Neural amp

The Neural amp plays a capture of a real piece of gear: an amplifier, a pedal, a preamp or a console channel. A capture is a small .nam file made with Neural Amp Modeler by recording a signal through the gear and training a model on it; load one and your sound goes through that circuit at that setting, with its breakup and its feel. The module ships without captures. Bring your own, from your own gear or from a library such as TONE3000, and the file is stored with the project so it opens anywhere.

When to use it

Use it when you want a specific piece of gear rather than an adjustable one. A capture is one amplifier at one setting, so pick the capture the way you would pick the amp. Captures of preamps and outboard work on anything, not only guitar. A vocal through a console preamp capture takes on that channel’s weight and grain. For a cabinet, put a Convolver after it with a speaker impulse, or leave it off for a capture that already includes one. For an amp you shape with knobs, use the Guitar amp.

The module reads NAM files up to version 0.7: the classic WaveNet and LSTM captures, the newer A2 captures TONE3000 makes, and files that carry several sizes of one capture. A file made with features it cannot play yet says so when you load it.

Controls

Load capture

Opens a .nam file, or drop one on the module. The name, the gear and the model appear at the top of the module. Captures you load are kept on this device, and the menu in the corner of that box picks one of them or loads another file. The project itself carries the file too.

Size

Appears when a capture comes in several sizes. Full is the capture as trained. Light is a smaller model of the same gear that needs less than half the processing and gives up a little detail. Switching starts the new size cleanly, without a click from the model itself.

Input

Trims the signal going into the capture, from −24 to +24 dB. Captures expect the level they were recorded at; the maker’s notes often say what that was. Start at 0 and move it until clean playing breaks up the way the real amp did.

Output

Trims the result after the capture, from −36 to +12 dB. Captures come out at very different levels; this is where you bring them in line.

Level match

Uses the loudness the capture reports to bring its output to a common level, so switching captures compares tone rather than volume. Only captures that carry that measurement offer it.

Mono and Stereo

A capture is one amplifier, so Mono sums the input and plays the result on both sides. Stereo runs one capture per channel, which keeps a stereo source stereo and costs twice as much.

Tips

• This is the heaviest effect in the rack. A full-size capture takes about a quarter of a processor core, so a song with several of them adds up.
• Keep a mono source such as a DI guitar or a vocal on Mono. Both channels carry the same signal, so Stereo sounds identical and doubles the processing.
• When the sound is right, freeze the track. The capture is printed to audio and stops costing anything, and you can unfreeze it to change it later.
• You can monitor live input through a capture on a fast computer. Choose Light while recording if the computer struggles, and switch back to Full for the mix. At 48 kHz the module adds no delay; at other project rates the conversion around the capture adds under 3 ms, compensated in playback and export.
• A capture of a pedal in front of an amp capture works like the real pair. Order matters, as it does on a pedalboard.
• Input is the one control that changes how the capture responds, because it changes how hard the modelled circuit is driven.