Announcing AmpliTube 4! Out now!!!

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Re: British Valve Pre Power Amp

Postby carlaz » Mon Nov 09, 2015 9:17 pm

stateofepicicity wrote:I've always wondered if the departure from swappable components came from the desire not compete with Revalver, which of course operates on the other end of the spectrum with regard to component swappability. I don't know, I never quite had the feeling in my gut from Revalver that I do from Amplitube models.

Well, there's an aspect of usability in the Amplitube stuff. You can grab a familiar-feeling model and get up and running with it fairly fast. The ability to geek out by swapping around different transformer models in given vintage Marshall-based model would be cool, but might rapidly baffle the less geeky. :ugeek:

To an extent, the swappable speaker models in AT4 suggest that they're still playing with user-oriented customization features -- though, equally, I suspect owners of real amps are more likely to swap out speakers in their cabs than completely re-mod their amp head interiors. :geek:

I can imagine future AT versions where the ability to swap around components, etc. is itself a paid-for "unlockable" feature. Get them with the shiny new Mesa head models, keep 'em coming back to tweak capacitors in the plexi. :lol:

stateofepicicity wrote:Whatever kind of preamp was created for the JMP-1, the preamp / power amp combo sounds great. Tight as hell, and very responsive. Perhaps that's the point of an optimized poweramp. This is the developers' idea of what a rig involving a JMP-1 should sound like. I'd love to see some of the Voodoo Amps JMP-1 mods in Amplitube. Especially since this is not an official Marshall collaboration, who cares, why not use an enhanced version? Hell, isn't that how Boogie started, modding Fenders? Lee Jackson Metaltronix stuff, wasn't that started with modded Marshalls (if memory serves)? Anyway...

And, indeed, Soldano essentially grew out of Marshall mods -- no? Anyway, I'm onboard for this approach. IK has done some "own-brand" amp models in previous versions of AT, but there wasn't much talking them up. Given how conservative guitarists (and musicians generally!) are with gear, one wants to kind of "place" any own-brand stuff within the wider "mythology of gear".

stateofepicicity wrote:I imagine it would be endlessly fascinating to see how the speaker modeling was developed. I mean, how do you isolate the part the cab plays alone, aside from the speakers, perhaps you measure the cab with speakers, measure the speakers without the cabs, and use some sort of subtractive algorithm to approximate the effect the wood structure itself has on the sound. That's just awesome. Unless of course the devs simply installed all 29 speakers into each cab and measured them; the number of permutations would seem a daunting task to measure haha!

And I wish IK would geek out a bit more about their own stuff. I mean, doubtless there are some technical trade secrets and such about which they'd prefer not to talk -- but there must be plenty of other stuff that they could talk about.

That said ...
stateofepicicity wrote:Thanks for looking into my question, Peter; always nice to peek behind the curtain to the thought process behind this software.

... Peter does seem to do his best to bring as much geek as allowable. 8-)
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Re: Announcing AmpliTube 4! Out now!!!

Postby joflo » Tue Nov 10, 2015 12:11 am

Just for my information:

if i put an Mic in AT4 directly ON the speaker, will it be like on the clothing in real life (so you have some space between the Cone and the Mic) or will it really be directly on the Cone?
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Re: Announcing AmpliTube 4! Out now!!!

Postby Peter_IK » Tue Nov 10, 2015 1:02 am

joflo wrote:Just for my information:

if i put an Mic in AT4 directly ON the speaker, will it be like on the clothing in real life (so you have some space between the Cone and the Mic) or will it really be directly on the Cone?

It will be like putting the mic just shy of being against the grille.
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Re: Announcing AmpliTube 4! Out now!!!

Postby carlaz » Tue Nov 10, 2015 2:06 am

'Cause if you actually put the mic on (as in touching) the grille, that would vibrate when you played and probably create weird rasping noises through the mic.
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Re: Announcing AmpliTube 4! Out now!!!

Postby smr1973 » Tue Nov 10, 2015 3:58 am

Has there been any official word from IK regarding acknowledging that Retina resolutions actually do exist in Windows and Amp4, which I bloody paid for already, is basically unusable because it shows up as a postage-stamped, unreadable window in the middle of my 4k monitor driven by Win10?

At least it scales up in OSX, but that's not where I do most of my work (and the fact that they haven't vectored and made resolution-independent their GUI this go-round is just unforgivable).

Between this and my StealthPedal suddenly being a useless brick, I am a seriously unhappy customer at the moment, and I've been _very_ loyal to this point.
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Re: British Valve Pre Power Amp

Postby stateofepicicity » Tue Nov 10, 2015 4:47 am

carlaz wrote:Well, there's an aspect of usability in the Amplitube stuff...


I think the Revalver idea is great for someone learning to build amps, to brainstorm. That level of intricacy is beyond my interest, since I just care about having a tone I can use to express my ideas. Real world amps certainly aren't made to be endlessly swappable; they're meant to be played. The people who think along the lines of the best electronics for a certain artistic effect are the pillars who create sound, and I there's a great debt of gratitude owed to them. I'm as much of an audiophile as I am a musician, and that is as much of a problem to me (not to allow my obsession with tone to hinder my playing) as it is a joy! I really believe that the bulk of tone comes from your phrasing, from your actual playing, but the aspect of what sound it is that your sculpting with your playing is so alluring.

I have the most respect for audio equipment designers, people sculpting sound from the ground up. When we pick up the electric guitar we're speaking in their voice, their language. All of our musical ideas are spoken through the mouth of Seymour Duncan, Noel Lee, Brian Wampler, Randall Smith, Mike Soldano, Mike Scuffham, etc., whomever it is in whose hands you've placed your playing. It's such an interesting concept to me. Like the soul of a luthier living in the music coming out of a guitar. I think amp sims are a kind of temple to that worship.

Not to obfuscate at all the role of the musician in this. I just think so much about the musicianship of people who are able to use musical electronics in ways that are inspiring.

Apologies for my rambling!
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Re: Announcing AmpliTube 4! Out now!!!

Postby carlaz » Tue Nov 10, 2015 9:09 pm

smr1973 wrote:Has there been any official word from IK regarding acknowledging that Retina resolutions actually do exist in Windows and Amp4, which I bloody paid for already, is basically unusable because it shows up as a postage-stamped, unreadable window in the middle of my 4k monitor driven by Win10?
At least it scales up in OSX, but that's not where I do most of my work (and the fact that they haven't vectored and made resolution-independent their GUI this go-round is just unforgivable).


Ooooooo, I knew this was going to be a problem as soon as I saw that the AT4 GUI was still the same fixed size as in AT3. Luckily, I've got an iMac from a year or so ago: the AT3/4 GUI window is fiddly, but at least useable. I'd be screwed if I had a new one with a 4K Retina display! I really think not at least allowing the GUI to "zoom" (even with pixelation) was a misstep.
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Re: Announcing AmpliTube 4! Out now!!!

Postby emurphy94108 » Tue Nov 10, 2015 9:16 pm

I have a 5K retina display iMac, and AT4 (and 3, for that matter) are perfectly usable. Even with my slowly-declining visual acuity. But then, it's not a laptop screen
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Re: Announcing AmpliTube 4! Out now!!!

Postby carlaz » Tue Nov 10, 2015 10:41 pm

How big -- physically -- is it on that screen? The complete AT4 GUI on my "28-inch" iMac is about 25.5 cm (about 10 inches). A complete GUI knob on the default American Tube Clean 1 model (is it weird that AT4 has an essentially AT2-vintage model as the "default"? Anyway ...) is about 1 cm across, while a number on one of those knobs is maybe a bit more than a millimeter wide. As far as I can tell, the essentials of the model GUIs in AT4 are basically unchanged from AT2/3. It's useable, but after a while I find myself hunching and squinting. Admittedly, my eyes aren't once they once were either! :shock: :P :geek:
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Re: Announcing AmpliTube 4! Out now!!!

Postby emurphy94108 » Tue Nov 10, 2015 11:14 pm

It's the same size on my 5k iMac screen as it is on my regular-res 27" iMac screen, i.e., almost exactly 10 inches (for the standalone version with the Recorder/Looper interface). The AU interface is proportionately smaller, lacking the recorder/looper. I definitely wouldn't mind if the text labels were a bit larger, but for the most part the screen controls are decently-sized. It's a bit easier to click into the search box for the browser than it was in AT3, which is nice, although I rarely make presets in AT anyway (I mostly create channel strip settings in MainStage/Logic). I certainly wouldn't mind a larger interface, but give its current pixel dimensions, people with smaller displays, like 11-inch MBAs, might not agree.
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Re: Announcing AmpliTube 4! Out now!!!

Postby carlaz » Wed Nov 11, 2015 12:37 am

Yeah, that's why I thought a scaleable app/AU interface (rather than simply a new, fixed but bigger one) would be appropriate.

I also use Logic (recently made the jump from GarageBand -- after 11 years!), but I do tend to make lots of AT presets and will often tweak around the AT settings in the mixing stage. In a long session tacked on to the end of a long day, I do sometimes find myself wishing that I could see everything a bit better! There's a lot of detail in Amplitube, and sometimes small adjustments can have a (IMO!) marked effect on the sound.
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Re: Announcing AmpliTube 4! Out now!!!

Postby emurphy94108 » Wed Nov 11, 2015 12:41 am

Another thing I find helpful is to use a MIDI controller to control parameters in AT. I have a cheap Axiom mini keyboard that has eight assignable knobs and some buttons and stuff, and I typically assign the knobs and buttons to parameters I'm most likely to want to change (e.g., input gain, presence, lead/rhythm for switchable models, etc.) I also have an Apogee GIO which works well for the same sort of thing.

It doesn't make the interface any easier to read (although it's much clearer, and the same size, on a 5K display), but it does make it easier to twiddle the knobs.
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Re: Announcing AmpliTube 4! Out now!!!

Postby joflo » Fri Nov 13, 2015 8:50 am

+++++++++++It will be like putting the mic just shy of being against the grille.++++++++++++

Ok. So how the results in general will be better?

Putting the Mic like that "against" the grille or move it a little bit further away?
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Re: Announcing AmpliTube 4! Out now!!!

Postby Peter_IK » Fri Nov 13, 2015 10:01 pm

joflo wrote:+++++++++++It will be like putting the mic just shy of being against the grille.++++++++++++

Ok. So how the results in general will be better?

Putting the Mic like that "against" the grille or move it a little bit further away?

Nobody would put it contacting the grille. There would be noise that way (from physical contact). If you are asking how to get the best sound, it really would be best to experiment with different mic positions to find out since it really is project/song/etc specific.
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Re: Announcing AmpliTube 4! Out now!!!

Postby emurphy94108 » Sat Nov 14, 2015 12:37 am

Anyone know if it's possible in AT4 to use any room mics other than the U-87, C414, c12 or TLM170 mics? There are about 16 mics that can be used as proximity mics on the cabs, but it seems that only the four listed above can be used as ambiance mics.

(Not that I, personally, can hear much difference between mics of the same type, e.g., dynamic, condenser, etc., but still.)
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