Neural DSP - ARCHETYPE : NOLLY

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I tell you what, if this Nolly Plugin were available in pedal board form akin to something like my HD500X, I would cross over in a heartbeat after 14 years with Line 6, 12 years prior to that with Digitech/Johnson Amplification, 7 years as a beta tester/endorsee with ADA amplification. No offense to them, but I've always felt like things got me closer & closer, but not this close!

That's how excited I am about this plugin!

 

[Doug Castro]

I tell you what, if this Nolly Plugin were available in pedal board form akin to something like my HD500X, I would cross over in a heartbeat after 14 years with Line 6, 12 years prior to that with Digitech/Johnson Amplification, 7 years as a beta tester/endorsee with ADA amplification. No offense to them, but I've always felt like things got me closer & closer, but not this close!

That's how excited I am about this plugin!

Oh thank you man, very nice of you!

 

[Flappydoodle]

Thank you! We trully modelled this until no one in the team, Nolly included, could pass a blind test between the virtual and physical amps!

We truly pend 70% of the work on getting the last 2-3% of accuracy when it comes to the feel of the real amp, so it's very cool and reassuring to hear that it shows to discerning people who have experience playing the real thing!

That's awesome.

In addition to feel, the biggest thing I've noticed is how it sounds different with different guitars that drive the amp to different amounts.

My Les Paul has vintage humbuckers, and through a real 5150 it's more like a "distorted clean" sound, and a ton of low end. But my Fishman-equipped Aristides pushes the real amp and sounds basically like having a TS engaged - mid boost, bass cut, and drives the amp into full-on saturation. That difference comes across perfectly in this plugin, which it doesn't with TSE, Will Putney or others.

I suspect a lot of it has to do with the way input gain is handled? I always feel that other plugins are somehow "normalising" input gain, which does make sense from a user experience point of view (since people have different guitars, interfaces, and you want a standardised sound). But Neural stuff is really responsive to the pickups and input gain setting of the interface.

Am I guessing correctly?

And again, I have to say how good these IRs are. Considering the 4 cabs and mic options, an IR pack of that size and quality with a nice loader would already justify the plugin asking price IMO. Congratulations guys!

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

In the vid where Nolly is working on developing this, I see a Diezel VH4 and a block 5150, along with what appears to be a Marshall Plexi.
In order of how they appear in the plugin, from left to right, which amp is which?

 

[vertibration]

Oh thank you man, very nice of you!

Thats actually not a bad idea at all, if Darkglass wanted to venture in that direction to offer a form factor pedal that incorporates the current technology from Neural DSP.

 

[Ericjutsu]

In the vid where Nolly is working on developing this, I see a Diezel VH4 and a block 5150, along with what appears to be a Marshall Plexi.
In order of how they appear in the plugin, from left to right, which amp is which?

There is no Diezel in the plugin. Maybe it was just showed to throw us off.
The clean amp is a Bogner Shiva
The crunch amp is a modded plexi or JCM
The metal amp is a 5150
The lead metal amp is a Victory Kraken

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

There is no Diezel in the plugin. Maybe it was just showed to throw us off.
The clean amp is a Bogner Shiva
The crunch amp is a modded plexi or JCM
The metal amp is a 5150
The lead metal amp is a Victory Kraken

Source?

 

[Deadpool_25]

I'm waiting for some company to make a floorboard plugin loader. I think that would be really cool. Being able to have a few amp spots, few pre FX spots, a few post FX spots and an IR spot would be awesome. I mean that's basically an AX8/Helix/etc., but being able to load up the pre FX from the Nolly, a mixture of channels (amps) from the Nolly/Plini/Namless/etc, the delay from the Plini with the reverb from the Nolly, with your choice of an IR (or no IR)...and then be able to select using a floorboard...seems like something I'd buy.

 

[Lorcan Ward]

Lead amp is a heavily modified V30 and I think the second is a plexi, need to check again.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Sources? Links?
Anything official, or are these presumptions?
Doug Castro, care to comment officially?

 

[Ericjutsu]

Sources? Links?
Anything official, or are these presumptions?
Doug Castro, care to comment officially?

someone under the comments section lists them and Neural DSP replied and implied they were correct. Also people have seen the Shiva on Nolly's instagram posts and it's known to be his favorite clean amp. He is also known to have the other amps listed.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I see that now, thank you.

 

[Albake21]

I'm in love with this plugin! As someone who never liked any plugins in the past, this one grips my exact needs. Funny enough the cleans are my favorite part. I'm genuinely thinking about ditching my AX8 for this plug. I'm going to be doing a bunch of testing this week with full mixes and see what the results will be. As for just jamming around, it's perfect for the tone that I enjoy.

 

[Xaios]

I'm waiting for some company to make a floorboard plugin loader. I think that would be really cool. Being able to have a few amp spots, few pre FX spots, a few post FX spots and an IR spot would be awesome. I mean that's basically an AX8/Helix/etc., but being able to load up the pre FX from the Nolly, a mixture of channels (amps) from the Nolly/Plini/Namless/etc, the delay from the Plini with the reverb from the Nolly, with your choice of an IR (or no IR)...and then be able to select using a floorboard...seems like something I'd buy.

There's this: https://www.moddevices.com/products/mod-duo

While I doubt you can run anything proprietary on it (so no Neural DSP stuff), it does allow a sort of app-like approach where you can download compatible plugins and then load them onto the device, and route them however you want.

 

[Doug Castro]

That's awesome.

In addition to feel, the biggest thing I've noticed is how it sounds different with different guitars that drive the amp to different amounts.

My Les Paul has vintage humbuckers, and through a real 5150 it's more like a "distorted clean" sound, and a ton of low end. But my Fishman-equipped Aristides pushes the real amp and sounds basically like having a TS engaged - mid boost, bass cut, and drives the amp into full-on saturation. That difference comes across perfectly in this plugin, which it doesn't with TSE, Will Putney or others.

I suspect a lot of it has to do with the way input gain is handled? I always feel that other plugins are somehow "normalising" input gain, which does make sense from a user experience point of view (since people have different guitars, interfaces, and you want a standardised sound). But Neural stuff is really responsive to the pickups and input gain setting of the interface.

Am I guessing correctly?

And again, I have to say how good these IRs are. Considering the 4 cabs and mic options, an IR pack of that size and quality with a nice loader would already justify the plugin asking price IMO. Congratulations guys!

Hi!

Your experience mirrors ours almost exactly.

I can't speak for anyone else's emulation approaches and techniques.

What I can say about ours is that we develop extremely accurate (and complex) mathematical models of every part of the physical circuit, which is why ours aren't the most CPU friendly (the more accurate a model, the larger the number of calculations the processors need to perform in real-time).

Anyone who's A/B'd an AX8 with a Helix can probably find an inverse correlation between CPU "friendliness" and modeling accuracy.

We even have portions of code for output transformer substrate (copper wire and iron core) characteristics.

Some of our methods are built around proprietary machine learning techniques, which is why I cannot go much into much further detail.

But it is very great to hear that the, at times seemingly unreasonable, lengths we've gone to when it comes to accuracy are noticed.

 

[vertibration]

Hi!

Your experience mirrors ours almost exactly.

I can't speak for anyone else's emulation approaches and techniques.

What I can say about ours is that we develop extremely accurate (and complex) mathematical models of every part of the physical circuit, which is why ours aren't the most CPU friendly (the more accurate a model, the larger the number of calculations the processors need to perform in real-time).

Anyone who's A/B'd an AX8 with a Helix can probably find an inverse correlation between CPU "friendliness" and modeling accuracy.

We even have portions of code for output transformer substrate (copper wire and iron core) characteristics.

Some of our methods are built around proprietary machine learning techniques, which is why I cannot go much into much further detail.

But it is very great to hear that the, at times seemingly unreasonable, lengths we've gone to when it comes to accuracy are noticed.

Any plans to work with pedal companies? It would be cool to see things like Strymons or Walrus Audio in some of your amps

 

[Backsnack]

I tell you what, if this Nolly Plugin were available in pedal board form akin to something like my HD500X, I would cross over in a heartbeat after 14 years with Line 6, 12 years prior to that with Digitech/Johnson Amplification, 7 years as a beta tester/endorsee with ADA amplification. No offense to them, but I've always felt like things got me closer & closer, but not this close!

That's how excited I am about this plugin!

I know it’s not what you’re asking for, but a small MIDI controller and a laptop wouldn’t be that hard to set up and gig with. David Maxim Micic has done it with Helix Native.

There's this: https://www.moddevices.com/products/mod-duo

While I doubt you can run anything proprietary on it (so no Neural DSP stuff), it does allow a sort of app-like approach where you can download compatible plugins and then load them onto the device, and route them however you want.

Mod DUO is an incredible device, and my inner nerd loves the open-source, roll your own approach in the community. I just wish it could run IRs. Maybe down the road ...

 

[Doug Castro]

Any plans to work with pedal companies? It would be cool to see things like Strymons or Walrus Audio in some of your amps

I know it’s not what you’re asking for, but a small MIDI controller and a laptop wouldn’t be that hard to set up and gig with. David Maxim Micic has done it with Helix Native.





Mod DUO is an incredible device, and my inner nerd loves the open-source, roll your own approach in the community. I just wish it could run IRs. Maybe down the road ...

Nolly already has MIDI learn capabilities so you can easily control parameters and switch presets with an external controller!

Especially if you run it in Standalone, not even a DAW would be required. All you'd need is an interface, laptop, and a MIDI switching system.

We are working to add this fetaure on the other products as well.

 

[Doug Castro]

Any plans to work with pedal companies? It would be cool to see things like Strymons or Walrus Audio in some of your amps

Nothing as of yet, we've gotten quite a few requests from several artists and brands recently, but we have been forced to decline many of them so we can stay focused.

But I will keep that in mind, I have no contact with Strymon but the Walrus guys had been Darkglass' neighbours at NAMM many years and good dudes! Same goes for Earthquaker, great pedal company and awesome people running it.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Still gassing for a Bogner Uberschaal & Diesel VH 4 model, but loving the Nolly!