Swanky Amp (release 1.4.0)

[garrinm]

Chrome on Android: the floating header bar obscures the top part of the content.

I put out an update, hopefully that's fixed. It's ... never entirely clear with HTML and CSS though. But it's working fine on the devices I tested on (and the device emulation in the browser). Thanks for the tip, and welcome to the thread.

Garrin

[garrinm]

Garrin, have you looked at the low cut in staging that affected the tremolo effect? If so, any guess what the problem might be?

I've been talking to a couple of people and thinking about this very hard. It'll take a bit of time though, since I don't have a system on which I can reproduce the issue and no other user has reported it (guitarzan's issue sound separate to me, and after discussing with him possibly hardware related).

As I work on patch 1.4 I will try to diagnose the issue some more, try to force it on my system. But for now there's sadly no timeline for this. I'll keep in touch about it on GitHub. I might be able to spare a few days next week to dedicate to this issue alone.

Thanks for the information, I know it seems maybe it's related to the low cut, but I suspect it's actually more that the low cut is affecting an already corrupt signal. Seeing as for now it seems to affect only one Linux audio system, which I can't work with at the moment / support correctly, it'll take more time to rein this one in.

Garrin

[garrinm]

Quick update:

There was an issue with the macOS installers on systems < 10.13. I uploaded some new DMG's which *should* fix the issue. But having limited mac testing capabilities at the moment I can't know for sure yet.

I'm holding off on update 1.4 until I track down an issue which causes a pop when the plug-in is loaded. (I'm also digging around for the what might be causing the Linux issue).

Thanks,
Garrin

[.jon]

Had a very productive Saturday testing all the amp sims I have downloaded (picked up the guitar only recently), and Swanky Amp stood pretty clearly up from the bunch for clean sounds. It's somehow more alive, responsive and detailed, resulting in a very enjoyable playing experience!

[garrinm]

Had a very productive Saturday testing all the amp sims I have downloaded (picked up the guitar only recently), and Swanky Amp stood pretty clearly up from the bunch for clean sounds. It's somehow more alive, responsive and detailed, resulting in a very enjoyable playing experience!

Glad to hear you're enjoying it! If you ever have suggestions feel free to drop a line in here.

Garrin

[garrinm]

After a couple of weeks (of bug fixing) Swanky Amp 1.4.0 is finally released!



Major features:

- Staging Low Cut now has a more pronounced effect allowing for (over) bright amp settings.
- The number of stages is now continuous, allowing for mixing of stages. This allows for new sonic possibilities (well it's similar to how it used to be a few versions ago).

Some presets might no longer sound identical to how they did in 1.3.1, though efforts were made to keep them similar. You may want to review your presets with this version.

The plug-in comes with a “bright” preset based on the input from pough. This amounts to a sound in the style of an AC30, though it is definitely Swanky Amp’s own take on that sound. With some tuning you can probably make it resemble an AC30 more closely, but I find the preset as shipped with 1.4.0 is a good starting point for a variety of bright amp sounds.

The updated presets are now available in the download section of Swanky Amp’s page. If you have previously installed the plug-in, you’ll have to manually download the new presets and extract them into the preset directory to get the updated presets including the bright preset.

This release includes a variety of bug fixes addressing minor issues that could have crept up from time to time. In particular:

- There should no longer be a pop when loading the plug-in
- Sound artifacts when changing presets should be greatly reduced
- There's a variety improvements to how the plug-in handles state which should prevent issues in more unorthodox host environments (hint it *might* work better in Linux kvraudio38, though I can't guarantee that and still can't officially support that host)

Garrin

[jbraner]

Hi Garrin,

The updated presets are now available in the download section of Swanky Amp’s page. If you have previously installed the plug-in, you’ll have to manually download the new presets and extract them into the preset directory to get the updated presets including the bright preset.

So, what is happening with the presets now?
When I install a new version (I'm just copying the VST3 file) does it just leave my current presets alone?
What are we supposed to do when downloading new presets?
I downloaded the new factory presets, but I don't want them to be number 01-10 (or whatever) so I just changed the numbers on them (up in to the 20s) and they're listing after my own presets - as I thought they would
Is this what I'm supposed to do? That's rather convoluted for "non computer" people
I also deleted "presetMaster.xml" as it doesn't seem to need that anymore

I'm not noticing a big difference with ver 1.4 - but that's fine. In other words, my presets (and previously set up sounds) are just fine.

I'm working on a new song and all the guitar parts are all using Swanky Amp (and no pedals so far, either). It's sounding really good. I'll send you a copy when it's finished, in case you want to use it for "demo sounds" - just don't hold your breath, as I'm pretty slow

[kvraudio38]

Garrin, I will try it out hopefully this week and see how it behaves

[pough]

As far as I can tell, the old presets should be deleted first. The new ones look to be the same except a new one (bright) is in the #2 spot. That's what I did and now I'm numbering my own presets starting with 101.

... and it seems to get renamed to 11.

[jbraner]

As far as I can tell, the old presets should be deleted first. The new ones look to be the same except a new one (bright) is in the #2 spot. That's what I did and now I'm numbering my own presets starting with 101.

Hi pough,
I like mine first though
so, I guess I just have to renumber the "factory" ones any time I copy new ones in.

[acousticglue]

To be honest I haven't likes the amp since about .8 release.

[Spitfire31]

To be honest I haven't likes the amp since about .8 release.

Well, that's a helpful comment.

Would you mind telling us WHAT it is that has generated your dislike?

[acousticglue]

Seems the EQing of sounds are more generated toward being brittle and bassy at same time. More in the groove or pocket early on.

[garrinm]

Seems the EQing of sounds are more generated toward being brittle and bassy at same time. More in the groove or pocket early on.

That's too bad it didn't evolve in a direction that sounds good to you. I think there's a lot more variety in the EQing now, but as a result it might be harder to find the exact sound you're after. Many things did change in the underlying model so it is possible the overall sound you liked just isn't quite available anymore.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll keep that in mind moving forward, but the good news for you is the old versions are still available:

https://www.resonantdsp.com/swankyamp/d ... kyAmp.vst3

Garrin

EDIT: if you're after a more mids-heavy sound, you could try the tone stack knob at around 5 and adjust the pre-amp grit and staging low cut to get the right level of bass in the distorted sound. This is a pretty new configuration though so I doubt it'll sound much like 0.8.0.

[garrinm]

When I install a new version (I'm just copying the VST3 file) does it just leave my current presets alone?
What are we supposed to do when downloading new presets?
I downloaded the new factory presets, but I don't want them to be number 01-10 (or whatever) so I just changed the numbers on them (up in to the 20s) and they're listing after my own presets - as I thought they would
Is this what I'm supposed to do? That's rather convoluted for "non computer" people
I also deleted "presetMaster.xml" as it doesn't seem to need that anymore

Hi John,

Good to hear from you again, I had this idea maybe your new computer build had turned out really poorly xs. 1.4 should not be dramatically different from 1.3, most of the work was in the back-end trying to address possible issues that might creep up in the future. If you want new sounds I would suggest you set the staging knob to 1.5, turn the tone stack knob into AC30 territory (8-10), then turn up the low cut knob. You should find some new sounds there. I'm eager to hear what you're working on, but I will avoid holding my breath over it as per your advice xD.

I really need to make a manual for this soon, these kinds of things are definitely under-documented. Here then is the official preset guide for version 1.4.0:

What happens to presets after an update?

Firstly, if you still have presetMaster.xml hanging around from prior version of the plug-in, that file is no longer used and can be safely deleted.

When you upgrade the plugin (with the installer or just by copying the vst in place), your preset files are left totally unchanged.

However, when you load the plugin, it looks at what version the preset was made with, and then *correct* the parameters to make sure the amp sounds the same accounting for what's changed in the new update. These corrections aren't saved, they happen ever time you load a preset made with an older version (don't worry this is extremely fast by CPU standards so it won't affect your loading experience).

If you re-save an old preset after updating, you'll notice the numeric values in the XML will be different as you are saving the preset with the corrections. It will of course save with the new version number in the XML so next time you load it, it won't be corrected again.

How can I get back the factory presets:

If you delete the preset directory (accessed with the "open" icon in the preset bar), next time you load Swanky Amp it will automatically re-generate it and populate it with the factory presets. So you can always get those back that way.

You can also, starting in 1.4.0, get them from the downloads section of the web site.

Managing presets in the directory:

Right now all presets in the directory are loaded when the plug-in starts. If two presets have the same name but different numbers, the later of the two will be kept. This means that if you had factory presets but increased their version numbers, then copy new factory presets into the directory with lower numbers, they will be ignored. Not an ideal situation sadly.

The presets will be sorted based on their file names, and then they will be numbered in the plug-in based on that sorting. This means that if you want a preset to sort before 01, you can name it 001 or -1 (or even something like !1 since "!" sorts before digits).

Once the presets have been loaded, their files are renamed to follow the same numbers seen in the plug-in. This does mean that custom numbering will be overwritten, but following the same order.

Garrin