why do the acoustic IRs sound so shite?

Ant Music

Ant Music

Fractal Fanatic
i have an acoustic 12 string which i use my axe fx for (it is a yamaha FGsomethingorother) and it's fitted with an LR Baggs Micro EQ Preamp and an under saddle pickup. i have found heaps of the acoustic IRs that have been posted from the Mama Bear Acoustic preamp and others. i thought i'd be easily able to improve my tone by simply uploading these and trying them out and finding something i like. i have found that of the 50 or more that have been posted alomost all of them sound incredibly tinny, boxy and, well for a lack of a better word, shite. having said that i have found only one that was ok after some parametric EQ. but i would like to have a bit more variety and to try different sounds.

Question is: am i doing something wrong for all these IRs to sound so consistently crap?

PS: in case it makes any difference: the Micro EQ only has 3 knobs, Vol, Treble and Bass. i have them all set to full.
 
according to the Mama Bear manual http://www.d-tar.com/images/mam_b_manua ... ed_web.pdf your pickup/preamp falls in the Ceramic Piezo UST category.

Make sure to set you eq on the guitar to neutral (12o'clock I guess) NOT maxed.

also, it is pretty hard to get a piezo to sound good, and it will never sound 'natural' IME.
The Ghost system sounds quite good, but only if you haven't listenend to a properly mic'd acoustic in a while.
So far I always recorded a mic'd acoustic when I had the choice, instead of 'faking' it with a pickup.

Still, some of these impulses (assuming the rest of your signal chain is 'correct') should improve the direct signal coming from your guitar, and than you have the Axe to tune it with compression, EQ and reverb.
 
thanks for the reply. i'll see whow it goes when i tame my pre amp EQ. i would've thought that the impulse responses would have improved my tone too but it is incredible how shit a lot of them sound. completely unusable and unsalvageable. of course i'm aware the different impulse responses are designed for different pickup types so i expect that would be a significant factor. the one that i found i liked was the grand auditorium coax flat film. so go figure.... weird.

i wonder if anyone else has had the same trouble as me with these?
 
My acoustic with a LR Baggs pickup sounds best through the Axe without a cab IR.
Just some EQ, verb, maybe slight compression / subtle detune fx.
Tried that?

For other acoustic tones I do like Mama Bear 7.7 and the Fishman Aura IRs posted recently should work great too.
 
I use the Fishman Aura (without the Axe-Fx) with UST equipped guitars.

It is a labor of love to get a realistic mic'ed tone. I usually end up with about 30% Aura and 70% UST for my mix; adjusting the EQ and Aura blend by ear.

By themselves, the Aura images sound overly bright and have almost an aliasing sound, to my ear.

Richard
 
I never had any luck running an acoustic guitar IR directly in series with the signal chain. I found that I always liked the piezo tone better than the IR.

Then I tried putting the cab on a side chain and mixing in a little of the IR with the piezo signal instead of running the cab in series. Doing it this way allows me to add just a little of the acoustic guitar IR in with the piezo signal path which can help to take some of the "crispness" and the hard edges off the piezo tone. This helps to make the piezo tone sound warmer and a little more natural.
 
a dramatic V curve on the graphic equalizer works better for me than any acoustic IR for pseudo electroacoustic sound with my Ibanez RG
 
fremen said:
a dramatic V curve on the graphic equalizer works better for me than any acoustic IR for pseudo electroacoustic sound with my Ibanez RG
Click to expand...

+1 with my EMG equipped RG.

I also mix in a little IR too using a filter block and cab on a parallel path, blended until it sounds right (usually quite low with some band adjustment depending). Works much better than any IR on it's own.
 
I may try that too, nice idea. From my experience, the IR of the resonant body of an acoustic may get you closer to the sound of an acoustic guitar, but a badly miked one
 
I like this GEQ setting for acoustics.

(put in ...\Fractal Audio\Effects)
 

Attachments

  • GEQ Acoustic.syx
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yek said:
My acoustic with a LR Baggs pickup sounds best through the Axe without a cab IR.
Just some EQ, verb, maybe slight compression / subtle detune fx.
Tried that?

For other acoustic tones I do like Mama Bear 7.7 and the Fishman Aura IRs posted recently should work great too.
Click to expand...


yes i ordinarily use EQ etc.. to improve my tone. the mama bear and aura IRs all sound shit. cant do anything with any of them. i decided the one that i liked peviously was shit at rhrsl last night and disabled it. back to my usual EQ i guesse.
i find it very disappointing that this seems to not be working for me. i'm surprised they were even postted. thats how bad they are. not wanting to sound unappreciative at all. if anyone can get them to sound good then perhaps they post some sound samples and maybe an explanation of what they did to get a good tone.

perhaps i should just buy the real mama bear?
 
DonPetersen said:
I like this GEQ setting for acoustics.

(put in ...\Fractal Audio\Effects)
Click to expand...

can't upload this effect. apparently i don't have "\Fractal Audio\Effects" anywhere couldn't find the folder. looked in my fractal folder and only folder in there was axe edit. noo effects folder in there either... perhaps you can pos a screen shot of this GEQ block?
 
geamala said:
DonPetersen said:
I like this GEQ setting for acoustics.

(put in ...\Fractal Audio\Effects)
Click to expand...

can't upload this effect. apparently i don't have "\Fractal Audio\Effects" anywhere couldn't find the folder. looked in my fractal folder and only folder in there was axe edit. noo effects folder in there either... perhaps you can pos a screen shot of this GEQ block?
Click to expand...


if you're using windows, the Fractal folder should be in 'My Documents'

here's the screenshot:
GEQ-Acoustic.jpg
 
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