“We are big fans of tube amplifiers. There’s no substitute for playing an amp in a room”: From amps to plugins, Tosin Abasi teases the next evolution of Abasi Concepts

As the creative powerhouse behind both Animals as Leaders and Abasi Concept, Tosin Abasi has helped to redefine the contemporary guitar landscape.

As the CEO of Abasi Concepts, he's continuing to push the boundaries of what a guitar can sound and look like. Naturally, with the brand recently expanding its wares to pedals, any tone conversation nowadays would be remiss not to include amp modelers and plugins.

“Abasi Concepts was always meant to be an umbrella encompassing more than just guitar design,” Abasi tells Premier Guitar.

“We’re interested in solutions across the board. And part of the fun of having the company is that we get to manifest the things we wish existed.

Abasi also has a high-profile collaboration with Neural DSP in the form of the Archetype: Abasi plugin suite, which in turn could influence some of Abasi Concepts' own output in the future.

“We’d love to have an offering in each of those spaces,” he teases. “Software is a territory that we have not really stepped into yet, but it is clearly of such utility that it would make sense.

“But Ivan [Chopik, Abasi Concepts COO] and I are both big fans of tube amplifiers,” Abasi admits. “There’s no substitute for playing an amp in a room. So the amp thing has been a conversation.”

In a Guitar World interview earlier this year, Abasi shared his thoughts on amp modelers – explaining that, for him, it’s very much “a [case-by-case] scenario depending on the gig.

“There are times I will use modelers, and there are fantastic companies like Neural DSP [who make them],” he divulges. “They cloned my tube rig and it's shocking [how good it is]. Our feeling is that modelers are basically perfect, especially at the end of the chain, when you're hearing a mixed record or a mixed band.

“But there's nothing that defeats the experience of plugging into an amp and a cab in the room. And it's not knocking modelers, it's just saying there's literally physical differences between how the sound is being produced. So for me, it's like a love of both, right? It's like, I still like engines but [electric vehicles] have their place.”

Abasi’s band, Animals as Leaders, has just been announced as the sole support act for the SatchVai Band’s maiden U.S. tour.