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So which IRs should be I’ll be using with my synth now??
Thanks again for all the patience
The thing I have about IRs, correct me if I’m wrong, is that although they capture an ambience (for lack of a better word), they do so in a static manner. Like “this is how the room (or cabinet or whatever) WAS”
Is there anything like IR… wavetables?
Maybe I am misunderstanding what you mean. IRs are not static. They are wav files and higher resolution than wavetables. If the ambience being sampled (such as a room's reverb) has properties that change over time those changes are captured.
I meant it’s a single wav, although it changes over time it’s a static impulse. Imagine wavetable-ing through several IR waves, it would give an extra dimension to the sound.
Or imagine using wavetable FX like in Drambo but with IRs in real time. Wait, maybe that is doable already… brb
A couple of things. Wavetables are essentially downsampled wavs and playing them back is a low computation task. IRs are higher resolution..,they have more frames at higher resolution. Convolution is a high computation task ...what you are asking for is essentially to be able to apply the IR's samples out of sequence with a modulation controlling what part of the IR is being applied. One of the apesoft apps, Sparkle, does something kind of along those lines.
I have no experience but I thought Acustica Nebula is an emulation (dynamic convolution?) that goes a bit deeper.
I agree with this, we’ve got waaay too many options and it ends up being unproductive.
Has anyone here tried 100 different cabinets with a dozen mic configurations for each?. In real life you have one amp and it’s good enough to get a wide range of sounds out of it. On amp sim world we have a dozen amps but it’s still not enough, we need 200 cabinets.
I’d go with @wim ’s advice. Choose 5 or 6 cabinets that you can tell apart (dark, bright, far, close…). Nembrini’s IR Loader is great but there’s one feature missing that really bothers me. When you load an IR on a new preset, it should pick up the default name for the preset from the IR file name.
I quite like Tonex in that you have the head+cabinet in one, less hassle. But I f##ed up when I first bought the IAP and downloaded a ton of user random tones to try. Didn’t know then that you couldn’t replace them later, so now I’m stuck with those. I wish there was a pack to download extra user tones, but it’s not the case.
@pedro There are definitely "hybrid IR" plugins that attempt to achieve the desired effect of an impulse response reverb that sounds less "static". I'm not sure if any of those plug-ins use that method or not.
You don’t have to try all the variations. There is a folder that has a basic set for each IR. You can just grab the vanilla IR from that folder.
The reason all the variations are provided is that some engineers and musicians have strong preferences about mic and position. If you aren’t one of those people, just pick one from the summary without comparing.
My summary thoughts after this IR journey:
Future ponderings
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@joegrant413 Excellent report and respect for your commitment to seeing this through.
FWIW, I ended up with a single folder containing only “…the IR having the least suffixes” for each speaker/cab and the four combos. Just 12 IR files in total. Actually, two folders of 12, one each for 44.1k and 48k. I deleted all the rest from the iPad and never once missed them.
Man,I reread my post and I sounded bitter and entitled. Wasn’t my intention at all.
Just to be clear I’M the guy with 1000 IRs and way too many amp sims 🥹
What I meant is that out of the endless possibilities you should stick to a manageable amount to cover the different use cases. Of course, I haven’t. With work and all I don’t have time to put some order, discard and categorize. Yet I keep buying apps and stuff!. From a productive standpoint it makes zero sense. If I was to make a living off making music I’d do a very extreme cleanup. Do I go with just Nembrini’s and IR’s or Tonex?. Not both. If o go with Nembrinis and IRs, pick 3 Nembrinis and 6 IRs. That’s about 100 times more options than I’ve ever hard in “real” life and probably more than many of the “pro” studios I’ve been to.
IR's are weird. some people swear by them, some hate them. its all subjective. whatever works works. I just started going down a terrible rabbit hole of IR's in Acustica's Nebula engine. It uses IR type technology of Compressors and EQ's. I was extremely skeptical at first, but am now blow away. The difference is clear as day when comparing to traditional algorithmic counterparts.
@joegrant413 - maybe it'll help if you think of an IR as a fake "space". They can be more than that, but for most cases that's what's going on. The space can be a guitar amp cabinet, the inside of an acoustic guitar or violin, a cave, a famous cathedral, or taken from a hardware reverb unit such as a Lexicon 300, an amp, a microphone...
So, in response to your question about IR's for synths. If we're talking about guitar amp cabinet IRs - people don't often run their synths through guitar amp cabinets. Of course they you, but what would sound good depends totally on the patch an IR that improves a synth lead is likely to be completely different than one that improves a lush pad.
IR's for various reverbs would be more likely choices for synths, but IR reverberation is heavy on CPU processing. IR for reverberation is generally more worth it for sources such as voice, or acoustic guitar, or full mixes when the subtle differences make more of a difference than just for a synth. There are times times when recreating something such as a particular concert hall as accurately as possible, or for emulating a particular piece of gear is useful - but generally that's not so relevant for a synth.
Conclusion? If you're looking for a handy IR that's gonna make your all your synths sound better, you're probably wasting your time. By all means, try throwing a couple on various synth patches to see if you like the results. But if you thought quantifying what a good IR for guitar cabinet emulation adds to your sound is nebulous, try multiplying that infinitely for synths.
Regarding synths, I have -- but haven't used much lately - Phase Plant. It has a Convolution module. Put that on my todo list for someday.
Impulse Responses are often produced by recording the result of playing a special sound such as a hand clap, balloon pop, or clapper board, that contains as much as possible all audible frequency ranges, in a space or through a piece of equipment.
Convolution is modifying a sound played through an IR/Convolver such that it recreates with some level of accuracy the effect of playing the sound in that space or through that piece of equipment.
Convolution can be used with any sound file that the IR app can use. It doesn't have to be a recorded sound at all though that's most often how it's used. Here's an interesting thread on the Drambo forum where people have messed around with other types of convolution source files: https://forum.beepstreet.com/discussion/comment/42548#Comment_42548
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FYI, brought home a used Iridium from GC yesterday. Sounded great. The Fender DRRI round tone seems spot on. The punch Marshall sound sounds great. The chime...well, I never really understood the AC30 love. But I'll give it a good shot this time.
Paired it with the Analogman KOT -- which started the guitar-gear-wanderlust-2023 for me. Yeah, it sounds great. All going into my Akai MPC / PA system.
Compared with my recollection of my fav THU sounds, the Iridium feels more refined. Sterile? Let's hope not! But the feel of THU high-gain Marshall into a great cab is shockingly good.
Anyway, without a doubt the Iridium is a great amp-cab in a pedal. I haven't owned many such products, but the Iridium is certainly the best I've had.
Nice, IMO the biggest benefit of using a pedal setup is the simplicity. You don't the option paralysis that comes with using IR libraries. Dial in your tone and play
Did you try the Stereo output? I assume that makes the cab and "room" reverb feel more real.
I use the stereo out into an audio interface if I'm using stereo pedals in my chain (reverb or delay), but for the most part I actually record guitar in mono and double-track to pan the guitars hard left and hard right.
So I've never really checked out the "Room" setting on the Iridium, other than just casual playing, and I'm pretty certain the cabs are mono-only.
Interesting. If the cabs are mono only, not much point in stereo for me.
I'll probably have a chain that goes guitar > dirt / boost / OD pedals > Iridium > mixer > Eventide H9 > DAWless and DAWish stuff.
In short, the H9 will cover the reverb just fine.
The strymon web page says the cabinets are stereo.
The room and ambience are stereo also:
Am I mistaken but does the new fabfillter pro-r 2 “convert” the wav impulse file into a pure EQ format.
Please don’t at me about my “EQ format” nomenclature I know it’s not a thing but I was struggling as to how else to say it.
Wait does Drambo also have an IR loader?
Yep.
Wow I somehow never noticed that before. Fantastic news though lol
Thanks for the correction, I didn't realise the cabs were also stereo.