For Those Who Struggle with Traditional IRs

[...] You learn which ones you like after playing for a while. It’s almost impossible to get bad sound with certain 4x12 Mesa IR’s, on virtually any amp model.
Big Ownhammer fan here too.

I'm curious, which specific OH Mesa IRs do you find are so universally great?
 
Big Ownhammer fan here too.

I'm curious, which specific OH Mesa IRs do you find are so universally great?
I mentioned Mesa because well, Mesa 4x12 are basically the easiest cabinets to make sound good on record. You can pretty much get a good sound for an album with just an SM57.

A good Mesa cabinet when recorded is tight yet full on the lows, with good mids and smoother treble than most other cabs.

It feels like in this thread we are talking about technical software details. When there is also the other side of the equation of, finding good cabs to record and recording them well.
 
I find that using only one IR in the cab block is good to record left and using a different one to record channel right is ideal. I do not like what
How do run it? There is a whole bunch of processing options inside. EQ, compression, etc. To be clear you think their IR’s to you sound better with zero processing within two notes software running?

Just run it in your daw. Their. IRs do indeed sound great along without their processing but adding processing is when you really notice them shine. They take EQ very well. I do not find that any other IR takes EQ or exciter the way Two notes ones do in as open a sounding way. But OwnHammers sound fine. I am now getting alot better results with Own Hammers IRs when I use the air function in the cab block. I never used that since the Axe FX2 and in those days I thought it was too synthetc of a layer so i never really kept using it in either unit. But no in this Axe FX 3 its alot more improved. Im close nough to Two notes level to be satisfied I would say.
 
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For guitar resonance I usually put a PEQ at the beginning of the chain and the RTA at the end. With the IR I like loaded in the cab block and all the amp settings at noon.

I go and start editing the PEQ and find my LP guitars have a big one at 300hz, so I narrow it on that frequency and pull out just what I need to get it right and use the RTA to double check. Sometimes I need to dial out 2 times or 4 times that same freq, but not always.

My PRS has one at 450-500 and I have to do the same with it.

Once that is done I can go and change the tone knobs on the amp to get it dialed in.

If the resonant frequency is below 100, just use the low cut block and set the LFO to grab a little below it and a little above the frequency.

You can then start with a pretty clean slate or a flatter response so you aren't pulling a ton out of the amp EQ or a PEQ after.

This is just me and my experience from years of recording and live work. In my racks I always had 2 31 band eqs. One before the amp and one either in the loop or after my preamp and before my power amp each had very different uses, but usually similar to what I posted above.

Okay, I started this thread as we were about to move, and I didn't play for a while, but now I'm back up and running, so I was finally able to give this a good try several times. I don't know what it is, but using a PEQ before the amp, I just could figure out the correct frequency(ies) to reduce on my guitar to get it to play nicely with traditional IRs. It's a weird thing. But the moment I had a bunch of Smoothing things start to head in the right direction. I'll keep revisiting this, but I'm at a loss. I can understand a fine EQ with a real cab, dialing out weirdness, but for me, it's the phasey-ness I hear in many IRs that kill me. Perhaps it's the wrong approach, but I tried to use a PEQ before the amp with the controls at noon to remove the phasey sound from the IR.

Just wanted to update that I did try it. I'm very excited for Cliff's new invention to be released, since it seems like it's going to be a moveable mic IR type thing, which would be incredible. I think that will be a huge thing that will help guys like me.
 
Okay, I started this thread as we were about to move, and I didn't play for a while, but now I'm back up and running, so I was finally able to give this a good try several times. I don't know what it is, but using a PEQ before the amp, I just could figure out the correct frequency(ies) to reduce on my guitar to get it to play nicely with traditional IRs. It's a weird thing. But the moment I had a bunch of Smoothing things start to head in the right direction. I'll keep revisiting this, but I'm at a loss. I can understand a fine EQ with a real cab, dialing out weirdness, but for me, it's the phasey-ness I hear in many IRs that kill me. Perhaps it's the wrong approach, but I tried to use a PEQ before the amp with the controls at noon to remove the phasey sound from the IR.

Just wanted to update that I did try it. I'm very excited for Cliff's new invention to be released, since it seems like it's going to be a moveable mic IR type thing, which would be incredible. I think that will be a huge thing that will help guys like me.
From what I have gathered I have a feeling that the thing you are talking about is for Cab lab 4. I am sure a new cab block will be needed as well, just don't think it is what you think it is going to be.

The phase issue should not happen unless you use 2 cabs in the cab block and don't have them phase aligned. dialing out issues with resonance should be from frequencies your guitar is producing that cause a volume spike at that frequency and sometimes cause distortion at that frequency point, or cause it to sound harsh (spike at 2.5K for instance) or way too boomy (300-600), etc.

Phase issues can be from several sources, including cables, pickups wired incorrectly (reversed phase wiring), or even from the chain of effects you have like a delay going into another delay in series can cause phase issues when the delays are happening out of phase from the next or previous one. I think you have something else going on that needs to be resolved outside of the Axe FX. You might be able to change it some with "moving a mic" because you then change the phase of the signal entirely when put in the right position and you would then fix the phase issue by reversing the phase in a round about way.
 
I just looked back at some of the posts in the last few pages. I am 100% sure it is your guitar or pickups, or a combo of the two.

Do you have a standard guitar that just stands out as sounding good with most amps?

I have 2 that do this for me. 1 is my Epiphone silverburst that I put BKP Holy Divers in (think JB+Jazz without all the mid high harshness with 550k pots and split coil goodness. Next is my latest acquisition and that is a sterling Majesty with its stock pickups (even over my Ibanez signature RG750/RG770) these both need very little tweaks before the amp/amp block in the Fractal. My Gibson with the standard stock '59 sounds like bees with a high gain amp... My signature PRS from '97 sounds like butter through an Amp or the fractal, and the "clone" made by samick with a JB+Jazz with 300k pots, same thing. You know one of my hero players. Others are Al Dimeola (his first two albums), John McLaughlin (Mahavishnu orchestra), Eric Johnson (with Christopher Cross, and solo), plus Vinnie Moore's early solo work and Tony Macalpine and his early solo work though the mid 90s... Yes this includes Dam the Machine and other Progg stuff (JP with the early DTM albums...), Steve Hackett Era Genesis, etc..

So... Look at your guitar, cables, anything else between you and the monitors, and such. I think there is something off...
 
but for me, it's the phasey-ness I hear in many IRs that kill me. Perhaps it's the wrong approach, but I tried to use a PEQ before the amp with the controls at noon to remove the phasey sound from the IR.
what I've found and has helped me is - not importing the IR with MPT processing (use autotrim). So a couple of examples when I've created IR's using Voxengo deconvolver (its default is to apply MPT) - I found that only using the Autotrim led to a overall clearer sound IMO.
Same with Mikko, export with MPT and import into fractal with just Autotrim. In fact I prefer export Mikko with non MPT and still Autotrim only into Fractal - yes you may have to manually align with other IR's but I can live with that.
Not saying it will solve your problems but it's little things that help.
 
I just looked back at some of the posts in the last few pages. I am 100% sure it is your guitar or pickups, or a combo of the two.

Do you have a standard guitar that just stands out as sounding good with most amps?

I have 2 that do this for me. 1 is my Epiphone silverburst that I put BKP Holy Divers in (think JB+Jazz without all the mid high harshness with 550k pots and split coil goodness. Next is my latest acquisition and that is a sterling Majesty with its stock pickups (even over my Ibanez signature RG750/RG770) these both need very little tweaks before the amp/amp block in the Fractal. My Gibson with the standard stock '59 sounds like bees with a high gain amp... My signature PRS from '97 sounds like butter through an Amp or the fractal, and the "clone" made by samick with a JB+Jazz with 300k pots, same thing. You know one of my hero players. Others are Al Dimeola (his first two albums), John McLaughlin (Mahavishnu orchestra), Eric Johnson (with Christopher Cross, and solo), plus Vinnie Moore's early solo work and Tony Macalpine and his early solo work though the mid 90s... Yes this includes Dam the Machine and other Progg stuff (JP with the early DTM albums...), Steve Hackett Era Genesis, etc..

So... Look at your guitar, cables, anything else between you and the monitors, and such. I think there is something off...

Wow Man, thank you so very much for rereading this thread! I only have one functioning guitar right now (a Schecter Sun Valley Super Shredder Black Limba), and I've modded it heavily with my own wiring. I have two dual concentric A250k/A250k pots on order to try at least to balance the frequency response better. Since the resonant frequency itself will drop, I'm hopeful it will get me much of the way there. I have a JB / 59 set I'm considering trying in there, but I'm just not sure where I'll go with it. I tried my Saturday Night Specials in there, but the medium output brought out a harshness in the upper mids I couldn't take. Even though I hated the JB in my Washburn Trevor Rabin, who knows, it may possible be awesome in the Super Shredder. I may also go with a noiseless single coil in the neck. But I don't know really why it's the way it is. I'm just glad at least that Smoothing does produce a result that eradicates harshness. There are a handful of IRs I can use without Smoothing, like Factory 1, #811 Brown Super 57, but they're rare for me. Sound is never a static thing to me, so I'm always reevaluating my assumptions here. I could easily be wrong about any of it, and of course, with audio, one has the potential to lose perspective, like working on a mix for hours, losing context, coming back and realizing it too damn bright, or whatever, so I'm realizing that's part of this too. I just started instituting a rule of using references of good tone every time to make sure I don't do things like overemphasizing certain frequency bands. Just a good reality check for me.

This isn't the biggest deal in the world, but it is this weird little audio mystery to me. What I'd love would be for those who post audio examples with presets and IRs also to add their dry tracks. This would allow some kind of forensic analysis. I'd tonematch a dry track to see what the difference really is there, and I'd be able to see the anomalies in my guitar. C'est la vie! I can still get awesome tones, and that's all that matters in the end. Moving mics virtually may not be 100% accurate, but of course, accuracy is not necessarily a good thing. It's great that one has the ability to mimic an amp, warts and all, but what really excites me is the tools to remove the warts haha! I mean, if I dial up a Plexi, e.g., I immediately switch the power supply from AC to DC to get rid of ghost notes, changing its fundamental character, then I reduce Master Bias Excursion, further changing its character, then I dial in my tone. Not accurate at that point to the real world, but now all of a sudden I'm not distracted by ghost notes and fizz, even though others love that stuff. And this totally translates to IRs. Again I'm just thinking that with analog gear one would place a mic as a later part of the process, not choosing mic placement first in a fix state and working around that. Again, layman's bullshit conjecture here, but that's where my thoughts have landed. I'm still experimenting a bunch anyway trying different things without Smoothing, so I'm not giving up.

My cable is fine, and I know my wiring is solid. I actually chose this cable for its tone, it just had a good balance to me.
 
What I'd love would be for those who post audio examples with presets and IRs also to add their dry tracks. This would allow some kind of forensic analysis. I'd tonematch a dry track to see what the difference really is there, and I'd be able to see the anomalies in my guitar.
That's a great idea!
 
Wow Man, thank you so very much for rereading this thread! I only have one functioning guitar right now (a Schecter Sun Valley Super Shredder Black Limba), and I've modded it heavily with my own wiring. I have two dual concentric A250k/A250k pots on order to try at least to balance the frequency response better. Since the resonant frequency itself will drop, I'm hopeful it will get me much of the way there. I have a JB / 59 set I'm considering trying in there, but I'm just not sure where I'll go with it. I tried my Saturday Night Specials in there, but the medium output brought out a harshness in the upper mids I couldn't take. Even though I hated the JB in my Washburn Trevor Rabin, who knows, it may possible be awesome in the Super Shredder. I may also go with a noiseless single coil in the neck. But I don't know really why it's the way it is. I'm just glad at least that Smoothing does produce a result that eradicates harshness. There are a handful of IRs I can use without Smoothing, like Factory 1, #811 Brown Super 57, but they're rare for me. Sound is never a static thing to me, so I'm always reevaluating my assumptions here. I could easily be wrong about any of it, and of course, with audio, one has the potential to lose perspective, like working on a mix for hours, losing context, coming back and realizing it too damn bright, or whatever, so I'm realizing that's part of this too. I just started instituting a rule of using references of good tone every time to make sure I don't do things like overemphasizing certain frequency bands. Just a good reality check for me.

This isn't the biggest deal in the world, but it is this weird little audio mystery to me. What I'd love would be for those who post audio examples with presets and IRs also to add their dry tracks. This would allow some kind of forensic analysis. I'd tonematch a dry track to see what the difference really is there, and I'd be able to see the anomalies in my guitar. C'est la vie! I can still get awesome tones, and that's all that matters in the end. Moving mics virtually may not be 100% accurate, but of course, accuracy is not necessarily a good thing. It's great that one has the ability to mimic an amp, warts and all, but what really excites me is the tools to remove the warts haha! I mean, if I dial up a Plexi, e.g., I immediately switch the power supply from AC to DC to get rid of ghost notes, changing its fundamental character, then I reduce Master Bias Excursion, further changing its character, then I dial in my tone. Not accurate at that point to the real world, but now all of a sudden I'm not distracted by ghost notes and fizz, even though others love that stuff. And this totally translates to IRs. Again I'm just thinking that with analog gear one would place a mic as a later part of the process, not choosing mic placement first in a fix state and working around that. Again, layman's bullshit conjecture here, but that's where my thoughts have landed. I'm still experimenting a bunch anyway trying different things without Smoothing, so I'm not giving up.

My cable is fine, and I know my wiring is solid. I actually chose this cable for its tone, it just had a good balance to me.
I think you missed my point about the cable and wiring. If you have phasing issues, it will be in the wiring or the pickups, period. This can include a guitar cable that has been wired out of phase, and you may not even know it. Just your pickups you might have a coil in reverse mode from the other, especially if you did split coil with a push-pull or anything, that is easy to do.

Also, in a studio, you don't usually grab a mic and start trying to fix a harshness that a guitar or amp is producing. You would usually hand the guitar player another guitar out of the ones there at the studio and fix the issue at the source. If you are trying to fix an issue that is not where it is happening then you are just masking the real issue and or making another part of the instrument worse than it could be. Like rolling of mid-highs or using a mic in a position that puts it a little out of phase, which can cause some issues later in a mix.

If you are just having issues with harsh frequencies that is what we have been discussing with this thread and I think a pickup swap would be what I would recommend. If you want smooth with superstrat, try some Dimarzio pickups. Something more balanced and not a whole bunch of high end, since it sounds like your guitar is just naturally bright. Don't put he JB in it, it will be horrible. The JB is not a great pickup in naturally brighter guitars. Darker guitars, like LP Customs (no maple cap) are perfect for the JB, as a for instance.

This pickup is pretty balanced and does not have a lot of high-mids, but a good bit of highs:
https://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/vintage-output/ej-custom-neck

Another good one, just has a bunch of high end chopped off, but will cut through a mix nicely.
https://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/high-power/illuminator-bridge

Another good one, for a bright guitar:
https://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/high-power/super-2

I have a feeling if you are not having phasing issues, and just frequencies that pop out and make things harsh, then the pickup saw is the way forward. If you are actually having phase issues as you mentioned before, then you need to find where you have a wire or two swapped for ground or flipped. Doing 50s wiring on a super-strat is not what I would attempt, personally since it was never really made for that sort of thing. The 50s wiring was made for guitars with 2 tone and 2 volume to make sure the ground was good throughout the whole circuit and in one quick shot. when you can't really make the circle with your ground wire, you know it is not really the right thing.

I am sure this is not what you want to hear, but those are both things that I think will fix your issue. 1) Find your phase issue, if you are having true out of phase and in phase with 1 guitar and IR loaded. 2) Fix your frequency peaks that are causing harshness. This I have a feeling will be a pickup swap (you can try 250K pots, but you will lose a ton of high-end that will be hard to add back later and might make the guitar dull or not pop out of a mix enough). Go with pickups that are more balanced and either roll off high or high-mids some and still very balanced.
 
I think you missed my point about the cable and wiring. If you have phasing issues, it will be in the wiring or the pickups, period. This can include a guitar cable that has been wired out of phase, and you may not even know it. Just your pickups you might have a coil in reverse mode from the other, especially if you did split coil with a push-pull or anything, that is easy to do.

Also, in a studio, you don't usually grab a mic and start trying to fix a harshness that a guitar or amp is producing. You would usually hand the guitar player another guitar out of the ones there at the studio and fix the issue at the source. If you are trying to fix an issue that is not where it is happening then you are just masking the real issue and or making another part of the instrument worse than it could be. Like rolling of mid-highs or using a mic in a position that puts it a little out of phase, which can cause some issues later in a mix.

If you are just having issues with harsh frequencies that is what we have been discussing with this thread and I think a pickup swap would be what I would recommend. If you want smooth with superstrat, try some Dimarzio pickups. Something more balanced and not a whole bunch of high end, since it sounds like your guitar is just naturally bright. Don't put he JB in it, it will be horrible. The JB is not a great pickup in naturally brighter guitars. Darker guitars, like LP Customs (no maple cap) are perfect for the JB, as a for instance.

This pickup is pretty balanced and does not have a lot of high-mids, but a good bit of highs:
https://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/vintage-output/ej-custom-neck

Another good one, just has a bunch of high end chopped off, but will cut through a mix nicely.
https://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/high-power/illuminator-bridge

Another good one, for a bright guitar:
https://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/high-power/super-2

I have a feeling if you are not having phasing issues, and just frequencies that pop out and make things harsh, then the pickup saw is the way forward. If you are actually having phase issues as you mentioned before, then you need to find where you have a wire or two swapped for ground or flipped. Doing 50s wiring on a super-strat is not what I would attempt, personally since it was never really made for that sort of thing. The 50s wiring was made for guitars with 2 tone and 2 volume to make sure the ground was good throughout the whole circuit and in one quick shot. when you can't really make the circle with your ground wire, you know it is not really the right thing.

I am sure this is not what you want to hear, but those are both things that I think will fix your issue. 1) Find your phase issue, if you are having true out of phase and in phase with 1 guitar and IR loaded. 2) Fix your frequency peaks that are causing harshness. This I have a feeling will be a pickup swap (you can try 250K pots, but you will lose a ton of high-end that will be hard to add back later and might make the guitar dull or not pop out of a mix enough). Go with pickups that are more balanced and either roll off high or high-mids some and still very balanced.

This is exactly what I want to hear; thanks so much for this! I think you may have the nail on the head, actually. The humbuckers I'm currently using are Awesome Guitars Asymmetric Type A, designed to have a different tone for each split coil. They were sent to me for evaluation by the company after some correspondence. I ended up wiring them with four mini switches (two for each humbucker), to allow for Series / Parallel, North Split / South Split When they first sent me the pickups they had the codes posted to be this:

Original Codes.png

Recently, with an overhaul of their site, they posted a different key to their codes, so now it looks like this:

Second Codes.png

I wrote them about the discrepancy, and they said that they added the + and - to comport with their solderless PCBs, but I didn't get an answer as to which is the actual start and end for each coil. I guess because they've kept the second set of codes up, that's what they're saying is the right set. When I wired in series with the original codes and tested with my multimeter before the initial installation, I did get close to the same resistance listed on their site, so I didn't question anything. But maybe with what you're writing, the problem is really that I never rewired based on the updated codes? Like, I know what two coils sound like out of phase with each other, and when you have to in phase humbuckers that out of phase from each other, Peter Green style, and I'm not hearing anything like that. Because I did have that proper resistance reading initially, I just thought honestly that the second set of codes might the mistake, especially since I never got a response from the company when I asked directly.

I actually love the way these humbuckers sound in this guitar when I use Smoothing on the cab block. They have a warmth and fatness that gets me in the soulful Les Paul territory when I want, and the splits are really cool.

But now I'm tempted to do my rewire with the new codes and just see what happens.

If I have to resort to it, I can try a pickup swap too, but this wiring thing has me just questioning it hardcore. It's the obvious place to start. And we're only talking about rearranging eight wires just to test, so it won't be a big deal.
 
This is exactly what I want to hear; thanks so much for this! I think you may have the nail on the head, actually. The humbuckers I'm currently using are Awesome Guitars Asymmetric Type A, designed to have a different tone for each split coil. They were sent to me for evaluation by the company after some correspondence. I ended up wiring them with four mini switches (two for each humbucker), to allow for Series / Parallel, North Split / South Split When they first sent me the pickups they had the codes posted to be this:

View attachment 117251

Recently, with an overhaul of their site, they posted a different key to their codes, so now it looks like this:

View attachment 117252

I wrote them about the discrepancy, and they said that they added the + and - to comport with their solderless PCBs, but I didn't get an answer as to which is the actual start and end for each coil. I guess because they've kept the second set of codes up, that's what they're saying is the right set. When I wired in series with the original codes and tested with my multimeter before the initial installation, I did get close to the same resistance listed on their site, so I didn't question anything. But maybe with what you're writing, the problem is really that I never rewired based on the updated codes? Like, I know what two coils sound like out of phase with each other, and when you have to in phase humbuckers that out of phase from each other, Peter Green style, and I'm not hearing anything like that. Because I did have that proper resistance reading initially, I just thought honestly that the second set of codes might the mistake, especially since I never got a response from the company when I asked directly.

I actually love the way these humbuckers sound in this guitar when I use Smoothing on the cab block. They have a warmth and fatness that gets me in the soulful Les Paul territory when I want, and the splits are really cool.

But now I'm tempted to do my rewire with the new codes and just see what happens.

If I have to resort to it, I can try a pickup swap too, but this wiring thing has me just questioning it hardcore. It's the obvious place to start. And we're only talking about rearranging eight wires just to test, so it won't be a big deal.
If you did the first pic you posted you wired that coil out of phase from the North coil. It should still give you proper resistance but, can sound phasey or like a chorus is turned on when both coils are active.

If you wire them to the second picture and you start with the south coil (always start with the active coil when wiring pickups (for future reference). If you rewire them I am guessing the guitar will sound like a whole different beast.


Keep me posted on how this goes. I bet the IR issue pretty much clears up as well. You might have to start checking IRs you never thought would sound good because they were harsh before. LOL... That would be a good place to be, and more like what I would expect.
 
My issue with IRs is that they're a two dimensional snapshot of a 3 dimensional phenomenon. If you take IRs at different volume levels, you get different responses. Speaker behavior is NOT linear over the full power handling range of the speaker.


A properly detailed IR would involve a series of sweeps taken at calibrated levels from threshold of audibility to the maximum output point, which, if we were to use the industry standard measurements as employed by the audio industry for sound reinforcement applications, is the 1 dB compression point, which is where the actual speaker output lags behind an input level change by 1 dB.


And then, the IR curves would be analyzed and formulas derived to express the non-linearities. Those formulas would be embedded in the IR and processed by equipment which is built to handle them, thus yielding a dynamically accurate IR.


There are not less than nine non-linearity factors embedded in the design of any conventional cone-and-magnet dynamic speaker. You can't express its behavior to a high degree of accuracy with a simple frequency sweep no matter how high the resolution is.

We need an advanced, more 3 dimensional type of IR. At least I think so.
 
My issue with IRs is that they're a two dimensional snapshot of a 3 dimensional phenomenon. If you take IRs at different volume levels, you get different responses. Speaker behavior is NOT linear over the full power handling range of the speaker.


A properly detailed IR would involve a series of sweeps taken at calibrated levels from threshold of audibility to the maximum output point, which, if we were to use the industry standard measurements as employed by the audio industry for sound reinforcement applications, is the 1 dB compression point, which is where the actual speaker output lags behind an input level change by 1 dB.


And then, the IR curves would be analyzed and formulas derived to express the non-linearities. Those formulas would be embedded in the IR and processed by equipment which is built to handle them, thus yielding a dynamically accurate IR.


There are not less than nine non-linearity factors embedded in the design of any conventional cone-and-magnet dynamic speaker. You can't express its behavior to a high degree of accuracy with a simple frequency sweep no matter how high the resolution is.

We need an advanced, more 3 dimensional type of IR. At least I think so.

That is really interesting; I had not heard that, but intuitively it clicks. I'm curious what you think, @FractalAudio.
 
My issue with IRs is that they're a two dimensional snapshot of a 3 dimensional phenomenon. If you take IRs at different volume levels, you get different responses. Speaker behavior is NOT linear over the full power handling range of the speaker.


A properly detailed IR would involve a series of sweeps taken at calibrated levels from threshold of audibility to the maximum output point, which, if we were to use the industry standard measurements as employed by the audio industry for sound reinforcement applications, is the 1 dB compression point, which is where the actual speaker output lags behind an input level change by 1 dB.


And then, the IR curves would be analyzed and formulas derived to express the non-linearities. Those formulas would be embedded in the IR and processed by equipment which is built to handle them, thus yielding a dynamically accurate IR.


There are not less than nine non-linearity factors embedded in the design of any conventional cone-and-magnet dynamic speaker. You can't express its behavior to a high degree of accuracy with a simple frequency sweep no matter how high the resolution is.

We need an advanced, more 3 dimensional type of IR. At least I think so.
Mmmm, to play back on your advanced, more 3 dimensional type of FRFR?
 
What you'd get is more faithful reproduction of the non-linear characteristics of a real world driver. Of greatest interest would be the cone breakup modes of those speakers that are known for their desirable cone breakup modes. Such as your classic Celestion Greenback. They don't break up much if at all when driven at the low end of the volume range, but their breakup becomes a significant part of their sound when they're pushed to their limit. You would not require a new type of FRFR speaker to realize the benefits, just one that is accurate and linear. However you would need a means of processing the more complex advanced IR.
 
What you'd get is more faithful reproduction of the non-linear characteristics of a real world driver. Of greatest interest would be the cone breakup modes of those speakers that are known for their desirable cone breakup modes. Such as your classic Celestion Greenback. They don't break up much if at all when driven at the low end of the volume range, but their breakup becomes a significant part of their sound when they're pushed to their limit. You would not require a new type of FRFR speaker to realize the benefits, just one that is accurate and linear. However you would need a means of processing the more complex advanced IR.
I could be wrong, but my understanding that speakers don't actually distort much until they're close to failing.
 
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I could be wrong, but my understanding that speakers don't actually distort much until they're close to failing.
Yup. At least when it comes to cone breakup, which usually indicates an upcoming repair bill.

The other sources of nonlinearity are accounted for in the Speaker page of the Amp block, which is where they should live, because they affect the behavior of the power amp.
 
You might want to reference the laser interferometry studies done by Polk Audio as they researched how to make speakers more highly pistonic in motion and thus more linear in nature. In fact, speakers that are mostly pistonic over their operating range are rare, and the larger they are, the rarer they are. Since guitar speakers are most often 12" speakers, you can expect good pistonic motion to be the exception rather than the rule. Annular and radial (flower petal mode) breakup is far more common than is pistonic movement among speakers that are operating near their power limit. This can be demonstrated as easily as applying a light dusting of flour to the cone of a speaker that is facing upwards in the vertical direction and running it. (So as not to cause the flour to spill.)
 

This demonstrates breakup modes visualized on speakers that are far more intensively engineered to be pistonic than any guitar-specific speaker in existence, almost beyond a doubt.

The notion that speakers are pistonic in their motion over their effective functional range is simply a myth, most of the time for most speakers.
Scientific inquiry will confirm my statements.
 
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