Worship Guitar Essentials 2.0 (with a nod to 2.1) mini review

Worship Guitar Essenitals

Worship Guitar Essentials was reviewed by a friend when on version 1. Since then this concert for MainStage has been upgraded and improved steadily by the creators over at That Worship Sound.

I have used version 2.0 of Worship Essentials (with MainStage 3.4.2). There are a range of guitar options (from single coil to humbucker). There is an increased range of amps and improved controls across the pedalboard. All of this can be controlled with a foot controller.

There are so many options within Worship Guitar Essentials (on/off - tap tempo - double delay controls - several pedals from overdrives to vibe to reverb to delay and compression) that you'd need something like the Behringer FCB1010 which has 10 foot pedals (although you can assign more than 10 patches to those pedals) and two volume/wah type assignable pedals. You'll need all of the assigning you can get!

Sound quality is excellent from the clean sound to the settings created. The overdrives (often the place where sound quality can fail in any pedal or digital interface) are certainly much better than the in-built overdrives to MainStage which are average at best.

I don't use MainStage 3 live with guitar. I know some people do, like I believe one of the guitarists at iHop KC. I would be concerned about latency type issues (which would be admittedly be minimal if using something like a Focusrite or a Gio Apogee) and just prefer a pedalboard in front of me on the floor. 

Other people have very useful tips to manage MainStage 3 playing live (for example click here for 13 tips from a guy called John Mike). 

The good thing about the Worship Essentials series generally is it uses minimal processing power with lots of buses used rather than loaded channels. If you keep your sound fairly basic (don't use too many pedals) you'll always be good to go!

Remember this is good for electrics and for bass!

For recording and home use or practice, this would be outstanding for anyone - this is how I've used it. And for $40 US (so about £32) it's a great value and updated product.

This is version 2.0 where I was using a 'rhythm matchless' preset. It's nice to have varied electrics which are definitely different and I'd say quite accurate in my limited experience. There are also varied bass guitars and a couple of acoustic guitar settings too.

Below is a screenshot of version 2.1 with the added drones and no guitar plugged in.

All in all, a highly recommended worship guitar concert!!