I hadn't really considered it before, but I do wonder if Line 6 will get involved in that market at all with Proxy. PodExpress style pedal with NAM quality captures and a handful of Line6 effects would be a surefire winner. I think FX are something that Line 6 arguably has a lead over IK on, at least as far as FX that run on dedicated HW.
Is this really the case for most people? Models sound like amps. They don’t sound like a picture perfect tone without tweaking. Just like amps. I can grab the lowly Boss GX100, load an amp model, and it sounds like an amp through a cab and a microphone. Usually turn a few knobs for 20 seconds and it sounds more than useable in a performance context, a couple more turns and it’s closer to a recording tone. Amps don’t just sound perfect when you stick a mic in front of it because it’s an amp. And NAM captures might sound better, might sound worse, than the “I just loaded an amp model” depending on who made it, what they used, etc etc etc. I think people who are fighting with modelers to sound “more amp like” in 2025 are either using the wrong output method for their desired result, or they’re after some imaginary perfect tone that doesn’t exist in the real world without a keen ear tweaking it either.
Same here. And they're much easier for me to dial in for different guitars and pedals than captures, where any attempt to dial in sounds like it's being done at the board. Because it is.
I think he means, if you have a reference amp that you want your modeller to replicate then it takes quite a bit of work to match the response. It’ll sound similar but you have to get your hands dirty to get the nuances the same, while a decent capture will get that right straight off the bat.
If we’re just talking about capturing an amp that you have on-hand to capture yourself at the appropriate settings I suppose that works out easier. I spent a good deal of time with NAM over the last few days helping a friend get a home recording setup going on the cheap and while I do think a lot of the captures sound great, I definitely didn’t find more then one or two out of a dozen or so that sounded like I wanted via the built-in EQ. Horses for courses or whatever.
I've moved on, and no. I don't doubt that with some effort and possibly additional hardware, the ability to mostly emulate a tone stack can be done with a capture. But I can't think of any reason to do that when I am so comfortable dialing in modeling.
Eh, it's easy to get YOUR captures right the first time, because you're capturing your amps. The minute you start relying on others, it's a toss up as to whether it'll work or not.
This is probably why I don’t care much about NAM. I haven’t owned a tube amp in like 10 years, and I definitely don’t care about capturing the 30 year old Crate combo in my basement that’s too worthless to deal with selling. I also play guitars in pitches on Godzilla can hear so I’m excluded from 97% of captures sounding decent for me anyways, lol.
