LeCoqRoti
The plugin runs on macOS 10.13 and later, natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon machines. There is no separate build to hunt down: the current package installs cleanly on either architecture, which keeps things straightforward on a modern Mac studio setup.
What arrives is a virtual Gibson Les Paul 1958. The sampled instrument sits inside your DAW and covers articulate electric guitar parts for rock, blues and jazz: palm mutes, slides, hammer‑ons and natural harmonics are all built into the playing engine, and the tone stays close to the warm, mid‑forward character you would expect from the original instrument.
People often ask whether it is confined to strummed chords. It is not. A fingerstyle library recorded with a 1959 Reissue guitar joined the collection in version 4, opening up picked arpeggios and more delicate studio‑ready lines that sit well in a sparse mix.
Let me walk you through a common job: building a clean double‑tracked rock verse from nothing. Open your DAW, set the tempo to 118 bpm, and load two instances of Ample Guitar LP III on separate mono tracks. Pan the first instance roughly 70% left, the second 70% right. On the left instance, select the Neck pickup from the built‑in amp section and dial the drive back to about three — just enough warmth to feel the wood. On the right instance, switch to the Bridge pickup, push the drive a little higher, and add a touch of the onboard room reverb. The tonal difference between the two pickups does the heavy lifting for stereo width without needing a third‑party widener.
Now write a simple four‑bar progression in the piano roll — say E5, D5, A5, D5 — using the Strum articulation. Keep the strum speed around 110 ms and the chord voicings on the middle four strings; the Les Paul character sits best there. For the second repetition, switch to palm mutes on bars one and three while leaving bars two and four open. The contrast between muted and open hits gives the part forward motion without adding a single note. If the attack feels stiff, select all the MIDI notes and apply a subtle humanise function (your DAW likely has one) to vary timing and velocity by 2–4%. The LP III responds to small velocity shifts with genuine dynamic changes, not just volume, so even a handful of percentage points makes the double‑track feel like two distinct takes.
Finally, group both guitar tracks and insert the Ample Bass A Lite or any clean bass instrument an octave below. Roll off everything below 60 Hz on the master bus and you have a mix‑ready rock foundation in under ten minutes. The whole chain — pickup choice, panning, articulation switching, velocity work — stays inside decisions a guitarist would make with a real amp and two microphones.
What changed: from version 3 to version 4
Version 4 brought the fingerstyle library recorded with a 1959 Reissue Les Paul, and that altered the plugin’s everyday range more than a single feature list suggests. Before, quieter, plucked parts often required careful velocity editing to avoid the twang of the picking samples. The new fingerstyle articulations give a rounder attack by design: the transient is softer, the sustain blooms a little later, and the release is cleaner. For a ballad verse or a jazz turnaround, it sounds closer to a guitarist playing with the pad of the thumb than to a pick striking the string. The two libraries — picking and fingerstyle — sit side by side in the articulation menu, so switching mid‑phrase is a single keyswitch away.
The other quiet improvement concerns the onboard amplifier modelling. Version 4 reworked the cabinet simulation, and the result is less congested in the low‑mids around 250 Hz. In practice this means you can stack two or three LP III parts without the build‑up that used to require an EQ cut on every bus. The difference is subtle on a solo’d track but genuinely useful when the arrangement grows dense. If you still have projects from version 3, expect the same MIDI to play back with slightly more air in the upper mids and a tighter low end.
Apple Silicon: runs natively, no Rosetta needed
Will it work on an Apple Silicon Mac without Rosetta? Yes. The current installer carries universal binaries, so Logic Pro, Ableton Live and other hosts run the plugin natively on M‑series processors. There is no separate ARM download to chase.
Does the plugin need a constant internet connection? Only for the initial activation through the Activation Manager. Once authorised, it works offline indefinitely. The offline method uses a Challenge Code and User ID, which you can handle on a different machine if your studio computer stays air‑gapped.
How large is the sample library, and can I move it after installation? The installer places the library in a default location, but the plugin’s settings panel lets you point to any drive. If you work from an external SSD, moving the library after installation is a matter of copying the folder and updating the path — no re‑install needed.
Is it only for strumming and power chords? Not at all. The picking and fingerstyle articulations, plus the extensive keyswitch set for slides, hammer‑ons, pull‑offs and harmonics, make it equally comfortable playing lead lines and arpeggiated figures. The stereo double‑tracking trick works for clean arpeggios just as well as for overdriven riffs.
Realism source: deep articulations vs. amp modeling
Compared to IK Multimedia’s AmpliTube Les Paul collection, the Ample Sound plugin takes a different route: AmpliTube models the amp and cabinet chain extensively but leans on less deeply sampled guitar articulations, while the LP III builds its realism from string‑by‑string sampling and playing logic. If your priority is endless amp‑and‑pedal‑board experimentation, AmpliTube offers more colours; if you need a convincing guitar performance from a MIDI roll, the LP III’s articulation engine gives you more control before you touch a single effect.
Next to Native Instruments’ Session Guitarist Electric Sunburst, the LP III feels more raw and less produced. Electric Sunburst arrives with a polished, mix‑ready tone and a phrase‑based playing system that suits quick songwriting sketches. The LP III, by contrast, puts the dry guitar sound upfront and expects you to shape it. For a producer who wants to dial in their own amp sim and cabinet impulses, that rawness is an advantage — it layers into a custom signal chain without fighting a baked‑in room sound. For someone chasing instant inspiration, Electric Sunburst’s preset‑heavy approach may feel faster.
Against MusicLab’s RealLPC, the two are closer competitors. Both sample a Les Paul and both offer deep MIDI guitar control. The LP III’s interface is newer and visually cleaner, and the version 4 fingerstyle library gives it an edge for softer material. RealLPC counters with a slightly more mature strumming engine and a few performance modes (like the velocity‑controlled hammer‑on threshold) that advanced users appreciate. Choosing between them often comes down to which picking style you rely on most.
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