[HN Gopher] Show HN: SmartGuitarAmp - Guitar plugin made with de...
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Show HN: SmartGuitarAmp - Guitar plugin made with deep learning
Author : keyth72
Score : 150 points
Date : 2020-10-10 17:01 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| neiman wrote:
| Windows only boohoohooo:(
| onion-soup wrote:
| The tone similarity is quite impressive.
| dlivingston wrote:
| For the guitarist interested in applying this plugin live, it
| would be worth looking into open-hardware Arduino-based guitar
| pedals [0].
|
| [0]: https://shop.electrosmash.com/product/pedalshield-mega-kit/
| marketingPro wrote:
| I'm ready for an esp8266 revolution. Arduino is outdated and
| expensive.
|
| Not that my wish will be reality, both academia and the last
| company I worked for used ardiunos for various tasks(non
| production).
|
| Not sure why, is it entirely the shape of Arduino is standard
| and can use Arduino based shields?
| detaro wrote:
| That revolution has pretty much happened already. There are
| giant ecosystems of non-Arduino systems out there. In many
| hardware DIY/maker circles you almost never see the
| traditional Arduinos anymore.
| bserge wrote:
| Funny enough, esp8266 boards is all I can find in my country.
| Probably because it's cheap and versatile. I need to try it,
| but can't think of anything to use it for.
| qwertox wrote:
| Nowadays it's better to directly start using an ESP32, if
| you want to experiment. It has bidirectional I2S, (for
| example mic in, apply dsp, then out to speaker), is dual
| core, which would allow you to do the audio-related stuff
| on one core, and everything else (like communications) on
| another core.
|
| If you then see that you don't require all the good things
| an ESP32 has to offer, maybe because you only want to drive
| a LED strip via WiFi and read some sensor values, then you
| can step down and use an ESP8266
| marketingPro wrote:
| Why go for a esp32 if you can use i2c for reading many
| values and driving relays?
|
| Serious, because I am building a complex product and
| trying to keep costs down.
|
| Or are you referring to hobbyists?
| nitrogen wrote:
| If you're making something for audio you need I2S to talk
| to the DAC/ADC.
| qwertox wrote:
| The context of this thread is audio processing, so having
| I2S (Inter-IC Sound, with DMA) on board is really
| valuable, as is having an additional core.
|
| In my case, I can order a bundle of three esp8266
| 13.79EUR, or a bundle of three esp32 for 17.99EUR, both
| as the most lazy, fastest delivery option on Amazon. If
| you know that you don't need the extra features of the
| esp32, save yourself the 4.20EUR (1.40EUR per board) to
| keep the cost down. But if you're new to it and want to
| explore the possibilities of a modern uC, it would be a
| mistake to save in the wrong place.
|
| Even consider getting a LOLIN32 Lite (three for
| 19.99EUR), since the width of the board is smaller than
| the normal esp32 and esp8266 dev boards, which then lets
| you use both sides of a breadboard to plug in cables. All
| the other boards are so wide, that on a normal breadboard
| you will have to decide which side of the board you want
| to have a row of externally accessible pins, and on the
| other side all the cables must be plugged in below the
| board (search for "LOLIN32 Lite width breadboard")
|
| Saving on cost can also be a premature optimization.
|
| > Or are you referring to hobbyists?
|
| Any context that is not production. Development,
| Education, Hobby.
| sickcodebruh wrote:
| This is really cool, I'd love to try this out!
|
| Neural DSP, developers of what are arguably the best amp sim
| plugins available right now, claim that their upcoming floor
| modeler uses what they describe as "unique biomimetic AI
| technology" to create its sounds. I wonder how different their
| work is from this. https://neuraldsp.com/products/quad-cortex
|
| I'm personally kind of over lugging an amp around and if live
| music ever comes back, I'm likely to sell mine and go with a
| modeler + power amp. The technology has just come so far and the
| convenience can't be beat, especially if you do a lot of studio
| work or need to travel with your gear. A lot of demanding metal
| bands have switched away from tube amps and I'm already using
| plugins for recording as much as possible, so this seems like the
| next step.
| keyth72 wrote:
| Thank you! Any feedback is appreciated if you get around to
| trying it out.
|
| If you look at the WaveNetVA repository from Aalto University
| that my plugin is based on, at least one person affiliated with
| that project works at Neural DSP. I suspect that the QuadCortex
| uses something like this (maybe a more advanced neural net)
| combined with other proprietary techniques and application
| specific hardware. They claim they can do the rig capture in 3
| minutes, whereas the models I trained for the SmartAmp took a
| few hours on a GPU.
| bjelkeman-again wrote:
| It is really interesting to see this becoming more
| widespread. I am waiting for a delivery in the first batch of
| the Quad Cortex.
| sickcodebruh wrote:
| If real world reviews confirm the previews I've
| encountered, that'll be the one for me. It really seems
| phenomenal.
| _fs wrote:
| I don't know, I'm not hearing the warmth of a tube amp. Sounds
| like other solid state emulator amps.
| tgv wrote:
| IANAG, but it sounds like it's recorded through a speaker in
| the room, and the miking wasn't optimal. Now that might be the
| recording we watch, or the actual output of the plugin; no way
| to tell. But apart from that, it's quite good, IMO.
|
| (I Am Not A Guitarist)
| keyth72 wrote:
| The video was recorded from directly my phone.. so yeah not
| optimal. Glad you thought it sounded good.
| sosborn wrote:
| As a guitarist, it is important to understand that any time
| you tell a guitarist that the sound is digital, the guitarist
| will scoff and say it doesn't sound like real tube amp,
| regardless of what they said or thought before knowing it was
| digital.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Exactly the same with analogue synthesizers.
|
| A lot of the time they don't mean analogue when they say
| they don't want digital - they mean that they want knobs
| and switches to play with. I think some modern Moog's even
| have a digital stage in the signal path (I might be making
| that up but I have some vague recollection of it in a
| schematic)
|
| Making a synth sound good has very little to do whether it
| uses analogue or digital synthesis these days, but analogue
| equipment is (for the same price) less reliable, uses more
| power, less flexible, and more susceptible to being damaged
| by impacts (and keep in mind that you can't repair a lot of
| modern gear with SMD soldering experience anyway)
| rograndom wrote:
| Small anecdote in the similar vein.
|
| I gigged around Boston in the early 2000's playing guitar
| in various rock and metal bands, usually in front of 15-20
| people. I had been using a 1960's Fender Bassman and
| changed out the tubes to some Sovtek ones. Sound guy at one
| of the clubs (who's had been around for 20+ years at that
| point and seen everything) noticed right away and asked why
| my amp sounded off. A little while later I bought one of
| the first Line 6 modeling amps and my first gig with it the
| same sound guy said "Ahh, you put the old tubes back in".
| I'm like, "Nope, totally different amp, and it's all
| digital.". He didn't believe me and while he was inspecting
| the amp kept saying "No, no, no. There's tubes in here I
| can _smell_ them warming up ".
| aeleos wrote:
| Just tried it out, I don't know if I would say it sounds like a
| $600 tube amp especially in high gain scenarios (it really didn't
| like my active pickups), for a free plugin it is definitely
| great. In comparison to the Archetype Nolly plugin from Neural
| DSP it doesn't really compare, but but for something thats free
| and can be trained at home on custom audio samples its pretty
| cool.
| keyth72 wrote:
| Thanks for trying it, much appreciated. Love Neural DSP's
| plugins, they are the best as far as I'm concerned.
| biomechanica wrote:
| Mercuriall's plugins are amazing, too. Their Spark plugin and
| SS-11X (can't tell the difference on that one) are so
| unbelievably good. If this open source one can do what Spark
| can do.. I dunno.. I'd shave my beard.
| Gollapalli wrote:
| Neural DPS's plugins are great. I actually ended up ordering
| the real version of an amp I tried with a plugin. I never
| thought I'd say that! But their plugins are realistic enough
| that I can actually have some confidence that the real thing
| will be what I'm after.
| albutr wrote:
| wow, I was literally just about to download the trial for the
| archetype nolly (after being iffy on whether the fortin
| nameless was right for what I wanted), what are the chances
| it's being discussed on HN.
|
| I'm hoping that the nolly plugin can cover both dirty and clean
| sounds well enough to not need a second plugin, fingers crossed
| keyth72 wrote:
| The Nolly is awesome, tons of options in there for both clean
| and dirty sounds. The awesome thing is you can try all their
| plugins before buying to make sure it's what you need.
| romwell wrote:
| What a clickbait title.
|
| Sounds (to whom?) like a $600 (which one?) amp using deep
| learning (why does it matter?).
|
| To expand on this:
|
| -$600 tube amp is not description of a sound. And a plug-in is
| not something you plug your guitar into to make enough noise for
| 300 people. "A plug-in sounds like a $600 speaker" makes almost
| as much sense as the title; by the sound of an _amp_ people often
| mean the sound of the _combo box_ which houses an amp and a
| speaker.
|
| -If this emulates a _particular_ amp, the title should say which
| one
|
| -If it does a good job at emulating a particular amp, where's the
| side by side comparison? The video demo only shows the plug-in.
|
| -There are plethora of guitar amp plugins. What makes this one
| any different or better?
|
| -What's the significance of deep learning here? Plenty of ways to
| make this plug-in without deep learning. Why use deep learning?
|
| Etc, etc, etc.
|
| "An open-source guitar amp VST plug-in made with deep learning"
| would be a better title, even though the article leaves much to
| be desired.
| dkersten wrote:
| So, if I play my guitar through a $5 speaker, but I use this
| plugin, it will sound like a $600 tube amp :)
| sbilstein wrote:
| Don't know why you are getting downvotes; these are exactly the
| questions any one with domain knowledge of playing electric
| guitars would ask.
| tgv wrote:
| Come on...
|
| > (to whom?)
|
| Objectively.
|
| > is not description of a sound
|
| It is, as much as "piano" is a description. People are
| interested in emulating hardware in their audio software, and
| this emulates a guitar amp, and the price tag claims "it's a
| decent sound".
|
| > If this emulates a particular amp, the title should say which
| one
|
| No.
|
| > If it does a good job at emulating a particular amp, where's
| the side by side comparison? The video demo only shows the
| plug-in.
|
| Perhaps, but the article is about getting a free plugin.
|
| > There are plethora of guitar amp plugins. What makes this one
| any different or better?
|
| Nothing per se. It's just a new one. And it's free. It's an
| announcement.
|
| > What's the significance of deep learning here?
|
| That it's an uncommon way of modeling hardware, with its own
| merits.
| ysw0 wrote:
| It's based on a Fender Blues Jr according to the vid. It sounds
| pretty good for a free plugin, but as you said there's tons of
| free VSTs and cheap solid state amps that can do better.
|
| I think it sounds good for a hobby project though!
| romwell wrote:
| >It's based on a Fender Blues Jr
|
| Oh, a $350 amp?[1] then?
|
| Linking a store page just to illustrate that price tags are
| pointless when you talk about musical instruments, and also
| to give people who don't know an impression of _what these
| $$$ go for_.
|
| You still need a sound system to get the _sound_ out of a
| plug-in, and PA systems certainly aren 't free. The cost of a
| comparable PA system + free plug in will easily exceed the
| cost of this amp.
|
| This is why talking about $$$ while comparing a plug in vs.
| _speaker hardware_ is kind of silly.
|
| >I think it sounds good for a hobby project though!
|
| And it's great that we have this project! The project is
| great, the documentation is lacking, the title is not good at
| all.
|
| [1]https://web.archive.org/web/20201010183759/https://www.gui
| ta...
| keyth72 wrote:
| Ok ok, used it's $350, but mine's the Tweed version. MSRP
| at $600.
|
| But yes all good points and further proves that more money
| does not mean better sound.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| What free vsts for guitar amp sound better? I'd like to know
| keyth72 wrote:
| Absolutely it's clickbait, I'm trying to get some visibility on
| my open source project.
|
| To answer the question of why it's $600 specifically, it's
| based on a model of a Fender Blues Jr. Tweed, msrp $600. The
| models are evaluated to have a 1.5% error to signal ratio,
| meaning it's 1.5% different from the actual recorded signal,
| coming from an SM57 microphone.
|
| I really do appreciate the constructive criticism, and well
| observed points. I'm new to promoting a project and also this
| Hacker News site. I'm actually floored it's getting this much
| attention.
|
| The fact it uses deep learning doesn't make it better than
| traditionally modeled amps, but it does mean that someone with
| no domain experience for amp modeling (like me) can come in and
| make a good sounding guitar plugin.
| ethanwillis wrote:
| Yea this is the only reason you're getting some negative
| feedback. You should read the guidelines and interact with
| some submissions elsewhere to get a feel for the community.
|
| That stuff aside, good work, and I starred it on Github.
| keyth72 wrote:
| Thank you and much appreciated, will definitely do that
| before posting again. I probably shouldn't have internetted
| today.. _closes computer sheepishly_
| romwell wrote:
| > I probably shouldn't have internetted today..
|
| Well, you did get the attention :)
|
| Now that you are here, you can update the project
| description.
|
| I feel like the point that _this way of making a plug-in
| allows anyone with the hardware to easily create an
| emulator for it_ is not really coming through. That 's
| the selling point of deep learning.
| keyth72 wrote:
| _Opens computer back up_ Excellent point, and it looks
| like my title was corrected, thank you for fixing it and
| not deleting it, whoever that was.
|
| What I'm really aiming to do in the long run is to get
| other musicians and machine learning enthusiasts to train
| and share models that will work with these plugins for a
| variety of hardware. It's very much a new technology to
| me and I'd like to figure out what all it can do.
| soperj wrote:
| Okay, but why would you pick a Blues Jr. instead of an
| Original Fender Champ?
| romwell wrote:
| Probably that's what the author had available? I mean, for
| a free plug-in it's not like there's a budget to go and
| splurge on hardware.
|
| Looks like the point of the project is that this can be
| used to make their own models easily.
| keyth72 wrote:
| Yeah I'm not a company here, just a musician with an
| interest in machine learning and a few amps cluttering up
| the bedroom. I'd love for other people to train and share
| new models with this technology. I think that making this
| free and open source gives it the potential for much
| smarter people to make something bigger than I can do on
| my own in my free time.
| romwell wrote:
| Thanks for making this project! The world is a bit better
| with this project out there.
|
| And thank you for answering the questions!
|
| Now, putting this answers back into the Github README would
| make for a much better and informative project description.
| bserge wrote:
| I'd say don't even argue about marketing/ads/clickbait with
| the HN and Reddit crowds.
|
| Just ignore that part, trust me, it opens up debates that go
| literally nowhere and leave you feeling worthless or worse.
| Any advertising is the devil incarnate to some people.
|
| The title worked fwiw.
|
| Just take the criticism related to the product itself.
|
| Which, to me, looks very interesting, but I'm not into audio
| at all.
|
| So my dumb question is, do you use this to emulate guitar
| sounds or can you plug in a guitar through a computer and use
| this plugin as an amp? D:
|
| I'm too tired, I'll re-read the GitHub page to maybe
| understand it better.
|
| Best of luck!
| keyth72 wrote:
| It is a plugin that you play a guitar through live, like an
| amp on your computer. The tone of a real world amp is
| what's being emulated. More specifically, the distortion
| quality, which in tube amps is difficult to replicate with
| traditional mathematical models.
|
| Thanks!
| bserge wrote:
| Ooh so it's like a Software Defined Amplifier, sounds
| great!
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Based on the title alone, I'd expect it to emulate the sound of
| a specific amplifier.
|
| Using deep learning for this makes sense, play a lot of tones
| and music through it, adjust the knobs, train AI to reproduce
| the transfer function.
|
| If that's what they've done they should have had comparisons
| etc though.
| dharma1 wrote:
| Hey, saw your comments a couple of weeks ago on the wavenetVA
| repo, this is looking great! Will try training spring reverb and
| analog tape, those have been pretty hard to model with DSP.
|
| Also, what do you think about diffwave? Only seen speech examples
| so far but seems an order of magnitude faster than wavenet.
|
| https://github.com/lmnt-com/diffwave
| trollian wrote:
| That's super cool. I've been both playing around with building
| analog pedals and thinking about how to cram various single board
| computers into a pedal enclosure for open source effect modelling
| goodness. How much compute does running the model use?
| whiddershins wrote:
| When I click through I see a git repo with a descriptive title.
| Why are we seeing this title in the HN submission?
| keyth72 wrote:
| I'm new to Hacker News and I might not understand how it's
| supposed to be used, can you explain what you mean so I can fix
| for future posts?
| detaro wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Among others:
|
| > _Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is
| misleading or linkbait; don 't editorialize._
| keyth72 wrote:
| Ah, thank you for pointing that out. So if I wanted to use
| the title I have, I should write an article with that
| title. But even then it seems I wasn't in line with the
| quality of posts expected for this site. Will definitely
| keep that in mind for future posts.
| whiddershins wrote:
| Don't let any of this discourage you tho. This is a great
| contribution to the community.
|
| This site just has a preference to more technically
| descriptive titles.
| keyth72 wrote:
| Well I'm an engineer so that shouldn't be too hard,
| usually people want me to dumb it down!
|
| Considering this project sat for a month with no stars
| and after this post (and one hour) it jumped to 134
| stars, not discouraged at all!
| hluska wrote:
| You know friend, I haven't tried your project (yet) but
| your documentation is excellent as are your responses to
| all the comments on this thread. I think you have a whole
| lot to be proud of and I haven't even tried your plugin
| yet!!
| dang wrote:
| I'm a mod here and have changed the title to one that
| fits the guidelines better. Don't worry--as others have
| said, it's a great post! I hope you'll continue to share
| your work on HN and maybe participate in other
| discussions you find interesting.
|
| (For those who are curious, the submitted title was "Free
| guitar plugin on GitHub sounds like $600 tube amp by
| using deep learning".)
| hluska wrote:
| This is an unbelievably kind response. Nice job friend
| and thanks for working on a Saturday!!! :)
| linux2647 wrote:
| Probably because the person who submitted the link is the same
| person who wrote the plugin
| keyth72 wrote:
| This is correct.
| easton wrote:
| OT: looks like hn differentiates the domain for a GitHub site
| based on the user, guess it's better to see what GitHub profiles
| have posted before.
| lightlyused wrote:
| I've been using guitarx, it includes some tube emulation, but I
| haven't really noticed much of a tonal difference between them.
| This looks interesting, but I run Linux so it is a no go.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Would be cool if you could run this thing on a raspberry pi and
| actually use it like an on stage amp
| TylerE wrote:
| That's unlikely to end well. You really need custom audio
| hardware - or at least dedicated commercial-grade stuff, for
| this sort of application. Latency is HUGELY important. 2-3ms
| can be felt, and most consumer level stuff uses buffers WAY
| bigger than that.
| bjelkeman-again wrote:
| As a reference the new kid on the block, NeuralDSP's Quad
| Cortex uses 500 Mhz Quad-Core SHARC
| https://www.analog.com/en/products/processors-
| microcontrolle...
| TylerE wrote:
| Yes, SHARC is pretty widespread.
|
| I'm not talking about the DSP though.
|
| You need an ADC on the frontend and a DAC on the backend.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Thanks for the input. If I had 500$ or so could I make a
| digital bass pedal / tube amp ,?
| TylerE wrote:
| Make, probably not..
|
| But at that price point just get a used Helix LT which
| will be light years ahead of anything you can bodge
| together.
|
| This is one of those areas where both the hardware AND
| the software really matter.
|
| You can't touch the available hardware because of
| economies of scale - they're buying DSP chips,
| enclosures, power supplies, by the thousand at least.
|
| And they have multi-person full time teams working on the
| software.
| w0mbat wrote:
| For people who don't play guitar, this is really commonplace
| technology now. Engineers worked out how to model the circuit
| behavior of any amp a while ago. Powerful valve guitar amps have
| really interesting effects on the waveform particularly when
| driven hard, but that valve technology is expensive, unreliable,
| bulky, and very loud when producing some of the most sought after
| tones.
|
| The most popular guitar amps now are all solid state, but the
| internal computer digitizes the guitar signal, then processes it
| in the digital domain, doing eq, applying the "sound model" of an
| old amp of your choice, also applying effects like chorus and
| reverb at the same time. Then the D to A convertor feeds the
| resulting signal to a neutral transistor power amp circuit to the
| speaker, at as low a volume level as you want.
|
| The BOSS Katana range or the Fender Mustang GT range are both
| very popular. They are good value, sound great, and can sound
| like anything from a Fender Twin Reverb to a Marshall stack set
| to 11. All without shattering your neighbor's windows.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| Is latency an issue?
| joeel84 wrote:
| Yes.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Latency can be an issue if you are playing through a desktop
| computer or laptop, but its very manageable (for the most
| part) if you set up your buffers right.
|
| I have never ever noticed any latency issues with any
| physical hardware, even for equipment from years ago.
| keyth72 wrote:
| Second Yes. I would not play this at a live gig myself, but
| it does run fine on my Acer laptop with i5 processor, which
| is not meant for serious audio processing. If you try it and
| are getting latency issues, try adjusting the sample rate.
| Also the stand alone app seems to run much slower than the
| VST plugin, but most people interested in this I expect would
| use the plugin anyway.
| qppo wrote:
| A decent tube amp is not significantly more expensive than a
| decent modeling amp, particularly considering the used market.
| They're also just as "bulky" as a solid state amp - the
| heaviest components are the power transformer and drivers.
|
| When you start talking about professional gear, the cost of
| modeling amps is _more_ than tubes.
|
| I'd also contest that this is "figured out" - this area is
| actively researched.
| dyeje wrote:
| > The most popular guitar amps now are all solid state
|
| Maybe on the low end of the market, but tube amps still reign
| supreme for most serious players.
| dmacvicar wrote:
| Many prominent artists are touring with modelling amps for
| years now. https://www.fractalaudio.com/artists/
|
| There are many advantages. Less maintenance, lower stage
| volumes, better for in-ear-monitoring use, sound consistency,
| less weight to carry, and the ability to explore hundred of
| amps sounds with a single device eg. check https://wiki.fract
| alaudio.com/wiki/index.php?title=Amplifier...
| notahacker wrote:
| There are plenty of touring musicians using Kemper digital
| models of their tube amps or Helix/AxeFX
| nom wrote:
| Awesome project and pretty good results from a mathematical
| standpoint.
|
| The biggest challenge is to try and convince the tube amp
| enthusiasts that it sounds indistinguishable to the real hardware
| ;)
| dmacvicar wrote:
| Most people, including guitar players, can't tell the
| difference between popular modelling devices and real tube amps
| when subject to a real blind-test.
|
| The of neural networks in this field should be measured against
| current modelling technology, not real hardware.
| deeblering4 wrote:
| Which tube amp(s) is it modeling?
|
| Its a bit like of like saying "free emulator behaves like $600
| console"
| mhh__ wrote:
| The video says a Fender Blues Jr.
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(page generated 2020-10-10 23:00 UTC)