Impulse Responses

[Mooselake]

What are you using?
How many do you have?
How quickly did you find the ONE?

I use OwnHammer Heavy Hitters 1, for me it's perfection.

I've started collecting IR since 2006, early Redwirez etc.
Now i own a s**t ton of them form every vendor and overall I like OwnHammer the best.

I've gone back to mostly just using cab models (Helix). The last IRs I was building into presets were Jay Mitchell's reflection-free IRs.

A few hundred, mostly from a couple Ownhammer sets.

Never did find "the one".

 

[James Freeman]

I LOVE OwnHammer IRs.
Heavy Hitters 1, single SM57 position 5 on any cab.

 

[NightWalker]

i have tons of IRs,my favorite are from Valhallir

 

[James Freeman]

The more I fiddle with IRs the more I hear that my favorite records are just an SM57 in front of the right speaker, and maybe some ambient mic a few feet away.

The typical 57+121 blend most IR vendors provide in the Summary or as "01" are thick and sound good when playing solo but might have too much bottom end and not enough bite in a mix, lately I find that I prefer a single SM57 on everything, it sounds just right to me.

edit:
I think most mic blend by vendors are phase aligned so you don't get the same phase interaction when micing a real cab with more than one mic, might as well be a simple EQ adjustment.
My train of thought here is the single mic files are closer to the source and more realistic than the phase aligned Mix/Summary blends.

 

[laxu]

The typical 57+121 blend most IR vendors provide in the Summary or as "01" are thick and sound good when playing solo but might have too much bottom end and not enough bite in a mix, lately I find that I prefer a single SM57 on everything, it sounds just right to me.

That's why I prefer the 57+160 most of the time. Less big in the lows while letting the bite of the 57 come through.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

The more I fiddle with IRs the more I hear that my favorite records are just an SM57 in front of the right speaker, and maybe some ambient mic a few feet away.

The typical 57+121 blend most IR vendors provide in the Summary or as "01" are thick and sound good when playing solo but might have too much bottom end and not enough bite in a mix, lately I find that I prefer a single SM57 on everything, it sounds just right to me.

edit:
I think most mic blend by vendors are phase aligned so you don't get the same phase interaction when micing a real cab with more than one mic, might as well be a simple EQ adjustment.
My train of thought here is the single mic files are closer to the source and more realistic than the phase aligned Mix/Summary blends.

I've been really into using single condenser mic IRs recently when playing in the house. If I'm recording I tend to go for a 57 or sm7 single mic.

 

[DiBiQuadroAudio]

What are you using?
How many do you have?
How quickly did you find the ONE?

I use OwnHammer Heavy Hitters 1, for me it's perfection.

I've started collecting IR since 2006, early Redwirez etc.
Now i own a s**t ton of them form every vendor and overall I like OwnHammer the best.

Looks like half of this thread is about OwnHammer/York IRs :)

I remember OwnHammer was also the first to publish what we called later "PwrCabs": libraries for Acustica Audio Nebula based on non-linear convolution, to capture harmonic distortion (how much harmonic distortion does a speaker have? Does it depend on the speaker breakup / the volume? that's another topic).

We developed/released about one year ago our own version of non-linear convolution (up to 40 harmonics) and integrated it in our plugins. They are more refined and ready to use now (mainly on the top end) in comparison to what we initially released with Acustica Audio. That's what we use.

 

[DrewJD82]

That's why I prefer the 57+160 most of the time. Less big in the lows while letting the bite of the 57 come through.

9x out of 10, if I can’t find something with just a 160 in a York pack, I just add a 57 and there it is!

 

[York Audio]

The more I fiddle with IRs the more I hear that my favorite records are just an SM57 in front of the right speaker, and maybe some ambient mic a few feet away.

The typical 57+121 blend most IR vendors provide in the Summary or as "01" are thick and sound good when playing solo but might have too much bottom end and not enough bite in a mix, lately I find that I prefer a single SM57 on everything, it sounds just right to me.

edit:
I think most mic blend by vendors are phase aligned so you don't get the same phase interaction when micing a real cab with more than one mic, might as well be a simple EQ adjustment.
My train of thought here is the single mic files are closer to the source and more realistic than the phase aligned Mix/Summary blends.

I don’t phase align my Mixes, so they have the natural phase relationship of those two mics on the cab. When recording with a 57+121 Mix, use a high pass to get the low end where you like it (typically depends on the amp and guitar you’re using). You can brighten things up with your treble/presence knobs if needed, but yeah, sometimes a single 57 is all you need. :) There’s a reason why that mic is such a staple for recording guitars… it sits in the mix really well.

9x out of 10, if I can’t find something with just a 160 in a York pack, I just add a 57 and there it is!

I’ve always like the 58+160 blend, but I’ll have to try a 57+160 next time. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Orvillain]

I don’t phase align my Mixes, so they have the natural phase relationship of those two mics on the cab.

I wish Line 6 and Fractal did this for their stock cabs too.

 

[James Freeman]

I don’t phase align my Mixes, so they have the natural phase relationship of those two mics on the cab.

Hmm, isn't the Natural Phase Singles folder phase aligned?
The non-MPT folders with OwnHammer is the same, they are all aligned.

The Minimum Phase Singles and MPT folder are also all aligned but also trimmed for minimum latency.

 

[York Audio]

Hmm, isn't the Natural Phase Singles folder phase aligned?
The non-MPT folders with OwnHammer is the same, they are all aligned.

View attachment 6616


The Minimum Phase Singles and MPT folder are also all aligned but also trimmed for minimum latency.

That’s what happens when you measure to make sure each microphone’s capsule is at the same distance. I don’t get that nerdy about it anymore.

 

[James Freeman]

That’s what happens when you measure to make sure each microphone’s capsule is at the same distance.

To align an SM57 and a E906 to the sample the distance between the microphone grilles is around 10mm, the capsules sit at a different depth from the microphone grill.
That's with the mics at the same axial distance from center to either side, the speaker itself is not a flat surface but conical so that also changes when the mics will be aligned depending on how far each mic is from the center.

I can only speak for myself but not in a million years I could align 2 microphones to the sample by measuring with a ruler, I had to repeat the recording like 15 times and micro move the mic stands until the samples align in my DAW.

That's with TWO microphones, I can't even begin to imagine how York or OH actually do this for the entire collection of mics.
Call me a liar but I think the mics are aligned digitally, no freaking way they align 10 mics with random positions mechanically TO THE SAMPLE.

 

[Elf]

Im a York fan, and never much bothered to try any others. I fell in love with the Friedman pack he did so much that I actually bought the same cab he used for the pack…

View attachment 45

Lovely rig!!!!

 

[Sascha Franck]

What are you using?

Mainly still the RW BigPack, but I have some smaller packages of other vendors, too. And all the freebies there are it seems. Easily over 100k in total, but the "active" ones are way less (20k or so). Got a collection of some I shot on my own, too.

How quickly did you find the ONE?

Very, if I need to (I hardly fool around with IRs anymore), simply because they're all in Logic's Space Designer preset format, which makes scrolling and trying IRs a breeze, pretty much like adjusting an EQ.

 

[York Audio]

@James Freeman Here's a picture of some random natural phase files from the Kerry Wright cab I just did. A couple 57s, 121s, and the 906. They aren't perfectly aligned, but they're close. This is how I normally make my packs. The Marshall M25 pack you showed in your earlier post was done three years ago. I experiment a lot, learn as I go, and change things all the time to see what works and what doesn't. I admit those files look aligned... I don't remember doing that, but it's entirely possible that that was one of my experiments and I went with it.

 

[James Freeman]

Got it, thank you for clarifying.

 

[imperator]

I use em all, York, OH, ML, Bogren, Otto.

I tend to gravitate towards, greenbacks m25, p50e, or legend v12s.

 

[James Freeman]

I don't get it, yesterday I thought I found the perfect IR, but today it sounds like shit.
Anyone?

Maybe I should burn-in this IR with some loud pink noise and 60Hz to smooth things out?

 

[Sascha Franck]

Maybe I should burn-in this IR with some loud pink noise and 60Hz to smooth things out?

I think cryo tuning is where it's at.