Swanky Amp (release 1.4.0)

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Swanky Amp

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guitarzan wrote: Sun May 24, 2020 2:12 pm I may just need to experiment more with the controls, but it seems like the transition into clipping and back out is still too fast, it needs to sustain more in that gainy sweet spot between hard clipping and cleanup/release. More hang time man! :tu:

Remember, those 60hz half cycles are struggling to charge the capactors back up the whole time too, while continued playing keeps the sag going where it doesn't recover between every picked note. That pedal builder's video demonstrates the effect perfectly I think, how the recovery is slow and sag can build.
I suspect the amp model right now doesn't cover the effect you're pointing out from that video. In the video I agree you can really hear the transient get through and then the clip come down crunch the sound. Sounds like this is an effect in the power amp stage? I'll see if I can tease out this sort of effect in my model. I really appreciate the specific feedback, gives me a good sense of what I need to look into.

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jbraner wrote: Sun May 24, 2020 1:06 pm I haven't really used this in depth yet - but it is sounding really good.

I'm not having too much luck dialing in Hi-gain sounds - but I wouldn't be doing that anyway ;)

I agree that the preamp is sounding very nice, and I'm leaving the power amp at halfway or less - this is giving some nice cleat to "crunch" sounds.
Also - I'm using my own speaker sim.

Also - I'm just dialling in the bottom row blindly - till I find a combination that sounds good. This is easier to do with a guitar part that's already recorded in to Reaper - so I'm really testing the "sound" rather than the "playability" - if that makes sense ;)
Hi John,

As always thanks for the feedback. I actually took out some hi-gain part of the model (which you could get to by maxing out the gain stages). It's just not the focus right now and I wasn't happy with my half implementation. I still want to allow some hi-gain usage, but I'll have to sit down first and plan this out, both from a UI perspective and a modelling perspective.

Glad you're enjoying the sounds. This week I will overhaul the UI and maybe make the parameters a bit easier to tweak, or at the very least make it clearer what they are doing.

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Fun journey. Thanks for inviting us.

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prodigal_sounds wrote: Sun May 24, 2020 5:47 pm Fun journey. Thanks for inviting us.
I agree! This does not feel like an alpha at all.

PS - I won't miss the hi gain stuff you took out :wink:
John Braner
http://johnbraner.bandcamp.com
http://www.soundclick.com/johnbraner
and all the major streaming/download sites.

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garrinm wrote: Sun May 24, 2020 4:05 pmSounds like this is an effect in the power amp stage
Yeah, that's the best rendition of Neil Young style power amp sag outside of an actual dying tweed Deluxe ever IMO. Sag with a slow recovery ("bloom"). In an actual amp I suspect (but don't really know for sure - gut feeling) that output transformer saturation really comes into play during that kind of extreme sag and recovery, both in terms of dynamics and the evolving tone.

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jbraner wrote: Sun May 24, 2020 6:41 pm
prodigal_sounds wrote: Sun May 24, 2020 5:47 pm Fun journey. Thanks for inviting us.
I agree! This does not feel like an alpha at all.

PS - I won't miss the hi gain stuff you took out :wink:
+1 :tu:

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garrinm wrote: Sun May 24, 2020 4:05 pm In the video I agree you can really hear the transient get through and then the clip come down crunch the sound.
That's how it sounds from a fully charged state, but then continued hard picking keeps it from fully recovering, so the next notes can start off in an already crushed state, while easing up more will let the sag recover faster - quite like a compressor* with a ridiculously slow release time. Fine tuning this behavior can make difference between beat to death small tweed Deluxe to bolder Bassman and tighter early Marshall, etc. Negative feedback, or lack thereof…

It's all there in that amp compression thread I linked to, especially the post specifically about sag, but all throughout.

*EDIT: I'm sure you're ahead of me on this, but to me an Envelope Follower would be a good choice as a Sag Generator — I remember getting close with a standalone Envelope Follower VST in my energyXT modular rigs. Actually, I think it was MDA or one of them guys', and I'm pretty sure it's open source now. There are a lot of cool little audio modules that are open source now.
Last edited by guitarzan on Tue May 26, 2020 6:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

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I've released version 0.0.5. The main feature is a new tone stack which behaves in a more fender-like manner, so it should be more familiar (especially in its treatment of the mids).
I like the change!
Hopefully, this is a keeper ;)
John Braner
http://johnbraner.bandcamp.com
http://www.soundclick.com/johnbraner
and all the major streaming/download sites.

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I'm still not properly prepared for testing this, my guitars are all in need of repair or at least setup. I have a strobe tuner on the way and it looks like my Gretsch will be my main guitar for now — it just needs a setup, plus I'm adding a Vibramate String Spoiler to the Bigsby, AND because it is a full size hollowbody it will do genuine feedback even at very low volume through my THR10, and the THR10 is also the perfect monitor for any amp sim. So I should be all set within a week or so. Oh, and I eventually need to set it up so I can easily search all my old drives to see what is still there — and I really MUST find my old energyXT authorization too.

You can still get the MDA Envelope Follower / VCA I referenced earlier here (and it is open source now):

http://mda.smartelectronix.com/

There is a lot of other cool open source stuff there too. I don't remember ever trying the opto-electronic style Limiter — seems like an obvious potential power-amp sim component to me now.

dfx Skidder is also now open source (along with a bunch of other cool stuff) here:

http://destroyfx.smartelectronix.com/

Skidder is ostensibly a very flexible tremolo with definable randomness, but it can also be set subtly to modulate control voltages to put little bits of randomness anywhere — really can bring static sounding sims to life.

ndc Amplitude Imposer was also pretty handy and is now open source along with a ton of others tools (MIDI-Controlled ADSR may also be potentially useful for amp sim response tailoring and is very cool) available here:

http://www.niallmoody.com/ndcplugs/plugins.htm

Newer open source stuff that I look forward to checking out is Airwindows:

https://github.com/airwindows/airwindows)

PowerSag and PowerSag2 seem very on topic (even though these are meant to emulate console behavior it seems likely they could be applied to guitar amp simulation):

https://www.airwindows.com/powersag/

https://www.airwindows.com/powersag2/

Likewise, Airwindows Coils is meant to model Neve output tranformer behavior, but I know from the Bogner Neve pedals that it should adapt nicely to guitar amp sim use:

https://www.airwindows.com/coils/

Single Ended Triode:

https://www.airwindows.com/single-ended-triode-vst/

Guitar Conditioner and Compresaturator seem interesting, a lot of this Airwindows stuff really seems worth checking out…

For speaker IRs I'm looking forward to trying out Reflection Free IRs (the thread linked below becomes sort of a disaster at times - seems some guitar players are a pretty conservative bunch, even concerning speaker IRs, but it is worth the read and there does seem to be a couple of these reflection free IRs still available to try, though not the OP's):

Properties of Reflection Free IRs
https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index ... s.2047238/

Microphone IRs might be handy - I have been wanting to check these out for some time and this will be a good opportunity:

Microphone Impulse Response Project
http://micirp.blogspot.com/?m=1

I hope everything is going well for everyone and for Resonant Amp development.

EDIT 6/1/20: So all this to say: for the easy way to emulate sag, stuff the squishiest slowest releasing opto compressor emulation you can manage between the pre amp and power amp - maybe the MDA opto-electronic style Limiter could be a good start. Otherwise, if it's got to be physical modeling, something like an envelope generator (ndc MIDI-Controlled ADSR, MDA Envelope Follower / VCA…) modulating grid voltage or bias or whatever in a way that mimics the behavior of a slow squishy opto compressor — pretty much the same results for the user I imagine. Either way the envelope needs to be tweakable for tighter amp dynamics too, of course (faster attack and release).

Would it be possible for you to add an effects loop between the pre amp and power amp sections so we could experiment ourselves (at least in modular hosts)? Or maybe make the pre and power amp sections so they can be bypassed, then one instance of RA could have everything but the pre amp bypassed in series with another instance with everything bypassed but the power amp, that way we could try different stuff in between (same as an effects loop but maybe easier to manage in more hosts).

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guitarzan wrote: Thu May 28, 2020 11:54 pm Would it be possible for you to add an effects loop between the pre amp and power amp sections so we could experiment ourselves (at least in modular hosts)?
Hi guitarzan,

That was quite the post haha. The short answer to just the above quote is yes, think it's a good idea to allow disabling the pre or power amp stage so that you could use two plugins and setup your own FX loop. I'll put that on the list.

As for the rest of your post, I'll start by saying I spent quite a few days last week working with my model to get out more of that sag effect. I went back to my simulations, spent a lot of time re-parameterzing to ensure I capture the sag-like dynamics I could see in simulation. I'm pretty satisfied with the result, I think the power amp stage sounds better now, but it's still not the same level as the
the pedal video you sent last week. That said, when I get an update out I'd love to hear about your experiences with it.

I looked into the airwaves stuff a bit. His powersag2 effect actually sounds a lot like the behaviours I get out of my model when I change parameters related to drift. I might look into more detail to see if there more I can learn from it.

My approach so far has been to only model behaviours I see in simulations of amplifiers. I do allow the parameters to exaggerate those effects, but by sticking to coherent changes as are seen in simulation it helps avoid accidentally making really unrealistic wacky situations (though you can still definitely get there by turning the knobs enough).

However, to get a really *really* satisfying sag effect, I might look into your other suggestions and model something separately, more like an fx pedal.

As always, I really appreciate the comments. There's some really good information there and I'm not quite done sifting through it yet.

Thanks,
Garrin

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Quick update: thanks everyone for the comments, it's really encouraging to see people excited about where this is going.

I've had my head down in the UI for the past week. I'm hoping to have an update out Thursday with some luck, otherwise Friday. It will have a re-worked UI and a re-worked model including better modelling of drift dynamics leading to sag-life effects.

And yes, the new tone stack is here to stay. I'll probably make a few adjustments. I've been told the mids go too high, which I did because I sometimes like to really crank those mids for sustain, but maybe I took things to far...

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garrinm wrote: Tue Jun 02, 2020 2:25 pm My approach so far has been to only model behaviours I see in simulations of amplifiers. I do allow the parameters to exaggerate those effects, but by sticking to coherent changes as are seen in simulation it helps avoid accidentally making really unrealistic wacky situations (though you can still definitely get there by turning the knobs enough).
Glad you're still on this Garrin, I was afraid I'd chased you off with my posts.

I understand that sag doesn't show up prominently in the spice models, otherwise it would be common in amp sim plugins, but I also know that extreme sag exists in some amps — my first amp ('50s Gibson) was at least as saggy as Neil Young's Deluxe, and I've even played one example that made Neil Young's amp sound tight by comparison.

It was at an Army rec center and it was the last amp available on a Saturday night ('60s Danelectro I think — groovy). The rec center guy said he had replaced the OT with what he had on hand and it wasn't the correct one but it "should be safe". The other guitar player I was with lent me a DOD 250 to goose the front end.

I was so mesmerized that I was down on the floor in front of the amp for an entire extended jam session, getting crazy cool sounds, almost raw analog synthy type stuff. At maximum sag the OT would actually make a metalic grinding sound and the amp would physically vibrate, like jump up and down — I think it was trying to levitate.

When we finally wrapped it up and I looked around the place was packed with punk rockers! They must have been Army brats, but like ALL OF THEM. This was still in the '70s and I had never made the Neil Young / punk rock connection, but it was there.

So, anyway, that's why I'm convinced it is a rolling system wide failure that is initiated by output transformer saturation — a cascading brownout. I don't know why the models don't pick it up, but I do know from personal experience that there must be some wild quantum sh!t going down.

While that level of sag may be somewhat rare, there is common element of compression (sag and recovery, bloom, whatever) in all good tube amps that has also never really been adequately represented in amp sim software (Yamaha modeling hardware comes the closest IMO, even in the old DG Stomp from 20 years ago). It's not just a tonal shift, it involves gain dynamics, it has a feel under the fingers like a triggered envelope, the attack is not overly abrupt. Whatever the cause of this compression is apparently missed by the spice models. Probably a combination of power sag, output transformer and speaker dynamics?

A recent thread here at KVR comparing first gen amp sim software reminded me how good cab modeling was in Hughes & Kettner's WarpVST (again, 20 years ago) — IRs alone just cannot provide that kind of dynamic feel and thump. Maybe hybrid of IR and cab modeling would help.

Oddly, I can often hear something like sag in models of high gain amps that get everything from the preamp in real life, but never in a vintage overdriving amp model — so in conclusion, the spice model output section is pants.

Looking forward to the next update!

Cortez the Killer — a Tweed Deluxe Demonstration:
https://youtu.be/oj1s9HTkSmM

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Update 0.1.0 released! The main feature is the UI is no longer terrible, though that'll be a bit subjective. The amp model has also been re-worked to have better dynamic behviour, and I did extend the drive range somewhat so that guitarazan can try to make it sound like someone is destroying the amp.

The old google drive links still work, here they are again:

Installer: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aOKUJy ... noSLS/view
VST3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BrrAs ... jl1CVIRMka

Dave Clark has brought to my attention some issues with naming and version numbering. I'll look into that, but for now unfortunately when I make a new release you'll just have to re-install the plugin, and if you did save any presets in your DAW or host, they won't map correctly to the new version (it will sound different), sorry for the inconvenience.

I've updated the documentation slightly and would encourage anyone who wants to understand the parameters bit better to checkout the README:

https://github.com/resonantdsp/ResonantAmp

I rolled two updates into one, here are the relevant changes:

Version 0.1.0:

Built a proper UI
Improved the parameter ranges, especially the drive
Simplified the drive tone control
Reduced the mids control slightly

Version 0.0.6:

Rework the power amp again, capture slow dynamics
In particular capturing bias drift contributing to distorted compression
Improvements transfered over also to the pre amp section
Some of the dsp code was streamlined to be more efficient

Version 0.0.6 was mainly an attempt at addressing guitarazan's feedback on the power amp section. I think the amp exhibits a lot more of the correct dynamic behaviour, but it's not as deep as requested (sorry guitarazan, that'll be for another update).

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guitarzan wrote: Tue Jun 02, 2020 6:31 pm While that level of sag may be somewhat rare, there is common element of compression (sag and recovery, bloom, whatever) in all good tube amps that has also never really been adequately represented in amp sim software (Yamaha modeling hardware comes the closest IMO, even in the old DG Stomp from 20 years ago). It's not just a tonal shift, it involves gain dynamics, it has a feel under the fingers like a triggered envelope, the attack is not overly abrupt. Whatever the cause of this compression is apparently missed by the spice models. Probably a combination of power sag, output transformer and speaker dynamics?
That's a good story about picking up that amp from the army rec centre. I'm afraid I'll probably never be able to get you an experience to rival that one (I doubt a plugin could make your computer jump up and down, and if it did that would be really bad news). But I will keep working on this in the direction of capturing those interesting tube dynamics, that was the entire point of this project.

I completely agree with you that the sag, bloom etc. are deeply intertwined and that there's no single aspect of a circuit that can be changed to capture that. As far as I can tell voltage sag modulates the actual signal (any change to the plate voltage is nearly directly seen in the waveform, minus some filtering effects), and then this in turns changes the working point of the tube, which totally changes the distortion regime, and on top of that it also modulates the screen grid voltage. Plus, from my understanding, all the tube voltages are loosely coupled as they share a line (I know the line is filtered to make them independent, but circuits don't behave as idealized filters during heavy transients because they're nowhere steady state). You bring up an interesting point about the output transformer, I'll have to look into that a bit more.

Anyway, after much reading and watching youtube, I think in order to add more depth to the dynamic effects I'll need to simulate the dual rectifier. Or find an ad-hoc solution (but as per the previous paragraph, that's likely not to capture the full story). I'll keep investigating and when I think I have a good solution you'll be the first to know. It might also be, as you said, that spice can't really capture all these effects. But for now I don't think I'm done getting all the detail out of the simulation, so it makes sense to me to keep pursing that direction.

But in the meantime I'm hoping the current model has the right behaviour, if not a bit subdued.

Thanks again for all the input,
Garrin

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and if you did save any presets in your DAW or host, they won't map correctly to the new version (it will sound different), sorry for the inconvenience.
That's to be expected in beta code - and this isn't even beta :wink:
I'm looking forward to trying this tomorrow :wink:
John Braner
http://johnbraner.bandcamp.com
http://www.soundclick.com/johnbraner
and all the major streaming/download sites.

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