Neural DSP models John Mayer’s entire amp and effects rig—and it sounds great

Guitarists today are spoiled for choice, and that goes doubly true for players who use computer-based amp modeling software. I’m one such player, and I don’t miss the size, weight, deafening volume, or cost of owning an amp and cabinet collection, to say nothing of all those pedals and cables. For clean to mid-gain tones alone, I already have more terrific options than I need, including Neural DSP’s Tone King and Cory Wong and Mateus Asato, Polychrome DSP’s Lumos, and Universal Audio’s new Paradise Guitar Studio. All work slightly differently, but they can each output record-ready tones that are really, really close to the (often incredibly expensive) hardware that they model, and they each give you plenty of great-sounding presets to start from.

So do we really need one amp sim package?

Neural DSP thinks we do, because the Finnish company just dropped a major new release yesterday called Archetype: John Mayer X. It doesn’t model Mayer’s type of gear but his actual hardware units, along with all the actual settings he uses in the studio and on stage. It even has some presets that he designed. Which is great if you want to sound like John Mayer—but what does the software offer for those of us not trying to cover Continuum?

To find out, I spent a few hours playing with Mayer X, and I came away impressed. Neural DSP has released so many metal amp sims in the last few years that I’ve come to associate the company with downtuned chugga-chugga. Don’t get me wrong: I like long hair, skulls, and palm-muted riffs as much as the next person, but it’s nice to have some variety.

Mayer X brings that variety by modeling three of Mayer’s amps: a 1964 Fender Vibroverb, a Dumble Steel String Singer #002, and a not-yet-released prototype Two-Rock. Each amp also comes with a model of its associated speaker cabinet, in front of which you can freely position zero, one, or two microphones to shape the recorded sound and to control the room tone as desired.

This is standard practice for Neural DSP’s “Archetypes” line, but one wrinkle is the new “three-in-one amp” mode that blends the sounds from all amps at once. Here’s the marketing speak: “It merges all three amps and their matching cabinets with Mayer’s exact settings, mic placements, and EQ decisions, creating a unified, dimensional sound that reflects his full signal path without requiring individual amp balancing.” In this mode, each amp gets a single knob, but you are always free to turn this off and use one particular amp instead, which exposes more controls for that unit.

Also new here is an effect that Neural calls the “Gravity Tank.” This effects unit combines Mayer’s “favorite spring reverb” with the harmonic tremolo found in the Victoria Reverberato. It sounds great; while I like spring reverbs for character, especially on guitar parts, some are a bit too “drippy” for me. And although this one definitely sounds like a spring, it’s subtle and spacious rather than clangy or overly metallic, and the tremolo—which you can sync to your DAW’s tempo—sounds terrific too.

Instead of a compressor pedal at the front of the amp, as in many Neural DSP plugins, the Mayer X Archetype features a rack-mounted compressor (this one is modeled off the famous Distressor) that comes after the amp. The controls are much simpler than a real Distressor, but under the hood, Neural says that it is using “Mayer’s exact attack, release, and sidechain settings”; users, however, only need to spin the Input and Output dials.

Above the compressor is an EQ, but unlike Neural’s usual practice, this is not a multiband graphic EQ. Instead, it’s a four-band semi-parametric EQ with knobs rather than sliders, plus a high-pass and low-pass filter. The EQ is said to “balance the naturally full low end of [Mayer’s] amplifiers.”

There are effects pedals here, too—five are up front, before the amps. You get a volume boost pedal meant especially to thicken the tone of single-coil pickups like those found on Fender Stratocasters or PRS Silver Sky guitars (which Mayer also helped design). Then you get an “antelope filter” that provides a sort of auto-wah effect; usually, I hate these sorts of things, but this one sounds good enough that I could see myself using it on lead lines without feeling like I’m some kind of ’70s funk refugee.

After that come two drive pedals that are modeled on the Klon Centaur, the Ibanez TS-10, and the Marshall Bluesbreaker MK1. That’s right: You get three effects units jammed into two virtual pedals, because one of the pedals has a toggle switch to offer two different tones.

Finally, there’s a bucket brigade delay meant largely for slapback echoes, while a separate post-amp effects section offers more traditional delay and reverb (both hall and plate) for space.

While you won’t find this exact gear and these exact settings elsewhere, several of the amp simulation suites mentioned at the top of this piece provide plenty of “ballpark” options. (Paradise Guitar Studio, for instance, also models a Klon Centaur pedal and offers boost pedals and even more overdrive pedal options, along with spring reverb and bucket brigade delays.)

Whether you need (or “need”) Mayer X depends on just what other gear you have and what kind of tone you’re chasing. To me, the presets in Mayer X sound just slightly more modern than Paradise Guitar Studio, which especially emphasizes “classic” rock sounds from the ’60s to the ’90s. And Mayer X offers so many more amps and effects than Neural DSP’s Tone King, which I previously used for some of these sorts of sounds.

One of the best things about this package is that it is not “hyped” to sound over the top in standalone guitar demos, which is why its sounds fit so well into mixes. Reverb, delay, tremolo, boost, and drive are subtle and judicious, as is compression. Nearly everything is usable if you play anywhere in the pop/blues/rock/funk landscape. Even effects like freeze delay and the antelope filter—two types of effects that generally feel irrelevant or gimmicky to me—here inspire actual creativity. This is my personal taste talking—yours may differ—but the entire Mayer X package offers tone colors I would actually use in projects rather than garish neons that sound “impressive” but are unlikely to work as-is in any given song.

So if you’re looking for Mayer’s brand of smooth-but-full blues-inspired leads or his edge of breakup rhythm tones, John Mayer X is certainly a good way to get it in one package. This doesn’t feel like a cash-in, either; the quality and variety is immediately apparent, especially in new or custom bits like the boost pedal, the antelope filter, the Gravity Tank, and the “three-in-one” amp.

Just to see what I could do with almost no tweaking, I played around with presets for a couple of hours and came up with this short demo that features rhythm, double-tracked rhythm, filtered, overdriven rhythm, and delayed lead sounds. I even laid down a little bass (Mayer X does include a few bass-specific presets to get you started). To me, everything works well right out of the box, and the sounds blend well with each other (and with bass/drum tracks) in the mix, something not always true of presets. A little EQ and some mild master bus processing, and I ended up with the demo below:

Redditors who have played with the plugin so far seem impressed. “Absolutely blown away. Every single amp, mic, cab and pedal option is usable and sounds amazing,” wrote one.

“I’m a mostly clean-to-slight-crunch player, and this is by FAR the most plug-in-and-get-great-sounds-out-of-it NDSP plugin for that style that I’ve tried,” wrote another.

But they also echo my chief complaint. The downside of all these guitar sim plugins is that they are getting increasingly expensive. Universal Audio’s recent Paradise Guitar Studio claims a full price of $199 (I say “claims” because most of the company’s products are on sale most of the time). John Mayer X is going for €169 + tax in the US ($198 at current currency rates), and even more in Europe, while Neural DSP’s previous Archetype, the Misha Mansoor X, is only €125 ($146). Perhaps in this Archetype, the “X” stands for “expensive”?

That’s a lot of scratch for a plugin, though of course this one models gear worth many thousands of dollars and is far cheaper than buying modeling hardware like Neural DSP’s own Quad Cortex. (Those inclined to wait may be able to pick up Mayer X during one of Neural DSP’s biannual sales, often at 50 percent off.) And this one certainly sounds great.

If you’re one of those who suffer from gear acquisition syndrome (GAS), potent in both its physical and digital forms, these $150–$200 plugins add up quickly. Buy four or five and you’re into some real money! So if you already have other clean to mid-gain amp sims that work well for you, wisdom might suggest making your peace with what you have rather than looking for incremental improvements every time a new plugin appears. (There’s always a 14-day trial if you want to test Mayer X first.)

But if you’re newer to the amp sim market or have money to blow on your hobby or just love Mayer’s tones, Mayer X is certainly a wonderful place to start. Will you sound like Mayer? Probably not, given how much “tone” actually resides in the fingers, but you will get a great creative toolkit for bringing out the best in your own sound.

The real takeaway here is that technology has made it an amazing time to be a guitar player. We’re blessed for choices, and those choices get better every day.