TONEX PEDAL ...... MAJOR FREE F/W UPDATE ..... Nov 2024

[GTR37]

Im talking to 2dor and there's some shared wisdom going around. I've always been greedy and wanted my boost pedal --> amp high gain stuff but maybe that's just too much to ask for. I did a EVH 5150iii blue capture with gain on 4-5 and it came out close enough to the amp. Came out a hair better on NAM but close enough in the grand scheme. Doing a capture now for the RED channel on gain 4-5 but no boost pedal.

My only motivation to get good ToneX captures is to share them around, I have no yearning to do paid packs or anything... its just so frustrating when there's some tech limitation. If Amp only with no boost is the rock solid answer then at least its something, so far so good we'll see how this comes out. If this works great then I'll go through a bunch of amps here over the weekend doing a few sanity checks.

If you are a high gain
Heavy rock players which are the 3 or 4 guys that you have found success w that don’t have farty lows and fizz

See the Studio rats Mezza Barbara to me sounds pretty good and clear
but many sound like a 1990 POD and imo not convincing

Maybe I just personally like the NDSP sound but their hi gain at least in clips sounds much more useable to me

 

[EOengineer]

Now this is getting interesting.

I have to imagine with the profiling tech there’s an upper saturation limit where the waveform becomes so blocky (compressed) that the AI ends up with not enough information to accurately register the behavior. Boosts and ODs obviously up those compression levels as well.

Just spitballing but I could see there being differences in how these companies have tried to engineer around those limitations. It’s also something I’d expect to get better as more engineers iterate on the problem.

 

[2dor]

Now this is getting interesting.

I have to imagine with the profiling tech there’s an upper saturation limit where the waveform becomes so blocky (compressed) that the AI ends up with not enough information to accurately register the behavior. Boosts and ODs obviously up those compression levels as well.

Just spitballing but I could see there being differences in how these companies have tried to engineer around those limitations. It’s also something I’d expect to get better as more engineers iterate on the problem.

With 48KHz sampling, the reamped file should allow pretty good resolution though into what the amp's doing.
With NAM, you can increase the neural network size to get even closer to the source (albeit at the expense of more CPU at runtime) if you so desire so I think it comes down to how (and what type of neural network) each solution initializes their neural network at the start of training.

 

[[Nathan]]

I wonder how a Capture of a very high Gain Amp DI or very high Gain Amp + Cab [with no boosts or drives in front] comes out in Tonex vs NAM ?

I was just testing this and yeah even I'm impressed with the results... Amp DI with no boost pedal is splitting hairs between the NAM version and the ToneX version which is a HUGE win for ToneX here compared to past results. Both are NULL-ing against the real amp very well as well.

Well there we go, one half evening spent on ToneX... at least I'm half confident with their Amp Only results (for now).
Here's links to the ToneX uploads and the .NAM files if anyone's curious to A/B them

5150iii Amp Only (Red Blue) | ToneHunt

Testing out some amp only captures to compare NAM against ToneX... surprisingly both came out great and these match each other very well. Here's links to the ToneX ones: https://www.tone.net/tonex/tonemodels/65007 https://www.tone.net/tonex/tonemodels/65008

tonehunt.org

5150iii Red Boy

5150iii Red Chan

www.tone.net

5150iii Blue Boy

TONEX Tone Model sharing community

www.tone.net

 

[GTR37]

did we miss the big finale for the anniversary curious what today announcement is ?

Monday was amplitude integration new editor
Tuesday was Red seven tone partner
Wed was limited white and partner collection preset
Thurs was modulation and delay addition
Friday???

 

[Mongillo19]

Friday???

Giving thanks to IK

 

[Elric]

Last I checked Tonex was still beating the QC in null tests. Did the QC update their capture tech recently?

Those null tests are pretty qualitative in that it is up to the user to decide how different they are and where the inaccuracies are in each one. You could easily have one product which is more accurate in some certain bandwidth but less accurate overall.

The way people are doing those tests on YT you have no idea, though. They're not quantifying the differences in any way. They are just implying this one seems louder so it's 'worse'.


The null test also doesn't really give any kind of quantitative insight into dynamics, etc. It is only highlighting specific mismatches in the waveforms.

They have value but unfortunately, I think a lot of people think they are somehow a final statement on 'accuracy' and just say 'well that's it X>Y always'; which really, is not proven by them.

 

[2dor]

Those null tests are pretty qualitative in that it is up to the user to decide how different they are and where the inaccuracies are in each one. You could easily have one product which is more accurate in some certain bandwidth but less accurate overall.

The way people or doing those tests you have no idea, though. They're not quantifying the differences in any way. They are just saying this one is louder so it's 'worse'.

The null test also doesn't really give any kind of quantitative insight into dynamics, etc. It is only highlighting specific mismatches in the waveforms.

They have value but unfortunately, I think a lot of people think they are somehow a final statement on 'accuracy' and just say 'well that's it X>Y always'; which really, is not proven by them.

If 2 signals are identical, they cancel eachother out when you flip the phase on them so the test is very relevant even if only to gauge problematic frequency ranges with each profiling tech.

 

[Elric]

If 2 signals are identical, they cancel eachother out when you flip the phase on them so the test is very relevant even if only to gauge problematic frequency ranges with each profiling tech.

I have an engineering degree, I understand what's going on there; I tried to be clear that it is relevant but not *definitive* and that the YouTubers are not *quantifying* their results in any way. Unless one is measurably dead silent, the two devices can still differ in their inaccuracy.

 

[2dor]

I have an engineering degree, I understand what's going on there; I tried to be clear that it is relevant but not *definitive* and that the YouTubers are not *quantifying* their results in any way. Unless one is measurably dead silent, the two devices can still differ in their inaccuracy.

So do others but there's no need to throw it around. Anyway, point well taken: at the end of the day, most folks are happy with the tech if it sounds "close-enough" to their gear. Blasting these through a loud PA at gig / practice volumes would, in most cases, make away with any minute differences.

 

[norminal]

So do others but there's no need to throw it around. Anyway, point well taken: at the end of the day, most folks are happy with the tech if it sounds "close-enough" to their gear. Blasting these through a loud PA at gig / practice volumes would, in most cases, make away with any minute differences.

Especially when the FOH starts adding cuts and EQs the shit out of it.

 

[2dor]

Especially when the FOH starts adding cuts and EQs the shit out of it.

They love their cuts

 

[Elric]

So do others but there's no need to throw it around. Anyway, point well taken: at the end of the day, most folks are happy with the tech if it sounds "close-enough" to their gear. Blasting these through a loud PA at gig / practice volumes would, in most cases, make away with any minute differences.

I'm in strong agreement with you. That was sort of my point.

In a test like this, the idea that device A is more 'accurate' than device B quickly crosses diminishing returns with the modern AI based profiling devices and people should not just pick one over the other based on these youtuber null test results. The test are interesting but demonstrate really that these devices are all very good at the profiling/capturing.

In practice, I am finding the difference between ToneX and the QC for me comes down to ease of use, speed, UI, flexibility, consistency, etc. They're both sufficiently accurate to be amazing from my perspective.

 

[pipelineaudio]

They love their cuts

Cuts are EQ

I had to

NO PRO TIPS!~!!!!!!

 

[2dor]

I'm in strong agreement with you. That was sort of my point.

In a test like this, the idea that device A is more 'accurate' than device B quickly crosses diminishing returns with the modern AI based profiling devices and people should not just pick one over the other based on these youtuber null test results. The test are interesting but demonstrate really that these devices are all very good at the profiling/capturing.

In practice, I am finding the difference between ToneX and the QC for me comes down to ease of use, speed, UI, flexibility, consistency, etc. They're both sufficiently accurate to be amazing from my perspective.

Very true - we're spoiled for choices.

I took my PC & audio interface to band practice a few times to blast through my NAM profiles with the band.

Problem is, in that space & at the volumes we're playing (we have a VERY, VERY loud drummer), I had to do a lot of cuts & tweaks to avoid squeals / feedback etc. I took the QC afterwards because of its form-factor etc and used Neural Captures of my same gear, which even if wasn't as dead-on as NAM, at those volumes it needed less cuts / EQ and sounded / felt great to play through.

 

[norminal]

Cuts are EQ

I was referring to high-pass/low-pass, but yeah, same thing.

 

[EOengineer]

I was just testing this and yeah even I'm impressed with the results... Amp DI with no boost pedal is splitting hairs between the NAM version and the ToneX version which is a HUGE win for ToneX here compared to past results. Both are NULL-ing against the real amp very well as well.

Well there we go, one half evening spent on ToneX... at least I'm half confident with their Amp Only results (for now).
Here's links to the ToneX uploads and the .NAM files if anyone's curious to A/B them

5150iii Amp Only (Red Blue) | ToneHunt

Testing out some amp only captures to compare NAM against ToneX... surprisingly both came out great and these match each other very well. Here's links to the ToneX ones: https://www.tone.net/tonex/tonemodels/65007 https://www.tone.net/tonex/tonemodels/65008

tonehunt.org

5150iii Red Boy

5150iii Red Chan

www.tone.net

5150iii Blue Boy

TONEX Tone Model sharing community

www.tone.net

That’s awesome that you at least found something you could work with. This also probably sheds some light on why some of us have had such vastly different impressions and experiences with Tonex sounds.

I’d never tried capturing a boosted amp. Apparently that context mattered. Thanks for sharing the tones!

 

[pipelineaudio]

I was referring to high-pass/low-pass, but yeah, same thing.

******* is EQ is what all the cool guys with lanyards and beards that pretend to be soundmen say

 

[GTR37]

I'm in strong agreement with you. That was sort of my point.

In a test like this, the idea that device A is more 'accurate' than device B quickly crosses diminishing returns with the modern AI based profiling devices and people should not just pick one over the other based on these youtuber null test results. The test are interesting but demonstrate really that these devices are all very good at the profiling/capturing.

In practice, I am finding the difference between ToneX and the QC for me comes down to ease of use, speed, UI, flexibility, consistency, etc. They're both sufficiently accurate to be amazing from my perspective.

so Elric

would you say Tones with the right captures is the same quality or sounds that NDSP is getting on similar captures

From all the clips I have heard , I felt I would give NDSP the edge for the Heavy rock stuff , they also seem to have a clarity many of the toneX clips I have heard do not

are there some clips around or preset guys for ToneX you would recommend ?

 

[pipelineaudio]

Amalgam hi gain seem awesome to me