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Giving IRs a try for the first time...


jbuhajla
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After a few months of using the Helix, I am finally getting around to trying some IRs. I tried the OH and Redwirez freebies last night. Just a really simple patch: AMP>room reverb>IR. I REALLY like the difference! The IRs are much more "clear" and the response to picking articulation is much more "snappy". I play only in the clean-crunch realm, and really liked what I heard. 

 

So I found that Rosen Digital Audio is having a 20% off, buy 3 get 1 free sale. I bought 4 for under $20. Can't wait to give them a try over the holidays.

 

I am not a professional musician, so I don't have a lot of time to tweak tones. The IRs are going to save me a lot of time getting tones that I like. 

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I agree with you about the improvements you can get with IRs.

But the stock cabs have improved from the firmware 2.00 onwards.

If it works for you then its good.

 

My advice is to try 2 cabs. Same cab but different mic on each. You'll love the extra depth of tone.

Al

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The stock cabs are not bad at all. Last night I actually set up an identical stock cab and A/Bed with the IR. Same mic settings for each. I landed up turning up the room reflections on the stock cabs almost all the way to get the "fullness" that the IR had. I still liked the clarity and response to picking articulation better with the IR. I am sure I will find some presets that I will like the stock cab better, but I do love the flexibility of being able to use both. 

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I was using the stock cabs for the better part of the last year, and I still do on some of my clean-only patches, but for my heavy distortion patches, IR's are where its at. That Mesa pack that Rosen Digital gave away here....so good. I still gotta do a little clip but I've been too busy playing.

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One thing that I think is a big factor with IR's, and I could be wrong, is that I believe an IR uses less DSP than the built in Cabs so conceivably, a simple preset, with little effects, could be stellar with the built in Cabs but once you start adding lush reverbs and such... I think that's where 3rd Party IR's really start to shine.

 

And remember, besides Cab IR's there are also tone-matching IR's out there.  

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One thing that I think is a big factor with IR's, and I could be wrong, is that I believe an IR uses less DSP than the built in Cabs so conceivably, a simple preset, with little effects, could be stellar with the built in Cabs but once you start adding lush reverbs and such... I think that's where 3rd Party IR's really start to shine.

 

And remember, besides Cab IR's there are also tone-matching IR's out there.

The stock cabs use less DSP than a 2048 sample IR - about half as much, actually - and offer the same resolution.

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Don't get me wrong, you can get a great sound from the stock cabs. I do have a couple of templates built that sound good. I run two cabs in parallel, two different mics, one with the room reflections cranked, also a 5ms time delay/50% mix (using a reverb 0s delay, 5ms pre delay ) on one of the cabs. Sounds really good. Still doesn't have the response to picking articulation that I like that an IR has though. More of a "feel" thing for me. 

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The stock cabs use less DSP than a 2048 sample IR - about half as much, actually - and offer the same resolution.

 

For a long time I used only stock cabs and they worked fine for me.  The only serious limitation I felt they had was the lack of mic cement options relative to the cone of the speaker.  In real life cabinet mic'ing that's always been a big deal for me.  But I could find ways to compensate.  Once I tried out the OwnHammer IR's with all their various options it sold me in spite of the additional use of DSP.  I rarely run into DSP problems in my patches...they just aren't that complex generally.  However using the right configuraition of IR with mic and mic placements has DRAMATICALLY reduced the amount of time I need to have to tweak the sound of a patch.

 

I'm don't think of myself as a tone Diva by any stretch of the imagination, but if I can get the tone I want with just an IR and no additional EQ blocks, I'm way ahead of the game.

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The stock cabs use less DSP than a 2048 sample IR - about half as much, actually - and offer the same resolution.

 

WOW...  ok.. that I did not know.  This is fact?  I don't mean to question, I just thought with offering mic placement and modeling and such that it seemed obvious to me (apparently incorrectly) that just loading a .wav file was much easier on overhead.

 

 

For a long time I used only stock cabs and they worked fine for me.  The only serious limitation I felt they had was the lack of mic cement options relative to the cone of the speaker.  In real life cabinet mic'ing that's always been a big deal for me.  But I could find ways to compensate.  Once I tried out the OwnHammer IR's with all their various options it sold me in spite of the additional use of DSP.  I rarely run into DSP problems in my patches...they just aren't that complex generally.  However using the right configuraition of IR with mic and mic placements has DRAMATICALLY reduced the amount of time I need to have to tweak the sound of a patch.

 

I'm don't think of myself as a tone Diva by any stretch of the imagination, but if I can get the tone I want with just an IR and no additional EQ blocks, I'm way ahead of the game.

 

I'm with you DunedinDragon on this.   My experience has also been the limitation of mic placement.  If I want the sound of a Celestion near the edge or at an angle, that just isn't going to happen with the stock cabs.  Regarding distance, it would actually be more useful to me if there were numbers higher than 12"  as well.  

 

Having said this...  I use 3Sigma and Ownhammer and some other IR's mainly because they are what someone who created a preset I am using is using... or   just because I can.  The internal ones I think are fine and sometimes they are spot on.  

 

It sure is nice to have lots of stellar choices.

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For a long time I used only stock cabs and they worked fine for me.  The only serious limitation I felt they had was the lack of mic cement options relative to the cone of the speaker.  In real life cabinet mic'ing that's always been a big deal for me.  But I could find ways to compensate.  Once I tried out the OwnHammer IR's with all their various options it sold me in spite of the additional use of DSP.  I rarely run into DSP problems in my patches...they just aren't that complex generally.  However using the right configuraition of IR with mic and mic placements has DRAMATICALLY reduced the amount of time I need to have to tweak the sound of a patch.

 

I'm don't think of myself as a tone Diva by any stretch of the imagination, but if I can get the tone I want with just an IR and no additional EQ blocks, I'm way ahead of the game.

 

I've been running my amp model and preamp effects on one DSP and the IR with effects between amp/cab and post cab on the other DSP. Plenty of room for whatever effects I want to run that way. 

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The stock cabs use less DSP than a 2048 sample IR - about half as much, actually - and offer the same resolution.

Hey Phil I really like the stock cabs but I think they can be tweaked a bit to sound even better... Do you know if there are any future updates in regards to the stock cabs or if there are any plans to add new cabs? 

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