Confused about Hi cuts...

B

Beexter

Inspired
It's quite common to see recommendations for using hi cuts on IR's/ cabs when playing a modeller through an FRFR speaker but.......

....if an IR is a "capture" of a specific mic, in a specific position on a specific speaker in a specific cab, in a specific room, why should it be necessary?

Surely if a particular guitar speaker doesn't generate much over say 8500 hz, surely the mic can't capture a frequency that isn't there in the first place and therefore it wouldn't be present in the IR? If a real world speaker was too bright, you typically adjust your tone controls on your amp/guitar/pedals etc, or change your speaker..

I mostly use York Audio IR's in my FM9 and I'm sure I read somewhere that Justin from York Audio suggested NOT using hi cuts.

I'm just trying to understand if I'm missing something fundamental, so curious to ask the Fractalverse...
 
A microphone will capture all sound within its designed frequency range regardless of the source of the sound. To tell someone not to use a hi cut is probably just damage control from getting emails about "this cab is so dark" and people have aggressive hi cuts.

use them if you want, dont if you dont. There isnt a rule. Its your sound.
 
sure, the cab doesn´t generate much over some hz, but you are listening from some distance, not with your ears directly to a speaker.

try it and you´ll find, that it´s very trebly and spiky with ears glued to a speaker.

the same thing applies to a microphone - therefore, depending on a context, you´ll use cuts to create appropriate sound.
 
FRFR speakers also use dedicated tweeters with much wider dispersion patterns than guitar speakers. Most guitar cabs are fairly beamy with the highs concentrated mostly on axis with the speaker. If you stand off axis it will sound darker with a guitar cab compared to a FRFR cab.
 
When a sound engineer is micing a guitar cab to record how much hi cut does he use when the mix is being done? With the use of an I/R the same can apply because the I/R contains all of the information that the speaker can produce.

I think the point here is, you get to choose to use it or not depending on how you want things to sit in a mix or on stage or whatever your taste!
 
Thanks for the replies so far. It's not quite as black and white as I first thought.

I just looked up the frequency response of a Celestion Vintage 30. Whilst it's frequency range drops off a cliff at 5000hz, it still puts out measured frequency at 20,000hz so clearly , micing it up will capture those frequencies (depending on the position/ capability of the mic) I was under the impression that nothing over a certain frequency would be output but it's not as simple as that.

Anything over 5,000hz must still be contributing to the overall sound of the speaker though so by hi -cutting at 5k, you are fundamentally changing the character of the sound of the speaker.

I guess it is also important to bear in mind you are hearing a representation of a miced speaker, not an actual speaker - in the real world, shifting the microphone position slightly can dramatically alter the tone. We can now replicate this with Dyna Cabs but I guess Hi/ lo cuts simulate this behaviour with traditional IR's?
 
Beexter said:
Thanks for the replies so far. It's not quite as black and white as I first thought.

I just looked up the frequency response of a Celestion Vintage 30. Whilst it's frequency range drops off a cliff at 5000hz, it still puts out measured frequency at 20,000hz so clearly , micing it up will capture those frequencies (depending on the position/ capability of the mic) I was under the impression that nothing over a certain frequency would be output but it's not as simple as that.

Anything over 5,000hz must still be contributing to the overall sound of the speaker though so by hi -cutting at 5k, you are fundamentally changing the character of the sound of the speaker.

I guess it is also important to bear in mind you are hearing a representation of a miced speaker, not an actual speaker - in the real world, shifting the microphone position slightly can dramatically alter the tone. We can now replicate this with Dyna Cabs but I guess Hi/ lo cuts simulate this behaviour with traditional IR's?
Click to expand...
Personally I mix the 2, the position of the dynacab microphones and the high and low cuts
 
Guitar speakers are very directional, and high frequencies drop off with distance, so what’s emitted by a guitar speaker may not reach your ear depending on where you are standing.

For IRs, the mic is not picking up what your ears hear, as it’s 1” from the speaker.

So they’re different things.

So simply make EQ adjustments until you like what you hear.
 
I think that if you implement the Lo/High cuts in the speaker block, you are just shaping the range of your guitar in the mix yourself. Most audio engineers are probably going to do something similar to a real miced up speaker (or your speaker block feed that is made to represent one) anyway. So really the decision is not probably if the cuts will be there but just if you do them or the person running the board does them.
 
I took a lot of advice here about hi cut all the way down to 4-6k range, and it seemed to work well for one of my main presets with Dynacabs in one band. On one gig the sound man intentionally shelved everything above 8k to try and get more from my tone but I was cutting everything above 5k anyway!

However late last year I also saw Justin York's suggestion that he never uses hi cuts, and I've since been following that with great success. At loud volumes, and in a live mix, if you are too harsh it might be worth adjusting your amp settings, not the cab hi cut. My Yamaha FRFR is for stage volume, not my core tone, and I have IEMs in all the time at gigs. I get what I like at home through the FRFR in the room with no hi cut and it tends to translate well for me.

IMO this is more along the lines of how you should dial in a real amp and works to keep "the juice" in my core tone. YMMV but I am happier with my sounds since l started thinking that way again, especially with the FW updates the last year or so
 
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