What is TONE3000?
What is TONE3000?
TONE3000 is the largest public library of Neural Amp Modeler captures and impulse responses. Musicians capture their own amps, pedals and cabinets and upload the files, mostly free, under licences they choose. It is where most people get the captures they play through a NAM player.
Why it exists
Neural Amp Modeler is an open-source project that turns a real amplifier into a file. That is useful on its own, but the format only becomes interesting once lots of people have pointed it at lots of gear. TONE3000 is where those files ended up: a public library of captures and impulse responses, uploaded by players around the world.
The practical result is that a piece of software costing a few pounds can play through a model of an amplifier you would never be able to buy, borrow or fit in your home — because somebody who did own one spent an afternoon capturing it and gave the file away.
What is actually on it?
Captures of amplifiers, mostly, but also overdrive and distortion pedals, and impulse responses of speaker cabinets and microphone positions. Entries carry the name of the gear, who captured it, what licence they released it under, and usually notes about how it was captured and at what settings.
Quality varies, because anybody can upload. That is a feature rather than a problem: an obscure amp captured adequately is worth more than no capture at all, and popular entries rise because people use them.
Who made the captures?
Other guitarists. This is the part that surprises people coming from commercial amp software, where the models are made by the company selling them. A TONE3000 capture has a person's username attached to it, and that person hauled a real amp into a real room to make it. Attribution is not a formality here — it is the whole social contract that keeps the library growing.
How do I use one on a phone?
Download the file on the device and open it in a NAM player. There is a short guide to that: using TONE3000 captures on iOS. Nothing about the file changes between platforms — the same capture runs on a desktop plugin and on a phone.
Can I contribute to it?
Yes, and the library depends on people doing so. Capturing your own amp needs a computer and a bit of patience rather than expensive gear; here is what is involved.