IK goes AI

[Recourt]

Haven't seen many power amp captures so here's one.

VHT 2502 power amp (EL34) no cab
Cranked to the sweet spot and captured with advanced training thru a Torpedo Captor load box because my windows would be blown out with a cab attached. Peeps using preamp pedals etc my find it useful.
https://www.tone.net/tonex/users/recourt

[DaveClark]

Also...try different guitars!!! I've heard some horrible, horrible captures only to change from a Les Paul to a Strat and suddenly it sounds great. And vice versa. A profile made on a bright Jazzmaster or Jaguar with 1meg pots will sound awful with a Les Paul with PAFs. The TONEX presets allow you to flag the guitar type and pickup configuration, but they should've added that to the captures themselves IMO. Sometimes it's a huge factor in how an amp sounds and behaves. So I never assume a capture is bad, I just figure I'm not playing the right guitar with it.

A problem, and probably the biggest problem, with non-physical modelling of physical systems is that non-physical models often don't follow the physical system well when inputs are varied from the signals that were used to develop the non-physical model. With the TONEX models, each of which use only a single set of measurement conditions, any difference at all from the capture conditions may cause noticeable problems, not only difference of guitar but of material played, playing style, etc.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

You've heard the capture input file, right?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

A problem, and probably the biggest problem, with non-physical modelling of physical systems is that non-physical models often don't follow the physical system well when inputs are varied from the signals that were used to develop the non-physical model. With the TONEX models, each of which use only a single set of measurement conditions, any difference at all from the capture conditions may cause noticeable problems, not only difference of guitar but of material played, playing style, etc.

I've done a lot of captures and it's pretty spot on. Case in point: my Jaguar is bright and raunchy sounding. If I'm plugging it into an amp, I'm likely going to back down the treble a quite a bit, dial in the bass and other amp settings to fit the guitar. Now, if I do a capture of my great Jag tone at those settings, TONEX will produce the sound when I play that guitar. But change over to a Les Paul with PAF's and suddenly it's dark as mud. This screams "bad capture - this guy doesn't know how to mic an amp or dial it in". But if I plugged my Les Paul into that same real amp, it would sound the same. The tone settings on the amp just don't translate from a bright Jaguar to a dark Les Paul.

So TONEX captured the sound of the amp very well, and it responds to changes in guitars just like the amp. As Peter just indicated, that's what the training recordings probably used a variety of different guitars at different impedances with different dynamics.

My only point was that, I just wish they included metadata for what type of guitar/pickups the amp was dialed in for because it can be a big factor in whtether the resulting tone sounds roughly as expected (like if you plugged in your Jaguar with 1Meg pots to my model) or if it will sound like a muddy mess (if you were playing that same TONEX capture through a Les Paul with PAFs). The metadata exists in the TONEX Presets, but not the captures themselves. I just think it would be helpful to have those options in both.

[Uncle E]

That’s an excellent idea and something I don’t think other companies are doing. As TONENET grows, I can certainly imagine people following certain creators based on them using similar guitars. Hopefully Peter will forward that along.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

That’s an excellent idea and something I don’t think other companies are doing. As TONENET grows, I can certainly imagine people following certain creators based on them using similar guitars. Hopefully Peter will forward that along.

Yeah, I think there's this misconception among some that you're capturing the entire amp. When you're really just capturing a preset setting on that amp. A "preset" if you will! And some presets will sound very different based on the guitar. It's a major variable.

[Uncle E]

Next step needs to be capturing the sounds of different guitars to match the amps.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Next step needs to be capturing the sounds of different guitars to match the amps.

You may be right, that could be something we see in a few years. Maybe they give us some really simple chords, riffs, and single notes to play, then use that input to create a "guitar profile" of our specific instrument/pickup configuration. Once you have a bunch of those, the network could be trained to make one guitar sound like any other. Turn your cheap Squier Affinity Strat into a '59 Les Paul gold top modeled off an actual guitar.

Nothing sounds too outlandish anymore.

[Uncle E]

You're so right, that would be a great way to do it. Even if people's playing is different, after enough people submit, the profiles could be averaged out. Better yet, this could be a way for big artists to sell profiles of themselves. Don't just get the sound of a Strat, get the sound of David Gilmour playing his own Strat!

Hurry up with this, IK! We just lost Jeff Beck, you need to do it before we lose any more!

[jamcat]

Next step needs to be capturing the sounds of different guitars to match the amps.

Next step still needs to be replacing cab IRs with ML captures, building complete amp emulations with ML, and updating all existing stomp models in AmpliTube.

And then IK can move on to rebuilding all T-RackS models with ML.

And then finally, ML-based guitar replacement.

[Uncle E]

And then finally, ML-based guitar replacement.

Our heroes won't last that long! They did too many drugs in the 60's!

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Our heroes won't last that long! They did too many drugs in the 60's!

And then there is Keith Richards, who did so many drugs in the 60s and 70s that he'll somehow outlive us all!

[Uncle E]

We call those “preservatives”.

[jamcat]

Keith's manager secretly swapped his heroin with formaldehyde sometime in the '80s.

[Bombadil]

Most of the IK captures are with everything at 12:00, or have I missed something? I would think they'd be neutral, but my experience also reinforces the points made above. Different guitars sound different, and yes, there should be meta data for which type of guitar was used.