Plugging in.

01.1The power button

The green power icon in the top-right corner of the Rig tab starts and stops the audio engine. Until it is on, nothing is processed and nothing makes a sound — the meters stay flat and recording refuses with Audio is off — tap the power button before recording.

It is dim when the engine is stopped and green with a glow when it is running. The DSP load chip beside it shows how close NAMper's busiest real-time thread is to its deadline, and Settings → Audio spells the same number out: green under 60 %, amber up to 85 %, red above that. If it sits in the red, take a block out of the chain or step the buffer size up.

NAMper asks for microphone access the first time you start the engine, not at launch.

If the engine cannot start, the banner reads Audio could not start. Another app may be using the interface — try again. Close whatever else is holding the interface and try once more.

01.2Audio interfaces

There is no device picker. NAMper follows whatever audio route the system is using, so you choose your hardware the way you always do — plug the interface in, and the app rebuilds itself around it. Multichannel interfaces are supported, up to eight input channels.

Settings → AUDIO INTERFACE tells you what NAMper actually got: Sample rate, Inputs, Outputs and Engine (running or stopped). If the channel count is not what you expected, that row is the place to find out.

Naming your channels

Settings → CHANNEL NAMES gives every input a text field with the placeholder Guitar, Vocal…. Name them once and those names appear in every input picker in the app — rig inputs, looper track sources, input trim rows. Unnamed channels simply read In 1, In 2 and so on.

Multiple outputs

Settings → Use all interface outputs is off by default, and stereo devices never need it. Switch it on and NAMper opens every output pair on the interface, so a rig, a parallel branch, a looper track or the metronome click can each own its own pair — the guitar to front of house, the click to the drummer's in-ears.

01.3Meters and levels

Two meters ride on the chain card of the Rig tab, IN and OUT: a strip under the card's title with a phone held upright, on the title row itself on a wide screen or a phone on its side. Both run from −60 dBFS to 0, green through amber to red. There is no separate clip light — clipping is the bar hitting red at its far end.

Setting your input level

1. Turn the audio on and play as hard as you ever play.
2. The IN meter should reach its last third and stay out of the red.
3. If your interface has a gain knob, use it. If it does not, open Settings → Input trim and raise the slider for that channel — it goes from −12 dB to +24 dB in 1 dB steps, and starts at 0.

The IN meter shows the level after the trim, so what you see is what the amp model actually receives.

The master section

At the bottom of the Rig tab, the MASTER card is where every rig, the looper, the sampler and the backing track sum together before the hardware output. It shows stereo peak bars L and R with marks at −12 and −6 dB, plus a broadcast-style loudness reading in LUFS — the big number is momentary loudness, the small line adds the short-term value. It reads -inf in silence. The fader below runs from −60 to +12 dB.

Every block editor has its own small IN and OUT meters too, which is the quickest way to find the block that is running hot.

01.4Sample rate and buffer

Both live in Settings → AUDIO INTERFACE, and both are remembered per audio route — your interface and your headphones can each keep their own settings.

Sample rate

The chips read Auto, 44.1k, 48k, 88.2k, 96k, 176.4k and 192k. Auto is the default and simply follows the interface; changing the rate restarts the engine.

On the phone's own microphone and speaker only Auto and 48k appear, with the note The built-in audio runs at 48 kHz only. Connect an interface for more rates. With an interface connected you get the full list — minus any rate that particular interface has already refused, which NAMper remembers and stops offering.

If a rate is refused, the app falls back to the previous one and says so in red: This interface doesn't support … Hz — staying at … Hz.

Buffer size

Buffer offers 64, 128, 256 and 512 frames, with a live readout of the latency that buys you. The default is 128. The app's own advice is exact: Smaller = lower latency; larger = safer with USB interfaces. Crackling? Go up one step.

This is the only latency control in NAMper — there is no separate latency setting.

01.5The feedback guard

A guitar app with the phone's own microphone open and the phone's own speaker playing is a feedback loop waiting to happen. So NAMper watches for exactly that combination — built-in mic in, built-in speaker or earpiece out — and mutes its output before it can howl.

When it engages you see Output muted to stop feedback (mic → speaker). Connect an interface or headphones. Only the audible output is held back — the tuner, the input meters and recording all keep working, so you can still tune up and still capture a take.

Plug in headphones or an interface and the mute lifts by itself. The ✕ on the banner only hides the message for this session; it does not unmute.

The switch itself is Settings → AUDIO INTERFACE → Feedback guard, subtitle Mutes the output while the mic plays through the phone speaker. It is on by default.

01.6Permissions

NAMper asks for exactly two things, and only when it needs them.

If microphone access is off, a red banner reads Microphone access is off — NAMper can't hear your guitar. with a Settings button that takes you straight to the system setting. Grant it and the engine rebuilds without a relaunch.

There is no analytics, no tracking, no account and no camera, photos, location or contacts access. NAMper collects nothing.

01.7Where your files live

NAMper keeps everything in one library, a folder it shares with its own Audio Unit — a preset saved in the app is in the plug-in's list inside GarageBand or AUM, and a capture downloaded inside a host is in the app. The NAMper folder in the Files app, On My iPhone → NAMper (or On My iPad), is the door into that library: drop .nam captures, .wav impulses, a zip of them, .namper presets or a whole folder from the table below there, and they are taken in the next time the app comes to the front. What you want out goes through the share sheet.

Two things do not work the way you might guess: you cannot drag files onto the app icon or into a window — every import goes through the file picker inside NAMper — and the tones/ folder is deliberately excluded from iCloud backup, because TONE3000 can simply re-download those profiles.

01.8On Android

NAMper for Android is the same app on the same audio engine: every block, the looper, the sampler, the setlist and the control map behave as this guide describes, and presets move between the two platforms as files. It needs Android 10 or newer. A few things are different because the platform is.