Live Amp Modeler integrates NAM with Ableton Live

[spiritofeden]

I've just released Live Amp Modeler, a Max for Live pack for running neural amp captures (NAM and AIDA-X) and cabinet IRs natively in Ableton Live. No external plugins needed, and lower CPU usage.

Get it here: https://nyquistlimited.lemonsqueezy.com/

Demo and walkthrough: https://youtu.be/m2VRggzL93I

Designed as a drop-in replacement for the stock Amp and Cabinet, it consists of two specialized devices, Amp Modeler and Cab Loader. Both are deeply integrated with Live, with convenient browsing, drag & drop, and preset recall functionality.

The pack includes a library of selected captures and IRs covering all the classics, provided by some of the best creators in the amp modeling world: Slammin Captures, Dahman Music, Deathblossom Audio, 2dor, Nick Leonard, Desmond Digital.

In addition to the two M4L devices, I included pre-built effect racks with multiband denoiser, sidechain gate, and multi-IR mixing.

See the User Manual for more info: https://drive.google.com/file/d/161hyJ- ... yVKfqZ0w1/

I've also open-sourced the underlying Max/MSP external: https://github.com/apresta/neural_tilde

I hope you find this useful!

[spiritofeden]

I have updated Live Amp Modeler to support loading the new generation of NAM models, "A2".

All included captures in the pack have also been converted to A2. This is a major improvement in both model accuracy and CPU efficiency compared to first-generation NAM profiles.

Open source external: https://github.com/apresta/neural_tilde

Full pack (M4L devices, racks, curated captures & IRs): https://www.nyquistlimited.com

As always, huge thanks to the creators of the included pro-level amp & cabinet captures:

https://www.dahmanmusic.com/

https://slammincaptures.bigcartel.com/

https://www.facebook.com/deathblossomaudio/

https://ko-fi.com/2dornam

https://www.youtube.com/NickLeonard

https://gindabestari.com/desmond-digital

[slow.robot]

nice! been thinking about how terrible the stock amp modeling stuff is for actual guitar in Ableton. what is NAM exactly? I mean, I get that it stands for neural amp modeling, but what's different about NAM vs. traditional amp and cab modeling?

definitely going to give this a good look, especially now that I'm going to be collaborating on the go more often.

[spiritofeden]

Standard amp modeling is done by explicitly simulating the (effects of) the many components of a physical amplifier. Some really good models have been built that way, but there are two potential hurdles:

• Each new amp you want to model is kind of its own engineering project.

• Even if you approximate each component pretty closely, the ways those components influence one another in real world situations is harder to reproduce.

Technology like NAM and AIDA-X instead is based on recording the output of an actual amplifier when fed known inputs, and training a statistical model to reproduce its effect on any new inputs. What you get is audio in, audio out, with a kind of black box in between. If you've heard of impulse responses, this is analogous, except that the system you're trying to model is much less predictable, so the method to build accurate captures is much more complex.

Depending on who you ask, the main benefits of neural captures are:

• You can get a much more realistic amp-like feel.

• It's much easier to make new high quality models of existing amps (I fall more into this camp).

So practically speaking, the stock Ableton amps can work well in some settings, but if you're looking for a different sound you're out of luck. Meanwhile, https://www.tone3000.com/ has a ton of free captures of pretty much any amp you can name. In fact, it's kind of overwhelming, but you can definitely find the 5 or 6 you really like for your style. There are also good premium packs you can buy that expand on that.

One disadvantage of neural captures is that they don't model each specific amp's knobs. Doing that with current technology would require gathering an impractical amount of audio in/out data. So right now you have to make do with generic tone and gain controls. This is why often a capture pack includes tens of captures of the same pack, all at different knob settings. In practice it's not so bad once you get used to this way of working. I might be biased because I mostly play clean, so I get a lot of mileage out of the right capture and dialing in the input gain. But I hear metalheads love the realism of high gain/distorted captures.

Oh and by the way, it's not just guitar and bass amps. Drive pedals and outboard preamps are also pretty popular targets of NAM captures.

One more thing: you'll find two kinds of guitar amp captures on Tone3000. Some are "full rig", meaning they model the amp head and cabinet together. You load one of those into Amp Modeler and you're done. "Amp head" captures require that you also load an impulse response after them (unless you want a DI sound), which is why my pack includes Cab Loader.

[slow.robot]

excellent explanation—thank you!