What's new in RigSuite 0.99
An amp engine of my own, a signal path you can arrange yourself, an eight-band parametric EQ, and a long list of smaller improvements to the tools you already use.
Hey everyone. RigSuite exists to make a library of NAM models something you can navigate by sound, and to put a rig around them that I actually want to play through. 0.99 is the biggest step in that direction so far. Alongside NAM playback you now have ARTIFICER, an amp engine of my own that you can play, open up, reshape and save; FLEX, for building your own signal path; and a proper parametric EQ for either amp or the whole rig.
There are also improvements to the tools already in your hands: noise cleanup, stereo NAM control, held pads, effect tails and MIDI. 0.99 is available for Windows and macOS, with the standalone and Linux release status below. This page introduces what is new and where to find it. The field guide goes deeper into each control.
Standalone apps and platform availability
RigSculpt 0.99 standalone builds are complete for Windows, macOS and Linux. The standalone app lets you play a rig without opening a DAW. Availability differs by platform:
- Windows: the RigSculpt VST3 plug-in and RigSculpt Workshop are available now. The RigSculpt standalone app is complete, but I am holding its release until the Steinberg ASIO licensing agreement is signed by both parties.
- macOS: the RigSculpt plug-ins, standalone app and RigSculpt Workshop are available now.
- Linux: RigSculpt and RigSculpt Workshop are with a small group of testers. I am using their reports to resolve bugs before a public release. That release will still be RigSuite 0.99.
Before you install
Get RigSuite from my official Ko-fi download page and choose the package for your system. These steps apply to both a first installation and an update:
- Extract the ZIP completely. On Windows, right-click it and choose Extract All…; on macOS, double-click it in Finder. Open the extracted folder and run the installers there.
- Save and close first. Quit RigSculpt, Workshop and every DAW instance, including background REAPER processes. A DAW left open can keep the old plug-in loaded. Back up important presets and projects before updating.
- Windows: RigSculpt asks for administrator permission and installs for all users automatically. For Workshop, choose Install for all users if offered and you have administrator access; per-user installation is also supported.
- macOS: run RigSculpt's .pkg. For Workshop, open the .dmg, drag the app to Applications, and launch the installed copy. The Mac packages are signed and notarized.
- Reopen your DAW. Rescan plug-ins if RigSculpt does not appear; Logic and GarageBand may also need a restart. Check About to confirm the version loaded.
Windows SmartScreen: what to expect
The Windows installers are not currently code-signed. If you downloaded yours directly from my official Ko-fi page and SmartScreen shows the “Windows protected your PC” unrecognized-app notice, choose More info, check the installer, then Run anyway if offered.
If the message names a detected threat or offers no way to continue, send me the exact message. The field guide explains this notice, with a link to Microsoft's documentation.
Full installation steps, system requirements and first launch →
ARTIFICER: an amp you can play, open up and change
ARTIFICER is RigSculpt's new adjustable amp engine. Its controls reach into the gain stages, tone network, power section and the way those parts interact.
Start with one of 18 house recipes, ranging from clean and edge-of-breakup sounds through crunch and saturated lead. Each has its own head, playing controls and circuit choices. The high-gain houses carry an ATTACK choice (CLASSIC keeps the earlier response, PRECISE firms the attack under high gain), and Obsidian adds a MID SCOOP knob that cuts the 750 Hz band before the power section. The scrollable library groups them by character, and REFERENCE gives a short introduction to the amp that inspired a study.
Find it: In RIG VIEW, open AMP, choose ARTIFICER AMP MODEL in the MODE selector, then press DESIGNER. You can also open the Designer from an Artificer block in FLEX.
The amp itself is the interface
The Designer opens on FRONT, with the controls you would reach for while playing. Switch views when you want to understand or change what is behind them:
| View | What you can do |
|---|---|
| LIBRARY | Browse house recipes and your saved MINE amps, or start NEW AMP. |
| FRONT | Play and adjust the amp, edit its panel, and choose its appearance. |
| REAR | Inspect the output assembly, supply and electrical load choices. |
| OPEN CHASSIS | Explore the topside and underside. Hover to identify a part, then click it to open the relevant controls. |
| BUILD SHEET | Review the whole design and its component choices in one place. |
Adjust the things that shape an amp's response: gain stages and coupling, tone-stack placement, clipping, the output stage, feedback and supply behavior. Available choices follow the design you are working on. ALL COMPONENTS returns to the full inspector after selecting a part.
The Designer's electrical load affects how the amp responds. Your acoustic speaker and cabinet sound still comes from the separate CAB IR section.
Compare a change before you commit to it
AUDITION A/B, four design snapshots and UNDO let you keep a useful starting point while you experiment. Designer audition slots compare two designs; they are separate from the rig's stereo amp paths. SAVE AS MINE adds your amp to the library. Save a full rig preset when you also want to keep the effects, cabinets and routing around it.
NEW AMP: building an amp of your own, one stage at a time
LIBRARY > NEW AMP starts with a complete, playable circuit. You can hear what you are changing throughout the build, with a few essential choices at each stage and MORE DETAIL when you want to go deeper.
- Input
- Gain
- Tone
- Power
- Supply
- Output
- Finish
You can open the full front panel or inspect the chassis while building. BUILD GUIDE returns to the stage you left, so trying a control does not mean abandoning the workflow.
Arrange the controls you use
EDIT PANEL lets you move, size, label, hide and restore supported controls. Right-click the face to add a control. If it needs a circuit feature your amp does not yet have, the Designer explains the change before ADD CIRCUIT & CONTROL applies it.
On Scorch's stock panel, MAIN, GAIN and VOICING group the controls so you can focus on one part of the amp at a time.
Choose the head's materials
FINISH & MATERIALS combines the grille, metal face, cabinet and trim, model badge and knobs independently. Mix the available artwork and materials, then choose the spacing and finish that suit your panel.
The badge can carry your own text. These visual choices leave the sound alone.
FLEX: arranging the signal path yourself
RIG VIEW remains the straightforward starting point. CHAIN VIEW lets you see that rig as blocks, then move into an editable board when you want more control.
| Where you are | What is playing |
|---|---|
| RIG VIEW | The fixed rig, organized into familiar effect sections and amp controls. |
| CHAIN VIEW · FIXED | That same fixed rig, displayed as a signal path with selectable blocks. |
| CHAIN VIEW · FLEX | Your separately retained, editable routing. Add, move and combine blocks here. |
Press COPY FIXED to bring the current fixed rig into FLEX. It replaces the FLEX board with a copy; subsequent changes belong to each rig separately. The status line tells you which is playing, and a preset remembers its routing mode.
Building the route
- Add blocks at the + insertion points and drag them into position.
- Use repeated effects, individual drive or reverb voices, and per-block settings.
- Split into parallel paths with Y, L/R, crossover or A/B routing, then set lane levels and pans.
- Use SEND / RETURN for external routes when the corresponding DAW buses are connected.
Utility-order guidance
Adding or moving an input utility can suggest the order HUSH > NOISE FILTER > DESCENT > PICKUP. The dialog explains its suggestion and offers your original position or the option to disable guidance. Recalling a saved board does not rearrange it.
The NOISE GATE button opens deeper NAM gate controls, with BACK TO BLOCK returning to the selected island.
NAM blocks bring their slot's architecture, gate and partner tools with them. Building a stereo NAM pair can create the second lane directly on the FLEX board. The OUT terminal gives the board a clear place for its output controls.
The parametric EQ: eight bands for either amp or the whole rig
The new PARAMETRIC EQ gives each band its own frequency, gain, width and filter shape. Choose bells, low and high shelves, notches, or low and high cuts with selectable slopes. Use it to remove a troublesome frequency, reshape the low end or balance two amps.
Find it: Press EQ in the fixed rig's signal strip, or add a PARAMETRIC EQ block in FLEX.
Drag a numbered point to change frequency and gain, use the wheel for Q, or type an exact value. Right-click a point or band tile to bypass that band. The compact CHAIN editor uses the same visual language and controls.
- AMP A / AMP B: independent post-amp EQ, before amp panning and mixing. AMP B appears with stereo amps enabled.
- RIG: shapes the combined amp signal before the cabinets.
- FLEX: place EQ blocks wherever your routing needs them, including one on each amp lane.
The NAM head's existing EQ sliders remain an interacting voicing tool. Artificer's optional internal graphic EQ belongs to the amp design. This new block adds independent parametric shaping around either type of amp.
Input cleanup: HUSH, NOISE FILTER and DESCENT
The existing input tools have been refined around quiet playing, changing noise floors and the way a pick attack reaches the amp. They are gathered in UTIL, with individual utility blocks available in FLEX.
HUSH: harmonic hum and buzz
HUSH learns a fuller set of hum harmonics and follows changes more effectively, helping remove buzz beneath the playing. Run LEARN again after updating to refresh an older profile.
NOISE FILTER: AUTO or MANUAL
AUTO follows the rig's noise floor across frequency regions. MANUAL adds a learned idle-noise profile: stay silent and press LEARN for its three-second measurement. The aim is to reduce noise while leaving quiet notes room to speak.
The Noise Filter's manual profile belongs to the session and needs relearning after a host reset or sample-rate change. Noise and wanted notes can share frequencies, so compare carefully rather than assuming more cleanup always sounds better.
DESCENT: clearer handling of quiet input and attacks
The experimental down-tuner improves quiet-signal tracking and attack handling. Choose the target tuning, then use VOICING and STABILITY to find the response that suits the part. Lower tunings and complex playing still deserve a listening check.
Advanced gate access is also available from CHAIN VIEW. In FLEX, that inspector serves the NAM A/B gates; it is not a separate gate block for an Artificer lane.
Stereo NAM rigs, Synergize and the amp routing controls
Synergize and the existing partner tools are easier to reach from either view. The shared sidebar carries the SYNERGIZE switch and A/B influence control, while the NAM head and paired CHAIN blocks show their linked state.
See what Synergize is changing
SYNERGIZE INSIGHTS offers EQ CHANGES and MEASURED + EQ. You can inspect the corrections or see them applied to the models' stored measured shapes. The display describes the NAM stage; it excludes the separate parametric EQ, cabinets and effects.
Your manual input settings remain yours when you adjust Synergize or recall a preset. The system's drive correction is applied separately.
Synergize needs suitable measurements for both NAMs. It does not analyze an Artificer pair, and INSIGHTS is a predicted response from stored measurements, not a live spectrum analyzer.
Amp routing belongs with the amps
AMP STEREO, STEREO IN, AMP A PAN and AMP B PAN now sit with the amp controls. The NAM head's INPUT LINK links manual input edits by the same dB change while preserving their offset. Cabinet blend and cabinet pan remain in the cabinet section.
MATCH B TO A and SET OUTPUT TO TARGET have separate jobs: matching a fixed NAM pair changes only B's output trim to follow A; the output target sets the final rig level. FLEX balances its paths with lane controls.
AFTERGLOW pads and effect tails
AFTERGLOW already lets you hold a pad while playing over it. In 0.99, the pad owns its SHIMMER amount and octave/fifth interval, and retains the tone captured with it. Changing a preset no longer borrows a new delay voice to recolor the held sound.
Held pads and outgoing delay/reverb tails now follow you between FIXED and FLEX and across replacement boards. The previous sound can finish while the new rig takes over your playing. Live delay bypass also lets its repeats decay.
With several delays in FLEX, right-click the delay you want and choose Use for AFTERGLOW capture. That makes the source explicit. You can release or clear the pad when finished; the looper remains a separate tool.
Choose how much tail continuity to keep
Open Settings > Workflow > TAILS:
- Auto: full tails through 48 kHz, with a short handoff at higher sample rates.
- On: full tails at every rate, with more processing demand during changes.
- Short fade: a brief handoff when you prefer lower transition overhead.
This is a preference for the computer, separate from a preset's effect settings.
Level-matched bypass has also been corrected for very wet delay and reverb settings, so switching an effect off no longer takes the dry signal down to silence.
MIDI control and recall
MIDI control gains Follow CC state alongside latch and momentary behavior. A controller value from 0 to 63 switches off; 64 to 127 switches on. This suits controllers that already track their own switch state.
- Choose the FLEX target. Use a block's Use for MIDI on/off menu action to decide which instance a generic effect mapping controls.
- Keep your pedal switches across recalls. The per-family Keep FX on/off across recalls preference lets you retain a live switch state when selecting your presets. It is off by default.
- Keep assignments saved. MIDI-map saving retains unsaved edits, retries a failed write and reports a persistence problem in the MIDI menu.
The smaller improvements
Navigation and readability
The main navigation is RIG VIEW, CHAIN VIEW, NAM LIBRARY and CAB LIBRARY. Clearer A/B badges, knob markings, active-effect lighting and consistent island styling help you read the rig. Drag resizing snaps to a supported size.
A tutorial built around the current interface
About > Tutorial starts with why RigSuite exists, then walks through routing, ARTIFICER, the NAM library, effects and setup. It opens the relevant pages and uses a bundled NAM example, while preserving your working rig.
Processing where it is needed
Flat or bypassed EQ bands avoid unnecessary processing. Eligible stereo NAM pairs in FLEX can use the same concurrent model processing as FIXED. The effect on CPU depends on the rig and computer.
ARTIFICER starts in Performance quality when no preference is saved. Studio remains available in Settings > Performance. Read the status caption; a pending quality change needs an audio reset or reopening to take effect.
- Faster browsing: cabinet and reverb libraries read and reuse their file information more efficiently.
- Preference preservation: stronger saving protects favorites, calibration and MIDI assignments when settings change.
- SÉANCE: an optional V2 engine offers revised sweep behavior, with V1 retained for existing sounds.
The additions on this page are in RigSculpt. RigSculpt Workshop keeps its existing analysis workflow in this release, continuing to provide measurements for the NAM and IR library tools.
Where to start
- Play a house amp. Choose ARTIFICER AMP MODEL, open DESIGNER, and pick a recipe from LIBRARY. Make a snapshot before changing a component.
- Shape the result. Open EQ and try a broad cut. If you use two amps, compare editing an individual amp bank with editing RIG.
- Open the routing. In CHAIN VIEW, use COPY FIXED, switch to FLEX and add a block. Keep an eye on the status line so you know which rig is playing.
When updating
Start with Before you install for ZIP extraction, installer choices and Windows SmartScreen.
0.99 is out for Windows and macOS. Choose the package for your system on Ko-fi. The macOS standalone is available; the Windows standalone and public Linux packages are held as described in platform availability.
Mac users: the 0.99 plug-in needs macOS 12 or later. 0.98 was the last release for macOS 11. The 0.99 installer checks and will not install there, so your 0.98 stays in place. The Workshop still needs an Apple Silicon Mac on macOS 14 or newer.
Close RigSculpt and every DAW process before installing an update. Keep copies of important presets and projects, refresh HUSH's learned profile, and review your quality preferences. For ARTIFICER, saved recipes and values are preserved wherever possible as the engine continues to develop.