Poly Effects AMPLE - Stereo NAM Player

[banned]

So you're saying it's uniform and predictable, and won't be over gained by external drive/boost pedals.

Under-gained meaning the profiles were captured at really low gain levels. Apparently the developer is into surf guitar or something.

Will that translate into an accurate higher gain context - I do not know - as profiles are 'snapshots'.

But nothing saying you can't just crank the gain knob and hit with the boost - if you like the resultant sound, great. Sounds great when Michael does that here -



Listen when he selects the JCM800 at 9:15. I don't use too much gain myself so the profiles would probably work for me - just wish that the developers would have gone for a little more of a mid-gain context for some of the gainier amps.

 

[GTR37]

Under-gained meaning the profiles were captured at really low gain levels. Apparently the developer is into surf guitar or something.

Will that translate into an accurate higher gain context - I do not know - as profiles are 'snapshots'.

But nothing saying you can't just crank the gain knob and hit with the boost - if you like the resultant sound, great. Sounds great when Michael does that here -



Listen when he selects the JCM800 at 9:15. I don't use too much gain myself so the profiles would probably work for me - just wish that the developers would have gone for a little more of a mid-gain context for some of the gainier amps.

They all seem to have about a crunch level of gain
The Mark 4 sounds like an AC30
The other part is he says oops hit the wrong button multiple times , try to get mids he switches the amp models
In studio fine , live nightmare

 

[BenIfin]

Despite my criticisms about this units "non-NAM loading" abilities ..... which the maker has now confirmed is done because it is a NAM loader coupled with "EQ Stacks" .... some are saying that the curated Amps are all [mostly] low-mid-gain.

I actually think this is a brilliant move on the part of the maker.

"Up-gaining" a static profile with real or virtual pedals is easy and sounds real-correct .... "De-gaining" a static profile, very quickly becomes a shit-show and never sounds right or real ... to my ears at least ... I say this after many years of using Static Profiles in my Kempers ... a solid 6+ months with Static Profiles in a Tonex Pedal ..... and a good degree of time messing with Static Profiles in NAM in my DAW

So ... like any "static" modeler .... the more you change the on-board "not-real" settings, the quicker the profile / capture integrity falls away and very quickly starts to sound "not like it should".

This unit is explicitly designed to have real or virtual pedals before and after it.

If I were using this pedal ... in say the loop of something like a VP4 ... I would use drives / boosts / EQ's etc.... in-front of the Ample to get the desired Gain and Tone settings I want and leave the stock 56 Profile settings on the Ample at stock-unchanged.

This approach gives you (a) way more flexibility, but more importantly (b) keeps the Capture at its ideal real settings at which is was dialed in and captured .... so ts just like running real pedals into a real Amp with that real Amp at a given setting.

 

[Frankencat]

Cool to see a Bruno amp in there.

 

[laxu]

Under-gained meaning the profiles were captured at really low gain levels. Apparently the developer is into surf guitar or something.

It could also just mean that the default gain settings on the pedal are just lower than people expect. The few reviews I've watched say "just turn up the gain a few notches".

 

[Sascha Franck]

@Sascha Franck What ya got ?

So far, I gotta say that I see absolutely no reasons to get such a unit (for a whole variety of reasons not related to the unit itself), but I dig the interface quite a bit. Possibly the best mixture between analog-alike editing and a touchscreen-based device. No idea about how it actually feels like (in terms of sensivity of the sliders), but the fact that, unlike with a touchscreen, the elements and their functions are fixed ("this is a fader of this length, nothing else") makes me believe that operating the thing should be pretty flawless. Looks like it, too.

Whatever, in case I want captures, I want the full enchilada. Being able to grab all that is around (I know, rabbit hole and all that...) and being able to create my own captures that is. Otherwise I'd rather have component modeling.

Still a great design. I think Polyeffects show that they have a good idea about making modern stuff very accessible.

Oh, and I'd like to know about latency. Can you say something about it, @2112 or @polyeffects?

 

[Orvillain]

- Loads of discontinuities in the audio when tweaking parameters.
- Gaps of silence when switching amp models.
- Even if we discount loading custom captures... there is no Dual Rectifier that I can tell.
- UI is horrible.
- UX looks painful to use.
- (probably) Not colour-blind friendly.

Tis a no from me.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Hm, ok,

- Loads of discontinuities in the audio when tweaking parameters.
- Gaps of silence when switching amp models.

Admittedly, I haven't watched to carefully yet, but if that was true, it'd be no-gos.

- UI is horrible.
- UX looks painful to use.

Why exactly? It's pretty self-explanatory and easy to use IMO.

- (probably) Not colour-blind friendly.

Do you even need colors most of the times?

 

[Sascha Franck]

Oh btw, no option to load your own IRs is a dealbreaker for me. I'm mainly a live player and I have tried to play gigs with onboard cabs, stock IRs and what not - just to always return to those 3-5 IRs I created and manipulated by my own. Not having that option here would be a showstopper for me.

 

[[Nathan]]

I wonder how much less this pedal would cost and how much more of a profit margin for the manufacturer would be if they would had opted for knobs and buttons over capacitive touch.

Such a simple design to be ruined by a pointless UI. Give me a few rotary encoders and buttons and I’d be interested. The capacitive touch seems like a gimmick for an otherwise cool pedal.

Their other pedals have a similar housing, guessing its a way to order big on parts and reuse kind of thing... but in general yeah im sure it wasnt a cheap order up front for the stuff. I played with it at the pedal show in Sydney and have watched a few vids, seems cool enough "for the right person".

To me its an alternate to something like the ACS1 or I dunno ONE x UAFX amp in a box pedal haha.

And yeah I'm sure someone mentioned it before but its a hybrid of NAM capture tech and some whitebox modelling/EQ. If I was to take a guess its a nifty way to run liter NAM captures in a box (I dunno if I made this up in my mind or if its been confirmed somewhere?). I know their past pedal could only run lite captures so maybe reusing parts and doing 56 models in a box saves them on processing power in the pedal / pre bake all the amps... just plug it in and good to go.

 

[laxu]

Why exactly? It's pretty self-explanatory and easy to use IMO.

Lack of tactile feedback and some controls buried on a second layer. Maybe visibility in some lighting?

But in a pedal that already had an established platform (it's the same one they used on the Poly Flat V and Verbs) I think it's alright, and probably fine to use in practice as well.

You do get some benefits like easy visibility to current values of the preset without first turning knobs to preset values.

 

[jellodog]

If I was to take a guess its a nifty way to run liter NAM captures in a box (I dunno if I made this up in my mind or if its been confirmed somewhere?).

Based on things that Loki has said elsewhere, I would infer that these are not Lite NAM captures.

"Ample has a CPU and an NPU, both of which are pretty quick. It has a lot more processing power than the Quad Cortex, UAD pedals, Fractal, Kemper, Helix, Tonex or Beebo. 100% of the CPU is dedicated to just the amps/cab. No UI, no effects, nothing else. "

Don't know what he means by "Fractal", but presumably the FM3, because a comparison with the processor in the AF3 wouldn't make sense.

Latency is reportedly 1.9 ms.

 

[Sedaxel]

As I´m reading the thread, I´m just realizing that this pedal can´t be called "NAM player". It isn´t.

 

[BenIfin]

"Ample has a CPU and an NPU, both of which are pretty quick. It has a lot more processing power than the Quad Cortex, UAD pedals, Fractal, Kemper, Helix, Tonex or Beebo. 100% of the CPU is dedicated to just the amps/cab. No UI, no effects, nothing else. "

OK ... I'm no tech guru ... but ^this^ just doesn't "seem accurate".

 

[jellodog]

OK ... I'm no tech guru ... but ^this^ just doesn't "seem accurate".

I don't quite know what it means either, but hopefully @polyeffects will shed some light on this.

Certainly though, it seems that Loki cares about quality and that processing power is not such an issue that lite NAM captures are being run here

 

[Orvillain]

Why exactly? It's pretty self-explanatory and easy to use IMO.

Swiping fingers across a bit of perspex plastic and relying on LED's with zero read out on the underlying values, just isn't for me. It looks awful to use in my opinion.

Do you even need colors most of the times?

Given that there isn't anything else to give you information, then yes on this product I would wager that the colours are attempting to tell you information much more than something like the Quad Cortex does, for example.

 

[laxu]

Swiping fingers across a bit of perspex plastic and relying on LED's with zero read out on the underlying values, just isn't for me. It looks awful to use in my opinion.

Other than preference and maybe easier to replicate settings, why do you need the values? It's not like every amp has a scale for its knobs either.

 

[Orvillain]

Other than preference and maybe easier to replicate settings, why do you need the values? It's not like every amp has a scale for its knobs either.

Why do amps have 1-10 written around the edges of the knobs???

 

[likitlikeyoulikeit]

Mine goes to ll....

 

[laxu]

Why do amps have 1-10 written around the edges of the knobs???

As said...not all of them do. We would still say that we have the Mark V ch2 gain at 7 etc.