Is there a simple tool for making impulse responses?

laxu

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So making impulse responses can be a bit more complicated than it should be. While it is some effort to figure out how to get the routing to work correctly, the software side can be even more complicated.

Axe-Fx 3 has a pretty straightforward way to do it, but you need the hw and you can't export the IR as WAV to use on other devices.

Voxengo Deconvolver on Windows can make the sweep files to put in your DAW, then deconvolve the result. But that's two separate apps already and it's not necessarily straightforward how to do it, what settings to pick etc.

Logic Pro has the Impulse Response Utility buried inside the Space Designer plugin and it's equally unintuitive to work with. It works decently once you get it configured, but making multiple IRs by moving the mic a bit is a chore and converting them to WAV files means finding the .SDIR files, renaming them to .WAV and then requires you to open them in Quicktime Player and save over themselves for the IRs to work at least according to one guide I followed yesterday.

I've seen several people say "IR doesn't sound like my miced cab" and told them to make their own IRs instead, but it's hard to recommend this approach when it gets quite technical fast. So is there some application for making IRs that I might have missed that makes it really easy?
 
This:

I've never used it though.
 
This:

I've never used it though.
Thanks, it looks very much like what I'm looking for. Cross platform too. I'll give it a spin over the weekend.

I used the Logic Pro Impulse Response Utility to make some IRs of my Bluetone 4x10 yesterday and got frustrated that the whole process was a bit complicated.
 
So making impulse responses can be a bit more complicated than it should be. While it is some effort to figure out how to get the routing to work correctly, the software side can be even more complicated.

Axe-Fx 3 has a pretty straightforward way to do it, but you need the hw and you can't export the IR as WAV to use on other devices.

Voxengo Deconvolver on Windows can make the sweep files to put in your DAW, then deconvolve the result. But that's two separate apps already and it's not necessarily straightforward how to do it, what settings to pick etc.

Logic Pro has the Impulse Response Utility buried inside the Space Designer plugin and it's equally unintuitive to work with. It works decently once you get it configured, but making multiple IRs by moving the mic a bit is a chore and converting them to WAV files means finding the .SDIR files, renaming them to .WAV and then requires you to open them in Quicktime Player and save over themselves for the IRs to work at least according to one guide I followed yesterday.

I've seen several people say "IR doesn't sound like my miced cab" and told them to make their own IRs instead, but it's hard to recommend this approach when it gets quite technical fast. So is there some application for making IRs that I might have missed that makes it really easy?
In short, there is no good way of doing it.

The one benefit of it being a pain, is it means you kind of have to understand the process and what you're doing and where things can go wrong. There are a ton of compromises that you need to pick, and the then minimize whatever else you can.

I think st rock/ @deLuther might have an app too? The built in ReactIR software has an IR tool, but you have to drag in your own files and you can only do one IR at a time (itll export at different sample rates in one though).

I still use Voxengo 99% of the time, which is a pain because it looks like it belongs on windows 98 and I'm running it on a mac. It works quite well with Crossover, but thats another expense (SOME PLEASE REMIND ME ON MONDAY TO BUY IT AS THEY HAVE A SALE COMING).
 
In short, there is no good way of doing it.

The one benefit of it being a pain, is it means you kind of have to understand the process and what you're doing and where things can go wrong. There are a ton of compromises that you need to pick, and the then minimize whatever else you can.

I think st rock/ @deLuther might have an app too? The built in ReactIR software has an IR tool, but you have to drag in your own files and you can only do one IR at a time (itll export at different sample rates in one though).

I still use Voxengo 99% of the time, which is a pain because it looks like it belongs on windows 98 and I'm running it on a mac. It works quite well with Crossover, but thats another expense (SOME PLEASE REMIND ME ON MONDAY TO BUY IT AS THEY HAVE A SALE COMING).
There is free console program for Windows MatcherCL
Now it supports command line specifications for files, so someone can do batch processing.
No resampling (and batch resampling when saving IRs), unlike REACT:IR software.
And it has MPT mode for Minimal Phase Transform with the same quality as REACT:IR/Amperium Live.

I don`t have MAC for development.
 
MLS is inferior to sine sweep.

I used to use a sine sweep to capture IRs from other software, but someone recommended white noise instead. At the same time I switched to using the tone match block for deconvolution, and the results have been great. But would you still recommend a sine sweep over white noise? If so, what length? I've been using twenty seconds of white noise.
 
I've used MLS, and it works fine. As a sanity check, I took an IR I knew and liked and loaded into REW. I then cloned the IR with MLS tool and loaded that into REW. The EQs were practically identical. It may be an inferior method, but to your point, everything is clunky af, so I'll take "inferior" and accessible over clunky and superior--because again, even inferior measures well enough for my purposes.
 
@laxu if you check out this thread I detailed my process for creating my own IRs. I've been very happy with the result. I used a white noise generator in Reaper, created a white noise blip of about 30 milliseconds, then ran that from the line out of my Presonus board to a power amp and cab, miked the cab, and routed the mics back through my DAW.

Was super simple, and was a fun experience to learn how to do this.
 
Here is the raw IR, dropped straight into REW, with the MLS clone thrown on top of it. Original is RED, clone is BLUE.

Maybe the deficiencies show when we're operating in an acoustically unpredictable environment, but it's good enough for me.

1700862729782.png
 
I used to use a sine sweep to capture IRs from other software, but someone recommended white noise instead. At the same time I switched to using the tone match block for deconvolution, and the results have been great. But would you still recommend a sine sweep over white noise? If so, what length? I've been using twenty seconds of white noise.
A sine sweep is always the best analytic signal. The Tone Match block doesn't do deconvolution. It's a dual-channel FFT analyzer that does frequency response matching. You can use it to generate an IR but it will be minimum-phase.

The length of the sweep depends upon the ambient noise. When capturing speakers the mic is so close to the speaker that any ambient noise is relatively low in amplitude so you don't need a long sweep. One second is plenty. If you are capturing a room IR then ideally you would measure the ambient noise of the room, the intensity of the sweep source and from there calculate the required sweep length.

The internal IR capture tool in the Axe-Fx works great but it won't export .wav files.
 
Oh I missed the “in the Axe part.” Yeah don’t bother with MLS if you don’t want/need a WAV file.
 
A sine sweep is always the best analytic signal. The Tone Match block doesn't do deconvolution. It's a dual-channel FFT analyzer that does frequency response matching. You can use it to generate an IR but it will be minimum-phase.

The length of the sweep depends upon the ambient noise. When capturing speakers the mic is so close to the speaker that any ambient noise is relatively low in amplitude so you don't need a long sweep. One second is plenty. If you are capturing a room IR then ideally you would measure the ambient noise of the room, the intensity of the sweep source and from there calculate the required sweep length.

The internal IR capture tool in the Axe-Fx works great but it won't export .wav files.

Awesome. Thanks for the explanation.
 
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