shatteredsquare
Power User
Psychoacoustic trickery!
This will fix any tone issue you've ever had, with highs, or lows, or mids, or anything. The lows receive the most benefit though. I plugged the AxeFx into the aux input of my Yamaha THR-10 and the effect is audible and distinct even using speakers. To incorrectly quote Mixerman, "the most important aspect of any recording is the room it's made in."
A Cabinet Impulse Response is a super short snapshot of the frequency response of a speaker in a wooden cabinet...the sine sweep used to map the response curve does get all of the frequencies, but if you play that sample only once, it's super short, it doesn't cycle and decay after the amp signal goes through it, even when the amp signal is a constant signal, it's just a static filter. The wavelength of some low frequency information can be longer in feet than the distance you are from your speakers, longer even than the length of the room you are in. If you playback an IR with low frequency information that has a longer wavelength than you are to the speakers, it will pass so quick it will be like it's not even there. BUT IT IS THERE. It's just not being given an opportunity to BREAAAAATHE.
Room Level: 50% +/-
Room Size: 1.17 +/-
Mic Spacing: 22.2% +/-
What this does is take what was a super short snapshot of the frequency response of the speaker, the impulse response (in the realm of a few milliseconds in duration), and lets the audio that just passed through that frequency filter spread out like it wants to, in a virtual space. You will notice that the lows immediately bloom and spread out, and mix with the mids and highs, you can hear the frequencies start to interact with each other like they normally would. If you take these settings and go back to the Factory IR slot 1 and go forward from there, it's hilarious how good they all sound, even the absurd ones. Any problems you were having with the low end, trying to tweak this or that because it it's sounding right, it's not resonating how you like...it's because the lows (and the mids and highs) are being choked out and restricted to a super short IR frame, and aren't allowed to disperse and interact with each other. This trick lets the lows out, which like in reality, allows them to hang around for just long enough for all of them to crash into each other and reproduce the sound you are USED to hearing from a speaker cab.
Why is this necessary? Because it's a missing part of the signal process (recording process). Between a real guitar amp and a real microphone is a missing element of TIME. From the time you hit record, the TIME that is between the guitar amp and the microphone is affecting the sound on it's way to the microphone. If you send a guitar amp signal straight through an IR, while the frequency response will be exact, there is a missing element to the chain. This trick adds the TIME at the end of the microphone though, instead of in front of it.
I'm not sure what it is, but something magical happens right at 50% room level, and right past that up to 51% or 52%. Changes of +/- 0.01 to the room size make drastic differences in how it responds. Mic spacing increases the stereo image, i think this setting only affects the perceived stereo field.
Originally discussed here. I haven't done any recordings of it yet, but I fired up the AxeFx tonight to go back to some of the presets i put together with this, and my jaw hit the floor and i started laughing involuntarily again. That's the barometer I use for it something is really good or not. It's the same reaction i had when i fired up a Recto 2 Red Modern in Quantum FW for the first time.
Video to follow, maybe another 6 months from now who knows. I bet it would be a lot easier to post a preset file to pass around, maybe I'll do that.
This will fix any tone issue you've ever had, with highs, or lows, or mids, or anything. The lows receive the most benefit though. I plugged the AxeFx into the aux input of my Yamaha THR-10 and the effect is audible and distinct even using speakers. To incorrectly quote Mixerman, "the most important aspect of any recording is the room it's made in."
A Cabinet Impulse Response is a super short snapshot of the frequency response of a speaker in a wooden cabinet...the sine sweep used to map the response curve does get all of the frequencies, but if you play that sample only once, it's super short, it doesn't cycle and decay after the amp signal goes through it, even when the amp signal is a constant signal, it's just a static filter. The wavelength of some low frequency information can be longer in feet than the distance you are from your speakers, longer even than the length of the room you are in. If you playback an IR with low frequency information that has a longer wavelength than you are to the speakers, it will pass so quick it will be like it's not even there. BUT IT IS THERE. It's just not being given an opportunity to BREAAAAATHE.
Room Level: 50% +/-
Room Size: 1.17 +/-
Mic Spacing: 22.2% +/-
What this does is take what was a super short snapshot of the frequency response of the speaker, the impulse response (in the realm of a few milliseconds in duration), and lets the audio that just passed through that frequency filter spread out like it wants to, in a virtual space. You will notice that the lows immediately bloom and spread out, and mix with the mids and highs, you can hear the frequencies start to interact with each other like they normally would. If you take these settings and go back to the Factory IR slot 1 and go forward from there, it's hilarious how good they all sound, even the absurd ones. Any problems you were having with the low end, trying to tweak this or that because it it's sounding right, it's not resonating how you like...it's because the lows (and the mids and highs) are being choked out and restricted to a super short IR frame, and aren't allowed to disperse and interact with each other. This trick lets the lows out, which like in reality, allows them to hang around for just long enough for all of them to crash into each other and reproduce the sound you are USED to hearing from a speaker cab.
Why is this necessary? Because it's a missing part of the signal process (recording process). Between a real guitar amp and a real microphone is a missing element of TIME. From the time you hit record, the TIME that is between the guitar amp and the microphone is affecting the sound on it's way to the microphone. If you send a guitar amp signal straight through an IR, while the frequency response will be exact, there is a missing element to the chain. This trick adds the TIME at the end of the microphone though, instead of in front of it.
I'm not sure what it is, but something magical happens right at 50% room level, and right past that up to 51% or 52%. Changes of +/- 0.01 to the room size make drastic differences in how it responds. Mic spacing increases the stereo image, i think this setting only affects the perceived stereo field.
Originally discussed here. I haven't done any recordings of it yet, but I fired up the AxeFx tonight to go back to some of the presets i put together with this, and my jaw hit the floor and i started laughing involuntarily again. That's the barometer I use for it something is really good or not. It's the same reaction i had when i fired up a Recto 2 Red Modern in Quantum FW for the first time.
Video to follow, maybe another 6 months from now who knows. I bet it would be a lot easier to post a preset file to pass around, maybe I'll do that.