Mixwave: Benson Chimera
An amazing guitar amp and pedals plugin!
OK, this thing got me so excited! People at Mixwave have created an awesome pedal and amp plugin in collaboration with Benson Amps that will make you want to put everything through it.
So what is this VST effect plugin?
Benson Amps is one of the most famous boutique guitar amps and pedals manufacturers and their products are used by thousands of guitarists around the world. So Mixwave decided to model a full signal line of pedals, amp, and a cabinet to provide us with the total VST chain for amping our instruments.
The Benson Chimera Collection has the following plugins on a single plugin but you can also use them separately or even buy just the ones you need from the collection. Although I feel that getting the full experience of the Collection edition is totally worth its money!
Boost
The Benson Germanium Boost is a deceptively simple device on paper. In reality, it accomplishes what people reach for a compressor for; it enhances the good parts of a signal while de-emphasizing the unwanted bits. It’s a bit of a magic button that makes things sound more musical.
Fuzz
Preamp
While being the first pedal to incorporate Automatic Thermal Bias to combat the temperature sensitivity of Germanium transistors, the Benson Germanium Fuzz was designed to be a rich-sounding clean boost, overdrive, or a gripping wall of fuzz.
Based on the Chimera preamp, the circuit inside the Benson Preamp substitutes vacuum tubes for FET transistors resulting in an extremely versatile pedal that's full of rich and musical harmonics.
Tall bird
A unique and versatile all-tube spring reverb unit. The Benson Tall Bird produces lush, sonorous tones ranging from polite and clean, to a euphonic and cavernous reverb by overdriving the reverb tank. Modeling two separate reverb tanks adds the ability to also apply reverb to a stereo signal.
Chimera
At the heart of it all is the Benson Chimera, a truly unique modern classic guitar amplifier. Rigorously modeled to capture every nuance and characteristic of the signature Benson tone, Chris says that his first listen of this emulation earned his trust and eventually his endorsement for the entire collection.
Cabinet & speakers
An extensive and elaborate cab module of the vertical dove-tailed pine 2x12 Chimera Cabinet that includes 240 impulse responses captured at MixWave Studios.
Featuring pairs of the Benson Custom Ceramic, and the Celestion G12H30 Anniversary speakers accompanied with a world class collection of 20 virtual microphones that can effortlessly be placed around the speakers.
Digital recreations of these types of effects usually sound bad, like too bad. Fuzz, Overdrive, Distortion, etc is a hard effect to replicate digitally while almost all hardware effect pedals for these effects are analog. And there’s a good reason for that. Analog clipping sounds warm and rich in harmonics and although is one of the most basic circuits to make, it is quite difficult to get them to sound good on a plugin.
And here is where Mixwave nailed it. All effects sound simply amazing! And when you combine them all together you can push your signal to the extreme just like on a hardware pedal or amp. I’ve tested the whole range on guitars, a lot of synthesizers (software and hardware), drums and it crushes everything in the best way possible.
The three pedals on their own are great. The Germanium Boost is not just a simple clean boost for volume. When you go past 1 o’clock it starts to drive the signal just a bit bringing forward your most emphasized harmonics. The Germanium Fuzz is my favorite. With only three knobs you can find a lot of sweet spots, from a mild driven tone to crunchy fuzzy mayhem. The Preamp is also not your typical preamp. It is a drive pedal that can get very harsh and fat pretty easily.
The Tall Bird was so unexpectedly nice. Since I haven’t played an actual Tall Bird before I was expecting a classic spring reverb that you can find on a lot of vintage units. But Tall Bird is a very unique spring reverb that’s not made for the standard drip tones you’d expect. It can get lush and long more like an ambient reverb. Bonus tip: If you put Tall Bird at the end of the chain, it turns into a stereo reverb instead of a mono one.
The Chimera which is the star of the group is also great on its own. It can be dirty, it can be soft, and the “bright” switch adds some high-end which is so needed when your signal is muffled by the fuzz and drive before it.
Lastly, the Cabinet and Speakers section is very detailed and provides so much fun to the whole experience. You can choose the mic and cabinet you want from a lot of options provided and then move the mics wherever you want, angle them, or increase the distance from the cabinets.
Conclusion
I instantly fell in love with this one. All the modules have only from 1 to 4 knobs to program but you can feel the huge amount of work Mixwave has done to carefully model the hardware versions. Everything is extremely responsive and sounds fat and warm in every setting. I’ve played a lot of VST pedals before but nothing comes even close to this one. And the best thing about it is that you don’t miss out a lot of the physical experience of playing with actual pedals, or mic-ing amps. The UI is great and once you start tweaking, you forget that you’re playing into a plugin. The only thing that can throw you off is the infamous latency that you get with computers and DAWs but that’s not a thing Mixwave could possibly fix.
The Benson Chimera Collection is a must-have plugin. Especially if you don’t have the room or budget to buy pedals and an amp. I highly recommend this one even if you don’t play the guitar. You can run anything into it and have amazing results.
It is now available at an intro price of 149$ - The regular Price will be 179$. A 14-day trial version is also available to test it out.
