Current Trend of Commercial IRs: More Balanced and Polished

Mark Al

Inspired
I have been collecting and accumulating IRs for years, and I noticed at least from three major venders, e.g. OwnHammer, RedWirez and York Audio, that their IR approach have changed quite a bit, from OH's (r)Evolution Bundle, to RedWirez's BigBoxX remaster and the YA's newly released IRs.

I have tons of old OH IRs from years ago, IRs in the new Evolution pack sounds obviously more polished, more balanced, without either the typical OH excessive low mids, or the piecing highs in the old OH IRs. (though I can still immediately recognize certain OH sound signature in them.) OH put a lot of efforts on a large variety mic mixes, different bright/dark/tight/scooped flavor, which is quite nice!

By the way, York Audio IRs somehow have a similar sound and feel with the new OH IRs...

As for RedWirez, I have the original RedWirez big box, and I know my ways among that jungle fairly well, certain cabs sounds really good originally already and those remains largely unchanged in the remaster, however, many of the not-so-good sounds one are now wonderfully redone, I was in for such a surprise! And similar things happened here, these new IRs are more polished, balanced.

Axe III IRs still largely sound old school, meaning they often requires quite a bit of work to wrestle with when dialing the preset, I gave them up long ago but go back to audit them from time to time.

And the RedWirez mixIR3 makes selecting/auditing IRs from ten of thousands of them feel like a breeze, this is the interface NC Quad Cortex adopted, and I REALLY REALLY hope Axe III could support some interface like that working with one IR vender perhaps.... @FractalAudio :)

Anyway, the IRs are certainly evolving and the new crops from various venders are mostly largely improved when compared to the old generation.
 
A deep collaboration with one vender makes sense, I think, compared to randomly auditing a bunch of IRs from many and fill in the factory cab slots....

Perhaps the result will finally be a consistent and yet user-friendly IR selection interface ;-)
 
A deep collaboration with one vender makes sense, I think, compared to randomly auditing a bunch of IRs from many and fill in the factory cab slots....

Perhaps the result will finally be a consistent and yet user-friendly IR selection interface ;-)
I disagree... Limiting to a single vendor would be just that: limiting

I understand your desire, but I don't that approach makes sense. That's my opinion, of course ;)
 
Perhaps, it's because I have tones of commercial IR collections, and I am not exactly excited about versatilities, and perhaps the versatility issues should best be addressed and left alone to commercial IRs which users try out themselves.

Having various (often drastically different) flavored IRs is on one hand confusing for users and on the hand wasteful for all the factory slots. And I'd love to be able to overwrite all the factory slots, if @FractalAudio one day allows me to do that, and I don't understand why we are not, such a waste of space, I could totally use/fill them up with my own IRs....
 
Sure, keep the current factory IRs downloadable somewhere... and there are tons of commercial IRs widely available for folks to try different flavors, but I simply don't see the current Axe III factory IRs as an ideal user interface for IR selection by default, and I think Fractal could and should be able to do a lot better than that.
 
Sure, keep the current factory IRs downloadable somewhere... and there are tons of commercial IRs widely available for folks to try different flavors, but I simply don't see the current Axe III factory IRs as an ideal user interface for IR selection by default, and I think Fractal could and should be able to do a lot better than that.
I think, there really is ENOUGH space on the Axefx III to still contain all the stock IRs and additional user IRs.
I know, I'm speaking against my own business, but many people use and like the stock cabs a lot. And If anyone wants to "dig deeper", it's already a good starting point to find "your" fave cab, imho.
 
I'm quite certain that YA doesn't apply any post-processing to their captured IRs, no polishing.

Red Wirez remastered their old IRs, meaning that did not capture new IRs. But they applied low-cut and hi-cut, and more.
 
I would not see ANY sense in post-processing IRs for a more "polished" sound. There is a difference between "balanced" and "polished".
 
I think the “polished” tone mainly comes from IR producers simply getting better at what they do. I’m sure some guys use high and low cuts to smooth out their captures, but I don’t think they’re necessary. There’s no substitute for a great mic placement.

I don’t listen to or compare my stuff to anyone else’s because I don’t want to be influenced by someone else’s work, so I couldn’t tell you what each IR maker does to achieve “their sound” or why some IR makers sound similar to others. We all have different gear and different methods. I just plug in a cab, and if it sounds good, I’ll throw some mics at it and see what sticks.
 
I think the “polished” tone mainly comes from IR producers simply getting better at what they do. I’m sure some guys use high and low cuts to smooth out their captures, but I don’t think they’re necessary. There’s no substitute for a great mic placement.

I don’t listen to or compare my stuff to anyone else’s because I don’t want to be influenced by someone else’s work, so I couldn’t tell you what each IR maker does to achieve “their sound” or why some IR makers sound similar to others. We all have different gear and different methods. I just plug in a cab, and if it sounds good, I’ll throw some mics at it and see what sticks.
This is the way. ;-)
 
I think the “polished” tone mainly comes from IR producers simply getting better at what they do. I’m sure some guys use high and low cuts to smooth out their captures, but I don’t think they’re necessary. There’s no substitute for a great mic placement.

I don’t listen to or compare my stuff to anyone else’s because I don’t want to be influenced by someone else’s work, so I couldn’t tell you what each IR maker does to achieve “their sound” or why some IR makers sound similar to others. We all have different gear and different methods. I just plug in a cab, and if it sounds good, I’ll throw some mics at it and see what sticks.
+1 I am in total agreement on these points.
 
The only entities who post process IR files with compression or eq are people that have a preconceived notion of the marketing term "mix friendly".

If your capture room is a pleasing sounding room, your mic selection/placement is actually monitored & tested at the time of capture, and your goal is to capture the cabinet/mic combination as a "warts and all" type of preservation of the cab, you will find usable sounds without resorting to post processing for an end user.

Usually post processing is a red flag for an issue in the capture process or a philosophical view about what something should be versus what it is at the time of capture.

Once an entity goes down the path of processing files to be "mix friendly", some critical questions need to be asked:

+ Whose mix are these IR files supposed to fit? Is it some artist that you might not play like, is it some producer who you may not have you other instruments processed in the same way he/she does, is it some Platonic ideal mix that your mix might not resemble?

+ What instruments, playing techniques, and signal chain was used when testing how this ideal would fit in a mix? Do those variables match what you are using to play when using those files?

+ Are there any two mixes of different artists where you can take the tone from one and slap it in the other without making EQ and other adjustments to fit in the mix? If you can't find that, what would make you think that would work well in the IR world?

Everyone wants a time saver when getting down to the business of creating art. The difference between mix ready IR files and unprocessed IR files is the difference between using pre mixed oil paint colors to paint a picture and an artist manipulating colors on a palette at the time of painting an artistic vision.
 
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This subject caught my eye after I'd purchased an IR recently, and, when seeing the comment "mix ready" in the IR's documentation, I wondered what that meant exactly. I figured it was just a marketing comment, but reading here I guess I need to consider in any future IR purchases, whether or not additional post processing (polish) has been baked in. I've also wondered about comments I often see saying X IR of a given captured cab/mic sounds "better" than Y IR of the same capture. Isn't "accuracy" the goal, and doesn't "polish" reduce accuracy? I expect that if a real 57 mic'd cab X sounds horrible to me then a good quality IR for it should sound exactly as horrible to me, no more or less - as an enthusiast not a pro, maybe there is some value to additional post processing I don't get.
 
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The only entities who post process IR files with compression or eq are people that have a preconceived notion of the marketing term "mix friendly".

If your capture room is a pleasing sounding room, your mic selection/placement is actually monitored & tested at the time of capture, and your goal is to capture the cabinet/mic combination as a "warts and all" type of preservation of the cab, you will find usable sounds without resorting to post processing for an end user.

Usually post processing is a red flag for an issue in the capture process or a philosophical view about what something should be versus what it is at the time of capture.

Once an entity goes down the path of processing files to be "mix friendly", some critical questions need to be asked:

+ Whose mix are these IR files supposed to fit? Is it some artist that you might not play like, is it some producer who you may not have you other instruments processed in the same way he/she does, is it some Platonic ideal mix that your mix might not resemble?

+ What instruments, playing techniques, and signal chain was used when testing how this ideal would fit in a mix? Do those variables match what you are using to play when using those files?

+ Are there any two mixes of different artists where you can take the tone from one and slap it in the other without making EQ and other adjustments to fit in the mix? If you can't find that, what would make you think that would work well in the IR world?

Everyone wants a time saver when getting down to the business of creating art. The difference between mix ready IR files and unprocessed IR files is the difference between using pre mixed oil paint colors to paint a picture and an artist manipulating colors on a palette at the time of painting an artistic vision.
I agree with some of this, but even if you're just capturing, you can't avoid the fact that you're making artistic choices about what to offer, for others to use, in unknown musical contexts, potentially looking for many different styles of results. The cabs, speakers, mics, mic positions, signal chain, room, and the particular captures you decide to release out of everything you got aren't any less opinionated than someone's choice to band-limit or otherwise EQ the result.
 
As a consumer of IRs, I don't want anything added that I can add myself (and can't "unadd" from what I purchased). Wrt elements that have to be baked in (cabs, speakers, mics, mic positions, signal chain, room...), I want accuracy and as many element choices as possible so that the artistic choice possibilities are maximized to my control and minimized to the IR capturer who (no offence to him/her), ideally, is mainly concerned with the mechanics of capturing accurately, getting access to the widest possible array of hardware, and delivering the resulting sh#tload of IRs in logical easily navigable format.
 
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This subject caught my eye after I'd purchased an IR recently, and, when seeing the comment "mix ready" in the IR's documentation, I wondered what that meant exactly. I figured it was just a marketing comment, but reading here I guess I need to consider in any future IR purchases, whether or not additional post processing (polish) has been baked in. I've also wondered about comments I often see saying X IR of a given captured cab/mic sounds "better" than Y IR of the same capture. Isn't "accuracy" the goal, and doesn't "polish" reduce accuracy? I expect that if cab a real 57 mic'd cab X sounds horrible to me then a good quality IR for it should sound exactly as horrible to me, no more or less - as an enthusiast not a pro, maybe there is some value to additional post processing I don't get.
If an IR is properly done, then it is an accurate representation of the cab/speaker being captured. The reason why “capture X” might sound better than “capture Y” of the same cab has a lot of variables. The capture method itself plays a huge roll, but even more is the gear used to capture it.

For instance, I just dropped $2.5k on a new mic pre. I was pumped about it and completely re-shot my Matchless 2x12. I liked it and it was accurate, but I felt like the mic pre added something to the top end that would be great for a high gain cab, but not a Matchless. So I did a mic pre shootout for that cab and landed on one that suited the cab better. In the process, I ended up buying another Matchless cab and compared the two. The new Matchless had a better top end response and sounded better, so I’m going to shoot the new cab with a different mic pre. It’s all about serving the source. A lot of people don’t know how much goes into making IRs, but I can tell you that it’s a tremendous labor of love.

Accuracy is easy. Finding the right combination of various elements is the hardest part in making something both accurate and inspiring to play through.
 
I agree with some of this, but even if you're just capturing, you can't avoid the fact that you're making artistic choices about what to offer, for others to use, in unknown musical contexts, potentially looking for many different styles of results. The cabs, speakers, mics, mic positions, signal chain, room, and the particular captures you decide to release out of everything you got aren't any less opinionated than someone's choice to band-limit or otherwise EQ the result.
The difference Dave is the phase shift of EQ and the post recording compression that "mix ready" IR files give you are at least one generation away from the warts and all capture.

As a user, you can EQ and compress to make a track with an unprocessed IR fit in a mix. No one can undo those moves in a "mix ready" IR because no user knows what manipulations the producer did in the name of making the file "mix ready".
 
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