Hoping to get amp/cab captures in Fractal gear in the future, does that appeal to anyone?

[vangrieg]

The only reason that I see to use captures would be for a touring guitar played with a particular rig full of great amps, that he/she can't take on the road.

There’s that, but those touring acts are a tiny portion of the market I would bet.

Based on what I’ve seen through the years of using modelers and watching users asking questions, the much much bigger chunk of demand is people who are unsure what a good sound is, and have the impression that if only you’d get a snapshot of Hetfield’s amp you’d sound like Hetfield (or whoever).

There’s a whole industry of making and selling captures, preset packs and all that, somebody is buying all that stuff after all instead of turning a few knobs.

So big artists may do actual capturing, some YouTube influencers may do as well, and while they are a tiny fraction of actual users they move the demand in this direction.

 

[sprint]

I have little interest in amp captures. I tried ToneX, Neural DSP and Kemper and I got annoyed at the editing side of things. I would find a nice sound, like an overdriven Plexi, but if I tried to edit that sound, it didn't work like a real Plexi does.

Captures by definition (snapshot of settings) don't react to surrounding change like a real amp (or like white box'd amp models) - expecting them to would for sure be annoying as its an unrealistic expectation. They seem to tolerate some range of adjustment on my Tonex but beyond a certain point start sounding off to my ear. Maybe NAM does it better - dunno). This is why I much prefer modelling as I like to use drives, boosts, EQs before an amp to change its character in real time via foot switches. Tonex is cool for what it does currently, but imo pretty severely limited in this respect compared to white box modelling. Early days tho - maybe it'll improve - I keep wondering if IK will push to the obvious next step and include a drive/boost function that works effectively, but no news on that, probably because it may not be possible to do it accurately.

 

[stephanfm3]

I would find a nice sound, like an overdriven Plexi, but if I tried to edit that sound, it didn't work like a real Plexi does.

the trick with capturing is, to find a nice sound and edit it with all you want >before< capturing it.

 

[Shask]

Captures by definition (snapshot of settings) don't react to surrounding change like a real amp (or like white box'd amp models) - expecting them to would for sure be annoying as its an unrealistic expectation. They seem to tolerate some range of adjustment on my Tonex but beyond a certain point start sounding off to my ear. Maybe NAM does it better - dunno). This is why I much prefer modelling as I like to use drives, boosts, EQs before an amp to change its character in real time via foot switches. Tonex is cool for what it does currently, but imo pretty severely limited in this respect compared to white box modelling. Early days tho - maybe it'll improve - I keep wondering if IK will push to the obvious next step and include a drive/boost function that works effectively, but no news on that, probably because it may not be possible to do it accurately.

Even in Fractal I typically use pretty standard amp EQ settings and really tweak into my tone with an EQ after the amp. ToneX works for me because that is basically the same thing.

With my tube amps, I do the same thing. Always an EQ pedal in the loop to dial in my tone.

 

[Bobbyoso]

The other issue with captures is that unless the entire signal chain for using the capture is identical to the chain used to create it, the capture sounds different than was intended Different guitars, pickups, cabling, string gauge, amplification and speakers result in unintended sonic and tactile consequences. So if the "holy grail" Plexi capture was done using a Les Paul Custom, and you play a Silver Sky, you are clean outta luck hearing it as intended.

And WHEN that happens and you start twiddling knobs to "optimize" it, the gain, tone controls, etc don't work like they should; it's more like what AI photos do with human hands.

As a former developer, I want ALL the parameters to work as intended, and "black box" solutions don't, because the inputs affect the outputs, and if the inputs (the original gear creating the profile) are different from YOUR gear (the profile consumer), there's no mapping to make the outputs identical. You can't get there from here, as they say.

 

[sprint]

Even in Fractal I typically use pretty standard amp EQ settings and really tweak into my tone with an EQ after the amp. ToneX works for me because that is basically the same thing.

With my tube amps, I do the same thing. Always an EQ pedal in the loop to dial in my tone.

+1 - it's the drive stacker, booster peeps that would be more prone to run into issues with captures.

 

[swiss studio]

The other issue with captures is that unless the entire signal chain for using the capture is identical to the chain used to create it, the capture sounds different than was intended Different guitars, pickups, cabling, string gauge, amplification and speakers result in unintended sonic and tactile consequences. So if the "holy grail" Plexi capture was done using a Les Paul Custom, and you play a Silver Sky, you are clean outta luck hearing it as intended.

And WHEN that happens and you start twiddling knobs to "optimize" it, the gain, tone controls, etc don't work like they should; it's more like what AI photos do with human hands.

As a former developer, I want ALL the parameters to work as intended, and "black box" solutions don't, because the inputs affect the outputs, and if the inputs (the original gear creating the profile) are different from YOUR gear (the profile consumer), there's no mapping to make the outputs identical. You can't get there from here, as they say.

I will never understand why some people don’t want options. Cliff is offering NAM support on next gen because some users want it. They won’t have to spend ressources to develop their own tech so using this open source format is very clever AND NAM is SOTA for now. So everybody will benefit fr this great announcement. In addition Cliff stated that he will prioritize white box modeling approach and won’t stop innovating on this part. SO WHAT THE HELL THE NEED TO ARGUE ONE THAT?! Maybe some of you guys should spend more time playing and practicing. Peace

 

[sprint]

So if the "holy grail" Plexi capture was done using a Les Paul Custom, and you play a Silver Sky, you are clean outta luck hearing it as intended.

I'm not sure this is correct as I understood that captures (in Tonex at least) are based on the IK pre prepared series of sounds that one can hear the process digest for a few minutes during capture. I don't think the guitar used is even taken into account during capture other than for level setting - afaik, its derived from the target device' settings + IK's standard amalgam of sounds thrown at it.

 

[DLC86]

I will never understand why some people don’t want options. Cliff is offering NAM support on next gen because some users want it. They won’t have to spend ressources to develop their own tech so using this open source format is very clever AND NAM is SOTA for now. So everybody will benefit fr this great announcement. In addition Cliff stated that he will prioritize white box modeling approach and won’t stop innovating on this part. SO WHAT THE HELL THE NEED TO ARGUE ONE THAT?! Maybe some of you guys should spend more time playing and practicing. Peace

I'm sure those will be the first to use it once they get the potential of it. E.g. I see NAM mainly as a huge time-saver, cuz it's not rare that I need to replicate a specific pedal or other piece of gear when creating presets, and when there's no specific model of that piece of gear it's not easy at all and takes a lot of time. With a NAM block I can just pull out the real pedal, capture it and drop it in the grid. Or if I don't have that pedal, I can just search for a profile made by other people, or capture e.g. a plugin that has it as a sim.
Really, it has the same convenience of having IRs or tonematch, with the difference that you can capture non-linear stuff as well.

 

[sprint]

SO WHAT THE HELL THE NEED TO ARGUE ONE THAT?! Maybe some of you guys should spend more time playing and practicing. Peace

Chill - it's just a discussion

 

[swiss studio]

I'm sure those will be the first to use it once they get the potential of it. E.g. I see NAM mainly as a huge time-saver, cuz it's not rare that I need to replicate a specific pedal or other piece of gear when creating presets, and when there's no specific model of that piece of gear it's not easy at all and takes a lot of time. With a NAM block I can just pull out the real pedal, capture it and drop it in the grid. Or if I don't have that pedal, I can just search for a profile made by other people, or capture e.g. a plugin that has it as a sim.
Really, it has the same convenience of having IRs or tonematch, with the difference that you can capture non-linear stuff as well.

And my guess is that Cliff will offer some improvements to the tech. Like he did with dynacabs. I believe the NAM block will not be just a nam loader. Maybe some more sophisticated stuff could be offered to FAS specifically like metaNAM with 0-11 gain nam captures (like dyna-NAM hahaha to offer more flexibility

 

[DLC86]

And my guess is that Cliff will offer some improvements to the tech. Like he did with dynacabs. I believe the NAM block will not be just a nam loader. Maybe some more sophisticated stuff could be offered to FAS specifically like metaNAM with 0-11 gain nam captures (like dyna-NAM hahaha to offer more flexibility

Without going too far with my imagination, I can certainly see some useful stuff embedded in the NAM block, like being able to use one of the tonestacks we already have in the amp block, with the possibility of placing it pre or post profile. That alone would probably make profiles much more amp-like to operate and most competitors simply won't have that option.

 

[swiss studio]

Without going too far with my imagination, I can certainly see some useful stuff embedded in the NAM block, like being able to use one of the tonestacks we already have in the amp block, with the possibility of placing it pre or post profile. That alone would probably make profiles much more amp-like to operate and most competitors simply won't have that option.

You’re the guy who invented the anti aliasing nam stuff? Just took a look at your website

 

[Hulkko]

Artificial intelligence has already been used, but I'm still waiting for the day when thousands of NAM-level captures are made into a complete model that can be adjusted with the same sound and feel as a real amp. At least Genome has great-sounding new AI amps. They even remind me of NAM, although Genome also supports NAM. They'll probably make a pedal modeler based on Genome in the next few years, which was the talk.

 

[DLC86]

You’re the guy who invented the anti aliasing nam stuff? Just took a look at your website

Not really, I just helped refine/improve it... The original idea was by a "no name" french guy

 

[Bobbyoso]

I will never understand why some people don’t want options. Cliff is offering NAM support on next gen because some users want it. They won’t have to spend ressources to develop their own tech so using this open source format is very clever AND NAM is SOTA for now. So everybody will benefit fr this great announcement. In addition Cliff stated that he will prioritize white box modeling approach and won’t stop innovating on this part. SO WHAT THE HELL THE NEED TO ARGUE ONE THAT?! Maybe some of you guys should spend more time playing and practicing. Peace

I'm not arguing. I'm saying if I want a bicycle, I buy a bicycle, not a bicycle with optional electric motor, battery, etc. Costs more, more to go wrong, and it is both an inferior bicycle AND moped. For decades, shaving 1/2 lb. of excess bicycle weight resulted in an upcharge of several hundred dollars. But today's powered cycles weigh more than three 1970s Colnagos. And are vastly inferior bicycles. They also compare poorly with a real motorcycle.

I own an FM-3, and have no interest in captures. I'm not a cover band guy; could care less about "recreating" EVH, SRV, or Edge's signature tones. The Fractal product is necessary and sufficient to my use case(s), and it ain't broke. So I don't need it fixed. HTH.

 

[Chris Hurley]

I have little interest in amp captures. I tried ToneX, Neural DSP and Kemper and I got annoyed at the editing side of things. I would find a nice sound, like an overdriven Plexi, but if I tried to edit that sound, it didn't work like a real Plexi does. The EQ, volume and cut controls didn't sort of interact in the way I would expect. So then to get a nice clean Plexi, it was back into the legions of captures to find one that was close to what I wanted.

With the FM3 I just have a good Plexi. The knobs work right and I can change some power amp stuff, speaker impedance and dynacab to taste.

The only reason that I see to use captures would be for a touring guitar played with a particular rig full of great amps, that he/she can't take on the road. That way they could capture their stuff pre-tour in the studio and take a Fractal out on the road, which is what a lot of Kemper players have been doing for years.

I'm with you but I also have to remember that there are other people who are not me who are needed to buy a product in order for it to also be available for me. I have a ToneX pedal (and a "One") for times when I forget about how much I appreciate having a model that behaves like the real amp. Having the capability in new Fractal Audio products won't likely harm the amp modelling capabilities (already mature) so it just helps to ensure that they company can continue to sell to as wide an audience as possible, put food on the table for its employees and shareholders, etc...

 

[Chris Hurley]

I'm not arguing. I'm saying if I want a bicycle, I buy a bicycle, not a bicycle with optional electric motor, battery, etc. Costs more, more to go wrong, and it is both an inferior bicycle AND moped. For decades, shaving 1/2 lb. of excess bicycle weight resulted in an upcharge of several hundred dollars. But today's powered cycles weigh more than three 1970s Colnagos. And are vastly inferior bicycles. They also compare poorly with a real motorcycle.

I own an FM-3, and have no interest in captures. I'm not a cover band guy; could care less about "recreating" EVH, SRV, or Edge's signature tones. The Fractal product is necessary and sufficient to my use case(s), and it ain't broke. So I don't need it fixed. HTH.

Well, this isn't a bicycle or a moped.

And I understand there is no such thing as a perfect illustration, so I won't fault you for it. This is sort of like arguing "I don't need accounting software and I don't want a computer that can run accounting software". OK, that's a bad illustration too. "I don't use a 4k monitor so the ability to scale fonts isn't important to me." My illustrations aren't perfect either and we could argue about which one is worse but hopefully we won't.

In the world of computational devices with firmware, adding features is often not at all like adding weight or "more things to go wrong" as they are in other products we buy. When I bought a car ten years ago, I didn't want an android based touchscreen radio because I viewed it as "more things to go wrong", particularly as it became obsolete and unable to work with new phones. If I already had to have an android based touchscreen radio, it might as well have features useful to a broad range of people as long as they didn't interfere with what I need. Another bad illustration, I realize.

It becomes a development decision to see what can reasonably be added in terms of available resources, infrastructure, etc... to serve more customers down the line. I would expect that Fractal is faced with needing to do a refresh of their products for a variety of reasons. This is likely something that is not a huge burden to add (especially as a "player" only) that doesn't add much of anything to cost and only minimally for development. It will essentially be free down the line when lumped in with all the other effort to build out a new product.

If you're talking about small companies (as we are), they also might have difficult fielding a product line of many different products.

 

[sprint]

So I don't need it fixed.

It's not a fix - it's an added feature - with assurance that white box modelling progression will continue -

all good

 

[Chris Hurley]

I will never understand why some people don’t want options. Cliff is offering NAM support on next gen because some users want it. They won’t have to spend ressources to develop their own tech so using this open source format is very clever AND NAM is SOTA for now. So everybody will benefit fr this great announcement. In addition Cliff stated that he will prioritize white box modeling approach and won’t stop innovating on this part. SO WHAT THE HELL THE NEED TO ARGUE ONE THAT?! Maybe some of you guys should spend more time playing and practicing. Peace

oh man... the double trump card- "spend more time practicing" AND "peace" heh. What else can be said?

People don't want options because they quickly forget that there are other people that are not them who need to buy a product in order for the company to be successful. Most people seem to have no idea about how a business works at all since they've never run one, so it is easy enough to understand why they don't understand the needs of a business.

I think people rightfully don't want a product to "jump the shark" and stop being the thing it was great at and let a bunch of distractions take away from what it does well. I don't think this has the potential to be that.

If Cliff added the ability for it to be a general MIDI synth that could load sound banks for keyboards... or if it could run a web browser or word processor- yeah, we've jumped the shark for sure then.