Tonex vs Nano Cortex vs NAM vs Real Amp captures

[@hextobin]

Deliverance is an amazing amp, and your captures are great! A lot of people would be happy if you did more of them with various settings, asp depth and presence.

[@paulbradshawguitar]

@@hextobin thanks 🙏 I might get round to that at some point actually when I have more time, as it's quite an involved process

[@drrodopszin]

I'm more than happy that the free NAM was so good. The differences were incredibly small, unlike good old times when you had to mix and match 2-3 plastic sounding Amplitube emulations that sounded nowhere near the high gain amp.

[@paulbradshawguitar]

i think NAM has the most scientific approach here with regards to the captures, it's the only one where i've put in exact number/values for capturing the signal coming out of the amp, and also the flexibility in training the capture (ie. you can have a 1000 epoch capture or more, which goes even higher than others) the Tonex does something similar with the 'normal' or 'high quality' training process, and surprisingly the Nano Cortex has one method of capturing, but does it really well i was impressed in any case, how close they all sounded

[@izek01]

Very good, well thought out episode that flowed nicely… keep up the good work mate

[@paulbradshawguitar]

much appreciated, thanks for the feedback🙏

[@nunolance23]

Wouldn’t be able to tell which one was which on a blind test for sure! I agree it is probably more about functionality and ease of use in the end!

[@paulbradshawguitar]

yeah that's what i think , given that depending on how you want to use these captures to begin with, (with say playing concerts/touring in mind or playing live sessions) with Tonex FX being released this week, that'll be the next video, how i have a small backup for my FM3 rig

[@TudorAdrian]

Nice work Paul. If you've set / calibrated your reamp chain for unity gain (shoot a -10 dBFS sine via the line out and adjust the reamp box until your Hi-Z reads the same value with a instrument cable coming from the reamp box into the Hi-Z input) with NAM already, you can keep the same settings for when you do the ToneX reamp session. I know it "yells" at the beginning with it being too close to RED (i think the first RED dot was lighting up on my end following this workflow) but if you just skip through it'll turn out alright.

[@paulbradshawguitar]

thanks 🙏 and also for the Tonex info, i'm wondering how much of those differences will affect the capture , obviously way too low a signal will not be good, but something in the correct ballpark should still yield good results, and then it's a matter of guitar/pickups and output level going into said profile with NAM i've got the values down =) but I don't have that 'luxury' with Tonex as it's all app based and not through the DAW, i think maybe i'll have to see with that first red light going on peaks, if that might give better results, i did a capture of my FM3 rig that I really like in any case, just have to add a bit more gain to it, i might redo that one actually with it hitting the red and see how that compares

[@TudorAdrian]

@@paulbradshawguitar it'll probably capture the spirit either way. When I tried doing that A/B comparison (mainly between NAM and ToneX), I reamped the NAM track and, without touching anything else, I reamped ToneX - skipped my way through their guided menu without adjusting anything other than the cable/signal routing screen. For the NDSP stuff (I own the QC), I found out leaving the volumes at 0 and having the USB cable disconnected got me the best results. The NDSP QC is very finicky with grounding & I've found out (the hard way) that the best Neural Capture results were obtained by keeping the bare minimum amount of stuff connected to the QC while profiling (that means I only had the guitar in, headphones and cable to the amp & from the loadbox/mic).

[@paulbradshawguitar]

@@TudorAdrian solid info as well, i was really happy to have a small usb power bank and power cable, has turned out to be super useful for the nano cortex and also quickly plugging stuff in on my desk to try out i just redid a profile of my FM3 doing what you said, it was hitting the red at times, but let it do the capture, turned out better than the one i did before, seemed to have a better definition in the mids and low end, makes me wonder if i push it a bit harder now 😄 very cool either way

[@TudorAdrian]

@@paulbradshawguitar the rabbit hole goes deep indeed lol

[@MaximusWhyman]

The only one that sounds noticeably worse is the Nano Cortex. It seems more compressed. In a mix you wouldn’t be able to tell though.

[@paulbradshawguitar]

thanks for the feedback, yeah some friends also felt the same way, the differences in terms of tone/response were more apparent on the lower volume/dynamics test i did, the NC capture does seem to have a bit more gain to it in any case, but that can be tweaked fortunately, a lot of the variables seem to be on the gain/signal , before even talking about the capture process itself

[@yoadmaimon2007]

what theme is reaper? looks good

[@paulbradshawguitar]

@@yoadmaimon2007 thanks, it's called : Paulie

[@АндрейПолевой-я5и]

Hi! Is it possible to get your wav files of this amp to try make better/closer nam profiles? I got not standard types of nam wich shows better loss values and ability to use thousands of epochs)

[@paulbradshawguitar]

i've been asked this before, to be honest i'd like to look into this more myself to try and get better results and learn something in the process as well, i'll get round to this at some point for sure, thanks

[@masgujeff]

good approach to compare

[@paulbradshawguitar]

@@masgujeff thanks 🙏

[@AcysLounge]

Hey Paul, just downloaded the NAM files, will check em out tomorrow with Genome! Guess they are pretty nice, ..... ;-)

[@paulbradshawguitar]

@@AcysLounge vielen dank 🙏🙏

[@RosiePetalos]

I can't tell the difference. I sacked my concert amp because I live in an small unit and I respect my neighbours. (How times have changed). I monitor everything through hs8s which aren't in the best position. I love NAM cos it's free and I'm not gigging. If I was gigging or recording I'd want the reliability and vibe of a proper head and cab. But we all have different tastes and approaches. None are better it would seem, all of these options sound very close to the amp. I also like your channel cos you're not a US dude bro "wassssssuuuuuuuup" shred etc kind of person.

[@paulbradshawguitar]

thanks for the feedback 🙏 i also sold pretty much all my amps as i live in a flat, just kept the VHT as it really does something that i want out of an amp, and would potentially use it again gigging (for rock/metal stuff) if needs be in a recording/mixing scenario, they're all so close , you'd be hard pressed to tell any difference ,if any, and even then real amps will also sound a bit different day to day, or during a rehearsal/session, it's down to what works best for your setup i pretty much only play through digital rigs/plugins these days, so looking through the various capture tech has been really interesting so far

[@dogdays7120]

Great video! The take away for me was I'd be happy with any of those tones. Extend the rabbit hole a bit. I'm curious as to what 2 of the real amps sound like compared to each other. How close are they? All components have a tolerance. Then make 2 different captures of one amp with one device and compare the 2 captures for differences. Make 1 capture from 2 different identical capture devices (2 different Tonex or Nano) and compare those. If those show differences, then comparing a capture to the real device seems pointless.

[@paulbradshawguitar]

thanks 🙏and you're bang on the money, that's exactly the sort of rabbit hole i'm talking about =) whatever works best for you essentially that gives you the connectivity/functionality that you're after, and we're starting to see more capture/profiler options hit the market too (Hotone Tone catch, and Headrush have one too now)

[@MichaTulik]

I think A and C were extremely close. B lacked something in comparsion, but it is so close that I can even tell what. 😄

[@paulbradshawguitar]

imagine my brain during the filming of this 😄 I should have marked it here afterwards , A was Tonex, B Nano Cortex and C NAM on the first comparison

[@RenanBEreanSound]

Paul, in your experience do you think modern modelers are much better than pc plugins? In terms of sound quality emulation. I just use plugins today and want to level up my recording. Wonder how much better would be an fm3, nano or kemper. In many a/b comparison videos on YT like this one I hear there is almost no difference, but when I'm trying nam or plugins I feel it doesn't 'push' the speakers, the sound kind stays soft inside the box. That high preassure of low end electricity thrust of real 100w amps I still don't feel on plugins. I feel it better on fm3 and kempers tho Awesome channel, keep going!

[@paulbradshawguitar]

thanks for the support 🙏 sorry for the lengthy response: something to bear in mind with PC plugins is that you also have oversampling at your disposal , that some of the modelers will have (Fractal i think is one) which can help in terms of quality it's a setting that isn't always clear or obvious (e.g neural have Oversampling High or normal and some amp plugins show the x2,x4x8 etc..) but that does make a difference to the tone, how much this actually matters when processing through lots of different plugins/mix etc.. is another matter with plugins you have complete flexibility in terms of adding in whatever extra processing/plugins that you want to affect the signal, by that i mean multiband compression/EQ/tape saturation etc etc.. which can really make a difference to your tones but i can't realistically carry my PC to a gig and easily control/switch between tones like i can do on a Fractal FM3/QC or Kemper/Line6 etc.. there are bands that do this with a laptop setup (i think Humanity's last breath) but it's not something I see myself doing anytime soon in terms of that push with plugins, I know what you mean, but that might also be down to the DI/input settings that you might be using I started using a countryman 85 DI around 3 years ago, and the difference in recorded tones/feel has been noticeable (compared to my then audio interface's standard hi-z input) , that alone has made the biggest difference in quality to recorded/DI tones that then translate into plugins etc.. I'm not sure what DI if any you're using, but might be worth looking into, to try out, to see how much of a difference that makes also something cool to try is to simply double up in terms of tracks (e.g use two tracks panned hard L + R and have amp plugins on both , have them armed) sometimes getting more 'stereo' can help with plugins to make things sound bigger One cool aspect of this capture tech atm however is the prospect of capturing some complex pc plugin chains that are super dialed in, which you can then take with you on the road on say a Tonex or the Dimehead NAM player for example, maybe even kemper that's going to be my next experiment, trying to capture some processed amp tones in my DAW and to see how that translates

[@RenanBEreanSound]

@@paulbradshawguitar thanks a lot for your time and attention Paul, high valuable information 🙏

[@aaronsinger]

So why not try the Tonex SE software? It's free. The only caveat is that you must make sure to use good captures in your assessment. It might be worth spending $15 on a set of good ones. I like Amalgam, but there are many more. I will give my opinion that VST modelers in general have been mediocre. I can't stand using the Helix software compared the Tonex. And those Neural DSP VST modelers, lifeless and bland. I can't believe Cory Wong put his name on one of those. The amp quality is so much better with capture technology (Tonex and a couple of others). Distortion was always a big challenge for digital audio, kind of the last frontier, and this tech actually gets it right. Remember you need good captures, you can find them for free, if you can stand wading endlessly through the online database. Anyway the answer to your first question is yes. Some may disagree, I suppose.

[@RenanBEreanSound]

@@aaronsinger thanks for the insights man, i'm gonna check tonex again !

[@mikeramirez5622]

Ive always felt like the nano has a compression thats on all the time, the tonex breathes

[@paulbradshawguitar]

@@mikeramirez5622 it did seem to have more gain/compression than the others, which depending on how you like your tones may or may not be a bad thing, in the dynamics part it was the most apparent in any case

[@mariocaneva7519]

I think IR files and IR loaders are a really important part of the final sound, so if you compare like you are, you are not comparing actually to the “real amp” because you just have the amp head going through IR technology; you don’t have CABs or captured speakers in a recording room. The hardest part for me is that not only changing IRs but also IR loaders makes substantial changes to the sound. You are using IRs from ML Sound Lab, they are great, but also Neural DSP, and Bogren Digital has very good IRs, without mention NAM (there are great IRs on Tonehunt). To complicate matters, now everyone claims to outdo this technology by claiming they can capture speaker dynamics, Bogren’s IRDX technology, THU’s SuperCabinet Fluid IR, and Nuetron Audio’s Quatum Speaker. Truth or snake oil? It’s hard to say. Everything sounds great and keeps getting better, so it's easy to say, well, it's not about how accurate or close its to reality anymore; it's about what's the most comfortable or works best for you; "the one that suits you the best and makes you feel better playing" has you seid; but the problem with that is that not always the one you enjoy playing the most and like it is the best for the mixign, especially when you need to do quad tracking mix or something like that. I really like playing with IRs and those new fluid or non-linear "dynamic" technologies I mentioned, but most of the time I end up using FullRigs Capture to mix quad-tracking; somehow I feel that with them I can do more EQ adjustments on the guitar buss without affecting the tone so much and thus sound a bit more realistic.

[@paulbradshawguitar]

good points, what you said here : ' it's not about how accurate or close its to reality anymore; it's about what's the most comfortable or works best for you' , like i said in the video, with how things are these days it's whatever works best for you you're right in a mix there are other considerations, but with a whole host of processing/eq/compression etc..you can do so much to tones these days to make them work, and if you're really into mixing and doing production you'd potentially be looking at different amps/tones to use in the first place to best suit the vibe of the recording i can't say how many people use captures for recording/productions vs amp modelling plugins, that'd be interesting to find out

[@rickard9294]

I am surprised at how much unwanted sag the capture with Cortex Nano has.

[@paulbradshawguitar]

still feels good to play through, but it does seem to have a bit more gain, compression as others have noted

[@barrettjulian]

I didn't catch any differences :)

[@barrettjulian]

Thanks for make this kind of videos !

[@paulbradshawguitar]

@@barrettjulian thanks 🙏

[@Johnny-oy9fh]

All sounds the same to me

[@paulbradshawguitar]

yeah it's all incredibly close, my brain seriously melted while i was setting this up and listening back to back 😄

[@steves12strings]

Real amp still wins. I say that as an owner of a Kemper and Tonex pedal and previously a Cortex owner. But still nobody would be able to pick these out in a blind test.

[@paulbradshawguitar]

@@steves12strings yeah the real amp will always have that 'thing' that sets it apart, but in a mix these days, impossible to tell the difference

[@mieszanesztuki]

What's the argument behind this exactly? Because I didn't hear any differences, and every amp I remember having was more of a burden than an useful piece of gear. Mesa DR - heavy, hard to dial in, 6505 - one sound all across the board, heavy, hard to control the volume, EVH 5150 - same thing, boxy, had to have additional gear (boosts, EQs) to shape the tone. I had each of these for at least two years, with decent CABs too, and I keep finding profiles of these on ToneNET that sound much better than the originals, and you can play them at 3AM without disturbing anyone. Every old fart seems to be clinging to those tube designs, nobody really knows why, what is "that special THING" that sets it apart. No one is able to point that out, yet everyone believes it for some reason. Perhaps nostalgia and money invested is "that thing", also lack of the ability to admit that your gear is obsolete. Sorry pal! Thats it. I mean, good for me. I fix these circuts as a side gig, lots of uninformed guitar people making dumb purchase decisions, but HEY! I'm making money, so... :)

[@aaronsinger]

@@mieszanesztuki I don't know about that. I use and enjoy both the Tonex pedal and Synergy hardware system. Something does feel more immediate and visceral about the analog Synergy system, and it has a killer sag feature, but I might actually prefer the Tonex, because of the great captures I bought which are better than sounds I can make at home using my own tube gear. If that makes any sense. I don't remember the last time I put three mics on a cab like with these captures. And Tonex is so ridiculously easy to use. No need to denigrate the old classic gear though! All these modelers are based on that old gear and the decades of recording with them. I'm glad all the old classics didn't use modelers! Hard work sometimes brings out the best in people, and pays off in unexpected ways. Getting a sound out of those amps was a commitment beyond plugging into a Gen Z modeling box. Also, it doesn't take much money to use tube gear, it's not a big deal unless you're young. People like messing with them. I love getting new modules for the Synergy.

[@steves12strings]

@mieszanesztuki was your comment directed at me, or is this a general statement? You're not wrong in a lot of ways. Horses for courses and such.

[@youscreamiscream]

ToneX isn't overly compressing the mids. I guarantee if I put this capture into my ToneX pedal and out to my VHT power amp and cabs, it'd be virtually indistinguishable from the real amp

[@NO-TALK-GuitarPlugin]

Nano cortex was the worse with very high pitch added most of the time, going worse with high gain. But it could be shaved with eq. ToneX was my choice most of the time even if on paper NAM is supposed to be the most scientifically accurate

[@paulbradshawguitar]

thanks for the feedback, playing through them i think NAM 'felt' the closest' to the amp, even though the profile was shot at a different time, NAM has the advantage of getting super scientific in terms of training profiles/epochs and accuracy , the differences between them especially in a mix will be pretty much imperceptible

[@shawnroden7946]

Perfectly said. I have a peavey xxx and an old original fender super reverb. And I have had many pedals over the years. Hated most. I’ll say. I got the tonex pedal. And man those tones are so good. If people can’t make good music out of them. They need to practice playing more. Note it does sound better going into the returns of my amps instead of through my 2500 watt pa. But speaker cabs matter! For sure a crate 4x12 will suck the life out anything. Where just a/b to a birch cab with celeston 85’s. Way more presence in the room. But through my altos 15s it still sounded great. I say this cause you’re right everyone is so caught up in what sounds like what. When most famous sounds where a little 15 watt amp with a mic shoved between it and a wall lol. Heck even Hendricks tone, most get nothing but noise and he made it sing. SRV liked “bass cables” and high action. Most guitar players are against that. Bottom line. You want better tone these days…..play better ;) Thank you for the wonderful “none clone of others” video!

[@paulbradshawguitar]

thanks for the feedback 🙏 that's one of the lessons i learnt over the years, if only instead of constantly searching for different tone through different pedals/amps/cabs etc..i had spent more time playing/practicing with the gear i already had, it would have taken me already a lot further, no regrets however the thing with digital modelling/profiling gear, that rabbit hole is a lot bigger seeing as there's so many variables suddenly available, but for that same reason i did that A/B/C thing at the start =) there's often no need to get so caught up in these things, it's not the gear but what you do with it

[@shawnroden7946]

⁠absolutely tone comes from the hands and the power of the speakers. That said. Digital overdrive and distortion has been crap til now. Now they all shine. Great thing for new players through the world. As guitar playing just changed forever with these new “updates” in what tech can do. I’d still advise buy an old tube amp and good cab with great speakers. And plug into the return. Whole new ball game there. That’s the real game changer for me. I’d have sold my soul as a kid for these tones. The world has become headphone listers and stat junkies. No one experiences the tone of an old marshal or peavy thy makes ya feel that power. Even on clean. Until you feel it you know. No phone or headphones and cheap speakers can’t deliver that. I think the only bad things I hear about all of these is from people who really don’t know that presence and have cheap emulation speakers and such. @@paulbradshawguitar