| Category | Value | Rating |
| Features | 20% |  |
| Usability | 25% | |
| Sound | 25% |  |
| Documentation & Support | 10% | |
| Price | 20% |  |
| OVERALL RATING = 3.9 Stars, which earns it a WIHO Award! 3.6 stars or better: Outstanding, WIHO Award 3 stars or better: Worth considering 2 stars or better: Suited to specific needs 1 star or less: Not recommended |
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The Soldano SLO-100 X is a complete redevelopment of the original SLO Suite that was introduced in 2021. Neural DSP worked directly with Soldano to capture the true essence of their historic boutique guitar amplifier from top to bottom, and it really shows in this full-featured plug-in. Mike Soldano and the Soldano SLO-100 are widely regarded as being responsible for the American high-gain guitar sound that kicked off the modern guitar sounds we all know and love today, and you’ll find that historic tone and more, on tap, right here.
Features
Picking up where the original plug-in left off, this suite has almost everything you could ask for in a virtual guitar amp. Starting with four unique stomp boxes: a compressor, boost (OD1), overdrive (OD2), and a vintage chorus, each of these processors was tuned to complement the Soldano sound. They allow for a lot of flexibility and are as easy to use as a traditional pedals.
As for the amp itself, the plug-in features two channels covering the entire dynamic range. Normal is Soldano’s crystalline clean channel. It stays clean when you want it to stay clean, and gets hairy when you push it past the edge of its break-up point. The Bright switch provides a treble boost for extra definition, and we found ourselves keeping it turned on almost always. The Crunch switch adds a gain boost and an extra layer of warm-sounding saturation for dialing in mid-gain tones.
The Overdrive channel provides additional gain, perfectly balancing presence and fatness, ideal for both driving rhythms as well as soaring leads. Nothing sounded harsh or muddy in our demo, and it felt like we were playing a mic’d up SLO-100 in our studio space!
Brand new features include Neural DSP’s Transpose and Doubler features. Transpose is a pitch shifter that will digitally re-tune your guitar up or down by up to an octave on either side. It performs just as well as—if not better than—most hardware modeling units on the market today and is very fast, with negligible latency (at least we did not notice any while tracking our demo video). The Doubler effect is a neat feature that sends your guitar signal into a simulated stereo field, emulating the sound of a double-tracked guitar recording. This is nice for stereo leads, but would not be needed while actually recording guitar parts for a record (because you should double your heavy parts!).
The Cabsim + IR Loader works as intended, allowing you to blend mics on the cabinets and adjust them as you would in a real studio. The nine-band EQ is the same as you’ll find in many other Neural DSP plug-in suites. The brand-new Delay and Reverb processors are easy to dial in and allow you to craft your own stadium leads or ambient clean tones.
Usability and Sound
Documentation and Support
The manual for this plug-in is offered as a free download on Neural DSP’s website and is packed with information on every single feature in the plug-in. It walks you through the installation process, how to use it as a standalone unit or in your DAW, and breaks down every knob and control in the plug-in. It is an exemplary demonstration of how plug-ins should be when it comes to digital paperwork. It was easy to follow and cleared up any questions we had, as it was laid out very well and was easy to navigate.
Price
The Soldano SLO-100 X sells for $99, which places it within any recording guitarist’s reach. This is definitely something high-gain players will want to have in their studios. The only things missing from this suite that we would love to see included would be additional modulation effects such as Flanger, Tremolo, and Rotary, but given how fabulous this plug-in sounds, we’re just splitting hairs. We’ll just add those effects elsewhere in the signal chain.
Contact Information
Neural DSP
www.neuraldsp.com
