Can the file that the IR was loaded from be determined?

[billbassler]

I screwed up. I was auditioning a bunch of the free Redwire Marshall IRs. I came across a couple that together really have the sound that I was going for in a preset. However, I failed to realize that the long descriptive names in the Redwire IR file names got truncated to a length (25) that typically makes these descriptive names meaningless when they are imported into the Helix. I took a look in the .hlx file but the original file name is not there (didn't expect to be ... but). I assume that there's no way now to determine the files that I loaded? Also I posted this issue on Ideascale as a 25 length name limit is a bit of a usability issue. Any remedies or suggestions on how to determine the files or how to name the IRs in the future are appreciated.

[DarrellM5]

I think the current solution is to rename the IRs.  Either give them a name that resembles the preset (Chris Beaver does an excellent job of this with his free patches and IRs) or have each one start with 01, 02, 03, etc...

[zooey]

Well... If I'm understanding you right, you have the files you want in your helix now, and your presets use them, yes? If that's true, then export the IRs (to a different directly than the originals), and do a file compare with each RedWirez file. Cumbersome I know, each Helix file vs each Redwirez file. If there are tons of files, that would suck.

 

(A programmer, which I am, could help with that, but I'm pretty overwhelmed with life at the moment. If you know someone else with those sorts of chops, ask them.)

[billbassler]

Yes. Compare would be cumbersome. And would need the appropriate app to eval the files. The closest freebie that I found which apparently didn't install properly was http://www.libinst.com/Audio%20DiffMaker.htm

[zooey]

You don't need an audio-specific compare utility, anything that compare binary (non-text) files should work. I use Beyond Compare in my work, and it's awesome, but not free. WinDiff is free (if you're on Windows).

 

But unless I don't understand something, any program, including the one you tried, has the same drawback, which that you'd have to compare each individual Helix file you're interested in with every RedWirez file.

 

You can see which IR numbers are used by your presets, right? If you drag just those IRs out of the editor onto a file system window, then you'll have only those few files on the Helix side to deal with. You will have to compare each on with each RedWirez file, but it should work.

[bsd512]

Well, I just wrote a little shell script to do it and was about to share it.  But it appears that the exported file from the Helix does not actually match the the one you loaded in.  So this method of file comparison won't work.

 

The Helix must convert the IR internally such that when exported, it no longer matches what you loaded.

 

For example, checksums for both the original file and that exported from the Helix:

 

Original:

MD5 (OH 412 MAR-CB M75+H75 421-02.wav) = a1b26c564ee713b1904d9e22601accbb

 

Exported:

MD5 (OH 412 MAR-CB M75+H75 421-.wav) = 324d373cf77dc8871ecfb84fa2fdf74b

 

And the file sizes are much different, too.  The exported file is only about 8.1KB, while the original is around 28KB.

 

Bummer.

[zooey]

Nice work bsd512, whether it's a solution or not. Probably the IRs you loaded were higher resolution than Helix supports internally, so it converted them.

 

Which means that to do this up fully, there needs to be the extra step of loading them into Helix while keeping track of which file is in which slot, then eexporting them, still keeping track, then comparing the converted versions with the ones used in the OP's presets.

 

Fair amount of hassle.

[Dshow]

There are some entries on Ideascale about that. It would be a good idea to vote so that it gets more attention

[billbassler]

I didn't find anything when I searched. So I added another if it already existed. It should be an easy fix.

[PeterHamm]

One of the reasons I use built-in cabs... (runs and hides...)
:ph34r:

[Dshow]

I didn't find anything when I searched. So I added another if it already existed. It should be an easy fix.

http://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Impulse-Response-IR-Helix-display-use-32-character-name-std/820789-23508

[zooey]

Another thought: Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Helix alters the files on import, at least in some cases, if you had a directory containing all your original IRs and all the IRs in your Helix, a program that can find content-only dupes regardless of file name should help. I checked out dupeGuru a little, seems pretty cool. Note that the current version is Mac only, but the last Windows version works on Win 7 64 at least.

 

As far as that alteration is concerned, that requires another step of exporting everything from Helix while keeping track of what's what, as discussed above.