NEURAL AMP MODELER [NAM] || 10 commonly asked questions ANSWERED!

[@samverville4238]

This is such a revolution in the amp sims world, i am so enthusiastic about it, i went out today and bought a Torpedo captor and a reamp box

[@OfficialFatLip]

its also possible to use this with stereo comps pre ems if its ever stereo or at least two instances

[@resington]

Things were getting stale round amp sims, I was getting jaded. NAM has given me some new inspiration. Playing through my capture is tons of fun. It still works with 44.1 for me but does have clips and noises when monitoring. 48 is the way to go. I used the effects send out to my interface, worked great and my IRs are done using my amps power amp so all together it's the whole chain. Crazy really. Thanks Phil you legend!

[@mattvdh]

Holy shit, Resington is in da house! Love your channel man! You've taught me a shit ton about free plugins and tips and I'm stoked that you're on board with NAM! It's the COOLEST. I Just found the sickest combination, Try Phils Marshall JVM 808 with Petr's Wizard MC2 Mudkiller on left/right channel. It's super loud and articulate AF. This app is the future of guitar tones!

[@PippPriss]

I feel the absolute same, dude! I mean, STL Josh Middleton I personally find AMAZING, and I will do a video on it, but initially I was like "nah, no more videos for now for me". But then NAM came along, and I was one of the very early adaptors after diving into ToneX, so I gave it a shot making the video and it exploded. This has fully revived my KZbin channel and it's a breath of fresh air that the video on NAM basically EXPLODED. Hell, even Leon Todd watched my video and gave me a shout-out. Manic. And by the way - a lot of my inspiration to start a channel in the first place was due to your channel. So go figure who the legend is!

[@clausion]

From Arnold I've already tried Mesa Boogie Mark IV ch3 triode harmonics and it blew up my mind. I never expected to a piece of software to be so good.

[@bassblom]

I love the revolution aspect of this!

[@PippPriss]

Me as well!

[@jasonzdora]

Youre doing awesome, brother! This is great. Filling in the gaps on a lot of stuff for folks. Thank you for linking my tutorials!

[@commonbeats]

Thank you!

[@PippPriss]

You are more than welcome!

[@DeckardRJ]

Awesome video!! Thank you so much for the explanation!

[@PippPriss]

Thanks! It's a bit outdated, but still gains good traction and people find it useful for what it is :-)

[@imcrazedandconfused]

It's great you mentioned the artifacts in the high end with NAM, and you are totally right, you should just be aware of it, >12kHz should not be in the focus of guitars for mixes anyways, and should be shelved carefully away with an EQ. I was a bit irritated the first time I used NAM, but with a bit of EQ the models sound really great.

[@PippPriss]

Not sure for full Amp models, but this high fizz only came up so far on full rigs. I guess this is due to the fact that the IR in itself is an EQ curve which will never really reach out to heights of 12 kHz and beyond. And thanks for the appreciation of mentioning the aliasing noise - while I do absolutely dig NAM, there is no incentive for me to boost it as being better as it is/not mentioning what I find is a flaw within certain fields. 🙂

[@imcrazedandconfused]

@@PippPriss ^The thing is - if people don't mention it, because they are hyped of a great technology they really like, if you use it the first time, and notice it, you start to search for mistakes on your side. Until you get that it is just there. Especially, if something is known for great realism. In fact - it is as simple as using the EQ to bring it down, and it really is not important for guitar and bass tracks, the high-end range is overrated a lot by many people. E.g. in interfaces as well. I see people trash-talking about how much better the small Focusrite is compared to the Behringer with the Midas Verona preamps. Now, I like an interface that tames everything a bit, esp. the notorious Chinese high bump in mics - or also guitar signals. A compact sound is nothing bad to start with. And you are totally right, say, a 12" speaker is a high-shelf EQ too, so the aliasing would not be obvious at all for a full range amp output with an IR applied afterwards. In the end, we are looking for noise and distortion - it is just very important where we have it, and for guitars it's the midrange where it's at. Again, great video, and I am looking very forward to how NAM is going. I appreciate that it has a great community and people who actually contribute to it's development.

[@danthegeetarman]

A universal repository would be amazing!! Can’t wait until it’s up and running 🙏🙏🙏

[@lorenmorgan1931]

For sure. I'm sure IK absolutely hates this, although they have one advantage NAM doesn't, and that's a physical pedal. But yeah this is game changing, just like livespice is as well for circuit modeling.

[@mertgoksel35]

Look up tonehunt

[@danthegeetarman]

@@mertgoksel35 thank you Mert. I found it shortly after posting this but thank you anyways. I appreciate it 🙏

[@artysanmobile]

Frank Zappa would love that.

[@karlguzman9775]

If you've got a platform like this where you know you have the power to influence people, for better or worse, please take the time to understand the subject thoroughly.

[@PippPriss]

First off, I barely have any platform with my sub-1000 subscribers. But could you let me know what specifics you are into which I seem to gotten wrong? If I was wrong with something, I'd like to stand corrected to learn.

[@artysanmobile]

Thanks for this excellent video.

[@PippPriss]

Your absolutely welcome!

[@tili_]

i love your full rigs

[@PippPriss]

Thank you so much! I am honored that you dig the tones you are getting!

[@mattvdh]

Thanks Phil! You're a beauty on making this shit easier for the layman the understand.

[@mrburns143]

Thank you man!

[@PippPriss]

Anytime! Thanks for watching!

[@imcrazedandconfused]

Just a small heads-up... You guys are aware that there is also a second alternative by GuitarML, the Proteus? I published a Proteus Model Builder a few days ago, that takes away the command line work for the model training. Includes even newest PyTorch with CUDA training. Time for an amp snapshot to the model training finish - for most devices ~ 10 minutes with a 3080. A 3070 not much slower. The models are not WaveNet, the sound quality may be very slightly different, but they are not so CPU intensive when used, able to use them prossibly in an ARM based pedal. Btw, there is a 300 Epochs limit set (could be set up easily by correcting in a script), but most models finish earlier anyways and sound just fine. The models also load into BYOD. It is great to have alternatives. NAM sounds great. No doubt! PS: Proteus Models load great in BYOD, in all sample rates usable.

[@PippPriss]

Keith Bloomer, the creator of Proteus, actually is active in the NAM Group as well and has decided NAM is currently the better thing out there in terms of accuracy. But very cool what you have done with the Proteus Model Builder. In regard of BYOD, something similar is going on with trying to port NAM onto hardware. One person already managed to do so via a Raspberry Pi 4 I believe, and there also efforts to get NAM to a LV-2 format to port it to the MOD Dwarf Pedal. Definitely interesting times!

[@imcrazedandconfused]

@@PippPriss Also, I am pretty sure there are interesting possibilities when it comes to optimization. I think NAM may be not at the end of what is possible. I am excited.

[@TheRichardHartog]

Thanks for this😊

[@PippPriss]

You are welcome, thanks for tuning in!

[@crazyozzy21]

thumbs up for this highly informative video...im new to NAM..noob question here, why do I hear the raw sound of the guitar together with the profiled sound at the same time? currently using it as standalone..my AI is audient id14mkII..

[@PippPriss]

Have you checked your iD software? Maybe there is some setting which is allowing for "Direct Monitoring" and listening to the output as well. Maybe there is something set wrong in the Audio preferences on NAM? Same happening in the DAW (like REAPER or ProTools etc.)?

[@StefP.]

Man you are a treasure!

[@cmd_f5]

Right on man. ToneHunt is crazy packed with good stuff by this point! That's awesome, because I'm just getting into NAM as of this week and love it. Hope someone puts a 1000 epoch EVH Iconic pack out. Haven't seen one yet. Really wanna try it, and the ML plugin don't do it justice.

[@PippPriss]

Have you found your Iconic preset you were searching for by now? ;-) Otherwise, just go with my Booster Rooster pack, as it sounds phenomenal in my opinion :-D

[@StephGV2]

I could practice through my Panama Fivewatt (an excellent high gain low output tube amp) and loadbox, or I can practice with NAM and a Soldano SLO 100. I'm going with the latter more every day. Main issue is the slight lag of my nearly 10 year old Steinberg interface which is annoying when I'm playing quiet enough to hear the strings. I really need to do a capture of the Panama, a unicorn which doesn't sound like any other amp.

[@PippPriss]

Would love to see that Panama capture happen! Yeah, I feel the urge to upgrade the interface, done so a few months ago from an ~14 year old Line6 UX2 to an Audient iD44 MK I - the difference is HUGE.

[@StephGV2]

​@@PippPriss I'm waiting for a Panama Shaman that I just bought to arrive and I want to do that too. I just have projects which need more immediate attention that keep getting in the way. I'd like to find something in the $100 range that has zero perceptible lag. I don't even know if the most expensive ADs have better performance. The Fivewatt doesn't sound like anything else. The Shaman sounds like *everything* else.

[@georgezorbas9036]

bravo mate..

[@PippPriss]

Thanks!

[@HRave2008]

Could you do an Interview with Steve Atkinson ?

[@PippPriss]

Some other people already made great interviews with Steve, like ToneJunkie or also Mendel. I feel like I could not add anything to the conversation, and I'd perhaps be too small of a channel to bother with.

[@MorbidManoeuvres]

Amazing thank you

[@PippPriss]

Your welcome!

[@picksalot1]

Thanks for letting us know what is going on with NAM. Could a NAM Capture be converted into a NIR (my suggestion for a NAM IR) so it could be loaded into a Modeler like HX Stomp, similar to loading an IR Block? I was wondering why the word "Epoch" is used, and found this comparison regarding Epoch vs Iteration: "Epoch can be understood as the number of times the algorithm scans the entire data. For example if we set epoch = 10 then the algorithm will scan the entire data ten times. Whereas, Iteration is the number of times a certain batch is passed via an algorithm."

[@PippPriss]

Hi, thanks for watching! Regarding the NAM IR: this will not work, since IRs are pure linear static EQ curves, while-as any distortion characteristic is highly dynamic and frequency-dependent. There are some pilot projects to get NAM run, for example as an LV2 plugin (instead of VST) on a MOD Dwarf (a pedal unit running customizable plugins in LV2 format), or Raspberry Pi's running NAM. In regard of the terminology epoch: I am by no means a machine learning specialist, but my more or less sophisticated guess would be that we are actually running epochs. We have the training data, and the reference data, and we are running epochs in order to build our model. The more epochs we run, the more detailed our model get's, and the more consistency we gain throughout running the multiple epochs, the lesser the ESR (error to signal) ratio gets. An Iteration is only a small chunk of the data being calculated. When doing the model training, you will see in the Epoch counter a lot of different numbers and counts etc. - I guess these are the iterations. This guess also stems from the fact that within the core.py file within the NAM folder structure, you can change the actual batch size to larger or smaller chunks, but still determine the epoch counter and get higher or lower accurate results. I would imagine, if in general there was a broad misunderstanding between epoch and iteration throughout the group, then the batch size would be the "determining" factor we are changing, and not the epoch counter. Hope this all makes sense!

[@Psu89]

noob needs an in depth tutorial on how to capture. I have a guitar and a laptop. What else is needed to connect the two? Is any other software needed?

[@PippPriss]

You need especially an audio interface. If you have no clue what that's about, then you need to start from scratch, which unfortunately is a bit too much to cover in the comment sections. But basically, you need an audio interface. If using PCs, these Interfaces run with ASIO drivers, which allow for parallel input and output processing of audio. Next, you need to download NAM and make sure it takes your audio interface as input and output. After that, you have to load NAM files into the NAM program and for cabinet emulation, you need to use IRs. I got a video on my channel on what IRs are. I wish you great fun diving into the rabbit hole ;-)

[@mialarssen2627]

AWESOME :) ... is it possible to capture a VST amp with nam too?

[@PippPriss]

Yes, absolutely! It doesn't matter if you run the test file through the real amp or a VST, the result is the same. This is also a true benefit compared to ToneX, where you would need to either re-route stuff or actually cable up your interface to get this running.

[@mialarssen2627]

@@PippPriss Thank you :

[@PippPriss]

​@@mialarssen2627 Welcome! I am thinking about making a video how to capture VSTs with ToneX, as this is a bit more tricky with ToneX than with NAM. But maybe I might make a video where I show both NAM and ToneX in one video.

[@theblowupdollsmusic]

That fizziness on full rig captures could be aliasing. Have you tried running or capturing at higher sample rates like 96K or 192K?

[@PippPriss]

Haven't played with capturing full rigs in a very long while, always went the IR route. I could revise this, but the latest version of NAM definitely has improved code for full rig captures, and a lot of users report that the experience has been way better since then!

[@MykeHawke-r9r]

Thank you

[@PippPriss]

You are more than welcome!

[@chrisvanloo1007]

Is there a way to use nam in stereo??

[@PippPriss]

Only by using it in a stereo instance in your DAW, from what I know. Also, there seems no plans to do full stereo right now at the moment.

[@peterbennett26]

I note you can do a GPU or a CPU install, how do I chose the best option for my particular PC? My Nvidia graphics card does have Cuda (its a GeForce GTX 1660 OC) the CPU is an intel i7 4 core 4 GHZ

[@PippPriss]

I'd personally just go with GPU, but you could try to compare the times it takes to run a few epochs and decide after the fact.

[@athonygraham8353]

Have you experienced any EQ foldback/pinching or aliasing at 48kHz? I have NAM working at 96kHz, but I don't know if that is supported yet? It sounds good though.. The quicker higher sample rates gets supported, the better I'd say. Aliasing is without doubt the worst enemy of guitar tone and although you say you couldn't care less, as you low pass those frequencies out, that's not really something that you should be doing and isn't going to be good for NAM in the long run. Aliasing = Bad. Don't downplay it, it needs sorting out as a priority.

[@PippPriss]

The latest version of NAM has a combination of frequency filtering and additional ML mechanisms added to avoid the aliasing with full rig captures. Eventually the issue might already be resolved on this front! :-)

[@paulmisty8998]

All IRs make NAM mono. What can I do?

[@PippPriss]

Do you mean mono in the sense that it comes out of one speaker only, or mono out of both speakers? If the first is happening, then check in the plugin instance if the output routing is set correctly - usually, it should not be that using an IR creates a mono on-sided signal, if without the IR it's loading in Dual mono. For more complicated stereo setups, you want to use NAM within a DAW and do your stereo routing there. NAM itself is only the loader for the amp capture basically.

[@paulmisty8998]

When I load NAM as an insert plugin and load IRs it fold down to mono sum. It's like pressing the mono button on my monitor controller. How do I use it in stereo? Is the NAM plugin itself mono only?

[@paulmisty8998]

@@PippPriss any Idea?

[@geezberry8889]

how to i capture and create models of my tube amps? i have a bunch of modded heads id like to get captured (profiled like a kemper).

[@PippPriss]

It's a bit complicated. You need a so called ReAmping setup, consisting optimally of a reamp box and a loadbox. The reamp box goes between your interface output and the amp, the loadbox comes after the amp instead of the cabinet. The loadbox needs an output going to the interface. What you then do is sending out test tones out of the interface through the ReAmping setup back into the interface. Then, some advanced machine learning technology is used to recognize the patterns in difference between original test tone and amplified test-tone. After that, you have a blue print of the sound of your gear, and use NAM to "color" your Di-tracks with this newly trained model.

[@rickplester9727]

Thx!

[@PippPriss]

Thank goes back to you for checking out the video!

[@dutypaidrock]

You have this weird nack of answering every question I have about this thing moments after it comes into my head. I'm getting freaked out...

[@PippPriss]

I take that as a compliment! This video was my first video which followed mainly a script. I took the questions of the community, wrote down the answer and learned that by Heart to present. Also my most labor intensive one up to date, to be honest. Your comment shows that I did a not too shabby job on that :-)

[@RobotShlomo]

2:30 "What is NAM and how does it work?". So far the answers are "it's seemingly a waste of time", and "it DOESN'T".

[@PippPriss]

Okay, that's just, like, your opinion, man. And pretty wrong as well. NAM works pretty well and is now adopted on a lot of technologies. But granted, this video perhaps needs a follow up, ALOT has changed during the last year or so.

[@danthegeetarman]

Looks like the discord link is bad now. Is there another place where I can find the discord link for tonehunt?

[@PippPriss]

The Discord is for NAM in general, but the folks working on tonehunt are very active and they have initiated the Discord afaik. I have edited the link the in the description, please give it another try and let me know if that works!

[@danthegeetarman]

@@PippPriss Thanks!🙏🙏

[@angelomaldonado2351]

Hi hope you're having a great day, hope if you can help me. When I installed Nam but when I want to connect my guitar it only pick ups the first input that is the mic. I went to the settings but I cant change it, is it a bug and there are any fixes.

[@PippPriss]

Hope this issue got sorted out, maybe with a newer version of the NAM plugin?

[@PureJadeKid]

It seems a little weird to start the video off by saying that NAM and ToneX started this when the Kemper Profiling Amplifier was released at NAMM 2011. However, free and much-lower-price does make a big difference because fewer people have a reason to avoid trying it out for themselves.

[@PippPriss]

Kemper never had a plugin which was capable of capturing the source tone, so they are a bit out of the field of competiton here. But of course, Kemper was always the OG and for a long time my personal wet dream rig. 🔥

[@saccomarcelo]

Does it work on Logic Pro or have a stand alone version?

[@barakin]

It works with Logic Pro and it has standalone version.

[@PippPriss]

Works for Logic Pro as well as offering a standaline version! Hope you had the chance to check it out!

[@luketama1]

I have an I7 and 24 gigs of ram and set on sample rate at 48000 but still have crazy latency. Using the Standalone app. Any help?

[@PippPriss]

Maybe the block size is set too low? Using an Ryzen 5800X here, 64 GB RAM. Also, does the issue happen in the DAW as well, or does everything work there? Also, latest version installed, or an older version?

[@marcohermans3207]

Nice video . I have an older I7 4th gen pc with an an intel graphics card so I have to do the online training because I don't have a Nvidea graphics card. They give you 12 hours of time online training and then you have to pay.....I don't want to pay each month so unfortunally this is not going to work for me.

[@PippPriss]

Just train the most important stuff out of your gear collection, for all other stuff ToneHunt.org has am amazing library of NAM files! ;-)

[@TonyThomas10000]

For some reason, NAM does not work with Michael Britt (Lonestar) IRs.

[@PippPriss]

Are they maybe stereo? In any case try to convert the IRs as I show in the video to maybe get them to work, hope that helps!

[@TonyThomas10000]

@@PippPriss Could be...I will have to check. They are all blends.

[@davidshankle7359]

I like it a lot but it keeps occasionally crashing my mac.

[@PippPriss]

Damn, that's a bummer - hopefully this got resolved!

[@everybodyhasoul5438]

Does it work on Linux OS?

[@PippPriss]

I am not sure unfortunately. I have no idea about Linux, to be honest.

[@imcrazedandconfused]

There is a linux version of Proteus and BYOD, which load Proteus models, so there is an alternative for Linux available.

[@DM-rc4yu]

This modeler will never get any traction. I just tried the standalone application. First it kept crashing and wouldn't start. After messing around with buffer sizes, now it doesn't crash but sometimes produces a horribly loud buzzing noise. Sometimes it's just dead and doesn't work. It does recognize my Scarlett interface but no sound. Zero models out of the box so you have to browse some private facebook groups. It's pretty silly.

[@PippPriss]

I think, you might be searching the wrong places. If you want an "semi-official" platform for NAM profiles, head to tonehunt.org - there you can find an incredible wealth of profiles - I personally dig, for metal stuff, especially the profiles of the user "helgab". Hope this helps finding the right tone! Regarding the issues you are having: What version have you used? I do agree, that the Standalone application and the way it recognizes audio interfaces is finicky. Do these same issues happen in the DAW? Hope you could work it out somehow by now - if not, eventually start a conversation in the facebook user group for NAM for further help. On the "traction": I disagree, by only viewing the numbers: IK Multimedias ToneNET platform by now has ~16.000 tone models according to their latest newsletter, while ToneHunt has ~8000 NAM amp/pedal models, as we speak. The facebook groups around NAM and ToneX users are also nearly the same size. Also, Melda has announced it will integrate NAM in one of their guitar software offerings, and there is heavy work done in the community to find a way to properly get NAM onto pedals. People like Wampler from Wampler Pedals are very intrigued by NAM and are looking losely into possibilities to embed this into hardware products. It's all in beta, created by a small number of developers who are doing this in their free-time - I guess with time and interesting in this topic growing, we will see some successful commercial applications built around this soon.

[@jessiej3991]

How do you get NAM to learn new models? You never put the link in the description which doesn't surprise me considering anyone that has said " I put the link in the description below " never puts the link to what they were talking about in the description below the video

[@PippPriss]

Sorry, you are absolutely spot on with everybody missing the links they promise in the video. When it comes to training new models, you can do it locally on your machine, but by now, the market has evolved further - there is a website called tonezone3000(dot)com where you can download the training signal, reamp that through your rig, then upload that reamped file on tonezone3000 and have computers "in the cloud" train - 100% free and super quick. It's one of those amazing community efforts, which make NAM such a cool thing. Hope this helps!

[@dangtreeallaandra2014]

my honest opinion is that this is like the line 6 HD X , have one and got it as an extra because the thing that I wanted was also in the bargin . It was an peavey classic 60w amplifier . And i tried the HD but it didn't change the parameters like i wanted it to , i tried the Rectifier mode and starting fiziling with the bas and treble and it turns out it sounds like a plexi or an engl or an peavey there was no change in reality it was just how you dialed it in . So i tried out 3 different amps in NAM and they all sounds the same . This are the three I tried Mesa Boogie MK III blue , EVH 5150 III , and diezel herbert . It doesn't matter if you keep all the dials at middle position they all sounds the same . I love what Steve have done it's just so Line 6 ish !!!!

[@PippPriss]

To be honest, I think you might not have chosen the best profiles then. Have you tried other profiles off of ToneHunt.org?

[@spraypainter7953]

Does not work OS X Monterey fml

[@PippPriss]

Yeah, with older Mac OS it's unfortunately a hassle :-(

[@Gameup2332]

It would be cool if mine worked

[@PippPriss]

Sorry to hear that, ever got it working?

[@Gameup2332]

@@PippPriss no it buzzes super loud i use bias fx and im not sure why same for neural

[@dubleb8334]

Sorry Pipp… you sound like Dana White 😃

[@PippPriss]

Haha! Now I just have to work on having the same income! :-D

[@artysanmobile]

I don’t mean to be petty, but either remove the certification sticker from your mic or lower the entire mic to hide it. Just a suggestion.

[@PippPriss]

Will consider this for the next video on this style, thanks! :-)

[@dixielandbanjo6371]

Jazz

[@PippPriss]

Nothing like JAZZ as background music. ;-)

[@Nig6tWalker]

omg just guy make a video about this plugin and everyday i see a NAM video,John Cordy made a video because of Leon,Leon make a video because he watched another video,come on guy talk about something new,dont copy each other

[@PippPriss]

Leon made his video because of my video, at least he referred to mine in his video - So what exactly is your point? The point of this video is to answer questions which have been asked repeatedly on the facebook community group, and based on the feedback so far, it is a very useful video. And currently, NAM is a very new and fresh addition to the plugin world, so of course it will get a lot of coverage. But there will be other days and other videos coming. 🙂 I'd ask at this point for a bit of understanding that I as a small KZbin creator just enjoy a bit of spotlight shining on my channel. I was lucky to be an early adopter on this plugin/tech and it then totally blew up.