I watched that this morning and Iām more than a little curious but I have a sneaking suspicion that if I were to crack that box open the inside is going to be stuffed full of either Arduino or Raspberry Pi. Which in and of itself is not a bad thing. . . until you slap a $1000 price tag on it and your software development is done for free by other people.
First to market is not always the best option and Iām looking forward to seeing what else comes along.
Even worse, itās a small company, so who knows how long they will be around to support their product. But, if you absolutely need NAM in a pedal, Iām not sure you realistically have any alternative unless youāre prepared to engineer your own solution on a Raspberry Pi.
Yeah if you are at home etc you can just do that, on stage I guess its harder, this lets you take your NAM models live I guess without as much risk and trouble.
True. Personally though, if I were actually gigging, I think I would get a small form factor PC (like the Intel NUC box) exclusively for music use, and run everything on it (including all other distortion / modulation / delay / reverb / etc. effect plug-ins), plus a midi pedal controller. I think the dimehead unit might makes sense (especially at the current price point) if it also does multi-fx, meaning itās literally all the pedals you need, but it doesnāt.
NAM started out as a pc only plugin because itās processor requirements are pretty high.
The tech iq quite popular and logically, the requests for āportable liveā solutions quickly grew in numbers.
I have a MOD Dwarf;
It supports NAM (amongst other āprofilingā tech) but only the nano scale models so I would not recommend it for NAM applications. I use the AIDA-X technology, which is more light weight on the processor of the unit while the results are pretty nice. There arenāt 1000ās of profiles available but I can make my own by transforming a dry sound and submitting wet and dry. the profiling algoritms calculate the function dry->wet.
The AIDA people are also bringing their tech to Chaos audio: https://chaosaudio.com
Stay tuned
If you donāt mind Leoās Italian accent, you could check videoās like this:
(It should give you some extra insight on what is very popular on the market right now)
Expensive, for a floor pedalā¦they all are
BUT if you like tinkering, profiling yourself or want a vast amount of options, your choice might be different. Iām not fooled by quantities, since I usually work with 1 amp live (which I " crafted" myself using a blend of digital high gain amps and some EQāing)
BTW; I LOVE not having run aroudn with amps and speakers
and the modelling technology is very fascinating.
I think a guitarist should at least know what it is all about, whether he/she goed for such an approach or not.
This just dropped, Valeton, makers of a great little multi-FX units have released their own take on what is essentially a Tone-X One. But, this one will run NAM captures!
If you have a Valeton multi-FX unit, as of yesterday, you now have the ability to load amp clones and capture your own amps by updating your firmware and software. That is a pretty nice upgrade for what is already a ridiculously low priced unit that punches way above its weight class.
NAM profiles come in different āquality ā levels. Light versions require less processing than āfull profileā. That said, my old ears probably wouldnāt pick the difference.
Many companies products that are NAM compatible actually convert the profile to each companies proprietary version. Dime head being the exception that loads the actual NAM profile (their claim).
I like the Nux Amp Academy Stomp which mixes white box technology with NAM profiles and irs . Waiting to see what the Nux mg50i offers ( jan 2026 release). Quality units at great prices in Aus.
NAM A2 is here and it looks like itās about to level the playing field.
The new A2, or Architecture 2, has been optimized to run on the most basic processors available, meaning converting NAM captures to run on various hardware is now a thing of the past. Itās being touted as working on something as basic as a $3 chip, so the true budget end of the market will now be able to run NAM profiles in their native format.
Expect updates from most of the brands already offering a NAM enabled pedal or modeler. HeadRush has already confirmed that it will be updating the Flex, Core, and Prime modelers to support A2.
We could be looking at the start of a standardization of a cross platform file format for modeling.
So Iāve used modelers almost exclusively for the last decadeā¦ and recently going back to old valve amps - and there really is something ābetterā about ārealā amps, but I canāt figure out whatā¦ and the hassle factor is HUGE compared with modeling stuffā¦ As I have a studio and time and money to put into pursuing tone, it makes sense, but for most folk, the modeling thing is pretty incredibleā¦ I would suggest a music store trip, trying them, and seeing what resonates rather than reviews, which can be pretty misleading, not deliberately, but itās all about taste. Innit?
