NAM and "physical" OD pedal

[jle]

Hi everyone.

I've been using NAM exclusively with calibrated model lately and i've been wondering, does it make sense to use physical overdrive pedal (lets say a TS9 for exemple) in front of my interface in such a setup?
I mean if you dont adjust level to enforce unity wether or not the pedal is activated, it will most likely add gain to your input signal, and then (I guess) make the calibration setup a bit pointless right?
Im still confused about the exact relationship between input gain and model "fidelity",so if you have any insight or advice for me about using "physical" OD pedal in front of NAM, im really interested.

NOTE: I know that i could use another NAM instance with an overdrive pedal model, but that's not the point here, im specifically interested in physical pedal.

 

[AlbertA]

It’s not about fidelity but accuracy.

The point of the calibration is to understand what dbFS level in the digital domain corresponds to what input voltage.

So you don’t need to change the calibration even if you use an OD pedal because you already set the relationship from dbFS to voltage levels.

The only reason you would change the calibration then is if you changed that relationship, for example by changing level/gain control of your interface which typically affect the resultant dBFS value for a given voltage.

 

[jle]

Ok I see. So basically the only "risk" with the pedal added gain is to clip my interface sooner, but the amp modelling will be accurate to what the real amp would sound like with same pedal setup in front of it.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Ok I see. So basically the only "risk" with the pedal added gain is to clip my interface sooner, but the amp modelling will be accurate to what the real amp would sound like with same pedal setup in front of it.

exactly. But if you adjust your interface level to accommodate louder signals, you'd make the same adjustment back in the NAM calibration and your sound would be consistent still.

You only need to calibrate for your converters, not your guitar/pickups/pedals etc