RootAmps
B-Root Bass Amp Sim
Pedals anywhere in the chain, plus a crossover that keeps the sub clean and compressed while the top gets hammered. Low end that stays solid however hard you push.
The G-Root ordered-rack amp, bass-voiced, with a SPLIT front end: an LR24 crossover divides the input into a SUB band and a HIGH band. The sub is heavily compressed and goes STRAIGHT to the output (it never hits the rack); the high band is compressed and driven through the full bass amp + pedal rack, then the two sum to mono. Drive the top as hard as you like without ever muddying the low end. Same drag-in pedal rack as G-Root, plus a bass-only Bass Drive. Self-contained - no shared brain.
demo
See it work.
Demo coming soon
what's in it
Every control, and what it's for.
Controls marked Brain are the ones the Analyser can set for you on an ANALYSE pass.
Split - Sub / High
An LR24 (Linkwitz-Riley, 24 dB/oct) split at the input, roughly 100-300 Hz, zero latency: everything below feeds the SUB path, everything above the HIGH path.
A smooth opto-ish compressor on the sub band - Thr · Ratio · Atk · Rel · Makeup · Level with a SUB meter. Heavy by default to keep the low end planted.
The same compressor on the high band - Thr · Ratio · Atk · Rel · Makeup · Level with a HIGH meter; musical by default. It feeds the amp rack.
The compressed SUB band bypasses the rack entirely and sums directly with the processed HIGH band - this is what lets you distort the top hard without losing or muddying the fundamental.
Amp (high band) + rack
Gain / Drive / Bass / Mid / Treble / Pres / Power / Cab Mix + Model + Clip, voiced for bass - this processes the HIGH band only.
The same drag-in pedal rack as G-Root - labelled insert points before every amp stage; drag from AVAILABLE MODULES, click to edit, drag to reroute/reorder, x to remove, plus the same SERIES / PARALLEL branch, REJOIN and per-pedal OUT trim. It all runs on the HIGH band, so a parallel branch rejoins in the high band too, before the sub is summed back - the sub path stays untouched whatever you do in the rack.
A bass-only palette pedal (Darkglass-style): Drive · Blend (parallel clean/dirty) · Tone · Level with its own Model + Clip. Grinds the low-mids while Blend keeps the clean underneath.
Pedals & branch routing (the same rack as G-Root)
Every pedal is SERIES (in the chain) or PARALLEL. A parallel pedal taps the signal where it sits, processes a private copy and mixes it back in later - the main chain carries straight on underneath, so it ADDS rather than replaces. REJOIN picks where the copy returns: PRE-CAB sends it through the speaker cab with everything else, POST-CAB rejoins after the cab so the branch is raw and un-cabbed. MIX sets how much of the branch you hear. The rack draws the branch as a white line running out of the pedal and back into the signal.
Every pedal has an OUT knob, -24 to +24 dB. It is applied after the pedal and before the parallel mix, so it sets a parallel branch’s level as well as a series one. Bypassing the pedal returns the trim to unity, so bypass stays properly transparent.
Three static peaking bands (low / mid / high), freq + gain each.
Drive · Tone · Level · Mode (Soft / Tube / Hard / Fuzz) - oversampled, zero latency.
Reverb (Mix · Decay · Size · Damping · Type Plate/Room/Hall · Predelay) and Delay (Time · Feedback · Mix · Tone) - the Wallace / Tackleberry cores as compact mono pedals.
Compressor (Threshold · Ratio · Attack · Release · Makeup), Limiter (Threshold · Release · Ceiling - instant, ceiling-clipped, no lookahead) and Gate (Threshold · Range · Attack · Release · Hold) - the Stig / Hodor / Zuul cores.
Freq · Threshold · Amount - Tyson’s subtractive band, one band.
A resonant sweep into fuzz: Pedal · Rate/Sens · Reso · Drive · Mode · Blend. Because there is no treadle under your foot, Mode picks how the sweep moves - Manual parks it (the cocked-wah sound), Auto opens it with your playing dynamics, LFO sweeps it continuously. Rate/Sens is the LFO speed in LFO and the sensitivity in Auto. Drive at 0 is clean.
Rate · Depth · Shape · Duty · Mode · Level. Shape morphs the wave continuously from a smooth sine to a hard square; Duty skews it, so short duty with a hard shape is a stutter and long duty is a swell. Mode: Amp (classic level chop), Harmonic (the brownface trick - the low and high halves move in opposite directions, so the tone rocks dark-to-bright rather than loud-to-quiet) and Bias (breathes and adds harmonics rather than chopping). Free-running in Hz - there is no host tempo sync yet.
Digital destruction: Fold · Crush · Rate · Tone · Mode · Blend. Mode picks the shaper - Fold (the signal reflects at the rails, adding a new harmonic series per fold), Wrap (jumps hard to the opposite rail - the nastiest), Rectify (octave-up fizz) and Sine (rich but rounder). Crush drops the bit depth from 16 to 1; Rate decimates the sample rate down to 500 Hz. It is deliberately not anti-aliased - the inharmonic ring is the effect.
Cab & output
The cab button names the current cab - SYNTHETIC BASS CAB (extended low) or a loaded IR. LOAD IR loads your own cab impulse (persists with the session, level-normalised so any IR sits at a consistent loudness); clicking the cab-name button reverts to the synthetic cab. CAB MIX blends it.
Sub / High trims balance the two paths; the header knobs are input / output trim.
quick start
Four steps to a sound.
- Insert on the bass track.
- Set the CROSSOVER to split sub from high (roughly 100-300 Hz).
- Dial SUB COMP (heavy - holds the low end solid) and HIGH COMP (musical); each has Thr/Ratio/Atk/Rel/Makeup/Level and its own meter.
- Voice the AMP (HIGH BAND) - Gain/Drive/tone stack/Power, Model + Clip - and drag pedals into its SIGNAL CHAIN insert points, exactly like G-Root.
- Balance the SUB / HIGH band levels, set the SYNTHETIC BASS CAB (or load a cab IR), and set the master output.
Not currently suitable for Pro Tools
These are AU and VST3 plugins. Pro Tools only loads AAX, which these aren't built as - so none of the suite will appear in it. Please check your DAW before you buy - once you download, the sale is final.
Get B-Root Bass Amp Sim
AU · VST3 · Standalone - macOS 10.15 Catalina or later, Windows (VST3). Installers are not yet notarised, so there's one extra click on first install; the install guide walks through it.
Where it's confirmed to work
Honest version: this is a one-person operation, so it has been properly tested in the DAWs below and not yet in the others. Not tested yet means exactly that - not that it fails.
| DAW | System | Plugins load | They share with each other |
|---|---|---|---|
| Logic Pro | macOS | Yes | Yes |
| GarageBand | macOS | Not tested yet | Not tested yet |
| Ableton Live | Mac/Win | Not tested yet | Not tested yet |
| Cubase / Nuendo | Mac/Win | Not tested yet | Not tested yet |
| Studio One Confirmed on Windows (VST3). The sharing side is still to be checked. | Mac/Win | Yes | Not tested yet |
| Reaper Confirmed on Intel Mac - both AU and VST3, and the plugins share with each other. Not yet tested on Windows. | Mac/Win | Yes | Yes |
| FL Studio | Mac/Win | Not tested yet | Not tested yet |
| Bitwig Studio | Mac/Win | Not tested yet | Not tested yet |
| Digital Performer | Mac/Win | Not tested yet | Not tested yet |
| Pro Tools Pro Tools only loads AAX plugins. These are AU and VST3. | Mac/Win | No | No |
| System | Confirmed | |
|---|---|---|
| macOS on Intel | Yes | Confirmed working from 10.15 Catalina upwards. |
| macOS on Apple Silicon | Yes | Confirmed on an M4 Mac in Logic Pro. The installers are universal binaries, so they run natively - no Rosetta needed. |
| Windows 10 / 11 | Yes | VST3 only - there is no AU on Windows. Confirmed in Studio One. |
"They share with each other" is the ANALYSE pass, the clash matrix and the AUTO settings. Where a DAW keeps plugins apart, every plugin still works perfectly on its own - they just can't pass measurements between them, and nothing breaks. Ten-second check in any DAW: put Analyser on two tracks, turn one to master, and see whether the second track appears in its overview. Tell me what you find and this list gets updated.