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ChowCentaur by Jatin Chowdhury

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Comments

  • JoyceRoadStudiosJoyceRoadStudios
    edited March 2021

    @chowdsp Hi Jatin! I had another romp with the updated ChowCentaur tonight, in front of some of my favorite amp sims, and it performed magnificently. I would like to point out one minor thing that you may or may not even care to fix. In the Neural mode, the Gain knob is choppy. Adjusting the knob is seamless, but the gain level jumps around and is not gradual, it seems to have 3-4 positions rather than the full spectrum of the knob. All the other knobs are seamless and fine tuned, but this one knob is an outlier. It’s a very minor thing that doesn’t affect much at all, but perhaps something you’d want to look into. Cheers!

  • NeuMNeuM

    Downloaded it and tried it out on one snippet of a song already. Pretty good! Keep going with this stuff and make a suite of tools and sell it, don’t just make it free.

  • chowdspchowdsp

    Hi All,

    Thanks for the comments! It's really wonderful to see so many people enjoying the plugin! Hopefully I can clarify a couple things:

    Re: the "Neural" mode gain knob:
    When I was training a neural network for the Neural mode, I was unfortunately not able to train a network that could "learn" the Gain parameter, while still remaining small enough to run in real-time. So my compromise was to train 5 networks for different positions of the gain knob, basically [0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0]. So in Neural mode, the Gain knob is more like a "stepped" slider, with a little bit of fading in between the steps. If I had used more networks (like maybe 20), the steps would be much less noticeable. The reason I had stopped at 5 networks is that I was originally developing the model with the intention of running on a microcontroller, where the amount of memory on the device was rather limited. I have thought about training more networks that could be used by the plugin implementation but I haven't done it yet, mainly because there's a lot of things that I would change about the training process were I to go through it again. With that in mind, I think it's more likely that I'll eventually make a "Neural 2.0" mode, with a whole different set of neural nets.

    Re: the plugin being free:
    For the ChowCentaur (and for my ChowTape plugin as well), the plugin is actually part of the "supporting material" for an academic paper that I had written about the project. Just as I don't particularly like the idea of putting my research behind a paywall, I didn't feel it would be right to put any of the supporting material behind a paywall either. For future plugins, I'm not 100% sure what I want to do about pricing. Most likely, my future plugins will continue to be open-source so anyone who wants to get the source code and build it for themselves can do so, but maybe I'll put a price tag on downloading the pre-built plugins. In the meantime, I'm looking into the process of implementing a "tip jar" type thing, plus I have a little Patreon, where I post things now and then.

    Re: future plugins:
    I've already started working on porting my ChowTape plugin to iOS... hopefully I'll have some TestFlight builds ready in a week or two! I saw a couple folks mention the ChowMatrix plugin as well. That one might be a little trickier since I imagine the interface could be a bit cumbersome to use on iOS. So I can't make any promises about ChowMatrix, but I'll see what I can do :smile:. I have a few new ideas in the works as well... nothing really to share yet, but I'm hoping to release iOS versions for those as well!

    Thanks,
    Jatin

  • pbelgiumpbelgium

    @JoyceRoadStudios said:

    @pbelgium said:
    Thanks @chowdsp for this really great Klon emulation!

    For comparison, here's a clip of a Klone going thru Nembrini's CaliReverb - it's not quite the same but you can get a similar tone from the ChowCentaur.

    (For those who are interested, I've tried several Klones and the one I settled on can be found here - comes with magical unicorn tears and fairy dust!)

    Yeah that sounds really good. I particularly love that unmistakable “sizzle and clank” of a proper strat style pickup and board, and it seems like the Klone/Cali pairing shows it off really well.

    I haven’t played too much with the Chow at subtler settings, but I love how it sounds with Gain/Tone maxed out, both in front of a clean sim and an already driven one. A great hard rock rhythm and lead tone and feel. The SNR on the Chow is remarkable compared to most other pedals sims on iOS.

    Thanks @JoyceRoadStudios. I actually have the gain quite high at about 2 o'clock - there's a real sweet spot around there. Many folks use the Klon as a clean boost with no/low gain, but it's better to have the gain high and ride the guitar volume pot to get a wider range of tones - just leave it on the whole time and everything sounds better. If you're interested in getting a real Klone, I spent a lot of time researching and testing - maybe not as much as you would. To summarise, J. Rockett Archer is excellent, RYRA Klone comes highly recommended on That Pedal Show, but I couldn't find one to test. Mythical Overdrive came out tops, having the correct diodes - apparently, that's where the magic is.

  • SNystromSNystrom

    Thanks for the update, Jatin. Great to hear the story behind your apps and the plans for the future!

    Looking forward to exploring your new offerings...

  • JoyceRoadStudiosJoyceRoadStudios
    edited March 2021

    @pbelgium said:

    @JoyceRoadStudios said:

    @pbelgium said:
    Thanks @chowdsp for this really great Klon emulation!

    For comparison, here's a clip of a Klone going thru Nembrini's CaliReverb - it's not quite the same but you can get a similar tone from the ChowCentaur.

    (For those who are interested, I've tried several Klones and the one I settled on can be found here - comes with magical unicorn tears and fairy dust!)

    Yeah that sounds really good. I particularly love that unmistakable “sizzle and clank” of a proper strat style pickup and board, and it seems like the Klone/Cali pairing shows it off really well.

    I haven’t played too much with the Chow at subtler settings, but I love how it sounds with Gain/Tone maxed out, both in front of a clean sim and an already driven one. A great hard rock rhythm and lead tone and feel. The SNR on the Chow is remarkable compared to most other pedals sims on iOS.

    Thanks @JoyceRoadStudios. I actually have the gain quite high at about 2 o'clock - there's a real sweet spot around there. Many folks use the Klon as a clean boost with no/low gain, but it's better to have the gain high and ride the guitar volume pot to get a wider range of tones - just leave it on the whole time and everything sounds better. If you're interested in getting a real Klone, I spent a lot of time researching and testing - maybe not as much as you would. To summarise, J. Rockett Archer is excellent, RYRA Klone comes highly recommended on That Pedal Show, but I couldn't find one to test. Mythical Overdrive came out tops, having the correct diodes - apparently, that's where the magic is.

    Thank you for this! Of course I’m interested in a Klone but first I’ll have to get past my wife and her distrust of anything overhyped!

    That Mythical Overdrive looks awesome, nut just the diodes, but also the vintage correct charge pump for 18V operation.

  • gusgranitegusgranite

    @chowdsp said:
    Re: the "Neural" mode gain knob:
    When I was training a neural network for the Neural mode...

    You state it like it is an everyday activity :smiley:
    Really interesting work you are doing, Jatin. Thank you for sharing it with us.

  • JoyceRoadStudiosJoyceRoadStudios

    @chowdsp said:
    Hi All,

    Thanks for the comments! It's really wonderful to see so many people enjoying the plugin! Hopefully I can clarify a couple things:

    Re: the "Neural" mode gain knob:
    When I was training a neural network for the Neural mode, I was unfortunately not able to train a network that could "learn" the Gain parameter, while still remaining small enough to run in real-time. So my compromise was to train 5 networks for different positions of the gain knob, basically [0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0]. So in Neural mode, the Gain knob is more like a "stepped" slider, with a little bit of fading in between the steps. If I had used more networks (like maybe 20), the steps would be much less noticeable. The reason I had stopped at 5 networks is that I was originally developing the model with the intention of running on a microcontroller, where the amount of memory on the device was rather limited. I have thought about training more networks that could be used by the plugin implementation but I haven't done it yet, mainly because there's a lot of things that I would change about the training process were I to go through it again. With that in mind, I think it's more likely that I'll eventually make a "Neural 2.0" mode, with a whole different set of neural nets.

    Re: the plugin being free:
    For the ChowCentaur (and for my ChowTape plugin as well), the plugin is actually part of the "supporting material" for an academic paper that I had written about the project. Just as I don't particularly like the idea of putting my research behind a paywall, I didn't feel it would be right to put any of the supporting material behind a paywall either. For future plugins, I'm not 100% sure what I want to do about pricing. Most likely, my future plugins will continue to be open-source so anyone who wants to get the source code and build it for themselves can do so, but maybe I'll put a price tag on downloading the pre-built plugins. In the meantime, I'm looking into the process of implementing a "tip jar" type thing, plus I have a little Patreon, where I post things now and then.

    Re: future plugins:
    I've already started working on porting my ChowTape plugin to iOS... hopefully I'll have some TestFlight builds ready in a week or two! I saw a couple folks mention the ChowMatrix plugin as well. That one might be a little trickier since I imagine the interface could be a bit cumbersome to use on iOS. So I can't make any promises about ChowMatrix, but I'll see what I can do :smile:. I have a few new ideas in the works as well... nothing really to share yet, but I'm hoping to release iOS versions for those as well!

    Thanks,
    Jatin

    Thanks Jatin for the info and explanation! The gain knob being a stepped slider is really such a minor issue. I can’t imagine it being a problem for anyone except maybe in one specific use case, such as midi mapping the knob in AUM or another DAW to a long press footswitch or expression pedal for gradual operation. I only pointed it out because it was an outlier. Looking forward to your neural updates and other releases.

  • MadeofWaxMadeofWax

    @JoyceRoadStudios said:
    beta 1.3.5 is out now (just visual enhancements).

    I assume plenty of people will use this as a subtle signal boost and overdrive, but I have to say my favorite sound here is “Traditional” with the Gain and Tone knobs completely maxed. Most impressively, I was putting it in front of Nembrini and TH-U amps that were already set into overdrive, and it performed magnificently.

    I’ve been putting this with the tone and gain knobs maxed in front of an Overloud TH-U preset with a tube screamer and just swapping out amp heads. It’s like finding the missing piece of the tone I have been chasing. Every amp sounds better. My favorite for leads (so far) is the Soldano and for rhythm I like the Mesa Boogie Rectified. It just amazes me how much better everything sounds with this in front of it.

  • espiegel123espiegel123

    It is interesting now even though this models a piece of solid state gear, it makes sims of tube amps sound more like actual tube amps. I have put it in front of the Nembrini BST100 and Cali Reverb and they sounded warmer to my ears....and I stuck it between my guitar and my JC-120 and it added some nice warmth and the the distortion sounded better than some actual pedals.

  • NeuMNeuM

    @MadeofWax said:

    @JoyceRoadStudios said:
    beta 1.3.5 is out now (just visual enhancements).

    I assume plenty of people will use this as a subtle signal boost and overdrive, but I have to say my favorite sound here is “Traditional” with the Gain and Tone knobs completely maxed. Most impressively, I was putting it in front of Nembrini and TH-U amps that were already set into overdrive, and it performed magnificently.

    I’ve been putting this with the tone and gain knobs maxed in front of an Overloud TH-U preset with a tube screamer and just swapping out amp heads. It’s like finding the missing piece of the tone I have been chasing. Every amp sounds better. My favorite for leads (so far) is the Soldano and for rhythm I like the Mesa Boogie Rectified. It just amazes me how much better everything sounds with this in front of it.

    Yeah, I really think there’s room in the audio chain for this as a product.

  • espiegel123espiegel123

    Centaur-driven Nembrini Voice 30

  • SNystromSNystrom

    Excellent combination, @espiegel123!

    Gonna have spend some time with them tonight...

  • espiegel123espiegel123

    @SNystrom said:
    Excellent combination, @espiegel123!

    Gonna have spend some time with them tonight...

    FWIW, the settings...interesting how much crunchier the amp and pedal were compared to their individual settings. A nice synergy here.



  • SNystromSNystrom

    Thanks for the screenshot!

    Seems like lots of guys are going with the blue alnico IRs.

  • espiegel123espiegel123

    @SNystrom said:
    Thanks for the screenshot!

    Seems like lots of guys are going with the blue alnico IRs.

    To my ear, they are the only ones supplied with the amp that they fit the amp well as IRL. It may just be my taste.

  • chowdspchowdsp

    Hi All,

    I've been putting together little update with some performance improvements and a "mono" mode, which should be ready pretty soon. If anyone wants to try the TestFlight builds, here's the link!

  • SNystromSNystrom

    Thank you Jatin!

  • SNystromSNystrom

    Tip jar arrives at last! 🙌

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