Would you say the next-gen Axe is years away?

mr_fender said:
Nothing is free. Running the NAM capture takes CPU just like the Fractal amp models do. Amp models run on a dedicated core currently so they contribute very little to the reported CPU usage now.
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IIRC cliff said that there will be a separat CPU for NAM and stuff. My point is that I can think of capturing my ambient scene in highest quality and then e.g. get rid of the delay and plex block to free up the cpu for something else. Or capture the chorus/flanger/whatever scene and get rid of those blocks, or running 2 (or more) amp setup in an fm3 format.
I’m pretty sure we will find something useful to do with this tech.
 
danwei said:
IIRC cliff said that there will be a separat CPU for NAM and stuff. My point is that I can think of capturing my ambient scene in highest quality and then e.g. get rid of the delay and plex block to free up the cpu for something else. Or capture the chorus/flanger/whatever scene and get rid of those blocks, or running 2 (or more) amp setup in an fm3 format.
I’m pretty sure we will find something useful to do with this tech.
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As far as I know, you can’t capture time based effects. But you would be able to free up the other stuff(drives, amps, cabs) with a NAM profile to use with your effects.
 
I don’t know anything beyond public information, but I doubt “next gen” is years away given that a) current gen has been facing hardware limitations b) you sort of have to release something to keep interest in your products and revenues flowing at a time when competitors are doing big announcements, whether there’s a real need or not (and there is some real need), and c) hardware evolved significantly enough to warrant a revision of architecture and capabilities.

I think we can also infer from Cliff’s comments that Fractal have a specific chipset in mind, so this next gen is probably past ideation stage at this point. So there’s been some development going for a while.

But I also believe that ability for us mere mortals to actually go and buy a next gen device is at best months away even if something is announced tomorrow. Maybe actually years away for some form factors.
 
Rogerthat said:
The market for NAM is pretty large right now.
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Is it though?

NAM itself is free so its market is zero.

There are some plugins built on top of it but I doubt they have huge sales numbers.

And some Chinese modelers also have the capability to run NAM inference of some kind (with conversion?), but again I don’t think their market share is huge at this point, plus they have other capabilities as well, so it’s not just NAM.

I think I’ve seen some DYI-ish looking hardware NAM player(s) but they also didn’t exactly conquer the world.

It seems to me that proprietary capturing technologies grab the majority of the market - QC, Tonex, some remnants of Kemper’s old glory, and it actually makes sense.

You don’t want to build a hardware business on top of free software most of the time unless you’re something like Samsung and have the scale and distribution to dominate without actually differentiating your products through software capabilities.
 
vangrieg said:
Is it though?

NAM itself is free so its market is zero.

There are some plugins built on top of it but I doubt they have huge sales numbers.

And some Chinese modelers also have the capability to run NAM inference of some kind (with conversion?), but again I don’t think their market share is huge at this point, plus they have other capabilities as well, so it’s not just NAM.

I think I’ve seen some DYI-ish looking hardware NAM player(s) but they also didn’t exactly conquer the world.

It seems to me that proprietary capturing technologies grab the majority of the market - QC, Tonex, some remnants of Kemper’s old glory, and it actually makes sense.

You don’t want to build a hardware business on top of free software most of the time unless you’re something like Samsung and have the scale and distribution to dominate without actually differentiating your products through software capabilities.
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A Dimehead clone, ideally with a nicer display and a lower price, with a well known name (Boss for instance), and retail distribution would sell many gazillions i bet. Wouldn't have to be differentiated in any other way.
 
Dave Merrill said:
A Dimehead clone, ideally with a nicer display and a lower price, with a well known name (Boss for instance), and retail distribution would sell many gazillions i bet. Wouldn't have to be differentiated in any other way.
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Well OEMs know that it’s a race to the bottom so try to avoid if possible.

If you use software that’s available to everyone then you can only compete on hardware which is typically also available to everyone, which means you’ll find yourself forced to keep releasing the fastest and betterest devices to a bloodbath of a market, which will destroy your margins after you make the software popular. As if it weren’t obvious to everyone, Android should’ve taught OEMs a lesson. Seen lots of Ericssons and Sonys around lately? They also had brands and distribution.
 
vangrieg said:
Well OEMs know that it’s a race to the bottom so try to avoid if possible.

If you use software that’s available to everyone then you can only compete on hardware which is typically also available to everyone, which means you’ll find yourself forced to keep releasing the fastest and betterest devices to a bloodbath of a market, which will destroy your margins after you make the software popular. As if it weren’t obvious to everyone, Android should’ve taught OEMs a lesson. Seen lots of Ericssons and Sonys around lately? They also had brands and distribution.
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I think manufacturers would need to differentiate themselves from competitors with quality and quantity of effects pre and post NAM routing.

Fractal is poised to claim that crown.
 
vangrieg said:
Well OEMs know that it’s a race to the bottom so try to avoid if possible.

If you use software that’s available to everyone then you can only compete on hardware which is typically also available to everyone, which means you’ll find yourself forced to keep releasing the fastest and betterest devices to a bloodbath of a market, which will destroy your margins after you make the software popular. As if it weren’t obvious to everyone, Android should’ve taught OEMs a lesson. Seen lots of Ericssons and Sonys around lately? They also had brands and distribution.
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Maybe. Lots of companies make stuff and sell it at a profit without completely dominating the market, or having to sell cheaper than everyone else.

There are lots of Boss pedals that are just decent versions of what they are, not god's gift, or selling for 50¢. They're widely available, from a brand people mostly trust.
 
I bought Cortex Nano returned it next day - I don't return things very often - guess this Nam stuff is not for me wasn't in the same universe as Fractal
 
Dave Merrill said:
Lots of companies make stuff and sell it at a profit without completely dominating the market, or having to sell cheaper than everyone else.
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As long as there is (or people believe that there is) something in them that justifies a price that’s higher than that of a noname (or “value”) product that does the same thing.

Boss can sell analog pedals at a higher price than Behringer or Hotone or whatever because people believe that Boss pedals sound differently because there are different components etc.

It’s a much harder sell for software defined products if the software is known to be the same.

So it would be strange for Boss to sell a piece of gear that’s not based on something they can claim is their own - they’ll push their “COSM” nonsense, and some people will buy it. But as long as they say, “hey, here’s our NAM player pedal” they’ll get clones from Behringer and Hotone and everyone else on Amazon for $19.99, and it will be difficult to explain why their NAM player is different from a hundred others.

Anyway, this is a philosophical discussion about the future, and it’s hard to predict the future, so who knows.

My main point is that there’s no such thing as a large market for NAM, at least at the moment, and historically it’s been difficult for hardware manufacturers to be profitable with such things.
 
I’ve tried Kemper, Tonex, QC and Nam. For me Nam was consistently the best sounding feeling for my ears. Depends what play it through, I generally use tonocracy for nam. Doesn’t seem to be supported anymore but still free to download (or at least last time I checked)
 
LiamH said:
(Many of those colleagues seem to think AI is adding to their intelligence, when all it really does is expose their lack of it.)
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Yeah, I don't know why a lot of people think that Real Idiocy translates into Artificial Intelligence.
 
bke said:
I’ve tried Kemper, Tonex, QC and Nam. For me Nam was consistently the best sounding feeling for my ears. Depends what play it through, I generally use tonocracy for nam. Doesn’t seem to be supported anymore but still free to download (or at least last time I checked)
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Profiles between ToneX (V2), Nam and QC of the same amp ToneX was the closest to my ears but it depends on who does the profiling obviously, Nam will sound better with a poorly captured ToneX profile and vise versa. All that to say, a great Nam capture(s) would be close enough for 99% of the population.
 
normanaj said:
Profiles between ToneX (V2), Nam and QC of the same amp ToneX was the closest to my ears but it depends on who does the profiling obviously, Nam will sound better with a poorly captured ToneX profile and vise versa. All that to say, a great Nam capture(s) would be close enough for 99% of the population.
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The use case for me, and I expect for many, is the availability of good quality 3rd pty captures of tones I want and don't have access to since I don't have a ton of gear to profile myself, and what I do have, I don't need to profile since I have it and don't need portable clones of it. Tonex serves this use case for me quite well with some very good providers / authors.
 
normanaj said:
Profiles between ToneX (V2), Nam and QC of the same amp ToneX was the closest to my ears but it depends on who does the profiling obviously, Nam will sound better with a poorly captured ToneX profile and vise versa. All that to say, a great Nam capture(s) would be close enough for 99% of the population.
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Haven’t tried any V2 profiles, are they noticeably better when done well? My experience with the V1 was whilst there was nothing wrong with them I gravitated more towards nam
 
bke said:
Haven’t tried any V2 profiles, are they noticeably better when done well? My experience with the V1 was whilst there was nothing wrong with them I gravitated more towards nam.
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Yeah, there is a significant difference between V1 and V2. V1 had an issue that made profiles sound like they had blankets over them which many developers had to apply post EQing to correct. V2 captures when done well will sound almost identical to the amp without post processing.
 
in my opinion Cliff wouldn’t have talked about « next gen product » and shared some exciting info (nam support, super computer horsepower, touch screen, ssd… that he edited after to calm the game) without an upcoming announcement.
To me the next gen is being announced before Christmas and released first half 2026 for the flagship.
And commotion is moving fast.
Stadium is selling like hot cakes, ToneX bigger product is probably about to be announced, and NDSP have also a big tease rolling out right now.
Even Kemper is cooking a next gen product. They did the mk2 to save some time.

But that’s my guess.
 
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