Swanky Amp (release 1.4.0)

[garrinm]

I don't know, 0.5.0 wasn't all that different — I think what's bothering me is that any setting above 3 on power-amp drive seems to brown out the sound too much, even with sag all the way down, and that just doesn't seem right to me. Also, those speaker rattle sounding artifacts — they don't sound better to me through cab IRs like I thought they would.

If I just don't go over 3 on power-amp drive and work on dialing out those artifacts I should be able to find a nice sweet spot again — I'll never be happy with an amp sim that doesn't model sag behavior the way Resonant Amp does ever again (never really was).

There is actually a subtle change that did happen which you might be picking up on. The distortion ceiling in the power amp comes down more quickly in response to power draw. The reason it's subtle is that it interacts with how hard you play your guitar, and it doesn't affect cross over distortion so part of the distortion is unaffected. I will re-adjust the default value there, but also make it so that it can be modified with the sag knob. Overall I want to tweak the power amp section some more, I agree it doesn't give a very great impression out of the box.

I think I also inadvertently reduced the overall overhead in the power amp section. That will be revised as well. I will try to correct presets if they were created with a previous version of the plugin so that they still work when I make tweaks like this.

[garrinm]

When recording you will hear sounds that an amp would not produce

Hey acousticglue, is there any particular aspect of the sound you can point out that needs more work? Definitely Resonant Amp has some unique sound characteristics, and some of them are more desirable than others.

[garrinm]

Also one more thing for Garrin - could you put "next" and "previous" buttons for the presets - at some point?

Yes!

Yeah the noise suppression is for the horrible buzz, where you have to turn which way you're facing - and contort to hit the "record" button

I used to think all amp sims were hopelessly noisy... until I spent $12 on some copper tape and shielded my cavity. No more contortion required.

It does remind me that I've been meaning to suggest a noise gate of some kind for the higher drive settings. There are free ones available, so probably not essential for the open source version, but might be a nice addition for a future paid version.

It shouldn't be too hard to add a noise gate, I'll look into doing that in the short term.

My main issue is sometimes I'm playing along happily recording something, then my fridge compressor turns on and I get all this noise that I didn't setup for. I think by now though I kind of know what orientation I need to play in to avoid that.

I hate gates

But I'll be sure to make it optional xD.

I notice a speaker rattle-like sound in most Resonant Amp overdriven tones that I don't remember hearing anywhere else before - it seems to just bloom and follow along. Is everyone getting that? If that's the price to pay for a dynamic amp sim then it's well worth it, but if it's something in my setup or something that can be fixed without a dynamics penalty then it should probably be addressed at some point.

I think I know what you mean about the rattle. I want to drill down into the model a bit and see what part of the model / which parameters could control that. I did notice other amp sims also do this, so I don't think it's a buggy digital problem, but if I can help control it with a knob I think that'd be a boon.

Thanks for all the feedback, seems the last patch fixed the stability issues. It's been great following along the discussion, it's helping me understand what should change for this to be a really useful amp sim. I hope you'll get to see some of this make its way into the plugin in the next patch or 2.

Garrin

[jbraner]

for this to be a really useful amp sim

It's already a really useful amp sim - but hopefully it's gonna become an awsome amp sim!

[JO512]

I did manage to get a patch out that *might* address the crashes.

I've been trying it for a half hour or so, and so far, no crashes like I previously had! I've been moving a lot of knobs too.

[guitarzan]

I think I know what you mean about the rattle. I want to drill down into the model a bit and see what part of the model / which parameters could control that. I did notice other amp sims also do this, so I don't think it's a buggy digital problem, but if I can help control it with a knob I think that'd be a boon.

It does sound like something that a pushed tube amp might produce, but that would then be further shaped and filtered by the O.T. and speaker, that's why I was kind of disappointed that cab IRs didn't really do the trick. So, yeah, looking into more control (volume, onset only at higher drive levels…) or further processing (hard limiting of the harsh uppermost frequencies and softened by a bit of saturation, eq…) seems like a good plan, rather than just trying to eliminate it without further consideration.

EDIT 29 JUNE: Unfortunately the Airwindows Coils plugin doesn't seem to touch this "rattle" either (to be honest, I can't hear what Coils is doing at all). The "pre drive" preset in Resonant Amp provides a good example of the sound I'm talking about - the "rattle" is best heard in the sustain and decay of a strummed chord.

[garrinm]

After a short absence I've got a new update, version 0.7.0. I've made a website to help promote it once this is ready for more users, and the files are now hosted there. You can see the website and download the files at:

http://www.resonantdsp.com/resonantamp/

Note that windows might block the executable installer since it doesn't know the publisher. You can always just use the VST3 directly by copying it into your VST3 plugin directory. I will try to improve the installer situation in a future release.

As usual you can see the change log at:

https://www.github.com/resonantdsp/resonantamp

In version 0.7.0 you'll notice tooltips to help you better use the available controls. I've also incorporated some recent feedback and tweaked the power amp some more. The sag and drive range are now a bit easier to work with.

Any old presets you have should work pretty well with the new version. The program will try to map your old preset values to appropriate ones for the new version. But it won't be exactly the same so I recommend you go over your presets and adjust them as needed.

I've also added some high end and low end filtering. Big thanks to Dave Clark and guitarzan for pointing out a few areas of improvement there.

Hopefully this release is a bit smoother than the last. I'm still planing work to improve preset management in the near future, and I'd like to track down that rattle and mitigate it to some extent if possible (though that's looking like it is a stubborn artifact to track down).

Thanks,
Garrin

[prodigal_sounds]

Nice!

Um.... could I please put an enhancement request on the hopper? I'd really like to see 99.9 values in the controls, if there is room.

[guitarzan]

Yeah, it's seems voiced much nicer now. It now works really well with Boogex too, I'm really liking the Dynamic cab mode with INTERNAL:CAB7-RIBBONEDGE as Cabinet 1 and INTERNAL:CAB7-RIBBONCENTER as Cabinet 2. You should take a look at this if you haven't already, Garrin - seems like a fairly straight forward way of getting some dynamics out of a pair of static IRs.

My initial impression is that now with the updated voicing, etc. the "rattle" thing does sound more like just a normal smokin' amp artifact through Boogex cab IRs.

[garrinm]

Nice!

Um.... could I please put an enhancement request on the hopper? I'd really like to see 99.9 values in the controls, if there is room.

Yes!

Announcing version 0.7.1 (the prodigal_sounds update). Featuring decimal places on the knobs and finer adjustments. This is a quick update, but should be a nice quality of life feature.

http://www.resonantdsp.com/resonantamp/#download

For visual purposes I compromised and made it so that the decimal places show up only when you are adjusting a knob. The mouse range for the adjustments is also greater meaning that you should find it easier to make small changes.

Let me know if this meets expectation or if there's more tweaking required.

Garrin

[garrinm]

Yeah, it's seems voiced much nicer now. It now works really well with Boogex too, I'm really liking the Dynamic cab mode with INTERNAL:CAB7-RIBBONEDGE as Cabinet 1 and INTERNAL:CAB7-RIBBONCENTER as Cabinet 2. You should take a look at this if you haven't already, Garrin - seems like a fairly straight forward way of getting some dynamics out of a pair of static IRs.

My initial impression is that now with the updated voicing, etc. the "rattle" thing does sound more like just a normal smokin' amp artifact through Boogex cab IRs.

That's great to hear. I also found the rattle is more subdued but I wasn't sure if I'd just gotten more used to it. It's really baked into the model, and I do hear it very clearly with other tube amp sims, so I don't think it's outright wrong.

That said I'm wondering if having small variances between the pre amp stages (e.g. in a real amp the circuit elements don't all come out of the factory with exactly the same specs) might help smooth it out a bit more. I'll keep looking into it but I'm not sure when / if it will be improved.

[garrinm]

The top priorities going forward:

• Improve preset management (better ordering, allow removing factory presets)

• Mac support (if anyone has a mac with logic pro and is willing to try a couple of experimental builds please send me a PM)

• Dynamic cab model (limited in scope, will just look into what's been suggested)

The wish list which I'll keep looking into:

• Tone stack improvements / alternative tone stacks

• Low end buildup and voicing improvements

• Rattle mitigation

Thanks again for all the great feedback, I'm looking forward to hearing opinions about the latest round of updates, and feel free to keep suggesting features. I think prodigal_sounds asked *only* 3 times before I finally put in the decimal places on the knobs xD.

Garrin

P.S. Anyone who hasn't filled out the survey yet, the feedback there is really useful for me and it's very quick, so if you feel like it you can head over to:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... sp=sf_link

[guitarzan]

That said I'm wondering if having small variances between the pre amp stages (e.g. in a real amp the circuit elements don't all come out of the factory with exactly the same specs) might help smooth it out a bit more. I'll keep looking into it but I'm not sure when / if it will be improved.

There would probably be quite a lot of tolereance variance, I think the Fender amps of the 1950's may have used 20% tolerance parts, and according to that amp thread by B Ingram, because of the "tolerance hollowing" method of sorting parts back then none of the parts would have been near nominal:

Likewise the 20% tolerance 100kΩ resistors will only be the leftovers after previous culling, and will likely only measure between 80kΩ-90kΩ or 110kΩ-120kΩ.

https://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/show ... ost2722023

He also slipped in this bit of little known amp behavior:

But the thing which will really bust preconceptions for a lot of folks is that a perfectly balanced push-pull output stage can't generate even harmonic distortion, only odd harmonic distortion.

https://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/show ... ost2721957

So yeah, mismatched is a good thing.

EDIT: I think comes down to a question of Symmetrical Clipping (Odd harmonics) or Asymmetrical Clipping (Even and Odd harmonics), but also whether the asymetry is caused by adding headroom to one side of the waveform or by subtracting headroom - I think Resonant Amp would benefit most from adding a bit of headroom to one side if you decide to experiment with this.

• Dynamic cab model (limited in scope, will just look into what's been suggested)

According to the Boogex manual PDF, the DynaCab works using an envelope detector for Cabinet 2 that the user sets with attack and release controls, so maybe you could make your dynamic cab work directly with the sag and compression envelopes in Resonant Amp? Dynamic EQ or Multiband Compression are also possibilities worth considering.

A tunable filter bank was mentioned as a potential dynamic cab sim in another thread recently.

[prodigal_sounds]

Announcing version 0.7.1 (the prodigal_sounds update). Featuring decimal places on the knobs and finer adjustments. This is a quick update, but should be a nice quality of life feature.

http://www.resonantdsp.com/resonantamp/#download

For visual purposes I compromised and made it so that the decimal places show up only when you are adjusting a knob. The mouse range for the adjustments is also greater meaning that you should find it easier to make small changes.

Let me know if this meets expectation or if there's more tweaking required.

Garrin

First off, wow, your generosity and response time is... impressive. Thanks!

If I'm honest I have to say that it didn't meet expectations, because I expected the value to show up even if the knob wasn't being adjusted. But that's on me, not you. You're awesome.

This is very cool. Every release is better than the last.

[Kott]

Announcing version 0.7.1 (the prodigal_sounds update). Featuring decimal places on the knobs and finer adjustments. This is a quick update, but should be a nice quality of life feature.

Could you please fix uppercase in Source/TooltipsData.cpp?

-#include "ToolTipsData.h"
+#include "TooltipsData.h"