re constantly sorting through these files—especially if you use different NAM plugins.

A sensible NAM and IR management system would be very helpful here. The ability to mark files as favorites is also very useful.

Integration with Tone3000, so that you can access and manage Tone3000 NAMs and IRs directly from within the plugin, would be ideal.

All in one

There are some guitar amp simulators that are good, but few that have it all.

Soundshed Guitar has it all:

NAM Loader
IR Loader
a whole range of effects and pedals, such as: overdrive, distortion, fuzz, noise gate, compressor, limiter, EQ, chorus, flanger, phaser, delay, and a few more.
Sophisticated NAM, IR, favorites, and preset management
Create your own custom signal chain
Tone3000 integration

Of course, that’s not all. Soundshed Guitar has even more features and capabilities:

Tuner
MIDI
Recording with looper function
Extensive customization options
And so much more...

In addition to the pedals and effects mentioned—the FX modules—there’s one more feature that makes Soundshed Guitar particularly interesting.

You can load your own VST3 plugins using the “Plugin Host” module.

That changes things quite a bit.

A wide range of possibilities

It opens up a wide range of possibilities. If you’d rather use your own effects plugins, you can easily insert them into the signal chain at any point you want using this module.

Or maybe you want to play with the VST3 Amp Emissary from Ignite Amps? No problem. Now you can do it without a DAW and with all the effects you want in standalone mode.

Proteus by GuitarML? No problem there either.

For example, I inserted Guitar Rig 7 Pro into the signal chain using the Plugin Host for the reverb (i.e., without an amp or cabinet). For the amp, I used a NAM with the Soundshed Guitar NAM Loader and an IR with the Soundshed Guitar IR Loader. It works.

Of course, you can save the whole setup as a preset and rate it up to 5 stars for your own organization.

You can even add additional “Scenes” to each preset. This way, you can turn a preset into a bank, if you like. A “Scenes” is another signal chain. So for each preset, you can put together multiple signal chains. For example, I used this to build several signal chains with different IRs for a NAM amp. That way, I can switch back and forth between them with a single click. This gives me a clear overview of all my sounds for each amp in one place. It’s absolutely brilliant!

Of course, you can also set up your sounds this way for a song. For example: one “Scene” for a clean sound, one “Scene” for a crunch sound, and one “Scene” for a lead sound. The signal chain for each individual “Scene” can be customized entirely to your liking. Just the way you want it. This is very practical and useful. All sounds related to a specific theme are organized clearly and can be switched quickly.

The ability to create your own unique sound—whether using Soundshed Guitar’s effects or your own—combined with excellent NAM and IR file management, the ability to mark favorites, the extensive preset options, and Tone3000 integration—is a feature not found in many (free) guitar amp simulators, making Soundshed Guitar an exceptionally interesting piece of software.

My Own Experience

Soundshed Guitar is still in its early stages. The first version I tested didn’t work on my 10-year-old computer. However, the developers released updates very quickly, so the bugs were fixed right away and some features were optimized and expanded.

It does take a little time to get used to Soundshed Guitar because it’s so comprehensive, but it’s mostly self-explanatory, and you’ll quickly figure out how it works.

The GUI and layout look good and are well-organized. What makes Soundshed Guitar special is that you can customize the appearance of the effects and the amp yourself (this feature must be enabled in the settings). I haven’t seen anything like this before. It’s a really nice idea.

As far as the GUI goes, though, I’d like to see Soundshed optimize it a bit more. Some photo backgrounds are barely visible, and unnecessary space is being wasted. A field with padding is inside a field with padding, which is inside another field with padding. That takes up unnecessary space. The user interface of every plugin should be as small as possible, since you often have several open in a DAW and you don’t want to spend all your time moving plugin windows back and forth. But the potential improvements to the Soundshed Guitars GUI mentioned above are just minor details.

Aside from the advantages I’ve already mentioned, one thing in particular stood out to me about Soundshed Guitar: no matter how, where, or when, I’ve always been able to get the sound I want very quickly, and I have to force myself to stop playing guitar just to finally take a break. I’m not kidding. I’m not just saying that. It’s really true. I’ve never enjoyed playing with any other guitar amp sim as much as I do with Soundshed Guitar. You can adjust everything you want, but you don’t get bogged down in constantly searching for the right NAM, turning knobs, switching IRs, and so on. Want a different sound? Boom! There it is. And you play. And play. And play. At least that’s how it is for me.

The Tone3000 integration I mentioned is very useful. You can test out any sound before downloading it. This is a huge advantage because then you only end up with the *.nam files you actually like. This prevents you from having a lot of unused captures on your computer that clutter up your workspace. The same goes for the IRs. Of course, you can also add NAMs and IRs from your own hard drive. The folder feature was recently added. This allows you to add entire folders, not just individual NAMs and IRs. This way, everyone can organize their files however they want. Very well done.

Another point is that Soundshed Guitar has a sharing platform and even includes a built-in jam section. In the jam section, you can play along to backing tracks (videos from YouTube). That’s another idea I haven’t seen anywhere else.

There’s a lot more that could be said about Soundshed Guitar and what this guitar amp sim includes and can do, but I’ll leave it at that for now. You’re definitely going to keep discovering new things.

Conclusion

There are some really good NAM guitar amp simulators that I enjoy using and playing. I’ll continue to use not just one, but several of them. For me, Soundshed Guitar is currently the best I’ve played so far. Soundshed Guitar has absolutely everything you could want.

There are still a few minor issues here and there that don’t work quite 100% yet, since Soundshed Guitar is still in its early stages. You should be aware of that. However, Soundshed also offers the option to contact them if something isn’t working. The developers have definitely put a lot of effort into this plugin.

In my opinion, Soundshed Guitar is especially well-suited for guitarists who want to play without a DAW, using standalone software that they can open easily and without much effort, and then just start playing guitar right away.

So I can only say: YOU HAVE TO TRY IT OUT!

Highlights of Update 1.4.0

MIDI parameter mapping and automation workflows, plus direct MIDI setlist bank selection.
macOS version is now signed & notarized which removes security warnings when installing.
New Signal Analyzer utility effect with LUFS loudness measurement and bark band perceptual analysis.
IR Cab, riff import, and demo audio now support AIFF/AIFC and MP3 in addition to WAV.
New folder browser with favorites, tagging, and filter-by-tag support for local resources.
Jam tab is now enabled on macOS and Linux with substantial layout and interaction improvements.