IK goes AI

[Amberience]

I'm super into this.

I did some clips here. There are two pairs - one my Diezel VH4, real amp clip and ToneX clip. The other pair ... kinda interesting.... two amps, two cabs, and two mics, all baked into a single profile. My VH4 and my JVM, cranked for Joanz Toanz more or less:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/eo5u1qq8 ... yog1q8ch8e

Capture links:
https://www.tone.net/tonex/tonemodels/10210
https://www.tone.net/tonex/tonemodels/10223

I no longer own a Kemper, but from memory, and going back to my VH4 Kemper video from a year or so ago, I can confidently say that for me, ToneX is giving far superior results. Although it takes a fair old while to do those advanced captures! Around 35minutes here.

I did have the Quad Cortex, but sold it because it wasn't mature enough. I would be very interested in some IKM hardware that allowed me to load a bunch of captures and switch between them like amp channels. If it was Amplitube 5 in a box, then even better.

For capturing, IK just won the game IMHO. Very cool.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Drew, what kind of system are you running? Mac? Windows? Nvidia graphics card? Advanced training takes about an hour on my 2021 MacBook Pro. Just a few minutes at Default mode.

On my Windows PC, Advanced training is stupidly slow - probably 5-6 hours. Default training probably an hour.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Those captures are excellent by the way Drew! No mud and very articulate. Great note separation.

[Uncle E]

I did some clips here. There are two pairs - one my Diezel VH4, real amp clip and ToneX clip. The other pair ... kinda interesting.... two amps, two cabs, and two mics, all baked into a single profile. My VH4 and my JVM, cranked for Joanz Toanz more or less:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/eo5u1qq8 ... yog1q8ch8e

Sounds great! TONEX seems slightly cleaner and brighter, which is fine by me. Emulations are usually darker to cover up the fizzy top end. Seems to be no such problem with TONEX.

[Amberience]

Drew, what kind of system are you running? Mac? Windows? Nvidia graphics card? Advanced training takes about an hour on my 2021 MacBook Pro. Just a few minutes at Default mode.

On my Windows PC, Advanced training is stupidly slow - probably 5-6 hours. Default training probably an hour.

AMD 5950X CPU, with an NVIDIA 3060ti GPU. I've not tried it on my 2022 Macbook Pro, but I guess it wouldn't be very different to yours. It's an M1 Pro.

Those captures are excellent by the way Drew! No mud and very articulate. Great note separation.

Thanks!!

[jinotsuh]

Can't please everyone! I have A5, Scuffam, Helix Native etc and found Neural DSP to be my least favourite non real amp 'sounds' but other seem to like it. Probably as most of what I record is from my Blues Jnr and I have simple (and predominantly clean) taste!

Same, no love here for NDSP.

TONEX on the other hand simply kick arse.

[Burillo]

I didn't get a chance to play around with much due to technical issues with TONEX (already contacted support), but I did skim through the SE version presets (which is what I preordered). I'm not a big "real amp" guy because I never had a real amp to begin with, so my judgement is informed exclusively by what I want to hear, not comparisons with real amps.

I must say, even though I don't quite like the workflow, and the whole idea of having fixed preset sounds kinda rubs me the wrong way a bit (the sound either works or doesn't, there's often no easy way to get an "almost there" sound to where I want)... still, I found more than enough great sounding presets to make it worthwhile. one of the standouts for me is "Proud Eddie", it really does sound like Van Halen personified I have not tried any community captures yet, but I quite enjoyed the factory patches. I'm looking forward to spending more time with TONEX. it probably won't replace Kuassa 360 (which is my main amp sim), but it gives me an idea of what kind of stuff people do with their real amp rigs, and a few hints to try that I didn't think of (such as pairing an extremely bright amp with an extremely dark cab).

[Burillo]

I'm super into this.

I did some clips here. There are two pairs - one my Diezel VH4, real amp clip and ToneX clip. The other pair ... kinda interesting.... two amps, two cabs, and two mics, all baked into a single profile. My VH4 and my JVM, cranked for Joanz Toanz more or less:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/eo5u1qq8 ... yog1q8ch8e

Capture links:
https://www.tone.net/tonex/tonemodels/10210
https://www.tone.net/tonex/tonemodels/10223

I no longer own a Kemper, but from memory, and going back to my VH4 Kemper video from a year or so ago, I can confidently say that for me, ToneX is giving far superior results. Although it takes a fair old while to do those advanced captures! Around 35minutes here.

the capture sounds kinda crunchy and fuzzy in the high end, while the real amp is smoother and more balanced. so it seems that the same thing I've heard in the demos translates to user captures - it doesn't quite capture the distortion character, but this is still impressive.

[fese]

It is actually very welcome that you can filter only the models you own in Tonex, but sadly the filter gets reset every time I close and re-open the plugin GUI and I have to go through the whole process again. That gets annoying real fast…

[jamcat]

I must say, even though I don't quite like the workflow, and the whole idea of having fixed preset sounds kinda rubs me the wrong way a bit (the sound either works or doesn't, there's often no easy way to get an "almost there" sound to where I want)...

TONEX actually leaves IK in a pretty bad position for right now.

I have swapped out the amp+cab in some of my own presets with TONEX Tone Models in AmpliTube 5.5. They sound so much better now. They sound crisp, clean, and alive, and the old AmpliTube models sound brittle, plastic, grainy, and veiled by comparison.

TONEX has completely ruined AmpliTube. The same goes for the X-GEAR pedals. The redone models in X-GEAR sound so much better than their old dull, lifeless Stompbox counterparts in AmpliTube.

So now TONEX and X-GEAR have left 99% of the gear in AmpliTube unusable, because you can’t unsee the difference.

But there is still the problem that TONEX can get close to the tone you want, but it can’t get you 100% of the way due to inflexibility, especially with cabs and mic position.

And while X-GEAR sounds great, there are lots of models that are missing.

But perhaps the worst part of it is AmpliTube is no longer fun. It was fun to create a pedalboard of familiar stomps, and grab a mic and move it around in front of the cab. You can’t do that anymore AND still feel good about the sound.

Now we find ourselves in the unfortunate position of having to choose between User Experience and Sound Quality. Not good, IK.

AmpliTube has become a hoarder’s house of old busted gear that they won’t throw out. I really think IK has no choice but to build a new version of AmpliTube from the ground up. Perhaps they could call it AmpliTube X.

All new versions of the gear. A single DEFINITIVE version of each amp and stomp built with a hybrid of AI and hand-modeling. And recaptured cabs using Machine Modeling instead of IRs for every mic position.

This really has to be done, because the old AmpliTube models can’t continue to go on as they are after TONEX and X-GEAR have shown their age.

[escalona]

AmpliTube has become a hoarder’s house of old busted gear that they won’t throw out.

Post of the year!

I'm still unexcited about ToneX though. It sounds better than AT5 or maybe other amp sims out there... but I keep going back to my trusty Kemper to record guitars (when I don't want to mic the cabs).

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I've posted dozens models of stomp boxes so far with more coming and I finally feel like I've got stomps that actually sound like they should ITB. It's incredible doing like 4 captures of my stomps at the most common settings, then being able to run that in front of a second instance of ToneX or even another amp modeler entirely. This sounds way better than most ITB stomp boxes. Particularly with fuzzes where it's really noticeable.

And I never used AT5's built in dirt pedals for that very reason. Some are just laughably bad. The X-Gear distortions also never felt right. Now, some modelers have some decent stomps, there's some ok ones available as standalone plugins from other vendors, The Scream sounds great from Cytomic, BYOD is lots of fun and very good, but just having a Big Muff that sounds like my Big Muffs is huge. I did a bunch of Morning Glory captures yesterday....Wampler Tumnus captures the day before...Blues Driver Waza Craft captures...it's glorious having these ITB and having them play and respond like the real deals (at those particular settings).

[jamcat]

And I never used AT5's built in dirt pedals for that very reason. Some are just laughably bad. The X-Gear distortions also never felt right.

I totally agree with that. When I talked about X-GEAR, I was really talking about X-VIBE. The X-VIBE choruses and flangers are head and shoulders above the old models dating back to AmpliTube 2.

But the distortion boxes really do need to be captured with Machine Modeling.

[niterateaudio]

I don't agree that ToneX replaces AT5 at all. They are two completely different and separate products.I quite enjoy ToneX but I still use AT5 a lot. For anyone who is a heavy Amp Sim user and likes to tweak and experiment with virtual configurations of amps and effects and chain orders, you can only get that in AT5.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

The other thing I didn't like with the X-Gear Distortion models was the 3 EQ bands. I know what a Rat is supposed to supposed to sound like with the filter at 2 o'clock, how does that translate to a 3 band EQ? Just complicates it IMO.