We Need To Talk About Tone X (theres a problem)

Thanks for having me Rhett!

Here's the deal. Most people buying a toneX don't have a bunch of multi-thousand dollar amps and a home studio with amazing pre's and thousand dollar mics. That is this the appeal of toneX. I can buy toneX and go online and pay 20 - 30 bucks for amazing captures of amps I could never afford. That vast majority of users aren't capturing amps. That's why the capture isn't part of toneX one like it is for quad cortex and kemper. That is where toneX is so appealing to someone like me.

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Your results are interesting when it comes to gain staging for sure. I've captured about 50 amps so far on both TONEX and QC, and I find them both to be nearly exactly the same as the amp's actual settings, but it took me a bit of time to get there. In my experience, Quad Cortex often comes in with a bit less gain than the amp itself, so I've often compensated for that by either turning the gain on the amp up just a tiny bit before capturing (as opposed to how I compare it), or I've adjusted the In1 and In2 levels to try and compensate for it, although those level settings don't seem to make a ton of difference in the gain of the capture. For TONEX, there have been two things that have helped... First, in the TONEX pedals, there is an 'Input Trim' setting that can have a huge impact, but I don't think that would have come into play in your tests here, and I'm sure you and Michael set that up. I think by default IK had (or had?) it set at like +8dB, and I have to put mine at around 0dB on the pedal for it to sound and react like the actual amp. But during the capture process, I had to really get picky with the attenuation setting on the TONEX Capture box. I have found a sweet spot on the dial for my particular setup (and admittedly the routing and signal path I have set up here is overly complicated). For me, I have to set it around 1:30 on the dial. But I have found that I need to adjust it from amp to amp to get the gain staging correct. So after writing all this, I suppose I'd agree that these things can be a bit overly complicated to get a 100% spot on capture, but with enough experimentation it's been really reliable for me. But I guess if you're a person capturing a ton of amps, all this testing and adjusting is worth the time investment. If you're a player just wanting to capture the amp (or few amps) you own so you can play the captures live, it could be really frustrating. Always enjoy the content, Rhett (and Michael)!. And to both of you guys - I also enjoy the music you all make outside of YouTube.

A Tonex pedal and a set of Amalgam Captures and im in heaven .

Jason Sadites has amazing videos on input trim for tonex. he did the actual level measurements, and in his study the best setting for tonex is -3 db, and it should not change per guitar, just adjust gain on amp to taste. it’s working perfectly for me on my tonex one, just spreading the good word 🙏

sometimes i feel like is easy for some who has a ton of valve amps to find "problems" on less expansive solutions.

I’ve noticed a lot of people talk about digital modelling and profiling as if they’re the same thing, and it only furthers the public’s misunderstanding. Digitally modelling an amp is like analyzing all the aspects of a real hardware amp and recreating them and all their behaviours with software emulations . Profiling takes a “snapshot” of the sound of an amplifier at a specific setting. Two entirely different things. The Tonex is not a modeller.

I think the percentage of people buying the TONEX to capture their own amps is extremely low. I have a TONEX and haven’t even entertained the idea of capturing any of my sub $1500 amps, it’s just not why most people are buying these 😂.

I love my ToneX One because I don't need to do captures I just download great captures others do for us.

Captioning your comments while you play is also an EXCELLENT idea. It makes listening to your performance an even more impactful learning experience. Keep it up!

Based off of my experience with the Tonex pedal, here are some things to try that might be helpful: 1. Use the test riffs from the Tonex software when dialing in the tone of your real amp--not your guitar's signal. After the the capture process is complete, use the Preset Gain parameter (NOT the Global Input Trim) to get the desired gain level for whatever guitar you're using. 2. Speaking of gain, if the Tone Model has a greater amount of gain than the real amp, as noted in this video, it's likely that in the Global Input Trim is too high. Also make sure that all the parameters on the pedal are set to default (at the 12:00 position.) 3. The reason why captures take so long, especially on Macs, is that Tonex leverages the GPU during the capture process. On Windows systems with specific NVIDIA cards, the capture time can be as low as 15 minutes using advanced training. 4. There is a big difference, at least to my ears, between using normal and advanced training. All of my normal captures are dull in the high end in comparison to my advanced captures. This isn't necessarily a bad thing depending on your needs, but the extra training time is worth it if you absolutely need the most accurate capture.

Loudness, volume and gain are really complicated. One of the key challenges is that volume and loudness are different, so sometimes volume peak meters are tell you something totally different than a LUFS meter, because sometimes the louder amp has less volume. Impedance also introduces some complications. This is super fiddly if you can't script / automate it but I find measuring multiple points on input vs output level is handy, so you can see they both start to compress at the same point.

I'm not a professional, and save for my vintage twin, I'm not comparing amps to the modeling app I use, (it's available to me but I don't use Tonex) but since the last modeling video pointing out input gain issues, I've had a much easier time getting tones I actually like. So much so that I wonder if I'll ever plug my beloved amp in again - The versatility is mind-blowing.

Firstly, I love your videos .I have been using Tonex pedal and Tonex and love it .I personally have over 50 tone captures up on ToneNet .I don't use the tonex capture box,just my Focusrite 18i8 ,I think you have over complicated the whole process .It's not that complex .With levels, I just try not to run it too hot during the capture process. Not every capture will be perfect for everyone, but I personally wouldn't swap it for anything.

I am not a touring musician so I have the luxury of using what I like. Although I still have space constraints at home and the family may not appreciate me blasting my 4x12". So I found out that my different preamps through either a Torpedo CAB or through my Engl rackmounted amp into a Torpedo X is the best of both worlds. 50/50 tube and digital. Works great for me.

At least with the tonex one, the input trim on the pedal makes a BIG difference to the gain. You could probably just back off a little bit and get them more in-line with the real amp. That’s why I don’t approach captures as “I’m trying to get this to sound EXACTLY like the real amp.” It’s more “can I get a sound I like?” But, tonex is a learning curve, hopefully they catch up with the computer software side.

Yeah, this is my live rig now: HX Effects with the Tonex pedal in loop 1. This is after having a decades long love hate relationship with tube amps (love the sound, hate the reliability and upkeep) this is what i use now, and I get tons of guitarists checking out my rig, asking what I use, etc. There are a few tutorials out there for setting the input gain (Jason Sadonites had the first one I used) I really believe that's central to the "User error" that's giving you the difference in capture vs real connection. I've never had the patience to do captures myself (I've also owned a Kepmper and very briefly had a Quad Cortex) I just want basic amp types (pushed Fender, Marshall low and high gain, Vox Ac, Dumble/Fuchs/TwoRock, etc.) so I guess I'm using it as a more versatile/complicated Strymon Iridium with captures already done by people with better studios and amps than mine.

This is only an issue if you have the mentality of having to get exact captures of your own amps. I simply just go on tonenet once every couple weeks, audition rigs, favorite the ones I like, and within a few months have the best of the best at my finger tips. It takes a little effort given that probably 80% of the captures are not good, however, once you find those diamonds in the rough, it's set and forget time- you now have access to tones that would cost tens of thousands of dollars to buy, for a few hundred.

I find the studio rats presets sound great