Why isn't there a modeler allowing for usage of longer IRs?

Because most guitarists have the tools to easily capture quality IRs of their own speaker cabs, yet...they go and post a new thread on an internet forum asking who makes the best C. Rex IR, why there aren't any commercially available IRs of Weber speakers, etc., rather than just capture an IR of their cab.

Well, I don't know how most guitarists would have the tools to properly capture their own cabs. After all, one of the prerequisites would be a neutral solid state poweramp with at least decent headroom, not many people own such poweramps.
Anyhow, as said, it could be every bit the same as with IRs, just download some. Also, it's vastly easier to create interesting IRs suitable for spaced out stuff than capturing a cab properly.
 
the whole guitar market didn’t start freaking out and demanding convulsion reverb because it was so much better.

I think a lot of that has got to do with people simply not being aware of all the options going along with convolution reverbs. Same was true when the first cab IRs hit the market, pretty much nobody was aware of them.
Also, quite obviously a dedicated unit that you have to purchase, cable up and integrate into your setup logistics is a lot higher hurdle than just slapping a wave file into your modeler.
 
I think a lot of that has got to do with people simply not being aware of all the options going along with convolution reverbs. Same was true when the first cab IRs hit the market, pretty much nobody was aware of them.
Also, quite obviously a dedicated unit that you have to purchase, cable up and integrate into your setup logistics is a lot higher hurdle than just slapping a wave file into your modeler.

If it were easy for modelers to support, Fractal or L6 would have almost certainly added it to see how it landed with their users. The fact that neither has indicates that it’s difficult to implement for likely many of the reasons already laid out in this thread. When something is difficult to do, the obvious question is “how much value does it add?” Apparently they’ve all come to the same conclusion so far: not enough.

The fact that exactly what you want has been widely available for a few years now and has not gotten a great deal of traction doesn’t bode well for what you want to get here.

If you really thought it was that groundbreakingly useful, why are you still posting in this thread instead of ordering a digit? Maybe you don’t think it’s really that valuable either?

D
 
Processing power and it's not needed. The length of the IR basically determines the filter bandwidth of the DFT, you don't need that level of control over the frequency spectrum in audio applications.
 
If it were easy for modelers to support, Fractal or L6 would have almost certainly added it to see how it landed with their users. The fact that neither has indicates that it’s difficult to implement for likely many of the reasons already laid out in this thread. When something is difficult to do, the obvious question is “how much value does it add?” Apparently they’ve all come to the same conclusion so far: not enough.

You might be right with all that. But still, as said, I can run several long IRs on a computer that is 15 years old, so I can't exactly see too much technical difficulties.

If you really thought it was that groundbreakingly useful, why are you still posting in this thread instead of ordering a digit? Maybe you don’t think it’s really that valuable either?

No, I don't want an extra unit on my board. I may order one some day, though. Actually, I'm thinking about adding a convertible laptop to my setup one day. Would use it just for all timebased FX.

Processing power and it's not needed. The length of the IR basically determines the filter bandwidth of the DFT, you don't need that level of control over the frequency spectrum in audio applications.

See above, it's about timebased things.
 
As said, I'm talking about spatial FX such as reverb-alike stuff.
So what you are asking is actually “why don‘t modelers support convolution reverbs?” Not really longer IRs which are used for Cabinet simulation in all the current modelers, for which there is no major benefit after a point.

The answer is basically memory and compute, both (as I understand it). Go search the FAS forum for convolution reverb for some takes on why it’s not there it’s been covered more than once. Maybe Cliff can reiterate here for you his thoughts based on current state of affairs. IIRC, Cliff had said, algorithmic verbs actually sound better than convolution For traditional verbs anyway.

Maybe it’ll happen at some point, though, when the resources are cheap enough. I doubt this thread will change it, though.
 
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So what you are asking is actually “why don‘t modelers support convolution reverbs?”

Yeah, possibly should've put it that way. Pretty much the same, though (ok, for reverb purposes, at least a simple built in reverb would be mandatory).
Go search the FAS forum for convolution reverb for some takes on why it’s not there it’s been covered more than once.

Oh, ok - that's where I admittedly didn't look around,

Maybe it’ll happen at some point, though, when the resources are cheap enough. I doubt this thread will change it, though.

This very thread certainly won't. But I was just thinking out loud anyway.

And I'm still wondering because, as said before, ressources needed to run convolution reverbs aren't *that* high anymore, compared to what's available. In fact, you could expand pretty much any modeler (namely all those working as an audio interface) with a cheap or used laptop for 200 bucks and have your convolution reverb - the only technical downside being some additional latency, but even in case roundtrip latency would be around 15ms (pretty bad already), that likely wouldn't harm too much with a reverb as 15ms of predelay are a pretty common thing for quite some reverb types anyway. So, all that would be needed would be some of that tech to be added and packed up inside a modeler (and yeah, I am quite aware that you can't just say "ok, let's slam that laptop into a modeler").

Whatever, apparently the ressources needed for a convolution engine aren't exactly identical to those needed for modelers in general. So they *might* get wasted in case you don't use that feature. In that case it'd possibly make no sense for modeler companies to go for it - after all, I am of course aware that this isn't a much requested thing. But otoh, maybe people just need to be aware of the various things you can do with IRs... I will start some thread in the recording section somewhen the next days.
 
Poly Beebo will do it, it's definitely fun for experimental stuff.



Most modellers are going to have their resources and dev time devoted to the bread and butter stuff though, which is understandable.
 
The Logidy EPSi is pretty bad ass. I still have one which I should probably dust off and mess with again. I hope I kept the original reverb IRs somewhere... :unsure:
 
Well, I don't know how most guitarists would have the tools to properly capture their own cabs. After all, one of the prerequisites would be a neutral solid state poweramp with at least decent headroom, not many people own such poweramps.
Anyhow, as said, it could be every bit the same as with IRs, just download some. Also, it's vastly easier to create interesting IRs suitable for spaced out stuff than capturing a cab properly.
Axe-Fx 3 actually lets you feed the poweramp sound separately from a loadbox back to the unit so it can nullify its effect.

The real issue is that people don't want to buy a mic, figure out how to place it so it sounds good and then take the time to capture multiple IRs. I've done it and it's a lot of work. Most IR makers use the DynaMount system which makes it much easier but of course that's expensive.

The real issue is getting anything more than a niche amount of people to work with this stuff. I mean you can't even get people to try to tweak a modeler to sound like their favorite amp and instead they cry for a preset model of that amp and act like it's impossible to otherwise replicate their amp that is nothing more than a modded Marshall.
 
Poly Beebo will do it, it's definitely fun for experimental stuff.

Looks as if I have to consider one of those one day. Right now, there'd be no space on my board left (and it's already the maximum size I allow myself to bring for gigs).
Most modellers are going to have their resources and dev time devoted to the bread and butter stuff though, which is understandable.

I can only partially agree. Computing ressources might still be an issue with this very generation of modelers (even if I doubt it in case of, say, the Axe FX III), but dev time should be almost neglectable. I mean, everybody's doing IR loaders already, all it'd take to make those suitable for spatial FX would be to a) raise the max. IR size and b) offer at least a decay parameter (not being able to limit the length and to fade out would massively reduce usability), pretty much not rocket science at all, almost all DAWs have their own IR plugins these days and there's even some freebies (such as Convology XT).

And as far as computational power goes, I actually don't know whether that's a too limiting factor. When comparing some algorithmic reverbs to Logic's Space Designer, the latter appears to be quite decent in terms of CPU hunger.
And well, unlike with a cab IR block, which needs to run at lowest possible latency, you could as well allow a reverb IR to use up some more CPU cycles - would result in some more predelay on the wet side of things. Heck, many dedicated guitar FX are introducing quite some latency, even if they're made for 100% wet useage (most notably pitch related stuff).
Ok, there's still RAM usage - and I could perfectly understand if larger IRs would exceed what's available within todays modelers. But that's really nothing that couldn't be solved in future iterations. Doesn't have to add much to the cost, either (I mean, even the cheapest mobile phones come with several gigs of RAM these days).
 
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What I read was a bunch of folks simply trying to give reasons why the feature may not be included. Like jelldog, I thought the sounds were rather cool.
Yes, this. It's framed as being about why it's not present in current hardware offerings. I think the concept's fun for sure but it is a little out there/experimental so the appeal is limited given the barriers to real time implementation in a hardware unit.

I'm pretty sure plugins for this are plentiful if the application of interest is recording rather than performance, BTW. Kind of cool to learn about some of the other devices that fit in the niche... was not aware of them.
 
It's primarily a data storage issue. Hardware modelers don't have a lot of non-volatile memory (i.e. they don't have a disk drive).

Another consideration is real-time performance. If you want zero or near-zero latency the computational burden is quite high. In a PC, etc. doing the convolution on a recorded track latency is not a concern and the computational requirements are reduced drastically.
 
Thanks for chiming in..

It's primarily a data storage issue. Hardware modelers don't have a lot of non-volatile memory (i.e. they don't have a disk drive).

I guess that could be adressed rather easily.

Another consideration is real-time performance. If you want zero or near-zero latency the computational burden is quite high. In a PC, etc. doing the convolution on a recorded track latency is not a concern and the computational requirements are reduced drastically.

Quite aware of that - but I can rather easily run several instances of Logic's Space Designer on the "live thread", using what could be considered a pretty outdated machine (2010 Mac Pro /w 2x2.66GHz CPUs). And as said before, it'd be not much of a drama to add some buffers to the wet portion of a reverb (just what some CPU hungry plugins are doing as well).

Anyway, for the mentioned reasons, I perfectly understand that longer IR support can't be added to the existing line up of modelers, but I think it's something modeler makers could (or rather should) think of for future incarnations. There's really a whole new world of sound design options - and it's quite easy to fool around with, even for those not interested diving deeper into whatever technical aspects. Just record something noisy, bubbly, moving, scratching and whatever, slap it into your IR loader and have fun. Traffic noise, sea shores, rain, your toilet, wind, sirenes - they all make up for fantastic sources, even when recorded with way less than shiny mics.
 
I mean you can't even get people to try to tweak a modeler to sound like their favorite amp and instead they cry for a preset model of that amp and act like it's impossible to otherwise replicate their amp that is nothing more than a modded Marshall.
Haha You got that right!
 
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