A question for those experienced with 3rd party IR's...

3Dhuman

3Dhuman

Inspired
Based on some info provided by another forum member (Gorilla?... maybe?...), I downloaded some free IR's called God's Cab. There are a HUGE number of IR's in the folder, following what appears to be a fairly standard naming protocol relating to mic type and position as well as whether a tube screamer was in the signal chain or not. OK... my question: how are you more experienced users going about choosing IR's? I understand how to audition each one from within Axe Edit, and have been doing so... but, the choices are overwhelming. I feel as though I'm stepping into VERY deep water here and am wondering if I should just get back onto dry land with the factory IR's (which I think sound great... but, you know... I want to try new things out).

Is it best to use an amp that's already set up how I like... then start running through various choices? Or, would it be better to use the amp with neutral settings... to see how the cab 'really' sounds...

Do you have a mic and position in mind first, then go and find it? As it sits, I can't imagine going through every file in every folder... all willy-nilly hoping to stumble into something that sounds good (and, to be honest... IR's I've tried so far... making choices based on what I think should sound good... have all sounded good... which leaves me... confused). Am I making sense?

Is this just a matter of putting in the trial and error? Any tips from you pros? If this has already been discussed, just point me in the direction of the information... I'm very comfortable with learning new things and trying it out on my own.

Sorry this post is a bit long... and thanks for reading...
 
Well I'm far from an expert on this, but I do know that someone came up with a solution to the auditiioning thing and made a great utility that also lets you mix then and create your own custom IR's. It's called IR Lab and I bought it for the Ultra. Apparently it only supports the version 1 IR's (different sizes), but those can be converted easily as well and chances are if you've got any AxeFX IR's that are older than a year they're in that format anyway.

You can also try using a convolution plugin inside of a DAW to do some quick previewing. Either way you are going to have to record a track with no cab simulation on it to do it this way, but it's much, MUCH faster.

As far as sorting through them all...well that's what I liked about the IR Lab program so much. You can record a cabless track and then loop it and just start loading cabs until you find something you like. There's a library and even search functions for sorting them by all kinds of things like type, mic type, placement, etc. After a while you start to get an idea of what the different mic locations and types sound like and when you hear something that needs more of this or more of that you can usually say something like "well I need to bring the mic in a bit" or "I think that a Royer would add some depth" or "I still have no idea what I am doing." :mrgreen

It beats the heck out of sitting there and sorting through them in AxeEdit and then loading one at a time and then auditioning it. If nothing else you can use one of those methods to at least get familiar with what's going on with them.
 
Thanks shasha... I like this idea of recording a 'cabless' track and then cycling through my options. I have to admit, I'm stepping into the DAW game VERY late... up until a couple years ago (when I bought this computer), I was still using my Tascam 4-track. Even over the last 2 years, I can count on 2 hands the number of digital recordings I've made. I'm easily overwhelmed. You should see me when I go and buy something like laundry detergent.
 
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