With NAM A2 around the Corner, is it a Good Time to Buy NAM Hardware?

Note: information about specific available models and capabilities will evolve fast... that is part of the dilemma

With Neural Amp Modeler's (NAM) A2 architectural update right around the corner, there is a lot of excitement but also various forms of apprehension around captures and hardware. I think it's a great time to get involved in the ecosystem (I've certainly dove in headfirst in a few ways), but it does pay to be strategic.

First of all, Steve Atkinson has said that nothing is going away. TONE3000 will retrain existing captures for A2. But one of the goals is to run better in environments that are too compute-constrained to run full-size NAM models.

For around $60 today, you can get a minimal viable converted NAM practice experience in the Sonicake Pocketmaster (disclaimer: I do have have an exclusive coupon code, tubesandcode, that you can use when purchasing through their site, but I exercise independent technical judgement). If you want a similar experience in the form of a small practice amp, they offer the AmpCube for ~ $100. I bought both of them recently and I think they are great buys right now if you are ok with an entry-level experience (whatever that happens to be). As I noted in my review of the Pocket Master, it isn't really designed to last forever either since the non-replaceable battery will eventually degrade. I think at $60, the Pocket Master is a good way to start playing around with NAM hardware while preserving optionality to buy something better later.

Also, if you are gigging with the Pocket Master (which people definitely do) or future competitors, then you are likely going to want some kind of midi unit to give you more pedalboard-like control over effects. So whatever hardware you are buying might be part of a modular system where you can buy the "minimum viable brains" and swap it out if/when it makes sense.

Similarly, the Valeton GP-5 seems like an attractive pedal at $80 currently, though I haven't tried it. Nobody expects a $60-80 pedal to solve all their tone issues for life. It can be a calculated buy even with some uncertainty.

Of course, some players are going to be looking to buy something high-end like the Dimehead pedal to avoid conversion and minimize latency, especially for gigging. I think this is relatively safe too. That pedal already runs A1 without any sort of lossy conversion step, and high-quality NAM support is that product's bread and butter. In an Instagram post, Dimehead confirmed they are working on A2 and plan to have a firmware update supporting it out mid-March:

The space in between is where I think it gets trickier (and less advisable) to commit. Part of what A2 is bringing to the table is the ability to run "natively" (the scare quotes are from Steve, not me) on more devices, but we also have to been honest that physics won't change. A2 will run natively in more places, but it is going to be a smaller model than A1 when deployed in slimmed form... that's kind of the point of slimming. Anyway, if you are looking in this price range, I think it makes sense to wait at least a little bit because there are products coming like Blackstar's Beam Mini coming sometime in march that promise robust functionality at a reasonable price point.

No matter what tier you're looking at, you have to look at the software ecosystem around the product even though we are talking about "NAM hardware." What's the firmware update process like? Is there any sign of fragility with it? What's their history and communication of firmware updates like? What's the experience like with any connected apps (if applicable)? How do I get NAM files and IRs onto the device? These are the kinds of questions you have to ask yourself. In the case of the Sonicake Pocket Master, the converted NAM support actually came through a firmware update, which demonstrates that they have some amount of agility in terms of being able to meaningfully change their firmware. With the native, open-source slimming feature coming though, it does seem like proprietary conversion layers are essentially a form of tech debt, but we'll see how much it ends up mattering. Again, I think we can be more forgiving on cheap devices.

Tone is important when looking at reviews of these kinds of products obviously, but also check for information about what the firmware update process is like and what support exists. The coming arrival of A2 helps make the argument for this even clearer.

In conclusion, I think it's a great time to buy NAM hardware. It is a bad time to overcommit to the wrong product. Waiting for technology to get just a bit better and cheaper is usually kind of a trap, but you don't want to be caught off guard by inflection points (Apple's switch from Intel to Apple Silicon in Macbooks is a big one that comes to mind). I hope the information and thinking I've presented helps.

If you are waiting, don't wait long.

Finally, if you're interested in an audio interface so you can use NAM on your computer, check out my article about the Focusrite Scarlett series.