My first impressions of Tonex

[Greggo704]

I've never had any experience with profilers whether its software or hardware, so I was very curious as to how accurate the captures could get to a real mic'd amp and cabinet.

I have two crappy amps, a Vox VT15 and an Orange Micro Crush. In Reaper I set up my Vox VT15 to get a sound I liked when it was mic'd up and recorded a passage and capturing the DI as well (easy when you have an Axe I/O)

I captured the amp in Tonex and then on that Reaper track I added the Tonex VST with my capture on to the original DI and compared to the original mic'd recording. It sounds about 98% identical. I played loud parts, quite parts, rolled back the volume in parts and then rolled it back up. All the dynamics were kept intact and identical between Tonex to the mic'd amp.

The only discernible difference I noticed was that you could hear amp hiss on the track with the mic'd amp but you don't want that anyway! There was perhaps just the tiniest ( and I mean tiny) bit more low end and high end in the real amp, but in terms of the sound i'd say it was virtually indistinguishable.

So my conclusions from this is that if anyone doesn't like the sound in Tonex it basically means you wouldn't like that recording chain in real life. Its quite comforting for me to know I'm getting an accurate sonic snapshot of the gear in question.


In terms of actually playing through the profiles, I have tried lots of the IK and the Tonenet models, and for me I think this is going to become my primary platform to play guitar on and record. The sound is there, but they feel real as well in the sense that you feel like your guitar is connected to a real amp thats mic'd up and you are listening back in a control room.

They sound great a lot of them, but obviously you have to go into knowing that the tone models are only as good as the sound that was recorded. I like the idea that some rare and obscure amps will be captured including some "undesirable" models. Some legend has captured a mono price 15w amp and it sounds amazing!

Anyway, thats my take on it, I only wish I had more amps/cabs to capture. I'm doing the Orange Micro Crush as we speak, looking forward to seeing how that turns out!

[jhaas]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, it’s nice to hear some “real-world” positive results for the tone capture aspect.
I was heavily into amp building for almost 10 years and have a bunch of amps I’m excited to capture and share. I recently recorded a 10 song album that I re-amped all the guitar tracks for which has left me with a large collection of DI’s to run through these captures for comparison.
Fun times!

[Greggo704]

Definitely upload them if you can, I'm loving browsing people's captures, some amazing sound's from it. Mine are pretty poor in comparison but then again the amps themselves are nothing to write home about, but I know with my own eyes and ears it only captures what you put in so the accuracy is absolutely there.

[darkogav]

Thanks for sharing your real-world experiences with it. Looking forward to learning more about this technology. I know very little about this stuff.

[twilson74]

My first impression... to be honest, for the first hour I found a lot of the tones to be harsh, hot and wooly sounding in some way. I eventually realized there was no reverb on any of those tones and I figured out how the "macros" or whatever worked and then was able to add some reverb in and tweak it and it started sounding better. Same with the noise gate too.

I generally like to play with Amplitube in standalone mode, but I'm finding that ToneX is much better when used with my DAW, where I can use an extra instance of ToneX for a stomp pedal and get the signal chain perfect and put effects into it. Amplitube in comparison has a more polished sound with all the effects and everything built into the presets-- I love it. ToneX, the more I play it, has more of a raw amp setup in tone and feel-- and as I work with it some more I'm starting to love it too. Being able to use both systems gives me endless options.

I got a very nice new guitar last week, and getting ToneX has been a great chance to see what the pickups on the new axe can do. I recorded a bunch of practice tracks with just the new guitar and ToneX and the results are very good to my ears. What I like doing is recording my basic tracks and then slapping IK's FAME reverb on the mixbus over everything, for some ambience and live room feel.

There are some really great amp models in ToneX MAX-- that Dumble really does sound incredible! To me, the model alone would be worth the price of the whole thing. Also I like the bass amps in ToneX too. I used some of them to add bass tracks on my recordings and they sound good too.

I'd like to see another update soon to fix some issues like taking that try/buy screen away if you already own MAX, etc

Overall, I am very very impressed with the release of ToneX and expect it will get even better. It's gonna be fun to see what user amp models come down the pike via ToneNet.

[Greggo704]

I think alot of people that use "regular" amp sims may struggle a bit with Tonex at first because the tones are, like you say, very raw. From my own experience of capturing an amp it's a raw warts and all sample of what you put in.

But that's exactly what I love about it! Other amp sims may cater towards album ready tones (I think AT4 was a bit like this but less so in AT5) but Tonex your getting exactly what was put in.

On top of that you're getting a very faithful version of the dynamics of the amp, or certainly the dynamics that were captured with by the mic.

I captured two amps, an old Vox Valvetronik amp and a tiny Orange Microcrush (available in Tonenet if you want something a little different!) and the software captured the loose feel of the Vox and the almost stiff compressed sound of the Microcrush. Nothing added, nothing taken away.

Ive had a whale of a time auditioning IKs and the public's profiles. Some are better suited to me than others but I will argue if people say they don't like a sound they don't like the sound of THAT particular profile. Or, indeed they may not realise that that is what an actual recorded guitar amp sound's like before it's mixed and fitted to a mix on an album.

The GUI does need a bit of tinkering it's not perfect but it's early days and I have faith improvements are made.

[livesforrap]

One other thing that may apply to some: I tried to go 48k instead of 44.1k for a little while. I ended up going back because certain things don't work at other sample rates. Anyways, I digress, I found that there was more "high end" at 48k in a somewhat undesirable way. For whatever reason, I like the sound more at 44.1k.

[twilson74]

After another couple days of playing with ToneX, I'm really floored by it. Some of the initial ratty sounds I was getting were coming from amps with no cabinets. And I didn't even realize that there are pages of stock cabinets that can be tossed onto any amp. Very, very impressive. Then I found the ability to access pages of amps and cabinets and mix and match them at will-- amazing.

At this point I still need to read the manual and learn to do a proper walkthrough-- because I am finding some fantastic tones and I want to figure out how to create user files of tone model presets like I have in Amplitube.

But yeah, the way ToneX has the macro screen (not sure what it's officially called) with the noise gate, eq, reverb, compressor, etc-- what a smart and useful layout.

The only issue I'm having at the moment is that ToneX is crashing Logic X (Catalina) any time I try to stack two instances of ToneX in a channel (trying to use one instance to insert a stomp pedal before another instance with the amp chain).

The sound, response and feel of ToneX are so realistic. Especially when I crank up the monitors to move some air. It's different and complementary to Amplitube and some of my other beloved amp sims-- I'm glad to now have one more tool with which to work and play.

I love the massive variety of models included in ToneX MAX-- besides the Dumble, I am really digging the Fender hot rods, and tweeds and the Orange stuff. Everything sounds great. And I'm impressed with how many awesome user models have been uploaded via ToneNet. It's fun everyday checking to see what new gear models have been posted.

Awesome job, IK!

[livesforrap]

Just keep in mind that though "Catalina" is not "old", it's not likely that the devs put too much time into it. Beta testing/development would require quite a bit since it's 4 releases before. It "should" still be a thing, but more likely for stuff to slip through the cracks.

I'm guessing you've reported it?

[twilson74]

Yep, I sent off a support ticket for the Catalina issue. My Mac is getting to be older machine at this point but it runs really well-it just won't allow me to go beyond Catalina, unfortunately. Not looking to buy a new Mac right now.

I'm not too worried about it, I just wanted to mention the issue so they can take a look at it. I am really enjoying ToneX.

[lp1958]

It's not just Catalina. I am experiencing the same crashes with Monterey in Logic Pro and Mainstage. I'm using an M1 Mac Mini.

[Greggo704]

I've become a bit obsessed with checking tonenet to see what model's people have uploaded !

I'm really wanting someone to upload a Peavey Decade but with the speaker captured as well so can use Josh Hommes secret weapon! Someone has kindly uploaded an amp only variant but can't quite get the same sound without the little 8" speaker.

I do love this software. There's a few things that concern me long term though, if I have to wipe my PC I may lose all the downloaded user profiles or if someone removes a profile I loved and did a recording with in a DAW I'm a bit screwed.

I may have to change my workflow to actually freeze tracks once recorded and have them committed like a real recorded tone so projects can still load fine years down the line.

[jason.martin.nl]

I had a bit of time to play with it last night and and it sounds great. It especially sounded great in my DAW (Logic) using IK's Fame Studio as the room. I was playing a slightly dirty Fender Deluxe with the X-Space reverb and that going through one of the live rooms at Muscle Shoals (IK FAME Plugin) sounded amazing!! I love the Amplitube amps (especially the Mesa Boogie California Tweed) but there's something about how TONEX feels that really makes it shine for me. I'm looking forward to being able to use TONEX stomps in Amplitube as well in a future update.

[RiF_2205]

I do love this software. There's a few things that concern me long term though, if I have to wipe my PC I may lose all the downloaded user profiles or if someone removes a profile I loved and did a recording with in a DAW I'm a bit screwed.

Locate the file 'library.db' in your user directory. This is a sqlite database that contains all your tone models and presets. I haven't tried it, but it should work if you restore it after a wipe as long as you're using the same IK account as when backing it up.
On Windows it is in C:\Users\yourname\Documents\IK Multimedia\TONEX
On a Mac it is in /Users/yourname/Documents/IK Multimedia/TONEX

[Greggo704]

That's good to know thanks! wondering whether to run a backup to that folder to Google drive as a safety measure, it has version History as well so if it got corrupted it could be rolled back easily enough and transfer data to my other laptop or PC