ML Sound Lab "Reflex" IRs

laxu

laxu

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Something new from ML Sound Lab.

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Reflex IRs - ML Sound Lab

Reflex IRs are raw and unprocessed captures that are naturally mix-ready. It has become common practice to post-process guitar tones and accept the flaws in guitar cabs. Traditional guitar cabs are not optimized for miking up but were designed for loud stage use while a guitarist's priority is...
ml-sound-lab.com ml-sound-lab.com

Basically Mikko Logren had Zilla design a new type of cab that would avoid a bunch of notches 4x12s have in their frequency response, while also having some of the midrange emphasis of open back cabs. This is supposed to work better for micing up the cab. The end result is supposed to be more "mix-ready", or more suitable for further shaping with EQ etc.

Read the product page and watch the video for their explanation.

There's also an Eminence DV77 "Mick Thompson" speaker pack which is pretty rare, the only other one I know is by York Audio.
 
So it’s a Zilla cab with these speakers in, but marketed as fixing a problem that doesn’t exist.

Worst thing with IR’s is pretending they’re some kind of magic silver bullet. Good IR’s are good IR’s, marketing that makes IR’s seem inferior drives me nuts. Especially when the revolutionary product is still ultimately just regular .wav IR’s
 
I know it’s a business but does he means all the guitar tone recorded were wrong since the beginning because the cabs had flaws ?
 
Joshual-L said:
I know it’s a business but does he means all the guitar tone recorded were wrong since the beginning because the cabs had flaws ?
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I think he's saying that because cabs were not designed for micing up, he came up with a solution where the cab is designed for that purpose, and helps give you a good recorded sound that sits in a mix easier.

I don't see anything wrong with that. Just another tool that may work better for your needs than a standard IR pack.
 
laxu said:
I think he's saying that because cabs were not designed for micing up, he came up with a solution where the cab is designed for that purpose, and helps give you a good recorded sound that sits in a mix easier.

I don't see anything wrong with that. Just another tool that may work better for your needs than a standard IR pack.
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I didn’t say it was wrong. But isn’t that the same as just post eq baked in the ir in the final result?
 
laxu said:
I think he's saying that because cabs were not designed for micing up, he came up with a solution where the cab is designed for that purpose, and helps give you a good recorded sound that sits in a mix easier.

I don't see anything wrong with that. Just another tool that may work better for your needs than a standard IR pack.
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How can “sits in a mix better” be a quantifiable term? it’s unbelievably context dependent and varies on so much more than just an IR.

The design of a cabinet has absolutely zero bearing on how well something sits in a mix, pretending otherwise is delusional. Maybe next we’ll have mix ready pickups, strings, cables, amps, amp sims, EQ’s and a mix ready backing back to go with it.
 
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Could you not just take a PEQ after the cab block and notch out the 400-500 or any other freq that are annoying you 🤔
 
MirrorProfiles said:
How can “sits in a mix better” be a quantifiable term? it’s unbelievably context dependent and varies on so much more than just an IR.

The design of a cabinet has absolutely zero bearing on how well something sits in a mix, pretending otherwise is delusional.
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I'd say "is easier to fit into a mix" is the idea here. More mids tends to help for that.

I think the design of the cabinet has a ton of bearing on that. I have two kinda similar cabs: the BluGuitar Nanocab 1x12 and Fatcab 1x12. Both have similar, but not identical BluGuitar speakers, tuned to work best in each cab.

I feel the smaller Nanocab is easier to record because it doesn't really need low cuts and has more midrange emphasis than the Fatcab. On its own, in the room, the Fatcab sounds better to me.

Joshual-L said:
But isn’t that the same as just post eq baked in the ir in the final result?
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That's what I would be interested to hear, also how they sound vs a traditional 4x12. I'm not interested in picking up these IR packs unless they release a MIKKO 2 compatible version of them.
 
laxu said:
I'd say "is easier to fit into a mix" is the idea here. More mids tends to help for that.

I think the design of the cabinet has a ton of bearing on that. I have two kinda similar cabs: the BluGuitar Nanocab 1x12 and Fatcab 1x12. Both have similar, but not identical BluGuitar speakers, tuned to work best in each cab.

I feel the smaller Nanocab is easier to record because it doesn't really need low cuts and has more midrange emphasis than the Fatcab. On its own, in the room, the Fatcab sounds better to me.
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I don’t really follow - what kind of a mix? what else is in the arrangement? easier than what to fit in a mix? are normal cabs hard to fit in a mix somehow?

There is no such thing as “mix ready” - the ideal tone in a mix could be wonky AF but ultimately serves the right purpose and has something worthwhile. It can be literally anything - maybe on the right song a direct amp with no cab at all is best for a mix.

Liking how a particular cabinet sounds when recording is something different - you may like the tones you get from a particular cab, but does that mean it’s going to work for everyone? It’s just another sound, sometimes it might work, sometimes it might not. The only thing that matters is context.
 
MirrorProfiles said:
I don’t really follow - what kind of a mix? what else is in the arrangement? easier than what to fit in a mix? are normal cabs hard to fit in a mix somehow?
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Easier than 4x12s he was using before I'd assume. Considering his tastes, I'd expect the mix to be a typical rock or metal mix with drums, bass, vocals and one or more guitars.

MirrorProfiles said:
There is no such thing as “mix ready” - the ideal tone in a mix could be wonky AF but ultimately serves the right purpose and has something worthwhile. It can be literally anything - maybe on the right song a direct amp with no cab at all is best for a mix.

Liking how a particular cabinet sounds when recording is something different - you may like the tones you get from a particular cab, but does that mean it’s going to work for everyone? It’s just another sound, sometimes it might work, sometimes it might not. The only thing that matters is context.
Click to expand...

To me "mix ready" just means that I can plop it into a track and it will work pretty well out of the box without having to do anything more than adjust levels. Will it be ideal for every genre, style and taste? Of course not.

But I don't see why what ML is doing here would not work for most rock/metal players just fine. I see this as a similar thing to say some NeuralDSP plugin presets where they sound great out of the box and I don't need to think about the sound any further than that.
 
laxu said:
Easier than 4x12s he was using before I'd assume. Considering his tastes, I'd expect the mix to be a typical rock or metal mix with drums, bass, vocals and one or more guitars.



To me "mix ready" just means that I can plop it into a track and it will work pretty well out of the box without having to do anything more than adjust levels. Will it be ideal for every genre, style and taste? Of course not.

But I don't see why what ML is doing here would not work for most rock/metal players just fine. I see this as a similar thing to say some NeuralDSP plugin presets where they sound great out of the box and I don't need to think about the sound any further than that.
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I can literally use any normal 4x12 cab IR in exactly the same way (put it on a track and no processing needed), and thats often how I work. If it isn't sounding right, I change the IR (as should anyone else who is having difficulty in making their tone sit in a mix). Any "mix ready" IR is a load of bollocks, partly because they have no idea how its going to be used, and partly because literally every single scenario is different and requires a different approach and outcome. If I can use a regular IR with no other processing and it sounds the way I want, why use a cabinet that no one has ever used until 2024 to try and approximate that sound? and likewise, one of these is just as likely to have issues sitting in a mix as any other IR or cabinet, and you'd need to try a few things to find the best fit. So that problem still remains for the user.

I would assume most rock and metal players already have a sound pretty ingrained in their head on what a typical recorded guitar sound is, that likely wasn't made with one of these Zilla cabs. This is something different that they may also like, but its fixing a problem that doesn't exist. Mix ready is not a thing, these are likely to need as much tweaking as any other cab IR because without any context you don't know what needs to be done.
 
Looks like ML aims for 'neutral' or 'balanced' IRs, as he always seems to do.
Personally I don't get / like that.
I want a representation of a cabinet, with quirks, notches, spikes and all.
"Mix-ready" indicates undesirable involvement in the production stage.
 
MirrorProfiles said:
I can literally use any normal 4x12 cab IR in exactly the same way (put it on a track and no processing needed), and thats often how I work. If it isn't sounding right, I change the IR (as should anyone else who is having difficulty in making their tone sit in a mix). Any "mix ready" IR is a load of bollocks, partly because they have no idea how its going to be used, and partly because literally every single scenario is different and requires a different approach and outcome. If I can use a regular IR with no other processing and it sounds the way I want, why use a cabinet that no one has ever used until 2024 to try and approximate that sound? and likewise, one of these is just as likely to have issues sitting in a mix as any other IR or cabinet, and you'd need to try a few things to find the best fit. So that problem still remains for the user.

I would assume most rock and metal players already have a sound pretty ingrained in their head on what a typical recorded guitar sound is, that likely wasn't made with one of these Zilla cabs. This is something different that they may also like, but its fixing a problem that doesn't exist. Mix ready is not a thing, these are likely to need as much tweaking as any other cab IR because without any context you don't know what needs to be done.
Click to expand...
Chris Baseford recently talked about this , people always ask him what your eq settings
And he was like which song
He said the worst thing you can do I his opinion is have preset eq curves you just pop in for the reasons you mentioned above every mix is different so it’s not a one size fits all solution
 
Money Balling GIF by IFHT Films
 
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