IR Question

[macnevine]

Yet another question from this HX Stomp newbie.  I have been reading about IRs.  I am confused what IRs are exactly?  Are these just speakers cabs or are they Amps Cabs and Speaker cabs packaged?  Also are all IRs universal for HX Stomp and the full sized Helix?  

[themetallikid]

IR's are the same as the 'cab' block.  They just have everything 'baked in' as opposed to being able to change the cab type, mic type, mic distance, etc. 

 

So instead of having access to those parameters, you'd have an IR file for a Marshall 4x12/SM57 2"off axis, another file might be the same but slightly different of Marshall 4x12/MD421 2"off axis.  Every IR file is a different setting for cab/mic/speaker distance

[macnevine]

Thanks are the IR's universal between hx stomp and the full sized helix.  I notice some of the IRs end in .wav and others end in .hlx  are these both IR formats?  Also I notice some of the pre-sets that come with IRs say that the IR needs to be loaded into a certain number slot.  Why is this?  I promise I tried to google search this topic and these questions are not obvious. 

[njglover]

An IR is just an audio file. It is not platform specific and indeed you could use them with Axe-FX, too. Sometimes they will have different files because of length requirements or something, but otherwise there is no difference.

 

HLX files are Helix bundles. You'd be putting a whole new preset/patch/setlist/whatever on your unit isntead of just an IR. Not what you want.

 

If it says to put it in a specific slot, that's because you are loading up someone else's patch and they saved it with that IR in that slot. So if you load up their patch and it has an IR block that is looking at slot 6 but you put that IR in slot 4, it's gonna be looking at the wrong IR and will sound different than what the person intended.

 

There are quite a few resources out their on IRs. You might check the vendors like Ownhammer since they do a pretty good job explaining what they are selling you.