How to Choose 3rd Party IRs?

[sikter]

Hey guys,

 

I apologize if this is something that's already been discussed, but I wasn't able to find what I was looking for.

 

I want to start using 3rd party IRs but I don't know what to get and where to start. So many mic, cab, and 44-96khz options to chose from. It would take months to go thought all of those offered. 

 

My main amp is Vox AC30, and that's what I'm used to, but Im not opposed to any amp that would help me get good clean, crunch, and lead tones.

 

When I've seen OH collection it was overwhelming, and I have no idea where to start. The same with other 3rd party IR providers.

 

If anyone is willing to share some thoughts and give some guidance to a newbie on IRs, that would be great.

 

Any good ones for any particular style (rnr, blues, clean, hard rock, etc.) that you might recommend? 

 

Thank you all for your help.

 

Peace.

[Rocco_Crocco]

I too found the Ownhammer IR's to be overwhelming. Too many choices for me, but YMMV.

 

"3 Sigma" has way fewer IR's and they sound great. Each cab pack has 10 IRs... half are bass heavy for brittle sounding amp models, and half are normal. I love 'em.

 

http://www.3sigmaaudio.com/

[Garhel]

I'd only tried the Redwirez and OH free ones and got some good results, but tbh as a relative newbie to modelling I felt I was shooting in the dark until I happened to stumble across the ones that worked for me. When you find the right ones though they both gave some remarkable results.  

 

About 3 weeks ago i bought a few 3 Sigma packs, just based  on some of the discussions on here.  Much simpler presentation, and i found it much easier to find the one i was looking for, plus they sound great.  I got their AC30 pack and like them a lot.  Highly recommended from me.

[sikter]

Thanks guys. I'm new to modeling as well, and anything that I can learn is good.

[vmoncebaiz]

It can be overwhelming, and I've spent waaaaaay to much time trying to find the difference between mic and distance combinations in folders full of hundreds of IRs.

 

But if you want to explore all your options and even see which IRs you like, load 128 at a time into Helix and use the foot edit mode (hold FS6) to scroll through and audition them quickly - Just set up the amp model and whatever effects you want to hear, put an IR block in and click though.  

 

I found with redwire and ownhammer IRs, I like certain mics on certain cabs, but I really only use only 1 position/distance setting. 

[alpag]

The first thing I do is take out only the 48hz 16bit 200 long IRs.

This is the format that Helix can use.

If you use the others, they get converted anyway, so that reduces a lot of IRs from the package.

That can still leave a lot. And here some recording knowledge is a big help, like speaker type and placement.

Redwirez has the most options, and so is better for more experienced studio people, while 3sigma and CABIR.EU have fewer options, but they are well considered ones by experts taking all kinds of measurements for you.

Hope that helps.

[SymphonicDischord]

Another 3 Sigma user here as well. I bought a handful of them and have really liked what I've heard. The simplicity of 10 per pack definitely makes it a lot easier to audition them and I found there was enough sound variation between each one that made it a lot easier to land on the tone your after. There was no real second guessing of "did this one really sound a little brighter than the last?" You can definitely hear the difference as you flip through them.

[bsd512]

I'm no pro, but I've tried Redwirez, 3Sigma, OwnHammer, and Rosen.

 

For me, the OwnHammers sound the best to my ears.  While I think they all sound great, I think they sound the best in pairs of different ones, both behind the amp for stereo output.  A pair I like a lot is their 57 mic paired with a 160 mic, perhaps with different speakers on each one, i.e., G12C on one and V30 on the other depending on cabinet, and even entirely different cabinets.  Can give some really nice results.  But whatever mic's you use, try mixing them up in a pair of IRs used together in the same patch, split 50/50 right after the amp.

 

If you're using a single IR behind the amp, try their OH1F or OH2F mic mix.  You can grab all these from the QuickStart subdirectory.  Then set the low and high cuts on each IR block to 72 hz and around 5-6K respectively.  That's been a good combination for me.  And setting the lo/hi cuts are important, otherwise they can sound really boomy or bright, depending on the amp and whatever output device you're using.

 

Hope it helps and saves you some time from auditioning 1000's.  :-)

[Sacco_Belmonte]

Question: Can one use reverb IRs in the Helix? such as some long verb out from a Bricasti unit in wav format?

Thank you.

[soblivion]

I'm currently using the Rosen IRs. With Rosen you get three IR's per cab. Unfortunately they don't give much information about the IRs but they do have a youtube channel where you can hear all of them.

 

I've also used the OH and Redwires. I'd probably be more inclined to use them if I had a lot of experience recording and using a lot of different microphones and placements.

[njglover]

Question: Can one use reverb IRs in the Helix? such as some long verb out from a Bricasti unit in wav format?

 

Thank you.

 

No, reverb IRs are much longer than cab IRs. I have just been using the Ownhammer free pack for the most part. This limits my choices since not as many options are included, but there are still a lot. In my case, I was trying to mimic the sound I was used to from my actual amp and cab (when recorded, that is), so I picked the cab that most closely aligned with what I had and the mic options that I thought were the most likely to line up with what I had used and loaded all of those up. As I found ones that I definitely did not like, I removed those until I had just a few and kept auditioning between them until I found one I liked. In this case, I was auditioning them versus my recorded guitar tone from my real amp. It was a long process, but I wound up with something I really like, so it was worth it.

[erniedenov]

I too found the Ownhammer IR's to be overwhelming. Too many choices for me, but YMMV.

 

Same here. And the difference from one to the other can be so subtle that you can lose all perspective after auditioning the multitudes that come in a pack.

 

I bought a 3 Sigma Diezel 4x12 IR and it was a bit too scooped sounding for my taste.

 

So far, the most usable 3rd party IRs I've gotten were this freebie from Celestion: https://www.celestionplus.com/free-download  I'm planning on purchasing some of their other IRs when my work picks up.

[Sacco_Belmonte]

Stupid forum deleted what I wrote! (it was somewhat long) grrrr....whatever!

Ah well...is the way these chips are. And that's that.

Thanks for your answer.