Seems to be very similar to NAM and Tonex except perhaps using GuitarML's tools which are another PyTorch based solution. I don't have good understanding between the different neural network approaches.
Interesting to see stuff like this, this is kind of like a "multifx Tonex pedal". From a company from Ukraine no less!
I'm not quite sure where this will lead with multiple competing products. It's very possible that IK becomes the "defacto" cheap pedal running captures simply because they were the first to market in that category. The next thing we will most likely see is Chinese manufacturers flooding the market with a rebranded small, cheap box that runs captures.
Totally agree... from a market standpoint, I am not sure there would be room for 5-10 capture devices/platforms that are all very similar in quality but different in format. If enough entries were to join the market it would become about the quality of your 'software library' i.e. capture marketplace for most end users and the market will probably converge based on that rather than hardware. As you note being the first budget device is a huge advantage for IK in there.
For example, I have ToneX and thought I would jump all over the pedal when it was released. It's well within impulse purchase price and I am a neophile for better or worse.
But, in practice, I toyed around with it a bit and have not messed with it since... I captured a few things and compared to my QC, I checked out IK's models and some of the user models. It compared well enough to QC but it was not clear at all whether it was any 'better' and I already have ALL of my amps and preamps captured to my satisfaction on the QC.
Recapturing them is not worth my time unless the other platform is notably better and I've got a good library of other folks captures on the QC I am happy with and have culled from their library, so a new capture device unless it were clearly superior functionally has limited appeal without some kind of interchange format. My time has value. I haven't even bothered to listen to NAM and I certainly will not download this either since ToneX covers any plugin need and QC does HW.
The plugins are cool and all I suppose. Free ones certainly are not new... And I can understand why someone new to caps might want the ToneX vs the QC, they are significantly different devices, that is not the point... point being you really only need a couple of choices among capture devices and once you invest in a capture device there is a time-cost to switch. All of these seem capable of making really good snapshots at this point so it is not likely to actually be leap frogging just a bunch of me too stuff built quickly now that the methods are proven, etc.
IMHO if there is not a significant gap in features or quality a bunch of freeware or half baked kick starter type devices will just be a bunch of shake out fodder.
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