Melda MGuitarArchitect

With up to four parallel chains available, you’re free to design pretty much any amp and effects chain imaginable.

Melda’s MGuitarArchitect is available separately or as part of the company’s various bundles, and includes all the company’s existing MTurboAmp and MCabinet devices (those who already have these plug‑ins can upgrade at a discounted price). As with other Melda plug‑ins, it’s available for both macOS and Windows, and supports AAX, AU and VST (2 and 3) plug‑in hosts. As well as boasting impressively flexible routing options, it comes with a large selection of amps, miked cabinets, studio processors and effects pedal emulations.

Of course, the world isn’t short of guitar amp emulations, so what makes this one worth investigating? Well, what’s most different about this one is its Chain section: the input signal can feed up to four 16‑slot signal chains, which are arranged as four vertical columns of cells, and the fourth of these can be used for side‑chaining. Clicking on an unoccupied space gives you the option to populate it with an amp and/or overdrive plus stompbox effects, studio effects or utility effects, all of which are organised by category. You could, in theory, run anything up to 64 effects in various series/parallel combinations across the four chains.