Recorder help · article 6 of 9

Tones

The Tone tab sets the sound you hear yourself through and the tone your next takes play through. Under Your sound, your instrument’s pedal comes first, and it feeds into an amp model under it, if you add one. Every change plays at once, so there is no Save button. To change a saved take’s tone, use its tone in the player on the Takes tab.

The Tone tab

The top card is your instrument’s pedal, in the pedal’s own color. The card under it holds the amp model. Each card has a switch at its top right that says Active or Bypassed. Bypassing keeps your settings, so switching back brings the same sound.

Until you first open it, the Tone tab shows a small dot. During a take the Tone tab is locked and says Locked until you stop.

Instrument pedals

Afinar has a pedal for each instrument. They are Amber Guitar, Bronze Bass, Pearl Voice, Ivory Keys, Silk Strings, and Pewter Other. Setup loads the one for what you play. To switch, click the instrument’s name at the top of the pedal card, such as Guitar, and choose another.

Click anywhere on the pedal card to open the pedal in its own window, or press the sliders button at the card’s lower right. Drag a knob up or down to turn it, hold Option for fine steps, and double-click a knob to reset it. The footswitch turns the pedal on and off, and its light says Active or Bypassed. The × or Escape closes the window, and so does leaving the Tone tab or pressing Record.

Amber Guitar has Drive, Gain, and Level, then Bass, Mid, and Treble. Bronze Bass has Drive, Blend, and Level, then Bass, Treble, and Presence. Pearl Voice, Ivory Keys, Silk Strings, and Pewter Other each have Tone and Level. Pewter Other starts with nothing added, for any instrument the others don’t cover.

Every pedal also has Chorus and Delay, and every pedal but Bronze Bass has Reverb. Each of these knobs sets how much of its effect you hear, and at zero the effect is off.

Pedals have no presets. Each one keeps what you last set, like a real pedal, even when you switch to another instrument and back.

Amp models

An amp model is a capture of a real amp with its speaker cabinet, made with Neural Amp Modeler (NAM), that sounds and responds like the amp it came from. Your pedal feeds into it. A model is optional, and with none you hear your pedal alone.

Afinar plays only models marked Amp + Cab, because it has no separate cabinet stage yet. A capture of an amp alone, a pedal, or a cabinet alone can’t play, and its row says why, such as Needs a cabinet. Why? beside it explains.

To add one, press Add a model under the pedal, or click Amp models. The Amp models list opens with every model on your Mac, and the empty model card says Choose a model below. Filter the list with All, Afinar, TONE3000, or Your files, or type in Find a model. Press Use beside a model to play through it. To get a new one, open the list’s Add a model menu and choose Browse TONE3000 or Add a NAM file…. The list closes when you pick a model, and clicking Amp models or its arrow opens or closes it. Learn more beside it opens this section.

Afinar comes with four models of its own. Golden Clean and Copper Drive are for guitar, and Deep Gold and Copper Bass are for bass.

With a model loaded, its card reads Amp model · optional and shows the model’s picture, name, and creator. Its ··· menu holds Change model…, which opens the list again, Details and models… for a TONE3000 model, and Remove model.

If a model’s file is missing, its row says File missing. A take recorded with a missing model still plays, without the model, and the player says The saved amp model could not be loaded. This take is playing without it.

TONE3000

Afinar is integrated with TONE3000. Open Add a model in the Amp models list and choose Browse TONE3000 to find models, and sign in on TONE3000’s own page. Models you download are free to use in the recorder, and they appear in the list under TONE3000.

Each TONE3000 model shows its picture, its name, its gear and format, the T3K mark, and its creator. Once you’ve downloaded one, the list also shows the TONE3000 account you’re signed in with.

Click a model’s picture or name to open its details, with its description, its license, and View on TONE3000. When a tone has several captures, Model lists them. Choose one and press Download and use, or Use this model if it’s already on your Mac. Switching captures needs you signed in, and until you are, the page says Sign in to TONE3000 to switch models.

When the loaded TONE3000 tone has more than one capture, its card shows a knob with one step for each capture. Click either half of the knob or press an arrow key to move one step, or drag it and let go. The steps go from the cleanest capture to the most driven when Afinar can tell them apart, and otherwise follow TONE3000’s order. The knob reads GAIN when Afinar can compare the captures’ gain, and CAPTURE when it can’t. A capture that isn’t on your Mac yet downloads first, which needs you signed in.

Turning the knob changes the tone. Your next take records through the capture you chose, and every take keeps the tone it was recorded with. In a take’s player, the knob changes that take’s tone.

If you’re signed out and Afinar hasn’t seen the tone’s captures yet, the card says Sign in to TONE3000 to see this tone’s captures. Press Sign in to TONE3000 under it, and TONE3000 opens in the panel.

Your own NAM files

Open Add a model in the Amp models list and choose Add a NAM file… to add a capture from your Mac. Afinar copies it, plays through it at once, and lists it under Your files. Afinar loads complete rigs, the amp and speaker captured together, including the A2 standard.

It refuses an amp-only, pedal, or cabinet capture before adding it, and says what the file is, for example This is an amp without its cabinet, then Afinar plays complete rigs — the amp and the speaker captured together. Look for a capture marked Amp + Cab.

NAM and TONE3000

NAM, short for Neural Amp Modeler, is free, open-source software that captures real amps and pedals, so you can play through them on a computer. A capture sounds and responds like the gear it came from.

TONE3000 is the website where players share their NAM captures, free.

In Afinar, a capture you play through is an amp model. Amp models says which captures play and how to add, change, or remove one, and TONE3000 says how to download them in the recorder.