Best Ample Sound Plugins for Realistic Guitars & Bass

Most acoustic guitar VSTs sound completely fake. You draw some MIDI chords and get a stiff, plastic tone. Ample Sound fixed this with their Strummer engine. The scripting handles the release noises and string resonance like a physical instrument. It stops me from wasting hours tweaking MIDI velocities just to build a simple rhythm bed.

I put these ample sound guitar plugins through heavy session work. Here is what actually sounds good.

Top 14 Ample Sound Guitar Plugins

Here is the full lineup at a glance. I broke these down based on how they actually sit in a session. You do not need to buy all of them. Just find the specific tone and colour that fits your current mix.

Acoustic Guitars

Acoustic guitars are notoriously difficult to place in a dense mix. They eat up low-mid frequencies and can easily clash with the vocal or the snare drum. You need to pick the right guitar body shape for the specific genre you are producing before you even touch an EQ.

Ample Guitar M – Martin D-41

I load the AGM when I need a warm rhythm track that sits comfortably behind a lead vocal. The D-41 body shape naturally pushes a lot of low-mid colour, giving it incredible warmth and a very natural sustain. You have to watch the 200Hz to 300Hz range closely, though.

If your mix already has a thick synth pad or a busy bassline, this heavy low-end can introduce mud quickly without aggressive EQ. The mic blending feature is excellent for dialling back that boominess.

I usually pull down the body mic and push the neck mic for a tighter sound. Its true strength is in sparse folk arrangements where the guitar needs to fill out the frequency spectrum. It is easily the best choice for anyone looking to invest in ample sound acoustic plugins.

Ample Guitar T – Taylor 714CE

If the Martin is for sparse folk, the Taylor is my absolute go-to for modern pop production. Taylors are inherently bright, which means this plugin cuts right through dense instrumentation without needing excessive harmonic excitement.

I usually slap a high-pass filter on this around 150Hz and let the punchy transient snap drive the rhythm section. The fingerpicking articulations are incredibly realistic when you keep the MIDI velocities varied.

The only real downside is that the extreme high-end sometimes gets brittle, requiring a fast de-esser to tame the pick attack. But if you are writing modern country or upbeat pop, the AGT is the undisputed winner among ample sound guitars. It just sits right in the mix from the moment you load it.

Ample Guitar SJ – Gibson SJ-200

The SJ provides a massive stereo footprint, delivering phenomenal resonance for wide rhythm tracking. I use this exclusively for big rock ballads where the acoustic guitar needs to sound larger than life. The trick is to double-track the MIDI performance, alter the humanize settings slightly on the second track, and pan them hard left and right.

It creates a giant wall of acoustic sound. You just have to be careful because it will easily eat up all the sonic space in the centre of your mix. It takes up way too much headroom for delicate or minimal arrangements, but if you need a giant rhythm bed for a rock track, this is the plugin to use.

Ample Guitar Twelve – Taylor 12-String

Programming a 12-string guitar with standard plugins is usually a nightmare. Most developers just slap an artificial chorus effect on a standard acoustic and call it a day. Ample actually sampled all 12 strings for this instrument, meaning the genuine string phasing and natural chorus effect you get is entirely authentic. No artificial modulation required.

I use this when a standard acoustic track feels too thin but a synth pad feels too synthetic. It is demanding on your CPU when you trigger complex, fast strumming sequences, but it remains the most realistic 12-string VST available.

Electric & Metal Guitars

Once your acoustic bed is set, it is time to build the electric layers. When working with virtual electric guitars, the direct input (DI) signal is everything. If the DI is weak, no amp sim in the world will save the tone. The built-in amplifiers in these plugins are fine for drafting ideas, but you will always get better results routing the raw DI into dedicated amp software.

Ample Guitar SC (Stratocaster)

I always bypass the internal amp simulations on the SC. The raw DI signal here is pristine. It captures that classic, hollow bell tone of a Stratocaster neck pickup perfectly. I take that clean signal and run it directly into a Neural DSP Cory Wong suite.

The neck pickup position handles aggressive funk strumming incredibly well, and the engine tracks fast muted 16th notes without glitching. The internal amp sims definitely lack the depth of dedicated third-party plugins, but if you need a funk or indie rock workhorse, this ample sound electric guitar delivers an exceptional DI signal to feed your external plugins.

Ample Guitar LP (Les Paul)

Unlike the Strat, the LP plugin provides a very thick, saturated, and dark DI signal. I switch it to the bridge pickup setting and run it into a heavy Marshall emulation. The palm mutes are the standout feature here, offering excellent variation and flawless round-robins.

You do not get those weird machine-gun artifacts when you repeat the exact same palm mute note in a fast sequence. The catch is that the heavy low-mids demand aggressive EQ cuts around 400Hz to prevent masking the bass guitar in a busy mix. It requires shaping, but the LP is built perfectly for chunky, heavy rock rhythm guitars.

Ample Metal Eclipse – ESP Eclipse

This instrument is tuned specifically for high-gain applications, and the low-end tracking handles low tunings with perfect clarity. I frequently drop this down to Drop C and run it into a Fortin Nameless suite.

The pick attack is extremely aggressive and cuts through heavy drum shells perfectly. Just keep in mind that it has very limited applications for clean or crunch tones – the pickups are simply sampled too hot. But for modern metal production, the AME is a highly focused tool that delivers brutal rhythm tracks.

Ample Metal Hellrazer – 9-string Schecter

When you need to push a track impossibly low, you load the AMH. It reaches extreme sub-bass registers all the way down to C#0, packing massive harmonic content for heavy distortion.

I actually treat this plugin almost like a sub-bass synth in heavy mixes. The downside is that it is extremely difficult to control in the low end without advanced multiband processing.

You have to use heavy multiband compression on the lower register to keep the sub frequencies from blowing out your mix bus. It takes work to EQ cleanly, but for djent and ultra-low metal sub-rhythms, nothing else comes close to this frequency range.

Bass Guitars

Guitars will only sound as heavy as the bass underneath them. Faking a bass guitar requires perfect articulations. Listeners can spot a fake bassline instantly if the slides and dead notes sound synthetic.

Here, tone is entirely secondary to how the instrument transitions between notes.

Ample Bass J – Fender Jazz Bass

I pull up the ABJ when I cannot get a real session bassist into the room. The punchy slap articulations are incredibly snappy, but the highly realistic dead note samples are what actually make the performance sound human.

You can program a massive funk groove if you carefully automate the slap and pop key switches. The trade-off is time. Realistic slap programming requires extensive manual MIDI mapping to get the phrasing exactly right. If you are willing to put in the programming hours, the ABJ is exceptional for tight funk and pop basslines.

Ample Bass Upright – Double Bass

Programming an upright bass is one of the hardest tasks in MIDI production. The slide parameters in the ABU save the performance entirely. I use the fretless slide feature heavily to create smooth, natural jazz transitions between root notes, backed by a deep, woody resonance.

Upright basses eat up massive amounts of low-end headroom, and the uncontrolled resonance here requires careful EQ to fit into a modern mix. I always use a high-pass filter around 40Hz to clean up the sub rumble before it hits the compressor. It takes finessing, but the ABU is the most realistic plugin available for authentic jazz and folk bass.

Nylon & Specialty Instruments

Sometimes standard electrics and acoustics are not enough. When a track needs a specific texture, specialty string instruments rely entirely on their transient response. Plucked instruments like a banjo or a Guzheng have a very sharp attack and a fast decay. You have to treat them differently than a standard acoustic guitar during the mixing stage.

Ample Guitar L – Alhambra Luthier Classical

Nylon strings require a round, soft attack. The AGL delivers a beautiful, warm tone right out of the box. I use this frequently for bossa nova tracks or intimate acoustic pop arrangements. The adjustable nail attack parameter is crucial for realism here – I always turn the nail sound down slightly to make the initial transient softer.

The only real con is that the strummed chords sound slightly unnatural compared to the fingerpicked samples. The AGL performs best when you keep it strictly focused on intricate fingerpicked parts.

Ample China Zheng (Guzheng)

The Guzheng cuts through absolutely any mix. The transient response is lightning-fast, and the deeply sampled pitch bends sound completely flawless. I use this layered over modern trap beats to create a unique, sharp pluck sound.

It is obviously a very niche application outside of specific genres, but the fast attack makes it a brilliant secret weapon for cutting through heavy 808s in modern pop and trap production.

Ample Ethno Banjo – Deering Sierra 5-string

You cannot fake a banjo roll with a regular guitar VST because the picking patterns are entirely different. The Ample engine handles the authentic fast alternating picking realistically, yielding a bright, snappy tone that cuts easily.

I use this for modern country tracks where you need that fast, rolling background texture. Like the Guzheng, it is an extremely specific use case. But when you need an authentic banjo roll, this is the only software that gets the timing right.

The Best Free Option

Not ready to drop hundreds of dollars on the paid ecosystem yet? Ample Sound offers a brilliant test drive that doesn’t compromise on audio quality.

Ample Guitar M Lite II (FREE)

This is the perfect entry point. It is 100% free and utilizes the exact same audio quality and sound engine as the flagship paid AGM. I recommend this to any producer wanting to test the workflow and CPU load before spending cash.

It gives you a real feel for the interface. The catch is that it is locked strictly to the first four frets of the instrument, and you get no alternate tunings. Even with the fret limitations, it remains the best free ample sound plugin you can download right now.

The Buying Verdict

If you are currently looking to buy just one acoustic guitar plugin, get the AGT (Taylor). It fits into modern pop, rock, and country mixes effortlessly. The bright tone saves you from heavy EQ work.

If your budget is tight and you need an electric guitar, get the SC (Stratocaster) and run the pristine DI signal through whatever amp simulators you already own.

For bass, the ABJ (Jazz Bass) offers the most versatility for both rock and funk if you are willing to spend time programming the articulations.

Frequently Asked Questions