Swanky Amp (release 1.4.0)

[guitarzan]

I hope you find the sag a bit easier to work with. It's not changed too much but I found it easier to get a good value dialed in. Keep in mind that at high pre-amp gain the signal is very compressed and won't be dynamic enough to go far into the power amp's sag range.

I really wasn't having any problem with the character of the sag, it was just hard to dial in the sweet spot because of the crowded range just like you mentioned about the edge of breakup, so I'm sure the remapping of the taper should do the trick, even if it was only moderate. I like to have Swanky set for edge of breakup with just barely perceptible sag onset when the guitar volume is rolled back some, so I can go from clean to near fuzz-like just using the guitar volume knob. No other amp sim can even attempt to pull that off.

[enroe]

Announcing 1.2.0. ...

... and I do feel that the new grouping actually is sensible and helps understand the
workflow. But opinions here will vary I'm sure.

Maybe the sequence of knobs in the down right box [low mid hi presence]
could be changed into [low mid presence hi]? It would be more intuitive.

[jbraner]

[low mid hi presence] makes more sense to me

[enroe]

Well, [low mid presence hi] corresponds to the sequence of frequencies.
Particle physicists in particular cannot avoid this compelling logic!

[jbraner]

Well, that is a technicality - most people think of it like this:
https://recording.org/threads/what-freq ... amp.33092/
"Take Hueseph's suggestion foremost, especially given that your instrument, speakers, and other variables will affect perceived tonality.

As a gross generalization, though, it might go something like this:

Bass: ~70 - 200 Hz
Mid: 250 Hz - 1 KHz (1 KHz = 1,000 Hz)
--If your mids are broken up: Low Mids: 250 - 450 Hz; High Mids: 450 Hz - 1 KHz
Treble: 1.5 - 4 KHz
Presence: 3 - ~7 KHz

Although these values are estimates, they will almost surely be in this order regarding tonal control (from low to high). "


(please note the smilies - this is a calm discussion rather than an argument )

[enroe]

@jbraner:

Interesting! From my gut I could have bet that the "presence" would be
around 2 kHz, and that it would really bring the presence forward. On
the other hand, I would set "treble" much higher, for example at 8 kHz,
because "treble" emphasizes the clarity and brilliance.

Have I always created the wrong "sounds" with all guitar sounds?

So in any case, your frequency assignment surprises me a bit. I'll do more
research ...

[jbraner]

Well, it doesn't matter - Garrin will set it up however he wants it

[guitarzan]

Interesting! From my gut I could have bet that the "presence" would be
around 2 kHz, and that it would really bring the presence forward. On
the other hand, I would set "treble" much higher, for example at 8 kHz,
because "treble" emphasizes the clarity and brilliance.

Have I always created the wrong "sounds" with all guitar sounds?

So in any case, your frequency assignment surprises me a bit. I'll do more
research ...

Well, it's been a flurry of activity leading up to 0.6.0, I guess I lost track of the features / explaining them here. But yes, there is presence. Though it's not a negative feedback implementation, it's more like the modern fender presence control, boosting around 4 kHz (do note that as with the rest of the tone stack it goes into the power amp, so any distortion there will act on the boosted frequencies and spread them out, it's not just a straight EQ on the final signal).

[enroe]

@guitarzan: Aaah, thanks!
Yes, at 4 khz. Just as jbraner said:

Garrin will set it up however he wants it.

[garrinm]

Well, [low mid presence hi] corresponds to the sequence of frequencies.
Particle physicists in particular cannot avoid this compelling logic!

I definitely see what you're saying, and putting my credentials on the line here is a clever way to make me agree with you xD. But the reality is people will I think be more familiar with the low, mids, high, presence layout (though maybe I should've called it bass, mids, treble ... and swapped the order). But I do think people are very familiar with seeing low, mids, highs grouped together, and presence could be a bit mysterious to some users / an after thought. I've already taken a few liberties to make the UI conform more to "my view" of amps (mainly in how I call the pre-amp and power amp gains "drive" and normalize the volume).

But thanks for chiming in!

As for the ensuing (very civil) discussion, here's some of what I consulted while I was making choices about this project (note I won't claim any of this "correct" as its all kind of subjective and a matter of preference and/or interpretation):

https://www.teachmeaudio.com/mixing/tec ... -spectrum/
https://books.google.ca/books?id=kO8y6J ... &q&f=false

In the end I think of presence as this thing near the boundary from upper mids to highs. But sometimes I also think of mids as 500 Hz (when it sounds like your guitar is being played back through a phone xD) in which case I think of presence very much as in the high range.

Garrin

P.S. enroe I checked out some of your music on your site. Interesting stuff, some great guitar tones in there to be sure!

PPS everything about that website is great, and I did note that the first thing I saw on the songs page is some fantastic art work involving a Hamiltonian xD.

[enroe]

In the end I think of presence as this thing near the boundary from upper mids to highs. But sometimes I also think of mids as 500 Hz (when it sounds like your guitar is being played back through a phone xD) in which case I think of presence very much as in the high range.

Garrin

I think it is a question of whether you (1) prefer the traditional
view that is familiar to many and once introduced by Fender in
the fifties - or whether you (2) like a strictly logical view.
So these are the two possibilities, and there are arguments for
both, and you have already decided in favor of variant (1). So
be it.

P.S. enroe I checked out some of your music on your site. Interesting stuff, some great guitar tones in there to be sure!

PPS everything about that website is great, and I did note that the first thing I saw on the songs page is some fantastic art work involving a Hamiltonian xD.

Oh thank you! I'm just delighted to meet physicists in this music
forum too ... that's nice!

And yes, the Schrödinger equation is - for me - symbolic of
quantum mechanics as a whole, one of the greatest achievements
of mankind, and certainly a step in evolution.

And yes: For me, song content is not only heart, pain, etc., but
also, for example, the bizarre, extremely strange world of the
microcosm with its almost eerie rules. Because there we can even
go through walls!

[garrinm]

I just uploaded another demo with some heavier guitar tones (you can also find these on the swanky amp web site). It's a bit of a departure for me and probably not quite right for this audience but I had lots of fun making it this weekend. I kind of sit back on the beat for a couple of of the lead sections and let Swanky Amp do it's thing xD.

[guitarzan]

Everything seems fine, finding the sweet spots seemed easy. I'd been so close in past versions that I thought I could get there with refined settings, but it turns out that what I really needed to do was, as you suggested, make sure I'm not over compressing the preamp, so I actually set the input level up from where I was but moderated staging and drive — AND, as in real life, I had to hit the input hot with a "tape" echo. Not only did I raise Swanky's input level up to near humbucker level, I'm also above unity out of the echo. "Clean" to fairly heavy sustaining fuzzy overdrive right from the guitar volume knob, no digital nasties and great feel thanks to sag. Plus, the echo repeats hitting the power amp makes it sing and chime! Does cool stuff with the sag too.

Right now I'm just using the digital rack delay that came free with Cakewalk (in some Overloud THU limited version I think) but it has high and low filters on the repeats plus modulation, so it can be set tape-like enough. I think I read about an open source tape echo plugin somewhere. Anyway, if you get a chance try hot input, low compression in pre, and "tape" delay in front of the amp, fairly high power amp drive I think. I'm using some of Cakewalk's included delay and reverb post Swanky amp, just for some quick studio style ambience. THU noisegate too for now, need something better (FLOORFISH had a cool analog vibe all its own). Oh, still using Boogex with the amp sim section bypassed for the dyna cab IR thing. It has reverb too that I should check out better.

I couldn't be happier with this! You have done a truly great job with Swanky Amp, Garrin.

[garrinm]

Quick update:

I added a product page on the KVR market place. It currently has no rating, so if anyone wants to help with that, it would be appreciated .

https://www.kvraudio.com/product/swanky ... sonant-dsp

I resurrected the survey. If you have a minute please consider filling it out (it's very short). If you participated in the previous survey I would still encourage you to fill out this new one as some of the questions have changed.

(EDIT: I'd also like to thank everyone who participated in the last survey, I did get some good direction from it. Especially whoever dropped the pun about speaker feedback.)

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

Thanks,
Garrin

[jbraner]

Sorry for being AWOL again - after my H/W upgrade, I had a little disk issue, so I've been farting around fixing computer things for a while.

Back in action now though - and v1.2 is cooking with gas!
I tweaked my presets a little, and I love the "indicators" on the drive and grit knobs.

I don't really use my volume knob on the guitar - but I can hear as you raise the input on the plugin - it's just like cranking the drive control, so this will be great for backing off the guitar vol to clean up.

also - I think I'm starting to get what the sag control is doing (finally)

I'm really looking forward to playing with this some more

I have one little feature request though. When loading up a saved project in Reaper, and you open up Swanky Amp - is it possible to show which preset (or a changed version indicated by *) is currently loaded? It is not a big deal - but this makes it a little easier to see what you had loaded the last time you were working on this.
Currently, it loads with the preset field blank.

PS
Review done - check
Survey done (again) - check
Please keep us up to date with any updates, and how the pro version is doing