When do you predict the next Fractal Audio Axe iteration will drop, now that they've stated that it will be NAM-compatible? (Poll added)

[nightlight]

No.

The big problem with parametric captures is that you would need to capture a wide variety of knob positions. Even with a typical 5-6 knob amp this ends up being massive amounts of data, which takes a very long time to capture. Add more knobs and for 10 positions on each knob you have "10^number of knobs" possible combinations of knob positions.

Neural DSP has tried to solve this by using a "good enough" randomized sample set. You can read a paper about it here: https://arxiv.org/html/2403.08559v1
If you have followed their firmware development, ever since the announcement of the TINA robot used to turn knobs and collect the information, they have put out like maybe 3-4 new amp models. So that means their approach is not very successful overall.

If Fractal were to do something like that, it would no longer be NAM. It would be something different, with its own proprietary format.

As I said, not a rocket scientist. Part of the reason that I gravitated away from the Profiler was that the device was not very tweakable. That led to the profile rabbit hole with endless scrolling in order to find something in the ballpark. That would then be dismissed when listening the next time with fresh ears and the process would repeat itself.

Using NAM captures on the device would subject Fractal users to that same option paralysis that is already felt when it comes to profiles on the Kemper and IRs on the Axe FX.

I'd love for the Axe FX IV to remain a modeller even if it didn't have NAM captures. I have no idea what would be involved, but rather than a 10^knobs situation, I think some specific parameters should be tweakable like the definition control on the KPA.

In that regard, even being able to change the amount of gain to suit your pickups should not be seen as a minor feature.

Look at the Quad Cortex, which allows you to change a number of settings on the capture. That's all I ask for, but given (and I'm repeating myself for emphasis, I can't programme a damn) how Cliff might look at things like negative feedback or amp-cabinet interaction, I would love for the new Fractal unit to continue with its tradition of being a modeller, rather than having profiling/captures slapped in as a new feature.

 

[[Nathan]]

As I said, not a rocket scientist. Part of the reason that I gravitated away from the Profiler was that the device was not very tweakable. That led to the profile rabbit hole with endless scrolling in order to find something in the ballpark. That would then be dismissed when listening the next time with fresh ears and the process would repeat itself.

Using NAM captures on the device would subject Fractal users to that same option paralysis that is already felt when it comes to profiles on the Kemper and IRs on the Axe FX.

I'd love for the Axe FX IV to remain a modeller even if it didn't have NAM captures. I have no idea what would be involved, but rather than a 10^knobs situation, I think some specific parameters should be tweakable like the definition control on the KPA.

In that regard, even being able to change the amount of gain to suit your pickups should not be seen as a minor feature.

Look at the Quad Cortex, which allows you to change a number of settings on the capture. That's all I ask for, but given (and I'm repeating myself for emphasis, I can't programme a damn) how Cliff might look at things like negative feedback or amp-cabinet interaction, I would love for the new Fractal unit to continue with its tradition of being a modeller, rather than having profiling/captures slapped in as a new feature.

I’d be happy just being able to drop in a nam capture of my own rig into a fractal fx chain/preset. They already have great amp modelling with infinite ways to push and pull their models. But for the situations you want to use “your” rig via capturing, then using NAM will be that solution.

Creating new ways to push and pull those NAM captures like definition controls sounds like a whole other extra layer of work and research. Maybe it’s easy picking or maybe it’s complex to do right, I have no idea. But I just want to highlight that even getting a nam player block in there is pretty amazing already. If they go balls deep with it and come up with advanced tweakable parameters that would obviously be cool to mess around with. But expecting that stuff or having high hopes they’ll do a bunch of new stuff for NAM playback, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Anything is possible I guess, but I wouldn’t expect it.

 

[metropolis_4]

What are you saying? NAM is free anyway. No one is asking NAM to improve its feature set, and the Fractal product is likely to cost thousands of dollars.

I was talking about Fractal Audio giving users the option to tweak captures. Doesn't have to be an unlimited set of controls, I'd really appreciate something like the "Definition" control on the Profiler, which - let's face it - every profiler maxed out for heavy tones because it made the profiles sound tighter/better.

Why/how is NAM free? How does a NAM player get into a device? Who is creating the additional software to allow tweaking? Who is designing and creating the UI?

Is there a ROI that makes the investment worth it for the people doing all that work?

We expect “open source” to carry a ton of weight. And forget that integration and implementation isn’t free. There’s this mindset now that “NAM is open source so it’s free so there’s no excuse for every device to not have it”

 

[paisleywookiee]

I hope the AM4 doesn't get NAM, because I don't want it, and I don't want anyone else to have it either. I'm shitty that way.

 

[GTR37]

I like the AM4 so much I would be interested in that platform but just a bit bigger if it even happened
Say like and AX8 or Helix stadium size , same navigating but touchscreen
HD Dyna cabs and all the mic options
8 of the same AM4 footswitch no scribbles just a bit more flexibility
That would be an instant buy
I honestly don’t care about NAM
I am sure there will be something even better in a year or 2

 

[ChordInversion]

I hope the AM4 doesn't get NAM, because I don't want it, and I don't want anyone else to have it either. I'm shitty that way.

Haven't you heard? They will have it - indeed, they must have it. Every modeler manufacturer, on absolutely everything they make. It has been fated. It is everyone's moral responsibility to demand it. Soon, buying a modeler that does not do NAM will disqualify you from jobs, mortgage applications, and college or professional school admissions.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Haven't you heard? They will have it - indeed, they must have it. Every modeler manufacturer, on absolutely everything they make. It has been fated. It is everyone's moral responsibility to demand it. Soon, buying a modeler that does not do NAM will disqualify you from jobs, mortgage applications, and college or professional school admissions.

Table Steaks!!

 

[timbuck3]

Maybe I’m just in a cynical mood this morning, but all of the talk about “everything has to have NAM and I have to be able to control it just like the real amp” sounds so typical of the lack of respect our society has for software.

We feel entitled to demand software give us everything and we expect it to be free. Decades of exposure to freeware and shareware has made us expect software to be cheap or free and we have no respect for all of the hard work, innovation, and ingenuity that goes into its creation.

We look at software as a way to get things we normally couldn’t afford for free. Amp modelers are expected to include hundreds of amps at launch, and to provide more through free updates every month. We start to use expectations of how much they’ll give us for free as a metric to decide which one to buy. And we don’t expect the cost of all that software to reflect in the price of the hardware.

The whole original idea of Profiling was that you could Profile your own gigging amp so you could have a reliable facsimile of it to bring to gigs without risking the real amp. We’ve now turned that concept into a way to expect to get a bunch of expensive amps for free with software we expect to be included for free.

 

[nightlight]

Why/how is NAM free? How does a NAM player get into a device? Who is creating the additional software to allow tweaking? Who is designing and creating the UI?

Is there a ROI that makes the investment worth it for the people doing all that work?

We expect “open source” to carry a ton of weight. And forget that integration and implementation isn’t free. There’s this mindset now that “NAM is open source so it’s free so there’s no excuse for every device to not have it”

It is free though. Not even sure who the developer is, but I think they released it that way for egalitarian reasons.

Not everything is about money for some people. Who knows, could be someone with deep pockets funded them.

As for every device having it, I don't know what the implications are, and I think most of the serious players like Kemper, Line 6 and Neural DSP have all got their own profiling/capture technologies.

Perhaps we should flip the question and ask: do you want a device that does not have any kind of capture technology? How important is that feature for users? Do manufacturers ascribe enough value to it to justify that technology's inclusion in the device?

Or do you try to push the envelope and do something entirely different?

 

[[Nathan]]

Hard to make sweeping statements about every device ever but if stadium for instance had the horsepower to run NAM and they didn’t have any plans to make proxy or anything capture related. Then adding NAM in to supplement the stadium ecosystem would make complete sense. That’s kind of the route fractal seem to be taking.

But since proxy is coming and they’ll no doubt have their ideas and bag of tricks for it then no I don’t think NAM is a deal breaker there.

The two stadium units are flagships and I think a new flagship not having capturing in 2026 just offers less value than a quad cortex and now stadium with proxy (and soon axe4 with NAM). I think it’s been a big missed opportunity that the TMP doesn’t have capturing. If they have no plans for their own capturing ecosystem I think it would do them well to add in some kind of a NAM player to have some kind of equal neck and neck with the rest.

You don’t have to have capture tech on a flagship but when everyone else suddenly does and you don’t, it’s a decent consideration for people purchasing to skip over yours and go with something else.

Secondary units like the fm3 am4 successor or stadium stomp might not have it and that’s also fine not every price tiered unit has to have the same as the flagship.

 

[laxu]

Why/how is NAM free?

It's an open source project Steve Atkinson made for fun on top of the PyTorch machine learning framework using multiple layers of Wavenet models. The code for it isn't really anything that wild.

How does a NAM player get into a device?

The maker of the device implements support for the .nam file format which is just a JSON file with metadata and model weights. Then it either:

1. Uses a proprietary model to interpret the weights in a machine learning model. This is what most do, with varying results.
2. Uses the same ML model to interpret the weights. This what the Dimehad NAM Player does.

Who is creating the additional software to allow tweaking? Who is designing and creating the UI?

Again, the maker of the device or software.

Is there a ROI that makes the investment worth it for the people doing all that work?

There seems to be since Steve Atkinson is developing a lighter weight model A2 meant to be able to run on more devices. I'm guessing he's consulting for multiple companies on this.

We expect “open source” to carry a ton of weight. And forget that integration and implementation isn’t free. There’s this mindset now that “NAM is open source so it’s free so there’s no excuse for every device to not have it”

NAM's open source aspect allows for a more universal format. We have seen that e.g Tonex V2 or QC V2 are roughly on par with their proprietary implementations, but they have a business incentive to keep that format to themselves.

The real bottleneck is still hardware. The current A1 model is quite demanding because it was never designed to run on anything but a powerful laptop or desktop computer. Hence the demand for A2.

With A2, we will hopefully have a lot of devices implementing NAM A2. If it does what it intends to do, it might push out proprietary formats because the sheer number of NAM devices and captures available means it makes less sense to support proprietary formats.

 

[2dor]

Is there actually a documented use of where TINA has been used? IIRC that paper about it is quite old and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been used far longer than that youtube video has been active for

They do go into it a little bit on Rick Beato's vid:

 

[Eagle]

The last thing I want is an Axe that is basically the same but adds NAM and has an iPad stuck on as an interface . If you are not going to make a serious step up in audio quality/ feel it’s pointless.
As a photographer in the past I used to appreciate Nikon for only introducing a new pro camera when tech had moved forward enough to make it a genuine improvement in performance/ handling.

 

[metropolis_4]

It's an open source project Steve Atkinson made for fun on top of the PyTorch machine learning framework using multiple layers of Wavenet models. The code for it isn't really anything that wild.


The maker of the device implements support for the .nam file format which is just a JSON file with metadata and model weights. Then it either:

1. Uses a proprietary model to interpret the weights in a machine learning model. This is what most do, with varying results.
2. Uses the same ML model to interpret the weights. This what the Dimehad NAM Player does.

Again, the maker of the device or software.

There seems to be since Steve Atkinson is developing a lighter weight model A2 meant to be able to run on more devices. I'm guessing he's consulting for multiple companies on this.


NAM's open source aspect allows for a more universal format. We have seen that e.g Tonex V2 or QC V2 are roughly on par with their proprietary implementations, but they have a business incentive to keep that format to themselves.

The real bottleneck is still hardware. The current A1 model is quite demanding because it was never designed to run on anything but a powerful laptop or desktop computer. Hence the demand for A2.

With A2, we will hopefully have a lot of devices implementing NAM A2. If it does what it intends to do, it might push out proprietary formats because the sheer number of NAM devices and captures available means it makes less sense to support proprietary formats.

Thanks, but I wasn’t asking those questions literally, I was asking rhetorically. My point was this line:

We expect “open source” to carry a ton of weight. And forget that integration and implementation isn’t free.

Coming from the line of discussion in my earlier post about how we don’t value software.

“Open source” is a complicated issue. But I’m drifting pretty far from this thread now

 

[nightlight]

Thanks, but I wasn’t asking those questions literally, I was asking rhetorically. My point was this line:



Coming from the line of discussion in my earlier post about how we don’t value software.

“Open source” is a complicated issue. But I’m drifting pretty far from this thread now

If open source code isn't as good as a paid-for software, I'd open up my wallet if I had that option. In a highly competitive environment like the music industry, everyone wants the best bang for their buck when it comes to any piece of gear, and the same goes for software.

Look at Reaper, so many people shower praise on it and are cool with paying a small premium in order to legitimately use the software past the trial period, which incidentally never expires. And from what I hear, it functions pretty well as a freemium DAW.

NAM can also be seen as a success because so many people are using it and as @laxu mentioned, they are now developing a newer version in consultation with other companies. So his good work is being recognised and rewarded.

The gaming industry is a similar example. There are lots of people releasing free games on Steam or games that are still in the Alpha stage of development. As word of mouth spreads, many of keep adding features or bringing out new games that cost money because people are willing to support them having tried out the free games they developed.

 

[metropolis_4]

If open source code isn't as good as a paid-for software, I'd open up my wallet if I had that option. In a highly competitive environment like the music industry, everyone wants the best bang for their buck when it comes to any piece of gear, and the same goes for software.

Look at Reaper, so many people shower praise on it and are cool with paying a small premium in order to legitimately use the software past the trial period, which incidentally never expires. And from what I hear, it functions pretty well as a freemium DAW.

NAM can also be seen as a success because so many people are using it and as @laxu mentioned, they are now developing a newer version in consultation with other companies. So his good work is being recognised and rewarded.

The gaming industry is a similar example. There are lots of people releasing free games on Steam or games that are still in the Alpha stage of development. As word of mouth spreads, many of keep adding features or bringing out new games that cost money because people are willing to support them having tried out the free games they developed.

Makes me think of things musicians always hear:

“We don’t have any money to pay you to play at our festival (even though we had an operating budget of $1,000,000 and we’re paying every other vendor), but it will be great exposure!”

Because music is free right?

 

[DrewJD82]

The gaming industry is a similar example. There are lots of people releasing free games on Steam or games that are still in the Alpha stage of development. As word of mouth spreads, many of keep adding features or bringing out new games that cost money because people are willing to support them having tried out the free games they developed.

Yeah, that business model has already been happening in the gear world and some of us don’t find it appealing. At all.

 

[Jarick]

Not fully caught up but a couple thoughts...

I think Fractal is at or near market leader in most key areas, but the two obvious opportunities are user interface and capture loading (such as NAM). Simplified/quicker UI is going to necessitate a new hardware platform...honestly I bet Cliff could figure out how to integrate NAM to existing but maybe it makes more sense to have a separate or additional processor to handle just captures if that makes more sense. I'm talking out of my ass though.

Having tried most of the capture devices, to me the real beauty is being able to bring in captures as needed or preferred but not being locked into them. If you had the option of using a capture or using modeling that's the best of both worlds. Very much like being able to load your own IR.

Even better would be running multiple captures. In the NDSP world that actually takes less DSP than modeling, so maybe flagship models could run several captures which would be awesome. Then you could run captures of pedals into stereo amp/cab captures for instance.

From that standpoint, captures can be really damn cool. Then you're able to shoot your own amps through a load box and bring them in and use the cabs and effects of the modeler. Or people can shoot captures of cool new amps or weird quirky models...like the Bogner Snorkler or the Friedman IR-D or hell even the NDSP Mayer plugin.

If Fractal can do that, the world's your oyster really. And I think it could take some pressure off Fractal to have to continually expand amp models...maybe.

 

[FracKing]

Not that I'm waiting for it, but I wonder if the next gen will do 3 amps at the same time...
I think it would be an acceptable compromise if the third amp had to be the NAM (chip.) If it will use its own chip it seems guaranteed we'll have at least 3 amps this way. This leaves the question if the IV will do IV amps...?
Do we already know how many cores the new chip may have?

 

[nightlight]

Yeah, that business model has already been happening in the gear world and some of us don’t find it appealing. At all.

I know. Absolutely frustrating when half-finished products are released and early adopters become beta testers.