S-Gear

S-Gear separates the guitar rig into an amplifier, a pedalboard, and a reorderable stereo rack. Its five amp designs cover distinct approaches: Custom '57 emphasizes a simple tweed-like power-stage response, The Duke targets touch-sensitive medium gain, The Stealer offers a hot-rodded British-style route, The Jackal supplies a higher-gain alternative, and The Wayfarer combines American-style clean and lead channels with additional shaping.

The rack is not merely a fixed effects tail. DelayThing, ModThing, RoomThing, and ProConvolver can be repositioned, with neighboring effects placed in parallel when appropriate. The amplifier feeds a mono result into the rack, but the rack itself preserves stereo through-paths. Two amp configurations can share a preset and the same rack, useful for changing the core guitar sound without rebuilding its ambience.

Begin with the amp and cabinet, balance input drive against output level, and refine the power-stage controls before adding effects. Pedal output level also changes how hard the amp is driven. The linked documentation is the v3.2 Draft A manual, including Drive thru, SG-S Compressor, and Wah Thing; the entry follows that documented feature set.

Manual, The S-Gear Amps, pp. 19–27; The S-Gear Pedalboard, pp. 31–37; The S-Gear Rack, pp. 38–40.

Amp selection and dynamics

Select Amp chooses the design; Amp A/B recalls two amp configurations inside the same preset. The amp VU meter shows the level entering the rack. Common power-stage controls include Presence, Presence Frequency, Hi-Cut, and Sag: they adjust upper-frequency feedback, its tuning, dynamic treble reduction, and supply-like compression. Lower Sag favors a firmer response; higher Sag makes the power stage more yielding.

• Custom '57: Volume drives the amp, Bright changes the bright contour, Bass shapes low frequencies, and Level trims the result without changing amp tone.
• The Wayfarer: select Clean / Lead I / Lead II; balance Gain, Lead Drive, and Amp Drive rather than treating them as interchangeable. Bright Frequency, Bass Shift, Mid Shift, and Lead Bright change the signal presented to the gain stages. Bass / Middle / Treble precede the lead drive stages. Its three-band Graphic EQ sits before the power amp. Tremolo Speed / Intensity and Normal / Harmonic / LDR modes supply integrated modulation.
• The Duke: Clean/Overdrive, overdrive voicing in Tweak, Boost, Bass, Bright, tone controls, and Amp Drive determine voicing and gain structure.
• The Stealer: Push, Bright Contour, Boost, Bass Shift, tone controls, and Amp Drive offer different ways to feed and shape its gain stages.
• The Jackal: Clean/Dirty, Boost, Bass Shift, Clean Bright, tone controls, and Amp Drive cover clean headroom through high-gain operation.

Gate and pedalboard

Gate Threshold, Release, Auto, and Floor set activation, closing speed, adaptive release, and residual level. Keep the threshold low enough to preserve attacks and the guitar's volume-knob dynamics.

Drive thru Gain / Tone / Level / Pre-Clip control clipping, frequency emphasis, amp-input level, and extra input-stage saturation. SG-S Input / Output / Ratio / Attack / Shape / Release balance compression and its two sidechain characters; turning Attack clockwise makes it faster. Wah Thing has Manual, Auto, and Wave modes. The first knob becomes pedal position, sensitivity, or rate/ratio; Offset / Range tailor the sweep, and Beat Sync follows the DAW in supported operation.

Configurable rack

Drag devices to change their order. A device's Parallel button pairs it with the unit above; Bypass removes its contribution. MIDI/automation also offers an input-mute bypass stage for retaining effect tails.

DelayThing uses S/M/L and delay time, Tap/Sync, Feedback, Mix, Tone, and mono/stereo/tap routing. Its Tube/BBD behavior changes the delay's coloration. ModThing selects Chorus or Flange, with Delay, Feedback, FB Phase, and Mix shaping the result.

RoomThing Size / Decay / HF Damp / LF Damp / Mix set space, duration, absorption, and balance. Hold sustains the current reverberation. Its Edit screen / Data control reaches modes, pre-delay, motion, damping frequencies, and resonance.

ProConvolver provides two cabinet/microphone channels with Activate, Phase, Bass / Treble EQ, Delay / x10, Z, Pan, and Level. Z adds the response of speaker impedance driven by a tube output stage. Stereo Slave links selected Channel 2 settings to Channel 1; DI retains channel processing without cabinet convolution. CABS bypasses cabinet processing globally.

Manual, Amps, pp. 19–27; Noise Gate, p. 30; Pedalboard, pp. 31–37; Rack, pp. 38–40; DelayThing, ModThing, RoomThing, and ProConvolver, pp. 41–53.