IRs made with tube amps (ML Sound Lab claims)

[jay mitchell]

Riiiight, I see what you're saying. And I concur, of course. There's a similar problem in drum sampling; turning up a soft layer, or turning down a loud layer, to fill in a gap in the middle.... doesn't really work most of the time.

That's because the spectral content of drum sounds changes - sometimes quite a lot, and in a nonlinear way - with the intensity of the strike.

There's a bit of clever trickery you can do to fool people,

You can do the same thing with virtual mic placement by applying strategic equalization. It will satisfy lots of people, but it will have little resemblance to actually moving a mic.

but in essence, if you didn't record it... you don't gots it.

Yup.

 

[Orvillain]

That's because the spectral content of drum sounds changes - sometimes quite a lot, and in a nonlinear way - with the intensity of the strike.

They're probably the most complicated thing I've sampled. Even a 2cm drift from the snare of a snare drum off to the side can change the tone massively.

 

[saarangnarayan]

I am no fan of the guy, but the tackily titled "ML Sound Lab's Best IR in the World" is still my core #1 IR. I blend it with a Greenback, but that blend is at -12dB. I absolutely loathe the NDSP-style hype-driven marketing that ML does. I think a lot of newer companies fall prey to this fallacy that they have to be the "Apple" of their niche. Nothing puts me off more than this kind of bullshit. But nothing sounds pleasing to my ears like that one free IR he put out. The Ownhammer Moabi cab pack is a VERY close second (not that OH has kept its reputation up recently, IIRC). But none of the other Mesa V30 IR packs (of which I have an ungodly amount) sound as good to me. Even ML's dozen(?) other V30 packs don't sound halfway as good to me.

 

[Dimiguitar]

I am no fan of the guy, but the tackily titled "ML Sound Lab's Best IR in the World" is still my core #1 IR. I blend it with a Greenback, but that blend is at -12dB. I absolutely loathe the NDSP-style hype-driven marketing that ML does. I think a lot of newer companies fall prey to this fallacy that they have to be the "Apple" of their niche. Nothing puts me off more than this kind of bullshit. But nothing sounds pleasing to my ears like that one free IR he put out. The Ownhammer Moabi cab pack is a VERY close second (not that OH has kept its reputation up recently, IIRC). But none of the other Mesa V30 IR packs (of which I have an ungodly amount) sound as good to me. Even ML's dozen(?) other V30 packs don't sound halfway as good to me.

For what kind of music do you use the IR for?

 

[jay mitchell]

Further to the idea of filtering (equalizing) IRs, heres an overlay of the IR I posted earlier (red) with an equalized version (green). The brightening process took two filters: a 2nd order 8dB HF boost with 13kHz knee frequency, and a 5kHz, Q 3.5 parametric cut of ca. 8dB.

Note that the content below ~6k is minimally altered, whereas frequencies above that have been brought up. This is just an off-the-cuff exercise for demonstration purposes. The amount of HF boost could just as easily be greater or less than the amount I chose.

 

[jay mitchell]

They're probably the most complicated thing I've sampled.

Attempts to mathematically model the vibrational behavior of stretched membranes immediately immerse you in a swamp of unsolvable coupled differential equations and boundary conditions.

Even a 2cm drift from the snare of a snare drum off to the side can change the tone massively.

Correct. It's an effect which good drummers constantly exploit that is unavailable (at least in any convincing form) in edrums.

 

[synthpenguin]

OK, I’ll bite. You guys tell me if I’m completely goofy or not, and if I am, it won’t hurt my feelings.

I still use one of Jay‘s 412 IR captures quite often. At times I find that it doesn’t have enough high-end for what I’m using it for. So I apply an EQ and get the high-end that I need for the particular track or sound. I find that to be easier and actually sound a lot better in most cases than searching for a different IR.

Is that stupid?

No. I think you should find an IR (or set of IRs) that at least mostly gets the sound you want, just like you'd try to get most of the sound irl by choosing mics and mic positions, but that a lot of frustration over "finding the perfect IR" (or the perfect speaker) can be solved with a little post EQ and maybe some clipping, which is also standard practice in any actual mixes.

Outside of some specific cases with either less picky or more experienced engineers, basically all of the recorded guitar tracks you hear are EQ'd after being recorded from mics: sometimes just a little bit, and sometimes heavily EQ'd in ways that would probably offend some guitarists lol. With IRs, you're giving up a certain degree of control that those experienced engineers have anyway, even if you can mitigate that with things like the DynaCabs and Helix's cab engine, or by having a large collection of IRs. I don't think there's any reason to limit yourself further by removing post EQ, another commonly used tool, from your toolbox too.

As with all of these things, just try to get fairly close to your intended sound (or at least move in that direction) at each step along the way so you're not having to do extreme processing at the end of your chain. It's the difference between, say, a little post EQ and IR filtering like James Santiago was doing in nearly every preset he did in that long UA Paradise Studio demo and how some YouTubers will tell people to layer 2 pre-eqs, 3 post-eqs, filtering in the cab block, global EQ tweaks, and 2 stages of post-compression in a modeler just to get a "good sound" lol

 

[Chocol8]

layer 2 pre-eqs, 3 post-eqs, filtering in the cab block, global EQ tweaks, and 2 stages of post-compression

 

[MTB1973]

View attachment 57540

 

[Orvillain]

View attachment 57550

hahahahaha wtfffff

 

[jay mitchell]

Interesting. This exact same thread was begun on TOP by the same person one minute after this one. The "discussion" that followed is, um, different.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Interesting. This exact same thread was begun on TOP by the same person one minute after this one. The "discussion" that followed is, um, different.

John Mark Painter still John Mark Painting...

 

[Chocol8]

Interesting. This exact same thread was begun on TOP by the same person one minute after this one. The "discussion" that followed is, um, different.

You made me look at TOP. I may never forgive you.

 

[Dimiguitar]

@jay mitchell how on earth do you know all of this stuff?! :O

 

[Orvillain]

@jay mitchell how on earth do you know all of this stuff?! :O

 

[Dimiguitar]

Use a disembodied brain? :)

I was just curious about his background (if one wants to share it, of course).

Some people on here seem to have considerable experience and knowledge when it comes to such topics.

 

[Jarick]

Reminds me of the old ownhammer impulses that had either different files for modelers to emulate a tube power amp or instructions on how to eq them. Guessing it has to do with modelers that didn’t model speaker impedance curves.

 

[Chocol8]

just curious about his background

He is a musician and a very experienced acoustic engineer/speaker designer. He is perhaps best known in the digital guitar world for designing the CLR for Atomic (as an outside hired gun, not responsible for their CS and other issues) but that was a tiny project for him and I think he mostly works on much higher end gear for commercial use. The key IMHO is he has both the practical and the theoretical background. Forum complainants about his personality and communication style don’t change the fact the he knows and understands the subject as well or better than anyone.

Based on my limited experience with speaker and subwoofer testing, and exposure to other engineers in the space, I would say that if you find yourself in a technical argument about speakers with Jay, there’s a damn good chance you are wrong.

 

[Melodioso]

This was recently written on the (public) Fryette forum by David:

While we enthusiastically endorse tube amplifiers for guitar ampliification, that endorsement does not necessarily extend to impulse capture. For that we use and recomend a very linear solid state amplifier.

That’s not to say it can’t be done with a tube amp, and coincidentally, a couple of our gear users do exactly that, and seem very satisfied with the results. I suppose in that scenario, absolute linearity is not the point.

That said, it also depends on the solid state amp. I would not, for example, recommend using a Class D amp for this application either. That type of topology has drawbacks related to the way the output is filtered to remove switching artifacts from the audio signal. We haven’t done scientific tests to support this assertion yet, but the fact that even order upper harmonics can get filtered out along with the undesireable artifacts is a known issue.

Cheers,

Dave

 

[HotRats]

He is a musician and a very experienced acoustic engineer/speaker designer. He is perhaps best known in the digital guitar world for designing the CLR for Atomic (as an outside hired gun, not responsible for their CS and other issues) but that was a tiny project for him and I think he mostly works on much higher end gear for commercial use. The key IMHO is he has both the practical and the theoretical background. Forum complainants about his personality and communication style don’t change the fact the he knows and understands the subject as well or better than anyone.

Based on my limited experience with speaker and subwoofer testing, and exposure to other engineers in the space, I would say that if you find yourself in a technical argument about speakers with Jay, there’s a damn good chance you are wrong.

and don't forget the mitchell dounuts!