Cab IR selection workflow - help me out

BCnSTL

BCnSTL

Inspired
New to Fractal / FM3 but I’ve dabbled with the platform in the past.

IR selection is a gigantic PITA - imo. What am I doing wrong?
Leon Todd has a video showing one approach using the looper but that doesn’t work for me. I need to “feel” how the whole thing responds under the fingers - if you catch my meaning. Is there a way to setup a foot-pedal to go forward/back in the IR list or something?

I wish you could put IRs in folders or something.

Also wishing for Dynacab - even a single Dynacab block could be great - since I rarely blend cabs anyway.

Anyway - I’d love to hear suggestions - TIA!
 
I've organized IRs into folders according to mic distance and speaker placement. Makes finding what I prefer much easier. Using Windows Explorer, I searched the main IR folders for keywords like 'cap', 'cone', 0.5 in, 1.0 in, etc... then selected all results and placed them in different folders.
 
Start by exploring the presets that are made with the amp you want. It’s a great start to narrow things.

Then just stick to simple things. For example if your amp is a Marshall, start by a green back etc etc.

My favorite combination is legacy 61-62
 
When in doubt, do a little research to find out what speakers & cabs traditionally pair well with the model you're using. If you want a great starting point, look no further than @yek 's fantastic cheat sheet: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8fvjvrqnryihp86/Yeks_Guide_to_the_Fractal_Audio_Amp_Models.pdf

Pick a few a then populate the channels with them. Compare and contrast.

Using the Looper function, pinning the cab selection window, and closing your eyes while you navigate different cabs with the arrow keys is totally awesome for finding unique pairings you might not have originally considered, but it's a dart-throwing time-vampire at best if you can't compare the tone against something you already like. I've found that meandering around without a reference point (or withough sufficient time for my ears to really adjust to the IR I'm hearing) is suicide via option paralysis, and almost every time I've started with that approach I've wound up reverting to my original preset, an hour poorer or more.

Your results, yada yada.
 
I appreciate the advice but I’ve been playing for over 30 years and I know what speakers & cabinets are supposed to go with what heads etc. I’m complaining about the UI mechanics of the axe-edit cab IR selection. Pinning the IR selection UI and using the arrow keys is crude but a huge improvement over what I was doing before.
 
BCnSTL said:
I appreciate the advice but I’ve been playing for over 30 years and I know what speakers & cabinets are supposed to go with what heads etc. I’m complaining about the UI mechanics of the axe-edit cab IR selection. Pinning the IR selection UI and using the arrow keys is crude but a huge improvement over what I was doing before.
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+1 on Dynacab. I'd rather have one cab I can GUI tweak as opposed to two I can arrow tweak.
 
New to Fractal / FM3
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Didn't mean to offend, only help.

I agree, I find pinning essential anytime I'm fooling around with cabs. Having Dynacabs on the FM3 would be a huge time saver.

That said, you can easily program a USB footswitch to increase or decrease the cab number and cycle through IRs. All you need to do is select the cab number field in FM3 Edit so that it's surrounded by dashed lines, and then program your USB footswitch to trigger arrow-up or arrow-down keyboard functions. This might even work in a pinned cab selection window, but I'm not entirely sure. Something similar is not possible on the standalone unit, as far as I'm aware.
 
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AlexMania said:
If you click the pin while selecting a cab (for example), you switch to that cab but stay on that selection screen so you can easy sample different cabinets by pressing the up / down arrows.
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Actually, you need to click on the pin before you select the Cab. :)
 
I do like the York Audio stuff. If I get a new pack and don’t have time to go through it all, I will cue up the mix 01 and call it a day. Beyond that, there are certain mics I know my ears gravitate to and usually the first or second option will do it.

Still, yeah, it can be time consuming to get exactly what you want. What kind of sounds are you interested in?

Sean Meredith-Jones
 
This was such a pita for me. I’m sure there are really good IRs in the unit, but I can’t navigate a list like that, not to mention all the multi mic / IR stuff.
Now, I just pick a cab type and default to mix01 from York audio or FULL/LIVE mix from ownhammer.

I’m waiting for Dynacab to revisit IRs.
 
Rando Thought: maybe buy one of Moke's presets as a jumping off point. I just got his Summer of 69 preset and it just fun. Austin Buddy's Live gold pack is a go to.

This worked wonders for me.
 
I’m almost exclusively using York Audio IRs these days. I have a couple from Selah Sounds as well. I stick with the provided mixes and usually also the same mic choices. Pretty darn happy. Keep only about 50 IR slots filled on my device and covers me for Fenders, Vox, Marshall, and Trainwreck stuff. Found my happy place after a lot of work and revising. Pinned the browser open and just moved back and forth with keyboard between each IR to find what I wanted. Key is minimizing your choices as quickly as possible to eliminate paralysis and fatigue. Then, go play!
 
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