[Tease] Darkglass Anagram - NAM profile player & multieffects unit

AFKAEjay(retired) said:
Yes, DI captures, and their preamps. Captures of preamps get used live into returns of mostly combos.
DI captures meant for recording / 100% direct gigs (which I avoid and never have ;))
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Right on. I hear a lot of people saying profiling/capturing is “table stakes” for them to buy something and then it’s just so they can collect digital amps they’ve never played and have no idea if the captures are even good.
 
riffy said:
You all might want to watch Nathan‘s video comparing NAM to Tonex and the real Amps. He did such a good job of capturing them, there wasn’t a hill of beans difference between the three-of them. I’m still happy with Tonex.
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I don't need a video, I did my own tests. It is extremely hard to tell Tonex, QC, and NAM apart just by listening. No one is going to be able to do it in anything but an A/B test unless the captures are flawed.

That is a problem for NAM because there are other reasons to get invested in the Tonex ecosystem (cheap but good sounding hardware) and QC (not just a capture player but a full all-in-one digital solution). The selling point for NAM right now is all hypothetical. Great captures could hypothetically sound a little "better" or more "accurate" but will the differences REALLY be audible? NAM could hypothetically be supported across all sorts of hardware, but if I don't already own the hardware, will I want to buy something in the future to get NAM hardware support? Why invest in NAM and NAM captures now? If NAM truly takes off, I can always invest later, if not, waiting on the sideline will have been a good choice. Kemper, QC, and Tonex work well today.

These problems could be overcome with a company behind it providing hardware and software development and a marketing budget. For an open source solution, it is going to take a bunch of venders buying in plus a significant share of consumers. I am not placing bets either way.
 
ian_dissonance said:
Right on. I hear a lot of people saying profiling/capturing is “table stakes” for them to buy something and then it’s just so they can collect digital amps they’ve never played and have no idea if the captures are even good.
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I don't get that either. If the idea is to have a digital solution, I personally don't care if it is a modeler or a capture device. Even if it is to have a digital solution that can fill in for my specific amps, well, I can get there or close enough with Fractal and Helix, and probably the other decent modelers, or I can capture my amps, or I can get professional captures that are close enough. I have done all three and they all are viable solutions. Having dialed in enough modelers and made enough captures, I am not even sure which approach is quicker! They all take some time, but not enough to be significant if I use the solution for more than a few months.
 
Chocol8 said:
I don't get that either. If the idea is to have a digital solution, I personally don't care if it is a modeler or a capture device. Even if it is to have a digital solution that can fill in for my specific amps, well, I can get there or close enough with Fractal and Helix, and probably the other decent modelers, or I can capture my amps, or I can get professional captures that are close enough. I have done all three and they all are viable solutions. Having dialed in enough modelers and made enough captures, I am not even sure which approach is quicker! They all take some time, but not enough to be significant if I use the solution for more than a few months.
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Sometimes it’s hard not to argue with the people who do the hobby differently, lol. For me everything has to fit into a specific live setup, so I start there and work my way back on features. I can’t fathom just like NEEDING something that has captures of dozens of individual amps instead just a really good model of a really well-serviced version of that amp, or better yet a digital-only model with all the goodies and less of the “analog” warts but the character and gain structure. But then I remember that what I do is totally different than what someone else wants to do.
 
ian_dissonance said:
Right on. I hear a lot of people saying profiling/capturing is “table stakes” for them to buy something and then it’s just so they can collect digital amps they’ve never played and have no idea if the captures are even good.
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we all have our silly reasons to buy stuff ;)
But isn’t this the same for modelers? With modelers we trust the makers they did their job..same for the profile makers you choose to use.

I got my first capture device without aiming to capture amps, I simply wanted a good sounding unit with shiny lights and footswitches. At the time I figured Kemper would deliver that best…The fact that it did so through profiling didn’t matter tbh. To me a downloaded capture works pretty much the same as a modeled amp…you find one you like, dial a few knobs maybe…and that’s what you use.
 
ian_dissonance said:
Sometimes it’s hard not to argue with the people who do the hobby differently, lol. For me everything has to fit into a specific live setup, so I start there and work my way back on features. I can’t fathom just like NEEDING something that has captures of dozens of individual amps instead just a really good model of a really well-serviced version of that amp, or better yet a digital-only model with all the goodies and less of the “analog” warts but the character and gain structure. But then I remember that what I do is totally different than what someone else wants to do.
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What makes you think you need “dozens”? I use 2 in my rig, and get all gain levels/flavours I need.
Don’t modelers also contain 999 amps you never use?
 
AFKAEjay(retired) said:
What makes you think you need “dozens”? I use 2 in my rig, and get all gain levels/flavours I need.
Don’t modelers also contain 999 amps you never use?
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Not you, lol. Capture devices seem like the perfect fit for your use. Just referring to some vocal forum users that NEED it for…reasons.
 
I am basically just using 4 amps right now. I am using a capture of my SLO. I’m using one of Nathan‘s captures of a 5150 blue channel. I’m using a capture of a fender Harvard that is clean plugged into a 4x12. And last but not least I am using an AC 4 hand wired capture, the first is on its own with no overdrive, and the second is boosted with a Kaluna tube overdrive. Those cover everything I need. If I want to, I can always switch to other banks and use different amps, but for right now, those are my go to amps.
 
ian_dissonance said:
Sometimes it’s hard not to argue with the people who do the hobby differently, lol. For me everything has to fit into a specific live setup, so I start there and work my way back on features. I can’t fathom just like NEEDING something that has captures of dozens of individual amps instead just a really good model of a really well-serviced version of that amp, or better yet a digital-only model with all the goodies and less of the “analog” warts but the character and gain structure. But then I remember that what I do is totally different than what someone else wants to do.
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Yeah that's my take too. I've learned how to dial in amps, so I prefer something that works like the real deal. Same for cab sims - movable mic cab sims are way better to work for me than picking through a list of IRs.

Captures to me are like the "cheap" approach now when the manufacturer does not want to develop a proper component modeling system which is way more involved. It has allowed a lot more players in the field. Unfortunately effects don't get quite the same scrutiny as amp modeling does, and of course there's a lot more subjective opinion involved.
 
laxu said:
Captures to me are like the "cheap" approach now when the manufacturer does not want to develop a proper component modeling system which is way more involved.
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You are letting your biases control your thinking too much.

Component modeling is not the "proper" way to simulate an amp. It is the most simplistic "in the box thinking" approach to digital simulation, although it results in some complex models. That's actually a big part of the downside. There is a lot of complexity and interaction that needs to be modeled to accurately recreate a tube amp with all of its imperfect components. That means big models and big processing or lots of simplifications.

Capture technology is a different approach to get to the same results. In some ways it is significantly more efficient, in other ways less so.

If I want the sound of a certain amp model with the bass rolled back, mids cranked, and treble in the 6-7 range...

With another copy of the real amp, I roll the bass back, mids up, set treble at 6 and play. Then I listen, adjust the knobs as needed because they are not all identical, listen again and play on. Of course that is just the start if you want to record or send to the PA.

With a modeler, I pull up a model of as similar an amp as I can get, start with the knobs where I expect and then start playing, listening, and tweaking, often tweaking other parameters to get it to sound right.

With a capture device, I can find a capture of the amp model in question with the tone controls close to where I would set them. Play, listen, and tweak as needed. No the controls don't work exactly like the real amp, but if you start with a capture that is fairly close that doesn't matter and actually the EQ tends to work better. IME, it may take more time to find a good starting point capture, but after you do, it is much quicker to dial it in than with a modeler.

Finally, if I have the original amp I want to copy, I can capture it as is. Depending on the device, this can take some time and effort to do well, but not that much.

The tools and workflows are different, but the end result is effectively the same. And, if the end result sounds the same...
 
Chocol8 said:
You are letting your biases control your thinking too much.

Component modeling is not the "proper" way to simulate an amp. It is the most simplistic "in the box thinking" approach to digital simulation, although it results in some complex models. That's actually a big part of the downside. There is a lot of complexity and interaction that needs to be modeled to accurately recreate a tube amp with all of its imperfect components. That means big models and big processing or lots of simplifications.

Capture technology is a different approach to get to the same results. In some ways it is significantly more efficient, in other ways less so.

If I want the sound of a certain amp model with the bass rolled back, mids cranked, and treble in the 6-7 range...

With another copy of the real amp, I roll the bass back, mids up, set treble at 6 and play. Then I listen, adjust the knobs as needed because they are not all identical, listen again and play on. Of course that is just the start if you want to record or send to the PA.

With a modeler, I pull up a model of as similar an amp as I can get, start with the knobs where I expect and then start playing, listening, and tweaking, often tweaking other parameters to get it to sound right.

With a capture device, I can find a capture of the amp model in question with the tone controls close to where I would set them. Play, listen, and tweak as needed. No the controls don't work exactly like the real amp, but if you start with a capture that is fairly close that doesn't matter and actually the EQ tends to work better. IME, it may take more time to find a good starting point capture, but after you do, it is much quicker to dial it in than with a modeler.

Finally, if I have the original amp I want to copy, I can capture it as is. Depending on the device, this can take some time and effort to do well, but not that much.

The tools and workflows are different, but the end result is effectively the same. And, if the end result sounds the same...
Click to expand...
By "cheap" I mean that it's cheap to implement. You don't need to figure out how to model the behavior of an amp, you can simply get a machine learning snapshot of it and slap a post-EQ after it.

Captures being just a snapshot of a sound is its major failing. While you can tweak it to your liking, its behavior is now irrevocably altered from the original amp. That doesn't mean it can't sound good.

We even have hybrid methods like Hotone's amp modeling (component+machine learning) or Kemper's "Liquid Profiling". They can also work surprisingly well, but I think for straight up like-for-like behavior, component modeling is still the best.

But both Line6 and Fractal have spent what, over a decade perfecting their version of it? That's a lot of work and newcomers to the market are looking for shortcuts.

As for biases, I'll acknowledge captures can sound good. I just hate working with them.
 
Might be for bass only?

Also:

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