Best IR for live & recording

musicman0001

musicman0001

Experienced
I would like to challenge AXE FX and/or ir manufactories to create a IR PACK of the most used or most recommended ir (cab & mic) for playing live but moreover for RECORDING plus which cab IR your missing

So please post your top 5 IR cab + mic
(+wish + which genre you use your irs)
 
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As i do not have many IRs (so i would buy a recommended package haha) I would only give my wish list

1. marshall 1912 150 watt 1x12
2. marshall jvm joe satriani signature stack 1960 4x12
3. Kings cabinet V30 2x12
 
For what style of music ? Would you expect a guy who plays live/records with a tweed amp in a blues style is going to use the same IR as a guy who plays "djent" style metal ?

For what guitars, for what amps, etc ?

How are totally different players/taste supposed to make a "one size fits all" pack of IR's for both live and recording that is going to appeal to every user ?

What specifically do you feel your missing from all the available cab packs and cab/speaker combo's already on the market ?
 
lqdsnddist said:
For what style of music ? Would you expect a guy who plays live/records with a tweed amp in a blues style is going to use the same IR as a guy who plays "djent" style metal ?

For what guitars, for what amps, etc ?

How are totally different players/taste supposed to make a "one size fits all" pack of IR's for both live and recording that is going to appeal to every user ?

What specifically do you feel your missing from all the available cab packs and cab/speaker combo's already on the market ?
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Maybe your right and its not possible at all, but maybe the most used IRs are at least a very good start.

And as Djent guys are very much already quite mentioned I would then suggest general Rock, pop, blues.. more the mainstream genre so to say. or let people just state for which genre it is most suited and used for by themselves...
 
lqdsnddist said:
For what style of music ? Would you expect a guy who plays live/records with a tweed amp in a blues style is going to use the same IR as a guy who plays "djent" style metal ?

For what guitars, for what amps, etc ?

How are totally different players/taste supposed to make a "one size fits all" pack of IR's for both live and recording that is going to appeal to every user ?

What specifically do you feel your missing from all the available cab packs and cab/speaker combo's already on the market ?
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updated, but do you have any recommendation or most used IR?
 
I think the intent here kind of misses the main benefit of IR's and that is that you are not limited to just one sound/tone. If I was buying a physical speaker cab, which is kind of pricey as is for the empty cab, and I had to pick a speaker for it, which again can be pretty pricey, then yes, it makes sense to want to know what the "best" or perhaps "most popular" speaker is, with regards to a given style of music. Most of us can't go and buy 10 different speakers, nor do we have a tech to switch them out as needed, nor can we move around that many cabs etc. Due to cost/practicality, most of us are limited to maybe one or two speaker cabs, right ?

Well with IR's, we can have whatever we want. I don't have to settle for just one speaker in a 4x12 checkerboard 1970's cab. I can have IR's with lots of speakers, some pricey/rare, and with the turn of a dial listen to each of them.

More so, I don't have to buy/rent a given mic, I can have a bunch of different mic options, all with the turn of a dial.

Most packs, at least the ML ones, do have a "best of" type folder as well, with maybe 10 or so ready to use mixes. They cover a wide range of sounds for a given pack.

What I don't think is possible would be for someone to take all their different cab packs, like all the ML ones, or all the Fractal ones, and pick 1 cab from each, and put it into a bundle that represents the "best" of each cab, because who's to say that for a given cab one speaker or mic combo is better than another in that pack. Ideally they are all "good" as is why they are in that pack. ML doesn't include "bad" IR's right LOL

Basically, the stock IR's in the Axe are the closest to what your asking for. They are a somewhat random assortment of stuff. You can find a few V30 Mesa IR's from Pack7, a couple Marshall ones from Pack 8 etc etc, gives a taste of what those packs hold, but certainly not every aspect.

I'd say get something like pack 7 for fantastic and not overly harsh V30 tones, one of the British bundles for lots of Pre-Rola greatness, and you've got 2 really good tonal options for most harder stuff. Those are the ones I dig into the most, even though I own plenty of others.
 
Freedom of choice is such a weird thing....

I see more and more post from people wanting this striped down Fractal experience, like they don't want 200 amps, tons of IR's, the ability to tweak any parameter, they want like 5 great (to their subjective opinion and needs) tones at the press of a button. I get that to some degree....maybe we are spoiled by choices these days

At the same time, think back to the 1990's (or earlier) and what I wouldn't of given to have had a bunch of different amps, or own several speaker cabs, or actually not have to CHOOSE if I wanted to spend my limited budget on a flanger or a chorus pedal, and then if I did pick the chorus, which chorus should I buy...

Essentially all I dreamed about was having more choices, I wanted more effects pedals, I wanted to mod stuff to have more control, I wanted a studio full of amps and cabs, etc etc. Basically everything the Axe-Fx gives me today
 
FreeMind said:
I don't think there is such a thing as "most used or most recommended" IR's.
There are as many tastes as there are players....
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On top of that, does "most used" actually equate to what one would subjectively consider a great tone ?

I mean whats the most used recording amp/mic combo in the world overall ? Something like a Princeton with a SM57 probably right ? Who hasn't tracked guitar with a SM57.... and its a fine mic, but is my ideal ? Not hardly, nor is the PR my ideal recording amp, but its sure been used on a ton of hit records
 
lqdsnddist said:
Freedom of choice is such a weird thing....

I see more and more post from people wanting this striped down Fractal experience, like they don't want 200 amps, tons of IR's, the ability to tweak any parameter, they want like 5 great (to their subjective opinion and needs) tones at the press of a button. I get that to some degree....maybe we are spoiled by choices these days

At the same time, think back to the 1990's (or earlier) and what I wouldn't of given to have had a bunch of different amps, or own several speaker cabs, or actually not have to CHOOSE if I wanted to spend my limited budget on a flanger or a chorus pedal, and then if I did pick the chorus, which chorus should I buy...

Essentially all I dreamed about was having more choices, I wanted more effects pedals, I wanted to mod stuff to have more control, I wanted a studio full of amps and cabs, etc etc. Basically everything the Axe-Fx gives me today
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100% agree. I think people are easily misunderstanding the value in digital products. The price of an Axe-Fx is not directly dependant on how many amp sims or IR's are included since the value is in the hardware that's capable of giving us pretty much unlimited options. Someone asking FAS to limit those capabilities to bring the price down = AX8 but even then you have the same amount of amps and IR's. That should tell you that it's not about the amount of IR's or amp sims. You're paying for flexibility.

What I'm trying to get at here is that if you find 5 amp sims that you like so much that you don't need any of the other amp sims (or 5 IR's that you like so much you don't need any other IR's) you are not wasting the unit's capabilities or money. That is the normal use case for the unit and for it to be capable of providing every guitar player out there with their own customized ~5 favorites it needs the versatility. Those 5 amp sims are worth the full $2.250 price of the unit for you. Same goes for IR's. Those 5 favorite IR's you find in a pack are worth the $25 for you. F.ex. Periphery used the HBE amp sim with one IR from Cab Pack 13 for the new P3 album. Cab Pack 13 has 227 IR's but that single IR is definitely not worth only 10c if you like it. Just like you couldn't choose to have 5 out of 250 amp sims and only pay for the 5 so an Axe-Fx costs $45.

Cab Packs are extremely cheap as is. There has not been a better time to be a guitar player. It's so easy and cheap to get professional guitar tones. :) "Back in my day" (and I'm one of the youngest guys doing this) we had to rent out studios to get something even half decent sounding and it was around $30/h.
 
OK OK I get it ;)

IR's are too personal (taste, genre) and as there are too many IR's and flavors and MIXES with different placings and microphones to make such a TOP 10 of IR's.
 
musicman0001 said:
OK OK I get it ;)

IR's are too personal (taste, genre) and as there are too many IR's and flavors and MIXES with different placings and microphones to make such a TOP 10 of IR's.
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Haha.. well actually I could make a top 10 of my personal favorites. :) I have a personal top 30 list on my Axe-Fx actually. It's still my personal taste though but I made the IR's so I guess that could be a pack for future. :)
 
In another thread it was brought up that people had to buy a lot of IR's and try them and found them not usable. So I wanted to HELP the people who are NEW to Custom IR's as there are so many IR's and we were wondering if there is a sort of common ground for live & recording IR's. A sort of these IR's are quite ALL ROUND or regarded as very good quality.

So even though I knew there would be IR guys having opinions or some discussion would be started I was really hoping that after a while people could find some info for a COMMON GROUND. And one could find their own information.

But it's clear after a while reading the reactions of this thread that most users (even if they have an opinion and use IR's) just bring opinions that this QUEST is IMPOSSIBLE to due too many FACTORS in the equation ;)
 
musicman0001 said:
In another thread it was brought up that people had to buy a lot of IR's and try them and found them not usable. So I wanted to HELP the people who are NEW to Custom IR's as there are so many IR's and we were wondering if there is a sort of common ground for live & recording IR's. A sort of these IR's are quite ALL ROUND or regarded as very good quality.

So even though I knew there would be IR guys having opinions or some discussion would be started I was really hoping that after a while people could find some info for a COMMON GROUND. And one could find their own information.

But it's clear after a while reading the reactions of this thread that most users (even if they have an opinion and use IR's) just bring opinions that this QUEST is IMPOSSIBLE to due too many FACTORS in the equation ;)
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I get what you're saying for sure. I doubt any of the "big" IR producers these days create "unusable" IR's but I have also bought IR packs back in the day that I didn't use more than a couple of times. I don't know if it's a generational difference but I never though the ~$30 was a big risky investment when compared to what I was doing before the Axe-Fx. I couldn't buy my favorite boost pedal for the price of 4-5 Cab Packs.

I'm sure I could come up with a "greatest hit" Cab Pack at some point but it's most likely not in the near future. I have much more to explore before I can state something being "the best IR out there". :)
 
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