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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 m

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 6y ago
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 6y ago
  Thank you and much appreciated, will definitely do that before posting again. I probably shouldn't have internetted today.. closes computer sheepishly
  - romwell 6y ago
    > 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 6y ago
      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 6y ago
Okay, but why would you pick a Blues Jr. instead of an Original Fender Champ?
- romwell 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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.
    - fuzzfactor 6y ago
      Looks like a very outstanding engineering approach. Different construction of the same tube type will have different musical characteristics, sometimes dramatically so especially when overdriven beyond linear operation. Even though measured performance would be equivalent in things like power supplies or most other non-audio circuitry, or even non-overdriven audio. There is a unique difference when plugging guitars straight in versus using a common pedal or preamp of any type. The very limited magnetically generated power coming out of the quite high impedance of your pickups is directly connected through minimal resistance to the input pin of the even higher impedance tube electrode which extends into the vacuum. From that point on, your music is being basically sprayed through space. So plugging direct (or true bypass) is the only way to be magnetically coupled directly to the vacuum you will be spraying your music through to begin with. You can feel it when you crank it whether overdriven or not. A pedal or preamp inserted between guitar and legendary amp can overdrive the amp in its legendary way much easier sometimes because of the gain provided by the additional circuitry upstream of the amp, it can be very tasty but you are no longer magnetically coupled to a legendary tube amp. Also unless the preamp/pedal is a simple clean gain stage such as an EH LPB2, which simply boosts the high impedance guitar signal unchanged using 9V battery power to give the amp more input amplitude than a plain guitar, the pedal is more likely to be generating the audible distortion rather than, or at least in addition to, the overdriven tubes. You probably have more than one 12AX7, even most individual amps. Might as well try each one in the most critical input socket to get the most musical one picked out, along with checking for hum, hiss & microphonics which you don't want being amplified from that early of a gain stage. It's only the big power tubes that can require matched pairs or quads, 12AX7's can be switched at will. If some of your 12AX7's don't sound better than others, you've got all crummy tubes or there is something else concealing the full tone available. Seems to me an emulator based on ML could be trained by live playing of the exact guitarist, guitar, and rig that you wanted to generate sound similar to. Then it should be able to convincingly generate a synthetic tune of its own having the characteristic musical style of the player using the tone of the combined gear. Probably easier said than done. Instead when you trigger tone output from the model digitally you would think some of the fingering variations might be heard too, but probably not any musical style, even if all are in the model to an extent. When you plug in your guitar and play through it I think your own musical style would prevail like normal, and the fingering influence could be good for augmenting less expressive fretwork, but there are going to be times when you want to plug your own select guitar into just the amp portion of the model. To get this option you would need to have sampling/insertion points between the elements, or at least between the guitar & amp. You need to know what the signal looks like right before it goes into the amp so you can see the exclusive effect of the amp model alone and compensate for the guitarist & guitar (& pedal) during training. If you're not going to draw on the musical style or instrument being in the model, maybe it shouldn't always be there to begin with. It might be possible to switch them in or out like an effects loop. Otherwise when you plug in your guitar and process it using the model, you're hearing a guitar plugged into another guitar plugged into a tube amp. And that's provided the training guitarist's musical style is only lurking silently.
romwell 6y ago
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 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    Ooh so it's like a Software Defined Amplifier, sounds great!

ethanwillis 6y ago

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 6y ago
Thank you and much appreciated, will definitely do that before posting again. I probably shouldn't have internetted today.. closes computer sheepishly
- romwell 6y ago
  > 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 6y ago
    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 6y ago

Okay, but why would you pick a Blues Jr. instead of an Original Fender Champ?

romwell 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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.
  - fuzzfactor 6y ago
    Looks like a very outstanding engineering approach. Different construction of the same tube type will have different musical characteristics, sometimes dramatically so especially when overdriven beyond linear operation. Even though measured performance would be equivalent in things like power supplies or most other non-audio circuitry, or even non-overdriven audio. There is a unique difference when plugging guitars straight in versus using a common pedal or preamp of any type. The very limited magnetically generated power coming out of the quite high impedance of your pickups is directly connected through minimal resistance to the input pin of the even higher impedance tube electrode which extends into the vacuum. From that point on, your music is being basically sprayed through space. So plugging direct (or true bypass) is the only way to be magnetically coupled directly to the vacuum you will be spraying your music through to begin with. You can feel it when you crank it whether overdriven or not. A pedal or preamp inserted between guitar and legendary amp can overdrive the amp in its legendary way much easier sometimes because of the gain provided by the additional circuitry upstream of the amp, it can be very tasty but you are no longer magnetically coupled to a legendary tube amp. Also unless the preamp/pedal is a simple clean gain stage such as an EH LPB2, which simply boosts the high impedance guitar signal unchanged using 9V battery power to give the amp more input amplitude than a plain guitar, the pedal is more likely to be generating the audible distortion rather than, or at least in addition to, the overdriven tubes. You probably have more than one 12AX7, even most individual amps. Might as well try each one in the most critical input socket to get the most musical one picked out, along with checking for hum, hiss & microphonics which you don't want being amplified from that early of a gain stage. It's only the big power tubes that can require matched pairs or quads, 12AX7's can be switched at will. If some of your 12AX7's don't sound better than others, you've got all crummy tubes or there is something else concealing the full tone available. Seems to me an emulator based on ML could be trained by live playing of the exact guitarist, guitar, and rig that you wanted to generate sound similar to. Then it should be able to convincingly generate a synthetic tune of its own having the characteristic musical style of the player using the tone of the combined gear. Probably easier said than done. Instead when you trigger tone output from the model digitally you would think some of the fingering variations might be heard too, but probably not any musical style, even if all are in the model to an extent. When you plug in your guitar and play through it I think your own musical style would prevail like normal, and the fingering influence could be good for augmenting less expressive fretwork, but there are going to be times when you want to plug your own select guitar into just the amp portion of the model. To get this option you would need to have sampling/insertion points between the elements, or at least between the guitar & amp. You need to know what the signal looks like right before it goes into the amp so you can see the exclusive effect of the amp model alone and compensate for the guitarist & guitar (& pedal) during training. If you're not going to draw on the musical style or instrument being in the model, maybe it shouldn't always be there to begin with. It might be possible to switch them in or out like an effects loop. Otherwise when you plug in your guitar and process it using the model, you're hearing a guitar plugged into another guitar plugged into a tube amp. And that's provided the training guitarist's musical style is only lurking silently.

romwell 6y ago

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 6y ago

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 6y ago
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 6y ago
  Ooh so it's like a Software Defined Amplifier, sounds great!