NAM: FREE Neural Amp Modeler In-Depth Review: Sacrificing UX for Industry Disrupting Capability 

The latest version of NAM plugin does actually have a slightly better UI and includes arrows and lists for file selection as well as some other fixes and updates :)

The newest update does include up and down arrows to move thru the files in the folder

Love that you pushed this well beyond the "normal" use cases here. 54:10 got me good too.

Those Seacow IRs with the Ola capture sounded so tight, Hesu Demons are among my favourite, and I love their cab that Seacow captured too, I'm going to use that combo for a lot of stuff now. Same with the Otto. Thanks for letting us see the IRs with these man. Otto and Seacow are my favourite two IR makers

Always a good day when pss drops a vid!

Glad to see you back! You give the best in depth reviews. Mechanical engineer matlab user here too. I dabbed into google colab while working as an image analyst and I don't miss it at all, lol. Many NAM users are newcomers to this whole amp sim world. I've seen some wild requests and debates in the facebook forum. Some people sharing "designs" for a potential nam hardware pedal (they're just sharing visual mockups not doing any design at all), some people asking for stereo capabilities to use tape machine models, some dudes basically asking for a free version of amplitube max, and some dudes so incredible clueless that they're suggesting to get rid of IRs in favour of a bland eq curve because it "sounds less harsh". Well, we all have been beginners at some point. 😂

Damn I am blown away by the comparison. Couldn't believe it. In a blind test, no chance, wow!

Nice review, was especially interesting to learn about these edge cases where NAM (as well as other solutions) weren't able to produce identical results. Also I agree that the metadata should've been developed better if possible, at least I think it's easy enough to leave the ability to create descriptive text fields and numeric values with maybe a naming convention to support it. The one thing I'd also bring is that it's not only free, but open source, which enables anyone to take it and develop what they want on top of it. This approach really disrupts some digital fields. I want metadata - I can just get the latest codebase and develop it on top of it. And businesses will use it as well, creating products like ToneX or plugins on top of this technology. Thanks for the review, cheers!

Great video, just worth saying upfront - NAM started ad a research project for SW engineers interested in AMP modeling neural nets (same as GuitarML), so it's main audience is not modelers/guitar players, but since it's open source they assumed vendors will start implementing the format, and sure they did, see Two Notes Genome (can use both NAM and GuitarML).

Thanks for the shout out my friend.

I love Nam as it actually allows me to recreate my live rig in DAW software format, a must for Home recording IMO

Awesome as always Ryan! I only tried out NAM about two weeks ago and it's quite a beasty. I was avoiding it because there were some rough edges and Facebook only group for model sharing. Thankfully people got some sense and ToneHunt exists. :D I think increasing the epochs for training to like 400 or 500 might help with those edge case amps like the Gargoyle. Still, for free I'm very impressed. I don't have any real amps but I could try capturing some sims or pedals and stuff for fun. Honestly that's my biggest gripe right now, model creation is kind of a pain in the ass. Something worth trying out if you like schematic-based modeling with more control, Nalex Truesim and Amplex are both super minimalist but sound great. Truesim is hard on CPU usage but it's really rich and feels great to play through. All models are text files with cap and resister values, etc. Cheers man! ,

Hey thanks for mentioning this for people who may not be in the loop or watch other youtube guitar people.

I ditched all my other amp sims after Ive tried NAM. Finally it lets me having real sounding fuzz pedals, like fz2 or acapulco gold

Sorry - turning in my tube snob card. I honestly can't tell the difference between the reference amp and the NAM. Pretty much ditto for the Tonex (which I have not heard of yet but will check out). Great vid Ryan. Thanks again amigo.

As always, the riffs are so damn clean.

good vid. slightly insane myself so ive been getting the CPU version up and running on a local install on a windows machine. Getting errors when i run tests but im confident ill plow through it

Yaay, I made it into the video =) Will checkout your take on it now mate!

I didn’t know I spoke like a grumpy old southern man. 😂 Great video as always.

I now use Archtype nolly for EQ and IR loader, together with NAM, I really think it's pretty enough for home use. I barely turn on my tube amp nowadays

ive been running soft synths into NAM, i get some pretty cool sounds :] imma look into Cab lab. honestly ive been taking my field recorder and putting that into the front end of my amp and tracking guitar like that. still sounds good :] im using a zoom h5 with the x-y mics experimenting with mic placement.

Awesome video, brother!

Saw this and thought, what are the chances one of my models shows up. Pretty good apparently.

Finally got around to downloading it once I saw your video, tried a JCM900 profile with the morbid angel cab from the new erik rutan two notes pack and with my dimarzio blaze loaded 7 string ibanez it sounded dead on, the response is great, love how well it handles the volume and tone knobs too, trying a 6 string ironbird with EMGs after my 7 really showed me the difference between actives and passives in a way I haven't seen from any plugin. Loving it so far. Will check the rest of the video after I am done jamming for your thoughts.

For the curious, the Quad Cortex, Mooer GE series, and Headrush Prime are all roughly equivalent (+/- 5%~10%) in quality to the Kemper (all are actually slightly better, but it's barely notiiceable) in terms of amp capture, and have been proven as such in the past by other testers to the point testing them alongside becomes redundant in both terms of scope of the test and in terms of unnecessarily repeating the work of others that is already all over forums, review sites, and RU-vid.

the batman bit got me good

Man your videos are ace, your brutally honest lol

HELGA B captures are AWESOME

Profiling amps with Butchered at Birth's intro + Kerry King's whammy makes TOTAL sense. Congrats to whoever trained that A.I.

Pretty cool. I actually have a Polytone Minibrute II that may still partially work but don’t have a reamp box. Besides, I think NAM will improve so I’m in no rush. Imo, NAM is in the mid-to-high 90% in terms of accuracy but it’s not perfect. It beats Kemper here and with ToneX it’s a bit of a toss up since both make compromises. I have to wonder if allowing for 96kHz captures will help. Yes, people seem to think 96kHz is pointless but with regard to the machine learning process, that extra information might help.

6:29 Actually, looks like Kemper are adding what they call "Liquid Profiling" to get more accurate knob response for their captures (I think I saw a video about this on Tone Junkie's channel!). I don't think I'll go Kemper on my next purchase, but I gotta praise the company for their efforts on improving and polishing a (now) "classic" product 😊

Huh, in your NAM captures, I hear some offending high frequencies that are not there with the source amps. Also didn't hear that with some of the other NAM models you demoed. Definitely liked Tonex best on your comparison, with Kemper coming in close second. I'm sure you could get there relatively quickly with just a bit tweaking. Really appreciate the video!

Wutsup bro I recently subscribed to your channel, you Definitely know your stuff, love your videos . I have a question, how do you feel about ignite impulse loader also the amped roots amp mod???

knowledge worth listening to on the left< C(50:15)RE >knowledge worth listening to on the right

Get it, brother.

I'm so happy I skipped the kemper now... :)

26:37 sounds gorgeous

Any chance you'll upload your captures to Tonehunt? They sound great.

The cool thing about this is its not even at a 1.0 release yet

You can't really say that at 6:30 any more because the kemper now has (Liquid Profiling technology), which loads the tone stack of various amps, 40 at the moment with more to come!.

Now we will ask for you to upload some models of your RG100es to the Tonehunt 😂😂

I think you have to factor..value for money,time, personal level of expertise and overall use when dealing with whats worth it or not....for me that i just play pretty much exclusively on my desktop nowadays and wanna practice or lay down a track with great quality without spending a lot of money(or time) to "dial the tone" or even worse capture it myself(level of expertise on that department is zero) the NAM(with ready made profiles other people captured) is simply unbeatable with the tone x coming a close second... If on the other hand the subject was getting having a great guitar i would very much prefer to get an inexpensive model and mod it myself(install new stainless steel frets,cut a new nut,replace crappy zinc parts with quality ones etc etc etc) simply cause i have the skills to do so and that the whole value for money plus time spent is there too vs getting a way more expensive model with not that much better stock parts.... There is not whats best overall...but best for your situation and skills..at least thats my view and nowadays the guitarists have an endless buffet of options that decades ago was non existent....

What would be the best way to copy a usb capable amp? i have a podgo also but no other loadbox ect. my amp has a bad bias port when i went to retube.. it works in 4w mode i wanna copy it while i can.

haha that exact TimR splawn is my default when it loads, its fucking beastly.

As one of my favorite channels, and your attention to detail, would love to hear you do a breakdown on the Katana mark 2 100 or artist. Anything from zakk wylde to srv to metallica to meshuggah, im sure you could get it. Especially interested in tips to get a good djent tone. Juca Nery is a master of getting great sounds out of that amp. And he's a really nice guy, too. Would love to hear YOUR metal take on the amp and software, Ryan.

Can this be used to model tone on a printed track? Is there a community where files are commonly shared to load?

Any chance we can get a new video, or an updated one rather? Modern metal guitar tone with free VSTs 2023 edition? Lots of new stuff out there that's not Ignite now.

I was trying to compare a Bassman model between Tonex and NAM, I like them both but NAM seemed to have a slight edge, like it was a bit more dynamic, idk, they are both pretty good.

Research n development dept I confir NAM has limits but compared to other AI platforms. Its still static and short on dynamics and harmonic distortions created with traditional micing cabs only the purist detect not detectable to the average listener . Definitely a studio upgrade alternative to amp sims and Kemper platforms. We bull dozed through our 3rd beta testing implementing portable options for the stand alone . Stand by as our creative minds on the cutting edge of technology is on the verge of breaking current limitations.

The kemper has liquid profiling now though... it does affect gain too. Maybe compare that to models with proper gain structure or multiple profiles at different gain settings blended together

How do you think it compares to something like the neural dsp stuff regarding just the overall response and real-ness of the amps? Like, for my use case I just want something that sounds real enough and with the right character that I can futher tweak with EQs or even EQ matching to specific song tones. Usually I just use overloud TH-U as a base which is decent and then take it from there, but I'm looking for something with that little extra accuracy (which I assume NDSP has since so many people praise it, though I never tried any of their stuff). I don't own amps anymore (not for the time being) so I'm not interested in doing captures myself right now. The UX stuff I'm sure will be worked out with time, probably with collaboration from the community.

I’ve noticed a bunch of RU-vidrs going on about the Mlc subzero amp suite. It looks gimmicky with the cab irdx. Are you going to review that anytime soon?

I'm not at all interested in this type of amp modeler, but i enjoy your videos and hope the algorithm puts this in front of as many people looking to get good tones on a budget as possible.

I made a Nam model with my gargoyle (hate that name badly) for low tune stuff sounds just like my rig

@PlagueScytheStudios Post the capture of the Gargoyle and I will try to give you a NAM model that you will be happy with.

40:05 Sounds like Steve Vai was trying to crawl out of there.

Gargoyle was the least I liked on the NAM, but overall it really nailed the tones. I tried capturing my pedals using an Hx Stomp and the online model but the levels were all over the place… too much of a hassle, I’ll stick with the models provided by the community for now…

15:21 NILE Sounds brutal af

I would love to hear your 'Reason" and Method of using and choosing a reactive load box. Whick ones would be worth investing into? Your statement of 'with a green back load in it' ... you lost me there!

jajajajaja! that intro 😅

2:30 what is this riff I know I’ve heard it somewhere… exodus?

Whered you go bro?

?? No IR ???

lol kemper get rekt

It's funny. I thought NAM did a better job at replicating the low end of the Single Rec, while the ToneX sounded better in the highs.

Any chance you can share that Mark IV NAM file??????

Kemper sounds nasally and brittle compared to Tonex and nam

Kemper is ready for retirement.

I can't stand that Ola 50w I don't get it.

It's funny with thus being open source. Companies have been stealing the sounds from amp companies and making money only to now losing money thanks to open source

lags the f4hk out of the DAW so you gotta hit "UI" and 5h!t smooths out.

Dude hes not even using the most up tod ate version from 8 months ago like wtf you goof

(A little bit of rambling, sorry) Not to be that guy but your criticism regarding amount of knowledge needed to properly use NAM ML part, and overall lack of proper amp models/IR explorer etc just shows me that, even when product is free, users expect to receive all the bloat and hand holding that commercial products currently known for. It's open source, priorities are on core features, I perfectly understand such criticism for a paid commercial product, but for open source that is being worked on by couple of people in their free time? We see such BS with NeuralDSP, all the bling and no substance - your typical corpo software dev - you have catchy UIs, UX for days, but downright memoryhole what they promised (plug-in amp models in QC), and just continue chucking out plugins with a few tweaks here and there, slap some endorser to the product and Voilà - another cash grab. And NAM, especially being free, kicks Neural right in the balls, yes yes, i know in that particular case comparison is not with QC or any other Neural stuff, but as Neural is first and foremost a software dev company, that dabs with one foot in hardware realm, I was comparing NAM vs. other "high-gain" plug-ins. So in that regard NAM wins on all fronts, no bloat, just pure core feature. yes you need a PC, an interface etc, a DAW, all costs money but so is every other guitar plug-in. And i don't really understand this point, it's not gatekeeping of beginner guitar players, it's just what it is. I can't afford a proper 50 watt amp +4x12 cab due to living in a multi-apartment complex, because neighbors will call cops on any loud noise past 7 pm, hence plug-ins, or multi-fx units in headphones for the last 20 years since the moment i got my hands on a electric guitar. You need to gain these skills and knowledge, as you need to skills and knowledge how to properly mantain your guitar (and tools for that). Or you can choose not to, and pay someone else, your choice:). And speaking of lacking computer skills in 21st century, I mean, I must be really jaded, because I work in product support, and amount of times I want to kill stupid people that work 40 hours a week on a computer but then can't find F12 on their keyboard is astonishing, and these are software dev managers I am talking about, end users are even more idiotic... So in some way i think we need a healthy dose of gate keeping, otherwise everything will turn into apple levels of handholding, with any access above "press this and only this button here" against the law. Again, not being rude or anything, just my commentary, love your content, been watching you since "Meshuggah's Tone w/ Free VST's" video :)

i tried and is counterintuitive and borderline un-usable, WTF is anaconda, is this even a real video or some kind of AI simulated crap

Video is way too long for me but my big pet peeve with people that say its "better than the others plugins". Bullshit! lol...Why? well you only get other peoples models (sounds) where you can't adjust the - wait for it - *GAIN! *You know how many recordings I hear where the sound of the guitars is actually very small due to too much gain? People think it makes the tracks bigger and it actually pinches and shrinks the sound. Shit, just look at a waveform..Nah, the NAM tech is fantastic for sure but not *better* as it is so limited compared to many of the great sims.