Clark Kent's OwnHammer Secret Sauce Recipes!!

JJunkie said:
I really enjoyed this thread. The 'use your ears' line that is typically thrown around in the forum is of course vital, but in terms of finding a way forward in a tone search, my ears are only going to tell me either "sounds good", or "keep searching". It doesn't provide much of a game plan.
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Using your ears is definitely the way it will ultimately go but I bet all of us have felt pretty lost after going through at least hundreds of IRs. Ear fatigue is pretty drastic when going through IRs which are basically different EQ filters. What I found was that I usually ended up with something that's a bit too scooped for a mix and not enough clarity so it's kind of like the difference when you tweak a guitar amp on your own but then when you're playing in a mix you have to change your tone completely.

Once you have these mixed IRs that are all "scientifically perfect" you have so much interesting variety and you'll most likely sound amazing. F.ex. everyone (including me) swears by the Celestion Vintage 30 but yesterday we were at rehearsals with my band's other guitarist who also has an Axe-Fx II. We were both using V30 IRs and things sounded amazing but I came up with this "FUV30MIX" ( :D ) which was basically a 1960A mix blended with a G12H30 mix and it gave us so much more separation although we both sounded equally balanced and good.

And that made me fall in love with speakers which I usually struggle with.

Those are Redwirez mixes by the way:

Redwirez Marshall 1960A:
PR30 CapEdge 6in
U87 CapEdge 4in
R121 CapEdge 5in
421 Cap 6in
SM57 Cone 0in

Redwirez G12H30:
M160 Cap 4in
PR30 Cone 1in
U87 CapEdge 6in
R121 CapEdge 0in
421 Cone 1in
SM57 Cone 3in

And I think I have a reputation of not really liking Redwirez on this forum. Single mic positions never really struck me as awesome. These mixes however work great!
 
Thanks for sharing the recipes. I generated IRs with IRLab and they all sound killer!
But I still prefer the "Clark Kent´s Perfect N7". How did you generate that one???
 
Thank you CK. Just so happens I purchased the Redwirez IRs a while back. I'm trying to gen those new IR mixes you listed out, but I'm not finding any Hiel PR30 IRs on the Marshall 1960A - V30 package. Which Big Box set were you using? Marshall 1960 - G12Ms / Marshall 1960 - Celestion G12T-75s / Marshall 1960 - V30s / Marshall 1960 - JBL K120s
 
RossE said:
Thank you CK. Just so happens I purchased the Redwirez IRs a while back. I'm trying to gen those new IR mixes you listed out, but I'm not finding any Hiel PR30 IRs on the Marshall 1960A - V30 package. Which Big Box set were you using? Marshall 1960 - G12Ms / Marshall 1960 - Celestion G12T-75s / Marshall 1960 - V30s / Marshall 1960 - JBL K120s
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The 1960A is not the V30 version but the greenback version. Didn't they share that cab for free by the way?
 
Another thing I see in your IR and the basketweave TV is a little bump around 750Hz and a little dip around 1kHz. 2 things I tend to try first with guitar EQs. :)
 
I found it.......it was the Marshall 1960 - G12Ms IR set. May be free....however I bought it as part of the Big Box set 2-3 years ago.
I did have to download the new versions with Axe FX II sysex support. I've generated the mixes, but Fractal Bot is broken on my DAW. Hope try them out tomorrow.
 
Great research Clark!

I like blending two types of speakers in my IR's and my real cabs. V30's mixed with H30's is very common. Another mix that goes well are V30's/G65's. My favorite speakers to mix are the Scumback H75/M75. I hope Kevin does the Scumback Blackback series in the future.
 
Clark Kent said:
And I think I have a reputation of not really liking Redwirez on this forum. Single mic positions never really struck me as awesome. These mixes however work great!
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Don't forget about the Impedance Curves that Redwirez has with their mixIR2 and also on their online mixer. Here's a quote from mixIR2 manual about the curves:

"Impedance Curves (Z-Curves)
The Redwirez collection includes impedance curves of various speakers. These can be used to
reproduce the effect that a tube amp can have on the frequency response of a speaker. Compared to
solid-state power amps, tube amps have a higher output impedance. As a result the connected
speaker's frequency response will change, causing its frequency plot to look more like its impedance
curve than when driven by a solid-state power amp. You may appreciate the more scooped tone, or
the added thump and sparkle. Some people perceive the low-end bump around the speaker’s
resonance point as “warmth”. You should run these in a serial block, before or after the cab, the order
is not important.
The IR labeled "100perc" is the impedance curve as it was measured. This is a bit extreme if your goal
is to simulate a real world tube-speaker effect. Files with 90perc, 80perc, etc. represent "toned down"
versions of the impedance curve for less of an effect, where “90perc” is 90% wet, “80perc” is 80% wet,
etc. 50-60% wet is equivalent to the real world effect we saw with many of the tube amps we tested."

I don't know if that's necessary with the II but I like to use them in the Ultra.
 
Phostenix said:
Another thing I see in your IR and the basketweave TV is a little bump around 750Hz and a little dip around 1kHz. 2 things I tend to try first with guitar EQs. :)
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Yes! Exactly. I just feel like those characteristics come automatically. You get more of that 1k dip if you back up the mic a bit but you'll lose low end if you go too far.
 
CK......I found your Redwirez Marshall 1960A IR mix to be a bit thin. But......the Redwirez G12H30 IR Mix is killer. I'm loving It and the OH Mesa V32 mixes a lot. I'm using the OH Mesa V32 mix on my Recto1 presets and the Redwirez G12H30 on my Dumble presets. Good bidness.......I call them my 'Honey Cabs'. Ok they're really yours.......but you know.

Thank you for sharing..........
 
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The 1960A mix should be pretty similar in EQ balance. Are you sure you used the right IR pack. (My Redwirez cabs are at least 2 years old) :)

I'll try to post some clips so people can hear the differences.
 
Okay here's the scoop! Here's a clip with some of my best recipes:



They are being played in this order: 1960A Redwirez, G12H30 Redwirez, Scumback H75 OwnHammer, Mesa OwnHammer, Mills V30 OwnHammer and Mesa Redwirez.

Here are the curves so you guys see what I was going for:

Clark%20Kent%20Mixes.jpg


And here are some examples on how you can mix them left and right to give each other space in the mix and still sound balanced and cool:



Those mixes are: "1960A + G12H30", "G12H30 + H75", "1960A + MILLS" and "G12H30 + MILLS". Oddly enough I didn't think the Mesas blended very well with anything although they are usually my go-to IRs.

So what do you guys think? After I started doing this I started having so much more respect for speakers besides V30s. And some kind of dislike for the UK made V30s.

BTW: My favorite right now is the mix of the mixes "1960A + MILLS". That one is magic!
 
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Hey man, great demo!!

The G12H30 is the Marshall Basketweave cab found in the vintage classics library right? not the 2x12 Matchless cab in the modern classics library..
 
I use the N7 alot too but do you find it is louder like 6db or so than the average IR db level?
Is there away to lower the level permanently other than in the cab block? What is IR Lab?
Thanks!

mmunoz said:
Thanks for sharing the recipes. I generated IRs with IRLab and they all sound killer!
But I still prefer the "Clark Kent´s Perfect N7". How did you generate that one???
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cabo246 said:
I use the N7 alot too but do you find it is louder like 6db or so than the average IR db level?
Is there away to lower the level permanently other than in the cab block? What is IR Lab?
Thanks!
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I've actually had this problem with some of my IRs. I normalize them to -0.3dB but for some reason they are so much louder than other IRs even though all of them should be normalized. Weird stuff. Hmm..
 
Clark Kent said:
Oh and in case you have other OwnHammer IR collections then here are other sweet spot recipes:

MESA V31:
MD421 #5
E906 #1
Fathead #1

SLM H75:
TC30 #3
PR30 #5
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Thanks so much for this post. Learnt a lot! Are these cabs you are referring to in the V2 legacy Mesa V32 pack? After hearing your 1987x patch I purchased the pack. Hahaha

Thanks!
 
IR Lab is a nice application (iprodaudio.com) that allows to manage both Ownhammer and Redwirez IRs (and in general any customized IR library). It allows to find easily IRs based on different categories (speaker, mic, positions, distance) and mix the IRs in Axe-Fx II format (you can also see the resulting mix IR picture and audition it). With that tool I was able to create the mix IR recipes by Clark Kent in seconds... 8o)

cabo246 said:
I use the N7 alot too but do you find it is louder like 6db or so than the average IR db level?
Is there away to lower the level permanently other than in the cab block? What is IR Lab?
Thanks!
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