Do Third Party IR's buy me anything?

dkenin

dkenin

Inspired
Hey guys,

I've been reading a lot about these third parties selling IR's of cabinets. Is there really that clear cut of a difference between the factory presets and those that the other companies are providing?

I'm interesting in knowing what the differences are. I've finally acknowledged the importance of the cabinet on tone, so I am following the progression with the next logical question.

What's the difference between third party IR's of the same cabinet FAS has already done? What are advantages to the third party ones? More faithful reproduction of the cabs? Higher resolution?

Help me before I buy snake oil

Dave
 
Well I will say this... they are a lot of FUN. Our Cab Packs give you more colors to mix in.
You can use multiple cab blocks to find a blend you like and then "print" it to a single IR with Cab-Lab.
I personally loved the factory cabs, but I found my favorite tones of all time in the RedWirez and Wellspring/Mad Oak packs.
The new Ownhammer products are also great.
 
Great I will start doing my research... What is it that you liked about them?

Admin M@ said:
Well I will say this... they are a lot of FUN. Our Cab Packs give you more colors to mix in.
You can use multiple cab blocks to find a blend you like and then "print" it to a single IR with Cab-Lab.
I personally loved the factory cabs, but I found my favorite tones of all time in the RedWirez and Wellspring/Mad Oak packs.
The new Ownhammer products are also great.
Click to expand...
 
Different impulse responses of the same speaker can sound substantially different from one another. The choice of mic, variations among mics of the same type, mic placement, the preamp used, the power amp used and in some cases post processing and post eq'ing of the IR can create substantial differences. For example, in the two IR paks recently released by Ownhammer, Kevin offers three versions of each IR, each using a different power amp in the signal chain. Differences like this give you tonal choices, and they alter the tone in ways that simply cannot be achieved using equalization.

The IR paks from Fractal and Ownhammer provide custom mic mixes. These are combinations of mics that a professional recording engineer has blended together to achieve a particular sound. This is one of those "secret sauce" things that go into recording a great sounding guitar. This makes the paks "plug and play" so to speak. It's easier and quicker to find a great tone.

If you like to mix and match yourself these same paks provide individual mic IR's, and you can use Cab Lab or the two IR blocks in the Axe-FX to create your own combinations. If you'd like to go even deeper down this path pick up the RedWirez IR's or the older Ownhammer IR's. For each speaker in the set the same mic is sampled in many positions. The number of IR's available, and your ability to fine tune, is staggering with these.

So, why bother with all this? Let me give you an example. When I started working with the new Ownhammer IR's I discovered that one of the mixes was substantially more open sounding than a comparable IR built into the AxeFX. That did wonders to my tone. It's what I wanted to hear. Conversely, I read other reports of people liking this particular internal IR because it wasn't as bright or open. It brought a warmth and smoothness to their tone that fit what they were after.

Changing the IR is arguably the most significant way to alter your tone. Third party IR's open up a world of tonal possibilities to you, either to make radical changes, or to hone in on a subtle change you're after.

Terry.
 
Great this is what I needed thank you for your response, useful!

Tone Seeker said:
Different impulse responses of the same speaker can sound substantially different from one another. The choice of mic, variations among mics of the same type, mic placement, the preamp used, the power amp used and in some cases post processing and post eq'ing of the IR can create substantial differences. For example, in the two IR paks recently released by Ownhammer, Kevin offers three versions of each IR, each using a different power amp in the signal chain. Differences like this give you tonal choices, and they alter the tone in ways that simply cannot be achieved using equalization.

The IR paks from Fractal and Ownhammer provide custom mic mixes. These are combinations of mics that a professional recording engineer has blended together to achieve a particular sound. This is one of those "secret sauce" things that go into recording a great sounding guitar. This makes the paks "plug and play" so to speak. It's easier and quicker to find a great tone.

If you like to mix and match yourself these same paks provide individual mic IR's, and you can use Cab Lab or the two IR blocks in the Axe-FX to create your own combinations. If you'd like to go even deeper down this path pick up the RedWirez IR's or the older Ownhammer IR's. For each speaker in the set the same mic is sampled in many positions. The number of IR's available, and your ability to fine tune, is staggering with these.

So, why bother with all this? Let me give you an example. When I started working with the new Ownhammer IR's I discovered that one of the mixes was substantially more open sounding than a comparable IR built into the AxeFX. That did wonders to my tone. It's what I wanted to hear. Conversely, I read other reports of people liking this particular internal IR because it wasn't as bright or open. It brought a warmth and smoothness to their tone that fit what they were after.

Changing the IR is arguably the most significant way to alter your tone. Third party IR's open up a world of tonal possibilities to you, either to make radical changes, or to hone in on a subtle change you're after.

Terry.
Click to expand...
 
s0c9 said:
yeah... more IR's
(sorry :roll)
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if Fractal is cooking up anything new, but Ownhammer is working on something that I think a lot of people will enjoy. ;)

I'd say "watch out for the rabbit hole", but the mix-IR's from both Fractal and Ownhammer have made IR's pretty easy to work with, IMHO.

Terry.
 
darrenw5094 said:
Is Cab Lab free?
Click to expand...

HA!!!!! That's a good one lol Not free at all my friend.

On a different note, i've also wondered the same question but i've checked out OwnHammer's stash and.. i'm pretty pleased with what i've heard but i'm still searching around to see if its worth buying overall.. Or should i continue to wait... lol
 
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