Best Artist Signature Plugins for Heavy Music: Gojira, Plini, and More

Last Updated on February 7, 2025 by IDS Team

This roundup of the best artist signature plugins for heavy music is a mixed bag. We’ve tried to go broad, because there’s loads of great, underrated stuff out there. Artist signature plugins are always a really good idea if you want to emulate the sound of a specific sound or band. However, it’s often the case that they don’t cater to metalheads as much as for others on the genre. Like everything, metal often requires some specialist research to find the right gear for your production. 

That’s why we’ve done the work for you and picked 5 exciting signature plugins, both well known and lesser known. These are not just your average free metal vst guitar players may use in a pinch, these are some of the most lovingly crafted emulations available. There’s not quite something for every genre of meta here, but we’ve tried our best to round up a broad variety. So, read on. 

Best For Guitar Focus – Neural DSP Artist Signature (Archetype Range): Plini 

We’ve covered this plugin before in a different context, but we’re bringing it up again as it’s one of the best and most exciting for shred-influenced guitarists on the market. Neural DSP and Plini are a match made in heaven. The company is known for their high-quality and finessed plugins suitable for heavier and more technical guitar styles, so we weren’t disappointed when they came out with this. It’s been on the market for a while now, but Plini remains still one of the most novel new technical guitarists, and for those wanting to emulate his style, this has everything at your fingertips. 

The Neural DSP Archetype: Plini Contains

• Metronome and tuner
• Transpose
• Doubler
• Multidimensional reverb with space and decay controls
• Updated digital delay and tape modulation
• Chorus modulator
• Cabsim and IR loader
• EQ
• Lead, crunch, and clean amps
• Delay, drive, octaver and compressor pedals 

Compatibility: 64-bit VST2 / VST3 / AU / AAX / Standalone. Latest OS Compatibility for Windows & Mac, including Native Apple Silicon.

Find it HERE. 

Best Overall – Archetype: Gojira Signature and Archetype Series

This is another signature plugin from Neural DSP, who are one of the best spots for high quality and unique metal plugins on the internet. We’ve covered it before, in our list of the top plugins for metal guitar specifically, but we think it deserves another mention. 

If Plini isn’t your thing or you’re not into shred and technically guitar but instead want to go all out with some classic modern metal, this is the one for you. Whilst emulating Joe Duplantier pretty well – it would, given the average quality of Neural DSP products – it’s actually a great all round plugin for crisp modern metal and can be applicable to a range of projects and influences beyond what you might expect. 

The rest of the archetype series also features artists such as John Petrucci of Dream Theatre and Tom Morello of RATM. However, we’ve chosen to cover this one again for it’s global modern metal appeal, but also the creativity of the effects which have the potential to go far beyond just Gojira-inspired metal.

The Neural DSP Archetype: Gojira Contains

• Midi programmable pitch shifter and polyphonic octave shifter
• Overdrive, distortion, phaser, and chorus pedal
• Clean, rust (crunch amp) and hot (hi gain amp) designed with joe duplantier himself 
• EQ, cabsim and IR loader
• Link/unlink allows you to exchange amp heads and cabs
• Tape sat delay and dark reverb
• Transpose and doubler
• Tuner and metronome 
• Ability to run as a standalone plugin 

System requirements: 64-bit VST2 / VST3 / AU / AAX / Standalone. Latest OS Compatibility for Windows & Mac, including Native Apple Silicon.

Find it HERE. 

Best Artist Plugins For Heavy Music Guitarist Edition: Spiritbox Signature 

Spiritbox is one of the artists whose sound encapsulates some of the most crucial trends in modern metal – clean, cutting sounds, efficient and tight production, and groovy, heavy djent inspired riffs that pull everything tightly together. 

Mike Stringer has teamed up with MixWave for this plugin and we’re glad he did. Influenced in part by electronic sounds which he blends carefully with his djent influences, you don’t have to be a fan of Stringer himself to benefit from the versatility of this signature plugin as it accounts for something not a huge amount of metal plugins do – the increasing amount of artists who are willing to use nontraditional elements to refine their sound. 

Electronic influences in metal have been around since the time of rage against the machine, but getting them down pat is sometimes tricker than it sounds, and choosing tones that complement and enhance this is one of the best things about this plugin. 

In short, it’s a neat way of getting more of the necessary ‘mix glue’ that you may need whenc combining influences and it’s a valuable guide in doing this if you’re struggling with how to do so. 

The Spiritbox – Mark Stringer Signature Plugin Contains:

• Lead, rhythm, and clean amps
• Drive, delay, chorus, ring mod, and reverb pedals
• 21 mic options on a two speker amp 
• EQ, comp, transpose, focus, and contour 
• Super intuitive rearrangeable signal chain for easy production 

Find it HERE. 

Best Artist Signature Plugins For Heavy Music – Package Edition: Plugin Boutique: Metal Signature Pack 

The metal signature pack from plugin boutique may be one of the more generic metal signature plugins on this list, but what it lacks in terms of niche appeal, it makes up for in terms of variety. This actually carries signature tones from 2 metal heavyweights, Jeff Loomis and Keith Merrow. Between them, we’re quite impressed at the creativity of the options that the minds behind it have generated.

What The Plugin Boutique: Metal Signature Pack Contains:

• 2 high gain Keith Merrow Amps, Fire and 5153
• 2 Jeff Loomis Amps, The Loomis Metal Hi Gain and the Loomis 120 Acoustic Amp 
• 2 keith Merrow pedals, the gte and drive
• 2 Jeff loomis pedals, the EQ and OD 

What’s more, if you purchase through Positive Grid, you’ll get: 

• Frostburn Fire Hi Gain amp and frostburn ice acoustic amp 
• Frostburn chorus mod pedal and frostburn delay pedal. 

System requirements: requires a BIAS FX software license, otherwise system requirements are the same as other BIAS FX plugins.

Find it HERE. 

Best Artist Signature Plugins For Heavy Music: Alt Metal Pick – STL Tonality – Thy Art Is Murder 

Will Putney is a powerful but underrated name in metal, but if alt-metal and metalcore is your thing, you may have probably heard his sound without realizing it. Based out of his own New Jersey Studio, he has worked with acts like Thy Art Is Murder, Every Time I Die, and Body Count, and has had a huge and intrinsic influence on the sound and development of modern metalcore, leaving his sonic signature all over the genre. 

This plugin has 5 cabinets and a stellar pedalboard that includes everything you need for the crisp and high-energy sounds the world has grown to love from him.

The STL Tonality – Thy Art Is Murder Signature Plugin Contains:

• Entire setup of will putney’s studio, including: modeling of his amps, pedals, cabs, summing mixer, and master eq module
• 100 of will putney’s unique tones, including both guitar and bass with specific amp and cab settings
• 6 amp models
• 3 pedals including one personalised distortion never before available in plugin format
• EQ module
• Dual amp and cab mixer
• Separate cabinet mixer

System Requirements: The plugin comes in 64-bit VST / AU / AAX formats; Latest OS Compatibility for Windows & Mac, including Native Apple Silicon; Minimum Requirements Mac OS 10.9 or Windows 7; STL Licensing System, no iLok account required; 3 activations available per user.

Find it HERE. 

Final Thoughts

The power of artist signature packs is that they are very often some of the more unique plugins on the market. Having the love and care of someone who has worked tirelessly in their niche behind a simple VST elevates the concept to the next level, and in ranking the best artist signature plugins for heavy music, we have tried to take this into account.

Whilst not everyone may be able to emulate the sounds or the innovation of these masters, signature plugins are also fantastic ways to combine both the art and the science of production to figure out the nitty gritty of what makes someone sound the way they do. An essential part of the process of crafting your own tone, we hope these five will offer a snapshot across multiple heavy subgenres to channel both the power and passion these musicians have right to your DAW. 

And, if you love unique gear, check out our articles on both underrated hardware and software, such as this one and this one.