The Watering Hole

just getting into this lately.

I tried the Redwirez free cab - nice but a bit bottom heavy and scooped(ish).

thought about buying more to get different speakers but then I thought, WTF you have speakers and mics... do your own!

so I made an IR of my usual setup and with a little high end tweak, it sounds almost identical to a mic'ed version - really impressed with it.

since I'm using Apple tools for this (Logic, Impulse Response Utility etc.) I don't get many options and the impulse file is not saved as a .wav - instead it appears to be .sdir which is some sort of .aif - aifc?

anyways, if anyone thinks they can use such a file, I'll be happy to upload it - but I think I'll very likely have more (better versions) of these in the future, they're damn fun to make!

like... what would making an IR of an echoplex do for my digital reverb tone... HMMMM :)

here's a clip, bogner -> hotplate line out -> impulse.

bogner's clean channel isn't the greatest but here it's also not dialed in well, just a quick demo hodgepodge in some whacked out C modal tuning. there's also reverb in the first part... also IR though!

*note: not saying this is a good tone/mix or anything but it's the same as mic'ing it though. so cool - I can play at all hours now! haha

Ok you can convert .sdir to .wav with this:

http://www.dilbir.org/Sample_Manager_v3.1.3.dmg

Just share after you do. I think I like it. :)

I've no idea if this is a "good" impulse... no warranty - as is!!

over time, and as I learn wtf I'm doing, I'll put together a mic/speaker/position collection of my meager gear - should be fun.

Sounds good.  I am finding that a good combination of impulses seems to be create an impulse from the front of the cab and then take another one mic'd from the back of the cab and then blend the two impulses together.  It gives a nice full rounded tone and sounds like a cabinet because of the back mic.   Phasing is easy too if you keep them as separate impulses as you can slide the start points and flip the phase etc so they line-up really well.  It's worth giving it a go and if nothing else it is damn good fun making them.

I just gave your cab a whirl on one of your FNJ's - amazinly I still kept the reaper project so I just changed my cab for yours and then eq'd it a bit as my amp is quite bright.

yeah, I had to do a high shelf starting at about 2khz to get it to sound really close to the original (about -4dB) - why that was necessary (what causes it) is on the list for experimental discovery.

or, the high end response could be accurate - explains many of my gear choices and settings - constantly battling that brightness.

I got some pretty cool impulses for "room" use by mic'ing a neighboring room while the cab was getting it's sweep.


I can almost tell that your recording is my mic/cab but guitars/amps are different giving a totally different result... excellent.


this was a mic'ed g12H30 that's in a 2x12 with a T-75, btw - no grille cloth, but it's about .5" from where that would be and on the cap edge.

I'll be doing more this week (mic positions/mics/speakers/etc), kinda busy today though. :(

also from the frown department... I'm feeling the need for better microphones and sonic environments now. GAS... damnit.

by the way watch your ears when doing the IR sweep.  Even at moderate volume the sweep really hits every nasty spot that your ears and head can take.....nearly blew my head off the first time I did it :-0

lol, no kidding - I rattled the house for a few seconds and then woke up all the dogs in the neighborhood on the first sweep. ;)


btw, I was assuming that it would be better to hit the speaker with a loud sweep - does it matter? figured the speaker sounds a bit different when pushed, so probably it does make a difference but I don't know for certain.

I don't have a pristine amp to send the sweep with either, so that's a factor - flexi fx return is about the best I could do, though I'm going to try the bogner's and see if that's different - or try to figure out some other way to send it clean (home stereo, solid state keyboard amp... something). on the other hand, I'll probably try the flexi with heavy powertube compression/distortion too... could be ugly, might be awesome - we'll see. heh.

If you distort the sound it can fuck up the impulse completely as distortion cannot be "modelled" by an impulse.   I also found that simply using a clean amp with flat EQ didn't always produce the best result either.   I use a clean solid state amp to drive the sweep and I also have an eq in the chain and with trial and error I knocked out the annoying frequencies 2khz etc.

I think the louder the better, but that's just an ignorant poke as I just like it louder :-)

One of the more impressive plugins I've seen is recabinet. $99, cross-platform, includes a bunch of cabs, mics, and eq, and seems to get the latency down very low.

http://www.recabi.net/

I remember Rocket talking about how loud it was when he did all those cab impulses.  I still have them, as does Craig (I think) if any of you lost them and want to try them.

I appreciate if you upload them somewhere DTR.

I still have them uploaded - no idea how "fresh" they are though...  :)

http://www.nwdreamer.com/CabImpulses/

tidbit: I seem to be getting much better results at lower sweep volumes - probably because the rooms I have available just suck for getting a really clean audio track due to vibrations etc.

well, this didn't really work out for me.

final thoughts as I move away from digital again...

making impulse responses is a lot of fun! making good ones is impossible in my house. way too much audible vibratory interference when sweeping at high volume.

and... sweeping at low volume works better for a clean IR but it's wholly inaccurate - bass response is almost gone.

using the redwirez free cabs, which are great sounding IR's, I still found that there is something just... missing. no surprise here, it's a model - of course it's not just like the real thing, but I thought the missing bits might be something I could live without... nope.

oh well, was fun but I'm going back to loud amps and cheap mics leaving this digital crap for late night practice! heh.

on the plus side, the curiosity spawned by all the kemper talk lately was more than satisfied... without spending any money! ;)

I find impulses useable but there is something about them that is never quite right, or at least that is my perception but that maybe just because I am looking too hard. If you do a blind test and ask for opinions no-one can actually tell the difference except you, at least that's what I've found

yeah, that's exactly it - after listening for a while I started to hear the IR instead of the amp. not a problem for anyone but me... but a really big problem for me.

"that which has been seen cannot be unseen" applies to "heard" as well, apparently.

Dang it sheep, I was hoping you'd stay interested in this long enough to do a new set of impulses to share.   ;)

This is really interesting stuff....  There is still a missing link, but that link just keeps getting smaller and smaller...  

DreamTheaterRules — Nov 09, 2011There is still a missing link, but that link just keeps getting smaller and smaller...  

I'm afraid that's age doing that to you Howie  ;D

I did a bunch of them but they aren't right/worth sharing - either they have rolled off low end response from sweeping at lower volume or they have some artifacts (sounds like a phantom ring mod in the background, faintly) from rattling the crap out of the house while sweeping at high volume.

if I had an acoustically dead bunker to use... it would work better.

but, even if they were perfect, they'd still be snapshots/impressions of what it sounded like... a very nice approximation but still an approximation. maybe they'll be equivalent someday but I kinda doubt it. I gave up trying to make an electric sound like an acoustic a long long time ago... not sure why I keep trying to make digital sound like analog. they're just different things - both good at what they do.

ironsheep — Nov 09, 2011

"that which has been seen cannot be unseen" applies to "heard" as well, apparently.

That's a real peach, right there.  ;D

By the way, I did like the sample IR  and added it to my file of various Impulses posted by the guys here.

I would be interested in an IR of the Echoplex setup.  Curious how that would sound with a line Out Laney.  You remember that one?

you still have it? nice!

I'll do some echoplex ones once I get an impedance matching setup going. the ones I did a while ago don't sound right.

(good to see you back!)

Yeah, I still have it.  It's the only amp that I kept.  I sold most everything except my old Gibson.  I only kept the stuff that I bought from guys here.  The cab I have is the Pine Cab that Rocket built for me.
with a 12" speaker that I bought from Howie.

I hadn't played in forever, til the other day.