RigSuite 0.93 Release Notes

Both apps now ship for the Mac, code-signed, and notarized by Apple, so installation is the standard experience with no security overrides: RigScope is a drag-to-Applications DMG, and RigSculpt is a standard installer package that puts the VST3 and AU plug-ins in place for all users. The two have different requirements, so here they are plainly:

• RigScope (desktop app): requires an Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later) running macOS 14 Sonoma or newer. Intel Macs are not supported for RigScope. The full test suite (1,525 tests) runs green on macOS.
• RigSculpt (plug-in): runs on macOS 11 Big Sur or newer, native on both Apple Silicon and Intel, in VST3 and AU hosts (Logic, GarageBand, Reaper, Live, and others). It passes Apple's auval validation. Pro Tools/AAX is not supported, and there is no standalone version.
• Downloads and disk: the RigScope DMG is about 357 MB (roughly 1 GB installed); the RigSculpt package is about 172 MB (roughly 256 MB installed across the two formats).
• Field-tested: developed and played on a MacBook Air (Apple M5) running macOS Tahoe 26.5.2, including full stereo rigs (two neural amp models, two cabinet IRs, and the effects chain) without strain. 8 GB of unified memory is the sensible minimum, and 16 GB is recommended for large libraries.
• Cross-platform: your .nam models, cab and reverb WAVs, presets, and DAW projects travel between Windows and macOS.

The question that always follows is Linux. A native build is something I will work toward once macOS users have had time to feel the apps out and report friction. Meanwhile, some Linux users already run the Windows RigSculpt under Wine, and inside native Linux DAWs through the yabridge wrapper; a thread on linuxmusicians.com documents working setups.

RigSculpt

• Your settings finally stay put: loading a preset, or just reopening the plugin, no longer resets your Input Calibration to someone else's value. Calibration, output mode, gate, pickup and oversampling all survive.
• The NAM Library is now the NAM Library Explorer: one click to audition a model, right-click to inspect it, a fixed slot-targeting bug, and a new row of tools right on the page (output meter, Match L/R, target level, and a tuner) so you rarely need to leave the browser.
• Amps level-match themselves in stereo: load a second amp into a stereo rig and RigSculpt quietly matches its level (and polarity) to the one you kept, so A/B comparisons stay fair without touching a knob. On by default, with a switch in Settings.
• Calibration is clearer: picking your interface turns calibration on for you, a small chip explains when a model carries no calibration data, and more interfaces are recognized out of the box (RME UFX III, MOTU UltraLite-mk5, the Audient iD range, and others).
• Hidden controls made visible: a clickable DIFF/SAME rig-mode pill, power dots on the FX chain, drag handles to reorder effects, "double-click to type a value" on every knob, and more small signposts for things that were already there.
• Quiet reliability work on the new auto-level feature, so it never touches a preset's saved levels or gets polarity wrong.
• Lower CPU on long reverb tails: the convolution reverb's background renderer now flushes very small numbers to zero, the same as the main audio path already did, which removes a rare source of CPU spikes as a reverb rings out. Nothing sounds different.
• A lighter default preset: the old "Angelic Clean" ran two amps and two cabs in parallel (a full stereo rig), which is roughly twice the processing of a single amp and read as "CPU heavy" on some laptops. It now ships as "Angelic Clean Stereo", unchanged, while the fresh-install default "Angelic Clean" is the same tone running a single amp (the effects stay stereo). The first time you load any stereo rig, a one-time note explains the cost of running two models in parallel and points at the Playback Mode setting that lightens it.
• A guided tour, on the real controls: a two-minute walkthrough of the workflow unique to RigSculpt and RigScope (the NAMS library, stereo rigs, RIG FIT, calibration), drawn right over the live plugin. Offered once on first run; rerun it any time from the About page. It now opens with a personal introduction: who makes RigSuite, why, and how it is built.
• Stock presets travel: the bundled presets now find their factory models, cabs and reverbs by name on any install, instead of carrying file paths from the machine they were built on.
• First-run notices take turns: the first-session dialogs and the update-check messages now appear one at a time, wait while the tour is running, and never stack on top of each other.
• Presets survive a project reload: reopening a DAW project always restored your actual rig, but the preset bar claimed the default preset instead of the one you had loaded, which read as "my preset didn't save" (a Reaper field report). The preset name is now saved with the project and comes back with it.
• The library scan survives unusual filenames: a .nam file whose name carries characters outside your system's character set (a lookalike hyphen, dotted-I, Cyrillic; real Tone3000 files) used to silently cut the scan short, hiding every file after it. Those files are now skipped and logged, and the rest of your library lists normally. Renaming such a file to plain characters makes it fully usable; native support for these names is on the bench.

Your calibration and setup survive presets now

This was the big one from the field. Loading a stock preset, or just closing and reopening the plugin, could silently reset your Input Calibration to the preset author's value (13 dBu on my rig). That threw off the very headroom reference the measurement-aware features depend on, and it happened without any warning.

Fixed. Your Input Calibration, output mode, noise gate, pickup rig and oversampling are treated as your own global preferences, and they are preserved across preset switches and restarts. Presets still carry and restore their own saved levels; they just no longer overwrite your calibration.

Calibration is clearer, and knows more interfaces

• Pick your interface, calibration turns on: choosing your audio interface from the picker now switches Calibrate Input on automatically, and does nothing if it was already on.
• "NO CAL DATA" chip: when a loaded model carries no embedded input-level data, a small amber chip appears next to the dBu box and explains why, instead of a silent gray-out. It also points you at the fix, which is to add the data in RigScope's metadata editor.
• The controls stay usable: loading a model without calibration data no longer grays out the Calibrate toggle and the dBu box. They stay live; calibration simply has no effect on a model that does not carry the data, and the "INPUT CALIBRATION OFF" note clears correctly.
• Clearer first-run and help text: the first-session "Welcome to RigSculpt" explainer was rewritten to say plainly why headroom matters and how RigScope uses your calibration as a reference. The calibration help now also tells you exactly what to look up in your interface manual ("dBu", "maximum input level", the level at minimum gain).
• More interfaces recognized: added calibration presets for the RME Fireface UFX III, MOTU UltraLite-mk5, the Audient iD range (iD22 / iD24 / iD44, MkI and MkII), Behringer with the pad on, the Axe-Fx III over USB, and several Antelope, Avid, Prism and IK units.

The NAM Library is now the NAM Library Explorer

The library page got the most attention this round. It is meant to be a place where you browse and audition amps quickly, not a file dialog, so it now behaves like one.

Browsing

• One click to audition: left-click a model and it loads immediately, and you stay in the list. You can click straight down a column of amps and hear each one, a single click each. It used to take three.
• Right-click to inspect: right-click a model to open its detail panel, with the measured voicing, Similar, Partner, and the "more like this, but..." chips.
• Clicking a slot aims the load: click the A or B slot to arm it as the target (it lights up with a bright ring), then load into exactly that slot. This fixes a reported bug where clicking slot B still loaded into A. Similar models load into your active slot; a Partner suggestion loads into the other slot and turns stereo on.
• EXPLORE on each loaded slot: a filled A or B slot now shows a green "EXPLORE" button that opens that model's detail panel, so the discovery tools are visible instead of hidden behind a right-click.
• A reset row and a clearer legend: a pinned "All" row at the top of the browse tree clears your filter and jumps back to the full grid, and the click / right-click / drag hint moved into a slim footer directly under the list, where it names the slot you are aiming at.

The page header and a new tools row

• Renamed to "NAM LIBRARY EXPLORER": the old thin "LIBRARY" title was replaced with a clearer, bolder one.
• An output row, right on the page: a dedicated row under the title now carries the same controls as the AMP page, laid out horizontally: a live L/R output meter, a Match L/R button, and a target-output field. You can watch levels and rebalance an A/B pair without hopping back to the AMP tab. Those are the exact same controls as the AMP page and stay in step with it.
• A tuner, so you can tune while you browse: a full tuner sits on the left of that row. The AMP-page tuner is not visible while you are in the library, so this puts one where you need it while auditioning amps, with no tab switching.
• The meter matches the AMP-page meter: the library meter was refined to look like the amp's, with the same fine tick texture and a numeric dB peak-hold readout (the loudest of L/R, latching red on a clip, click to reset, clearing on its own after a couple of seconds of silence).

Amps level-match themselves in stereo

Comparing two amps side by side only tells you something if they are at the same level. So when you load an amp into a stereo rig, RigSculpt now does that matching for you.

• How it works: it listens to both amps briefly, then trims only the amp you just loaded so it matches the level of the one you kept. Polarity is corrected at the same time. There is no play-through prompt and nothing to click; it happens quietly as you browse.
• On by default, with a switch: the toggle lives in Settings, under WORKFLOW ("auto level-match amps when loading in stereo"). Turn it off if you deliberately stack amps at different levels or prefer to set them by ear.
• Presets are never touched: a saved preset always keeps its own stored A/B levels. Auto-matching only applies as you load and audition.
• A brief notice when it happens: because the match is silent, a small "Auto-leveled A/B" note appears for a couple of seconds, with a reminder that you can fine-tune by hand with Match L/R on the AMP page. It floats above whatever tab you are on and does not block clicks.
• The classic file pickers do it too: the AMP page's "Load Model" dialogs now match on load like the library does, and loading amp B through them flips a mono rig to stereo first (a B-load into a mono rig used to be silent) and then matches.

Small things, made visible

A lot of 0.93 is signposting for controls that already existed but were hard to find.

• DIFF AMP / SAME AMP pill: a persistent pill next to BUILD STEREO shows whether it will pair a different amp or the same one, and it is now a button. Click it to flip the preference, which is the same thing the old right-click did.
• FX chain power dots: each effect cell shows a small dot, lit when the effect is on and a dim ring when it is off, so you can read your chain at a glance.
• Drag to reorder effects: the movable FX blocks show a faint grip on hover, with a tooltip explaining what reordering does.
• Type in any knob value: the "double-click the value to type, double-click the body to reset" hint is now on every standard knob, and the noise-gate knobs mention it too.
• Output EQ shortcuts: the Output EQ graph now shows its hidden gestures, which are Ctrl-click a band to zero it and Ctrl plus scroll for fine adjustment.
• Tuner caret: the tuner shows a faint down-caret when idle, advertising its right-click menu (tunings, sweetened offsets, reference pitch, range) and the left-click needle / strobe flip.
• CAB slot B dims in mono: on the cab IR page, the second IR slot now dims when the rig is mono, matching the amp page, so it is clear it is inactive.
• Pickup Revoicer tooltips: the "your pickup" and "voice as" rows now have their own separate tooltips instead of one shared tip.

Under the hood

The new auto-level feature went through an internal review that fixed three edge cases, so the silent match stays trustworthy. It will not re-trim levels that a recalled preset just restored, it decides polarity the same deterministic way every other feature does (which prevents a rare, invisible wrong flip), and turning the feature off reliably cancels any match that was about to run.

Everything in 0.93 is interface and workflow only. There are no changes to how any amp model, cab or effect sounds, and nothing about the plugin's identity or your saved projects changes. Existing sessions load exactly as before.

Library polish after the first field reports

The last few 0.93 builds came from people using the NAM Library Explorer and telling us where it was rough. All of these are interface only.

• Cleaner stereo pairing from the library: a few Partner and library picks could sound phase-clashed, hollow or combed, the moment they loaded, because the automatic polarity decision fell back to a less reliable estimate on that path. The deterministic check now runs on every library load, so a pair either loads in phase or gets flipped the same trustworthy way the Match L/R button already did.
• The auto-level note now reads phase: the brief "Auto-leveled A/B" note that appears when you load a stereo rig from the library also tells you whether it flipped the phase on B or left it in sync, and it corrects itself in place if the phase check finishes a moment after the note first shows.
• Readable browser footer: in the NAM Library Explorer, the gesture legend under the list no longer gets overwritten by long model names as you scroll.
• Long names scroll on hover: anywhere a name is too wide for its space, hovering it now scrolls the full text through so you can read it, then settles back. This runs across the whole NAM Library Explorer, which is the model list, the Amp / Author / Pack browse column, the inspector titles, the preset name, the loaded A/B slots, and the cab IR list. It only moves while you are hovering something that is actually cut off, and it never affects audio.

Your preset name survives a project reload

A Reaper report, though it applied to every DAW: reopening a project showed every RigSculpt track claiming the default preset, which read as "my presets didn't save." The important part first: your actual settings were never lost. The full rig (models, cabs, effects, every knob) always saved and restored correctly with the project. What broke was the preset NAME readout: it was not saved with the project, and the fresh instance's default preset stamped its own name onto the bar before your saved state arrived, so the bar confidently named the wrong preset. The prev/next preset arrows then stepped from the wrong starting point too.

Fixed: the preset name is now saved with the project (and with saved FX chains) and comes back with it. One note for existing projects: anything saved with an older build restores its sound exactly as before, but the preset bar shows blank rather than a wrong name until you save the project once with the new build. And if you ever open a project saved with 0.93 in an OLDER RigSculpt build, the plugin loads bypassed; clicking bypass off restores it, and saving from that older build clears it for good.

The library scan survives unusual filenames

A sharp-eyed report from a 10,000-file Tone3000 collection: with certain .nam files present, only a fraction of the library appeared in RigSculpt (295 of 625 in the report). The culprit was five real files whose names carry characters outside the system's character set: a lookalike hyphen that renders exactly like a normal one, a dotted Turkish I, and one fully Cyrillic name. One such file silently cut the folder scan short, hiding every file after it, in the NAM library, the cab and reverb lists, and the preset list alike.

Fixed: those files are now skipped and noted in the log, and the rest of the folder lists normally. The skipped files themselves are valid models; renaming one to plain characters makes it fully usable today, and native support for these names is queued on the bench.