HeadRush has just launched a firmware update for its Core, Prime and Prime Flex guitar multi-effects pedals and amp modellers, and it is officially a big deal, offering native support for Neural Amp Modeler (NAM) captures and full integration with the Tone3000 platform.
This is a free update, and yet it is transformative, giving players access to “hundreds of thousands” of community-created NAM captures via Tone3000’s platform.
“The update transforms how musicians discover, download, and perform with premium tone,” says HeadRush. “[It connects] players directly to a global ecosystem of players, producers, audio engineers, artists, and creators with no computer, conversion, or third-party software required.”
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For those of us who grew up with the earliest digital multi-effects processors, it all seems too good to be true, and yet it’s not. And it invites analogies with how technology has transformed how we quote/unquote consume music.
You could say that this is another iPod moment for electric guitar tone, or a step towards a world in which guitar tones are as abundantly available online as any other digital media.
Other companies have made full use of their digital ecosystems to expand our tone options.
Positive Grid has made sharing presets and sounds easy across its vast user network. The launch of Line 6’s Helix Stadium brought with it the Proxy Cloning Engine that allowed you to create a digital clone of an amp, amp and cab, preamp or overdrive, distortion or fuzz pedal. Again, you could share it.
Neural DSP’s Neural Capture tech lets you capture your amp or distortion etc over the cloud and share them with the Neural user community.
But the sounds you create using those technologies are locked to those platforms. You can’t play the Neural Capture on the Line 6 unit.
What HeadRush is doing is providing the unit, providing you with some sounds too, but also you don’t have to fill your amp library with sounds from the company alone – now you have your HeadRush tone ecosystem and the open-source possibilities from Tone3000 integration.
Blackstar did something similar with the Beam Mini and Beam Solo, offering the digital practice and headphone amps with Tone3000 integration and NAM capture support.
The success of the Tone3000 platform, not only in its growth but in its technological prowess, must have more brands thinking of following suit – or at least how they can react to what is a truly disruptive moment for the guitar tone market.
As HeadRush says, “the era of closed tone is over.” That means you can fire up your Flex Prime, browse the Tone3000 library of NAM captures and choose anything you like – a capture of a Dumble, or a Klon, or a combination of amp and pedal. You’ll find amp-and-pedal captures, such as a ’65 Deluxe Reverb boosted with a Klon. And so on.
There is no “degradation” from the unit converting the file. There’s no manual transfer. You can access these sounds via the touchscreen.
And as with any technology, ease of use will accelerate its adoption. Will other brands follow suit is the big question.
