Where to get acoustic IR's

[aguitarjam]

I am loving the Helix so far.  Have had about several hours playing time up to this point.  It is so much easier to dial in my tones then it was with the HD500X.  

 

I am really curious in finding some acoustic guitar IR's I could try out though.  Since there is a lack of settings for acoustic I would love to dive in to the impulse response world and see what I can find.  I am currently resetting up my rig for solo playing while looping and such and I am not loving my acoustic tone.  

 

Thanks for any help :)

[TheDaveDaveDave]

I found a few.... Normally I'd say LMGTFY http://bfy.tw/2EMD, ;) but they were actually pretty hard to google up!

 

The ones on this thread are a little dark, and you have to dig up a converter to extract them from the fractal SYX format: http://forum.fractalaudio.com/user-cabs-irs/38490-2048-point-acoustic-ir-available.html

 

Here's the converter download:

http://www.ownhammer.com/free/axe-o-matic/

 

I also found these Taylor guitar ones that are quite nice:

https://drive.google.com/a/t-sciences.com/file/d/0B1XgNa5vH3j1ZkVoTFJLQ241WTg/view

 

I flip understand the best results so far by putting separate IR blocks in paths 1 and 2, and using the tube pre in front of them. I also intend to experiment with a higher impedance input setting, which should help to add a little more shimmer.

 

I have a Godin and a Parker with Piezzos that I can't wait to try - I just can't seem to find a 9v battery!

 

Hope this helps!

[aguitarjam]

Awesome!  Thank you so much!  I have been trying to google myself and had the hardest time finding anything.  

[surfsup1955]

Nice find. The Neumann U87 sits really nice in my acoustic patch. I'm using it in conjunction with a modified version of datacommando's patch: http://line6.com/customtone/tone/1802464/ 

[ur2funky]

Here's my patch:

 

http://line6.com/support/topic/20131-line-6-helix-acoustic-sim-patch/

 

This video shows an EQ trick that really helps!  ... https://youtu.be/JaWM8Ou8zw8

 

Here's the EQ....

 

[PeterHamm]

Here's mine from DTar Mama Bear

 

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5YMP7cdVF-LTWE5TkFrb0ZTUGc&usp=drive_web

[amsdenj]

The market for acoustic IRs appears to be limited at the moment, and there may be a good reason - pickup variability. How the acoustic IRs are created is essentially by creating an impulse response of a guitar body by tapping the body and capturing the pickup response and the body response with a mic, at exactly the same time (so they are phase aligned). Then an algorithm is used to essentially "subtract" the piezo response from the body response and save that as the resulting IR. Then when you play your acoustic guitar through the IR, you get only the body response, not the contribution from the pickup.

 

Under the saddle piezo pickups do sound quite a bit alike, but they aren't the same. So a different pickup in a different guitar won't exactly match what the IR is expecting and the resulting tone will be different than the intended body tone. In addition, the pickups may be phased differently and might make the guitar sound worse rather than better. Magnetic pickups don't sound at all like piezo pickups, so the same acoustic body IRs don't generally work well for both.

 

Fishman and Mama Bear have taken different approaches for dealing with this variability. You can send your guitar to Fishman and they'll create a custom IR for your guitar you can load into your Aura. They also sell built in acoustic guitar preamps that have the compensation for that pickup and guitar in the preamp. This is a great choice, but not something we can put in Helix. The Aura body images are a proprietary format in order to protect Fishman's Intellectual Property (IP).

 

Mama Bear provides an input voicing control that can compensate for different pickups.

 

If you know what guitar you're going to use, and have access to a Fishman Aura or DTar Mama Bear, you can find the input setting and body image that works best for you, then use Logic Pro X's Impulse Response Utility to capture an IR for Helix that will reproduce that tone.

 

However, I'm not sure about the moral/legal implications of doing this. Fishman and Mama Bear have put a lot of effort into creating those models and hardware devices. Creating IRs from them and giving them out, or much worse, selling them, would seem to be a somewhat questionable practice. That's why I've been reluctant to post any of the IRs I created from my Fishman Aura. I have no problem using them in my own Helix since I did buy the Aura. But giving them out, not sure about that. Maybe it's OK, but maybe not.

[zooey]

Totally applaud bringing the moral and legal implications into this, but these are murky waters IMO.

 

How is this different from an IR of a proprietary (and likely way more expensive to develop and produce) cab, and/or amp, or fx unit? If it's not OK to create a facsimile of a piece of hardware or software using other means, Helix itself would be blatantly illegal.

 

The whole music industry is struggling with the moral/legal edges of "fair use" in various digital contexts. Outright sampling and reuse of recorded music is clearly not OK, and you can't market something using another company's trademarked name, but I'm not aware of any legal precedent about IRs. But then again I'm not a lawyer.

 

As to whether it's morally OK to do anything that may harm the developer of something we're glad got built, especially a small company, I'd say no. Practically speaking, maybe it depends on the scale of the harm?

[PeterHamm]

If we're going to tread into these murky waters... then why has the excellent modeling of effects and amps in Helix and in other products not resulted in huge lawsuits? Pretty sure that companies like Fender and Marshall and MXR and whoever know that it wouldn't be worthwhile, wouldn't stand up.

 

That said, capturing IRs from my Mama Bear and giving them away is, I'm pretty sure, not a legal worry for me.

Even if selling them wasn't a legal worry, I wouldn't feel right doing that, though.

 

making an IR of a speaker cabinet is an entirely different story I think, though.

I don't think anybody's goin' to jail or anything.

[klangmaler]

I don't think that these IR 'legal worries' are really of further interest, BUT:

[...] pickup variability. How the acoustic IRs are created is essentially by creating an impulse response of a guitar body by tapping the body and capturing the pickup response and the body response with a mic, at exactly the same time (so they are phase aligned). Then an algorithm is used to essentially "subtract" the piezo response from the body response and save that as the resulting IR. Then when you play your acoustic guitar through the IR, you get only the body response, not the contribution from the pickup.
Under the saddle piezo pickups do sound quite a bit alike, but they aren't the same. So a different pickup in a different guitar won't exactly match what the IR is expecting and the resulting tone will be different than the intended body tone. In addition, the pickups may be phased differently and might make the guitar sound worse rather than better. Magnetic pickups don't sound at all like piezo pickups, so the same acoustic body IRs don't generally work well for both.
 

This is something that bothered me... Thank you, amsdenj - an important explanation!

 

All these attempts to 'build a guitar out of another one' or to 'model guitars via using IRs'

are a bit more tricky than some guys might dream of... ;)

[Sacco_Belmonte]

Somebody should make some stereo IRs.

Bodies in mono are real bad compared to stereo.

I'm trying with convolver with my JS200 Jumbo, but so far is hard with Voxengo's convolver as I need a speaker inside it.

I'm gonna record some stereo short mallet hits over it and see how FL Studio's convolver goes. (No I don't have a Helix)

[PeterHamm]

Somebody should make some stereo IRs.

 

Bodies in mono are real bad compared to stereo.

 

I'm trying with convolver with my JS200 Jumbo, but so far is hard with Voxengo's convolver as I need a speaker inside it.

 

I'm gonna record some stereo short mallet hits over it and see how FL Studio's convolver goes. (No I don't have a Helix)

 

Use the built-in dual cabs. You'll be pleased.

 

Besides, there is no facility for using stereo IRs in Helix, only dual mono ones.

[Sacco_Belmonte]

Hey!  actually I got th BodyLizer VST and tried....I didn't think it was so good but wow!!!!! stereo images and zero phasing effect or washed out ttransients. Lovely plugin.

[Sacco_Belmonte]

Stay tuned I'm gonna do stereo IR's for bodylizer from these guitars:

- JS200 replica Jumbo

- Gitane DG300 Jorgenson

- Gretsch JimDandy

- Classic (one cutaway) big "Lava" guitar. 

- Sammick LaSalle JZ4

[PeterHamm]

Stay tuned I'm gonna do stereo IR's for bodylizer from these guitars:

 

- JS200 replica Jumbo

 

- Gitane DG300 Jorgenson

 

- Gretsch JimDandy

 

- Classic (one cutaway) big "Lava" guitar. 

 

- Sammick LaSalle JZ4

 

 

Cool, but... can't use those Stereo IRs in Helix. We can in our DAW or stuff like that, but Helix is mono only.

[Sacco_Belmonte]

Yes this is only for the plugin. For those interested of course.

[HonestOpinion]

3Sigma acoustic IRs: http://www.3sigmaaudio.com/acoustic-impulses/

[bsd512]

Here's my patch:

 

http://line6.com/support/topic/20131-line-6-helix-acoustic-sim-patch/

 

This video shows an EQ trick that really helps!  ... https://youtu.be/JaWM8Ou8zw8

 

Here's the EQ....

 

 

I tried your patch and very much liked it.  Thank you for sharing!

[Sacco_Belmonte]

Here are some more stereo IRs I did for Bodilizer VST, hope you find them useful.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0iCj7xEijuUcVR3VVJ6ZHpKQmM

[HonestOpinion]

what is that file format? And how would you make it work in helix?

 

 

Here are some more stereo IRs I did for Bodilizer VST, hope you find them useful.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0iCj7xEijuUcVR3VVJ6ZHpKQmM

 

Good question, this link needed some more info. Apparently they are only for use in the "Bodilizer" VST. 

[Sacco_Belmonte]

I thought you guys mentioned bodilizer in this thread, my apologies.

This one uses stereo IRs.

Here you can find it:

http://www.ijdata.com/products.html

I'm preparing a video with examples in English, I'm now about to render one in Spanish. WIll post here if you wanna hear the examples.

[jkuche]

Nice find. The Neumann U87 sits really nice in my acoustic patch. I'm using it in conjunction with a modified version of datacommando's patch: http://line6.com/customtone/tone/1802464/ 

I downloaded the Taylor IR's into the editor, but they do not appear in the block editor window so I can't get them into the IR block .

 

Any ideas?

[BigRalphN]

The converter seems too be removed which is probably because of legal implications as mentioned  3Sigma has some awesome acoustic  IRs   in use a  tube preamp and compression and a Gibson 3Sigma acoustic IR with my Carvun AE185 and its Piezzo. it sounds  very good

[jkuche]

The converter seems too be removed which is probably because of legal implications as mentioned  3Sigma has some awesome acoustic  IRs   in use a  tube preamp and compression and a Gibson 3Sigma acoustic IR with my Carvun AE185 and its Piezzo. it sounds  very good

I assume this regards the "failure to load the IR " issue . I will delete them from the Helix if the converter is mission critical unless I'm missing an easy step.

 

Probably buy the 3Sig

 

thanks , all  

[aleclee]

Somebody should make some stereo IRs.

 

 

Stereo IRs can be super tricky.  I remember beta testing the singtall presets for Amplifire and they all used stereo IRs.  Every single one of them had nasty comb filtering issues when summed to mono.  Wouldn't you know it: the final release of those presets all used mono IRs.  :o

[surfsup1955]

I downloaded the Taylor IR's into the editor, but they do not appear in the block editor window so I can't get them into the IR block .

 

Any ideas?

No idea? They drag into the editor and show up, just like any other IR on mine.

[jkuche]

Been playing Tak and Ibanez acoustic guitars live through the Helix using 3Sigma IR's  . Great tone, very little clip, fizz, etc. Much better than the Firehawk.

 

I asked for help on the acoustic stuff before - experience was the key.

 

I saw a post that described a way to scroll thru the IR's using controller-assignment. Just can't recall. Anyone have the link to the thread?

[zooey]

That's pedal edit mode. Definitely your friend when you're auditioning IRs.

[pbatts]

On 6/24/2017 at 8:55 PM, jkuche said:

Been playing Tak and Ibanez acoustic guitars live through the Helix using 3Sigma IR's  . Great tone, very little clip, fizz, etc. Much better than the Firehawk.

 

I asked for help on the acoustic stuff before - experience was the key.

 

I saw a post that described a way to scroll thru the IR's using controller-assignment. Just can't recall. Anyone have the link to the thread?

 

Year old post, I know, but no Controller Assignment needed, just use onboard Edit mode to scroll through IRs loaded into Helix.

[jkuche]

Pbatts- thanks - I'll give it a whirl

 

j