GTR37
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If I select Australia circus tone
Will I sound like Leon ?
SPARK 2 " A.I " Tone Creation ..... pretty damn impressive
- Thread starter BenIfin
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Will I sound like Leon ?
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As much as I dig Positive Grid stuff (have their BIAS/BIAS 2 etc), I can get better "famous tones" (at least of the ones I've deep-dived) than their A.I. .
(But then again I've been doing this for a few decades)
The only one (that I'm familiar with) that sounded good was the early Sabbath tone (still, missing the overpowering 50/60Hz line hum fuzz in the solo). Gilmour's sounded thin, May's didn't have that out of phase notch thing, Angus' sounded like a mess with the rhythm guitar, the 1984 Van Halen wasn't very good.
It's almost like they took their big stash of online community of tone submissions made by tone-deaf contributors and picked the "best" ones and programmed those into the A.I.
In fact, I'll bet that's exactly what they did...
I also think it takes the fun and serious educational value out of "tonecrafting" when all you have to do is push one button.
Meh.
(But then again I've been doing this for a few decades)
The only one (that I'm familiar with) that sounded good was the early Sabbath tone (still, missing the overpowering 50/60Hz line hum fuzz in the solo). Gilmour's sounded thin, May's didn't have that out of phase notch thing, Angus' sounded like a mess with the rhythm guitar, the 1984 Van Halen wasn't very good.
It's almost like they took their big stash of online community of tone submissions made by tone-deaf contributors and picked the "best" ones and programmed those into the A.I.
In fact, I'll bet that's exactly what they did...
I also think it takes the fun and serious educational value out of "tonecrafting" when all you have to do is push one button.
Meh.
madmarcus1960
Roadie
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People gots' to 'member, it's a toy, relatively speaking. To sit out on the porch and jam to your phone and pad with, its more than enough.
I have a1st gen that I replaced the speakers and corked the bass port and got some decent tones out of. But I don't do metal, so, that it where a lot of modeling struggles.
We'll see how the 2nd gen compares. It may go back, it may replace the 1st gen. We'll see in 5-6 weeks(ETA).
I have a1st gen that I replaced the speakers and corked the bass port and got some decent tones out of. But I don't do metal, so, that it where a lot of modeling struggles.
We'll see how the 2nd gen compares. It may go back, it may replace the 1st gen. We'll see in 5-6 weeks(ETA).
BenIfin
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Sadly nope .. you'll get a Circus version of me ... and I definitely aint no Leon ... and I'm an even worse Circus version :)
There's only one Leon .. he's ours .. he's Aussie .. and that will never change :)
Ben
BenIfin
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Just some thoughts / comments.
Yep .. the Spark and Spark 2 are aimed at bedrooms / home practice etc...... but to suggest they are "toys" and "wedding band" level is kind of missing the point here.
My point is not about the whole product. Its about how they are doing this particular feature. Its the A.I preset creation tech inside. And that is already ... i.m.h.o ... pretty f%cking great based on these demo's ... its super early days and it might get better or worse .... who knows.
As to how they have trained the A.I ... I have no idea ... but it seems to be pretty great so far (?)
But to me its very simple .... Helix, Fractal, Boss, Kemper, Spark 2 etc.... all of them are just 1's and 0's ..... after spending enough to buy a small house on this gear in the last 9 years .... never once have I told myself or even convinced myself I am playing something that sounds and feels as good as the real thing .... but its so close and so easy and so convenient and so consistent, I love them .. and am never going back.
Got my FM3 running CX3 for the last few months and am getting the best tones I've ever got ..... but again, I'm under no illusion its the same or better than the real thing ... but I don't give a f%ck ... its a guitar tone ... I either love it and it makes me want to play -or- it makes me want to watch T.V.
If you think the tones in the demo video are good / great / magnificent / terrible / bad / ultra-sh%t ... its all good :) There is no "right" answer here.
Maybe I've got really sh%t ears but when I cranked those tones up loud through my actual real live rig .... 7 of those 10 tones were almost-bang-on ..... at least as good if not better than anything that would take me a loooong f%cking time to try to dial in ...... and 3 of them needed a good deal of work.
Bottom line for me ..... if A.I can give me a modeled tone that I like and sounds like what's in my head and do it in seconds ... I'm all in .... I couldn't give a tickers-cuss how its done ... it saves me time, stress, frustration, ear fatigue etc.....
Personally, I think this approach is a major "watch this space".
Peace.
Ben
Yep .. the Spark and Spark 2 are aimed at bedrooms / home practice etc...... but to suggest they are "toys" and "wedding band" level is kind of missing the point here.
My point is not about the whole product. Its about how they are doing this particular feature. Its the A.I preset creation tech inside. And that is already ... i.m.h.o ... pretty f%cking great based on these demo's ... its super early days and it might get better or worse .... who knows.
As to how they have trained the A.I ... I have no idea ... but it seems to be pretty great so far (?)
But to me its very simple .... Helix, Fractal, Boss, Kemper, Spark 2 etc.... all of them are just 1's and 0's ..... after spending enough to buy a small house on this gear in the last 9 years .... never once have I told myself or even convinced myself I am playing something that sounds and feels as good as the real thing .... but its so close and so easy and so convenient and so consistent, I love them .. and am never going back.
Got my FM3 running CX3 for the last few months and am getting the best tones I've ever got ..... but again, I'm under no illusion its the same or better than the real thing ... but I don't give a f%ck ... its a guitar tone ... I either love it and it makes me want to play -or- it makes me want to watch T.V.
If you think the tones in the demo video are good / great / magnificent / terrible / bad / ultra-sh%t ... its all good :) There is no "right" answer here.
Maybe I've got really sh%t ears but when I cranked those tones up loud through my actual real live rig .... 7 of those 10 tones were almost-bang-on ..... at least as good if not better than anything that would take me a loooong f%cking time to try to dial in ...... and 3 of them needed a good deal of work.
Bottom line for me ..... if A.I can give me a modeled tone that I like and sounds like what's in my head and do it in seconds ... I'm all in .... I couldn't give a tickers-cuss how its done ... it saves me time, stress, frustration, ear fatigue etc.....
Personally, I think this approach is a major "watch this space".
Peace.
Ben
madmarcus1960
Roadie
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I say toys with no disrespect meant. I own an AXE 3, a Kemper w/Ritter add-on stereo amp and 2x12 Kones, and an Soldano Astro 20, so the Spark in comparison is a toy, "to me".
BenIfin
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^^ I totally get what you are saying and where you are coming from. Its this single A.I feature that has struck me as -at this point in time - being very unique - and based on very limited early example's, pretty amazing for what it is.
All the best,
Ben
madmarcus1960
Roadie
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Until they explain how they are using AI, it's fair assumption that the word search the AI uses, is just going through the full catalog of pre-written tones by users and PG themselves, weighing what common components are in the presets found and creating these AI presets based on the highest % of what is in the searched presets. It might just be a data mining process as opposed to real artificial thinking.
I'd be curious if they ever released the 411 on the actual process.
AI can mean a lot of things these days.
I'd be curious if they ever released the 411 on the actual process.
AI can mean a lot of things these days.
James Freeman
Rock Star
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Just another step in the plan to turn your ass into this:
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
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Fwiw, I can pretty much do that already. What's time consuming is all the finetuning, as in adjusting parameters to suit a certain situation and as in setting up live ready patches. I doubt AI will be of much help with these kinda things in its recent state.
ragingplatypi
Roadie
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I want AI to cook and clean for me so I *can* spend hours twiddling knobs dialing in perfect tones, and painting pictures of Eddie Van Halen as an ostrich slaying a dragon in Madison Square Garden.
I don’t want to work all day so computers can have all the fun. Our current reality is dystopian.
I don’t want to work all day so computers can have all the fun. Our current reality is dystopian.
paisleywookiee
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Everything PG does sounds like dogshit, so I have a hard time believing this will be any different. I also don’t need any assistance in dialing in tones.
ChordInversion
Groupie
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I'm not going to refer to it as AI until I have a sense of what's going on under the hood. There are no rules whatsoever about what you are and are not allowed to advertise as "AI." It's a marketing term for some complex (or not really all that complex) matching algorithms and nothing more in many, many cases. They're not putting the processing power behind it that real ML requires.
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Not even close. I give it 1/10.
There are some usable tones throughout based on the clips though.
GTR37
Rock Star
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I think it just another tool and really cool for what it is
If I am just jamming out at the cottage playing on the deck
Or if I am working on a lead to a backing track
AI is a bit gimmicky but the simple on board looper is great , and the fact that you don’t have to menu dive and can grab simple amp knobs is nice
Hell if it good enough for Nuno to practice w who am I to complain
I also think people really underestimate the usefulness of decent drum sounds in these units
It pretty inspiring especially if you are a rhythmic player like Nuno to be able to jam over a groove
If I am just jamming out at the cottage playing on the deck
Or if I am working on a lead to a backing track
AI is a bit gimmicky but the simple on board looper is great , and the fact that you don’t have to menu dive and can grab simple amp knobs is nice
Hell if it good enough for Nuno to practice w who am I to complain
I also think people really underestimate the usefulness of decent drum sounds in these units
It pretty inspiring especially if you are a rhythmic player like Nuno to be able to jam over a groove
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![[Nathan]](/data/avatars/m/0/613.jpg?1726885163){kind=avatar}
[Nathan]
Roadie
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id bet this is exactly how it works, just matching up keywords like Hetfield, metallica, black album etc to some pre programmed preset. If it was really extracting tones or doing some AI wizardry they’d be showing it off a bit more I reckon. Basically just some chatbot slapped ontop of amplitube style preset names.
The tones sounded average. Kind of a cool approach for complete beginners but I’d rather flick through amps and just choose stuff (which is fine cause that’s their main layout already).
paisleywookiee
Rock Star
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They probably literally trained it on “Metallica/Hetfield/Enter Sandman” sounds like this, and fed it audio. Whether that’s licensed, or they scraped it in a questionable manner, who knows.
MirrorProfiles
Rock Star
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I agree - I didn’t hear anything that would have sounded out of place coming from Amplitube 3 or a PodXT. Probably a cool amp for beginners (who it’s likely intended for). I can’t imagine it’s of any use to 99.999% of people who post here who care about the details. Tones were 5/10 at best.
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