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Question: Am I using multiple guitar cab IRs correctly, or is there a better way?
I’ve been experimenting with using multiple Ownhammer cab IRs (loaded using AltiSpace 2) after the Nembrini BST100 in AUM. I’ve been routing the BST100 output to separate Mix Buses for the ribbon mic, condenser mic, rear, and room IRs so that I can blend their individual levels to my taste and then send them to a master output bus for any further processing like in this screenshot …
I’ve noticed that @flo26 has uploaded this YouTube video doing something similar using the IR loader in Rhino
This looks like a much simpler way of doing it, but I can’t see a way of blending the different IRs. Am I trying to do too much, or is there a better way to do it?
Thanks for any advice
Tony
Comments
Sorry trying to move this to General App Discussion but can’t work out how.
In Rhino, you can select a point anywhere on or inside the circular IR blender. For example, the center blends the 4 IR's in equal proportions.
By the way, the GE Labs app supports Amp, Preamp and Cab IRs, and THU will let you load Cab IRs.
Thanks for clarifying about the Rhino IR blender. I hadn’t realised that it could blend proportionally (like the joystick in iVCS3) - I’d viewed it as a 4-way switch, with a centre position which would use the 4 IRs equally i.e. no control over the relative levels of the IR outputs.
Thanks for the info about the other apps, but I specifically want to use my Nembrini amp at the moment. I’ve also got the full ToneStack Pro which I could use for other amps and pedals and follow that with Altispace2 in AUM or ApeMatrix etc.
But I’m very grateful for the reply 😀
My advice would be keep it simple.How many cabs would one need in the real life?
I like the idea of loading several ir cabs for varying textures but it can be a real cpu hog.
Your configuration is good and clever😉.
The first step for me is always to find the right cab for the right amp.Everything else is the icing on the cake for me.
A good room reverb is also a nice touch.
Adverb2 is great at this.
Hope it helps.
FWIW THAFKNAR will let you blend two IRs. It can be useful to blend s little of a rear or room IR with the main one.
Thanks for your reply @flo26. I agree with your point about simplicity, that’s what struck me about your Rhino video and prompted my question. In my case, I’m using 4 different IRs from the same cab, the Ownhammer 412 MRCB with EVM 12Ls. As you know they have IRs for individual mics, rooms responses, and rear of the cab. I was experimenting with trying to mix them into a single guitar mix to see how the sound changes with different combinations of each, a bit like you might in a real studio (not that I’ve ever been in one of those 😉. I’m just trying to satisfy my curiosity!
I actually have 5 instances of Altispace2 running along with Timeless 3 and a Nembrini EQ & Compressor as well as the BST100 on my iPad Air 3 and, as you can see the CPU usage is 45% according to AUM, so I’m OK with that.
Thanks very much @espiegel123. Maybe I am over-complicating things. I’m a bit like a child in a sweet shop with all these hundreds of IRs that Ownhammer provide! Maybe I should pull back a bit. Thanks for the tip about Thafknar - I’d been wondering about that one. I’ve also been wondering about the NA IR Loader which appears as an option in the iOS port of Nembrini Stand-alone Host (mainly wondering if it will ever materialise on iOS!).
@toneman88 whichever apps you use to load IRs, one important thing I’ve noticed is that there’s a big difference between blending IRs together vs doubling up or tripling up on IRs, so this is worth paying attention to. With some apps you can run two IRs but they’re both giving 100%. So essentially you’re using one amp but you’re doubling up on the signal, which just makes everything louder and muddier. So blending four IRs together for a mix totaling 100%, rather than using four IRs to get 400%.
@JoyceRoadStudios thanks very much for your input. It’s a very good point which I hadn’t consciously thought about, but I think that was behind my reasoning in wanting to control each IR individually like in my AUM workflow. As far as I understand from the Ownhammer blurb, the individual IRs are provided so that they be mixed in this way. They also provide suggested ‘best mix’ IRs, but my curiosity makes me want to understand how the components fit together.
How would a studio track a cab using mixed front, rear and room mics? Or would they keep it simpler than that? I imagine it being a bit like a multi-mic drum mix.
@toneman88 - from the screenshot it looks like you're only sending 50% signal to the cab sims. As configured, it seems to me that you would be getting quite a bit of dry (non-IR influenced) signal. That can be a good thing if it's what you intend, but normally 100% signal goes through a cabinet.
[edit] I guess it's fine to send whatever level you want to the IR bus. Keep in mind that the level in to an IR loader is going to have a definite effect on the response, though. And, I still think the source channel should be muted and the IR's at 100% wet.
I would think that muting the guitar channel, routing 100% to the IR bus, and making sure that each IR loader is at 100% wet would be the right way to go.
In the back of my mind I wonder if phasing issues could result from this parallel treatment as well, but maybe that's closer to real life that way anyway, as there would be the potential for that issue with multiple mics as well.
Thanks @wim . I did wonder how much I should be sending to the IRs. I deliberately left the dry signal in the chain in case I wanted to put it back into the mix at the end. The levels on the IR channels are just set to AUM default, I would expect to be adjusting some of them quite considerably to get a decent balance.
I’ve been setting each Altispace2 output to 100% wet as you suggest.
Regarding phase issues, I seem to remember Ownhammer saying the IRs have been corrected for phase issues - that was one of the reasons I bought them, but I’ll recheck. There’s no opportunity to move mic positions within a particular IR, so I would hope they’ve got the phasing correct for each one relative to the others.
I’m learning a lot through this discussion. Thanks very much.
Tony