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Show HN: SmartGuitarAmp – Guitar plugin made with deep learning

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Re: Show HN: SmartGuitarAmp – Guitar plugin made with deep learning

#101

Post by klodolph »

qppo wrote: post #91
dmacvicar wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price and weight are close. About $2500. AxeFx III is about ~6.8 Kg. Between a half and a third of a Plexi head or an AC-30 Head. For a stadium band. It makes the stage setup much easier. No cabinets, mics and low stage volume. Each member gets a rack with two units (backup) and you are done. Sound will be always the same. Less likely to fail. For a small band, you don't need the bulky rack editions. You get the same…

Yes you have more control, it also sounds worse. They have advantages in live reproduction, yet you still see tubes mic'd up in the studio. And for a small band even if you have a FoH mix, it's going to sound better out of a 40W combo than through whatever PA your vocalist dragged along. But that's just my opinion. Digital models do a good job in a vacuum (no pun intended). They do a very poor job of modeling how a g…

> …lower impedance inputs of a pure tube stage…

I don’t know what your idea of “lower impedance” but a pure tube stage has an input impedance that measures close to open. Off the range of my multimeter, I bet. You just see the Miller capacitance and with the grid-plate somewhere around 1.6pF and maybe 20dB gain, it’s not a lot. The input impedance of the guitar amp is usually dominated by the 1 MΩ resistor to ground, and the tube barely registers because the input impedance of a preamp tube is so high. This is usually considered “high impedance” (as opposed to “ultra high” like you see in a piezo amp, which might run 10 MΩ).

It is very common to see solid-state equipment with lower input impedances, especially guitar pedals.

There’s a lot of weird voodoo electronics repeated around guitarist’s forums so you got to watch out. Just quick fact check: small tubes = high impedance input, in most normal configurations, normal operating conditions (cathode is positive relative to grid).

Just as another point of reference—this is why you hear about “tube microphones”. These microphones have a vacuum tube inside them as a preamp / buffer, and the reason you might want to use a tube for these applications is precisely because the input impedance is so high. When they moved away from tube mics what you see replacing them is something like a FET, possibly bootstrapped, to try and replicate the naturally high impedance of a tube.

Re: Show HN: SmartGuitarAmp – Guitar plugin made with deep learning

#102

Post by klodolph »

ReactiveJelly wrote: post #96
qppo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you have more control, it also sounds worse. They have advantages in live reproduction, yet you still see tubes mic'd up in the studio. And for a small band even if you have a FoH mix, it's going to sound better out of a 40W combo than through whatever PA your vocalist dragged along. But that's just my opinion. Digital models do a good job in a vacuum (no pun intended). They do a very poor job of modeling how a g…

> They do a very poor job of modeling how a guitar and FX chain load and drive the preamp of an real tube amplifier Are there ABX tests for digital vs. physical tubes?

There are a ton of people doing ad-hoc stuff like this on YouTube if you search for it.

ABX test is definitely the wrong type of test here. It is only really useful for testing if there are differences, and in general a tube amp and a digital sim are not going to sound the same as each other. What I’ve seen as more common is that you’ll have someone playing blind through a selection of digital models and tube amps. If you’re lucky, the digital models and tube amps may be closely matched, but that’s not necessarily the only way you would want to run a test.

There are also an incredible number of different scenarios that need to be taken into account in a simulation, so you’d want to try different styles of amp. Various overdrive scenarios are harder to simulate, broadly speaking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6AwTp4ZUm0

Note in this video, the speakers are being simulated for the tube amps. So it’s a bit of an unusual comparison, it’s just something I found.

Re: Show HN: SmartGuitarAmp – Guitar plugin made with deep learning

#103

Post by costcopizza »

dmacvicar wrote: post #90
ryanSrich wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I didn’t get this statement. I only play tube amps, and most guitarists I know only play tube amps. I actually don’t know anyone that plays a modeling amp. Maybe they’re more popular outside of my sphere, but even with popular YouTube guitars players, they all play tube amps. Mostly Fender.

I never saw the point of getting a real tube amp unless you play exclusively in a studio or rehearsal room. The volume required to crank and get the best of it sounds it makes it too loud for almost any residential area. One of the best features of modeling amps is that you can get the sound of a cranked amp set at a high volume, with low/moderate real volume or even with head-phones. Even in a rehearsal room, real a…

Low wattage tube amps exist.

Re: Show HN: SmartGuitarAmp – Guitar plugin made with deep learning

#104

Post by klodolph »

costcopizza wrote: post #103
dmacvicar wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never saw the point of getting a real tube amp unless you play exclusively in a studio or rehearsal room. The volume required to crank and get the best of it sounds it makes it too loud for almost any residential area. One of the best features of modeling amps is that you can get the sound of a cranked amp set at a high volume, with low/moderate real volume or even with head-phones. Even in a rehearsal room, real a…

Low wattage tube amps exist.

Low wattage is still too loud for home / apartment. You need something in the milliwatt range, and those are (unfortunately) very rare. They’re not too hard to make but there is some extra expense and there are some patents in that territory.

Re: Show HN: SmartGuitarAmp – Guitar plugin made with deep learning

#105

Post by klodolph »

mhh__ wrote: post #56
sosborn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a guitarist, it is important to understand that any time you tell a guitarist that the sound is digital, the guitarist will scoff and say it doesn't sound like real tube amp, regardless of what they said or thought before knowing it was digital.

Exactly the same with analogue synthesizers. A lot of the time they don't mean analogue when they say they don't want digital - they mean that they want knobs and switches to play with. I think some modern Moog's even have a digital stage in the signal path (I might be making that up but I have some vague recollection of it in a schematic) Making a synth sound good has very little to do whether it uses analogue or di…

I will say that making digital synths that sound good is an incredibly difficult technical challenge. There are enough mediocre digital synths around that people can get turned off from them. Meanwhile, you can copy some old schematics out of a book somewhere and get something not far from a classic analogue sound. All of the mediocre analogue synths are dead and forgotten.

Re: Show HN: SmartGuitarAmp – Guitar plugin made with deep learning

#106

Post by klodolph »

mysterydip wrote: post #98
ryanSrich wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the point is the tone. Modeling amps have come a long way, but nothing compares to the real thing. Of course, most people won’t be able to tell the difference, but many musicians tend to prefer analog.

If most people (ie your audience) can't tell the difference, then why go with it?

Take it as a fact that you’ll commonly have higher standards than your audience. This applies to software, actors, musicians, whatever.

That, and your experience affects your performance. It’s easier for an actor to act in a room full of props and other actors, versus a green screen. Easier for a musician to make music with the gear and tone that they prefer.

Re: Show HN: SmartGuitarAmp – Guitar plugin made with deep learning

#107

Post by gltchkrft »

costcopizza wrote: post #103
dmacvicar wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never saw the point of getting a real tube amp unless you play exclusively in a studio or rehearsal room. The volume required to crank and get the best of it sounds it makes it too loud for almost any residential area. One of the best features of modeling amps is that you can get the sound of a cranked amp set at a high volume, with low/moderate real volume or even with head-phones. Even in a rehearsal room, real a…

Low wattage tube amps exist.

You can also just get an attenuator. Then you can turn up your tube amp and still get the power amp distortion, but you can reduce the volume.

Re: Show HN: SmartGuitarAmp – Guitar plugin made with deep learning

#108

Post by gltchkrft »

mysterydip wrote: post #98
ryanSrich wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the point is the tone. Modeling amps have come a long way, but nothing compares to the real thing. Of course, most people won’t be able to tell the difference, but many musicians tend to prefer analog.

If most people (ie your audience) can't tell the difference, then why go with it?

It's harder to tell the difference when recorded (although it's not that hard). The bigger problem is around what it feels like to play. Even the best modelers do not have the "feel" of a tube amp and that will influence the way you play.

Re: Show HN: SmartGuitarAmp – Guitar plugin made with deep learning

#109

Post by klodolph »

o-__-o wrote: post #99
mhh__ wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latency can be an issue if you are playing through a desktop computer or laptop, but its very manageable (for the most part) if you set up your buffers right. I have never ever noticed any latency issues with any physical hardware, even for equipment from years ago.

A lot of hardware audio interfaces were usb2 which demands cpu time as the system has to poll the usb device rather than act on an interrupt. This caused very low latencies to basically never work without dropouts. I can distinguish a 20-30ms latency and above that it becomes too difficult to ply anything meaningful. Even my semi-pro tascam interface could only sample between 11-14ms. Faster cpus over the last 5 year…

The complaint about CPU time is interesting—surely the whole point is that you want to spend CPU time more often? Then again, it’s been a long time (15 years?) since I’ve seen dropouts, and I’m definitely using USB2 (not USB3) and low buffer sizes (more like 10-15ms, not 20-30ms).

Re: Show HN: SmartGuitarAmp – Guitar plugin made with deep learning

#110

Post by aeleos »

albutr wrote: post #60
aeleos wrote: post #6

Just tried it out, I don't know if I would say it sounds like a $600 tube amp especially in high gain scenarios (it really didn't like my active pickups), for a free plugin it is definitely great. In comparison to the Archetype Nolly plugin from Neural DSP it doesn't really compare, but but for something thats free and can be trained at home on custom audio samples its pretty cool.

wow, I was literally just about to download the trial for the archetype nolly (after being iffy on whether the fortin nameless was right for what I wanted), what are the chances it's being discussed on HN. I'm hoping that the nolly plugin can cover both dirty and clean sounds well enough to not need a second plugin, fingers crossed

If you are looking for a plugin with good cleans as well as dirty I would say the Nolly plugin is better when compared to the Fortin Nameless, but it was a while ago that I used the trial, however I don’t remember being as in love with it as the Nolly. I had a hard time choosing between it and the Abasi plugin but I felt like Nolly shined more in a wide range of scenarios. Overall I have been very happy with it, 10/10 would recommend especially since they recently added a build in tuner. I have had some issues but I think it’s just my $30 usb interface.
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