Waves Maserati GTi Guitar Toner

This is part of Waves’ bundle of “Maserati” plugins, which were developed in collaboration with the award winning mixer Tony Maserati (Sting, David Bowie, Beyonce, etc). They basically synthesise his favourite chains of audio processing for specific tasks. While I have no idea what hardware was used to arrive at the sound of these “Maserati” plugins, they certainly do sound very professional and lively.

The Guitar Toner is for refining electric guitar or even electric piano sounds, whether clean of distorted. It’s neither an amp modeller nor a distortion box, so it’s best to look elsewhere for that (perhaps Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig). Instead it’s for adding sheen and colour to the basic sound that you have already got cooking.

The controls are very easy to use. The modes available are: Clean, Clean Chorus, Heavy, Thick Rhythm and Soft Flange. All modes have a Presence dial and a Tame dial (basically compression – Think Rhythm doesn’t have this for some reason though)

Anyway, I use this plugin mainly on the “Clean” setting just to give my source material a subtle boost and airiness, and it works a treat. Although as I’ve already said the Guitar Toner is not an amp modeller, it does make your audio sound more like it’s coming out of an amp, if that makes sense.

It’s not a perfect plugin but based on the amount I end up using this I have to say, it’s pretty damn good.