Dual IRs...not necessarily a good thing...

Lance Holland

Lance Holland

Inspired
I've been working on my Acoustic patch for our gigs. Now that I have a PRS Hollowbody SE Piezo, I have a guitar that does a decent acoustic tone...one guitar to bring to a gig.

Thinking "two different IRs must sound better"...I put a 3Sigma Gibson 15 IR on one side and a Martin one on the other. It sounded terrible. The tone was thin and plinky. I looked at the Align tab in the cab and the two lines seemed to be out of phase with each other. Now it made sense. Thinking that maybe 3Sigma recorded the IRs with different phases, I tried to align them but it didn't work - no phase correction seemed to work. Anyway, turning off the second IR made the acoustic sound much better.

Phase is a thing! Lesson learned for me.
 
If they really are out of phase [which would be weird as the FM3 should load them as min phase], try putting a Filter block after the cab and invert the left or right phase to see if it fixes it.
 
A lot of times I find that mixing “mixed” IR’s that already have multiple mics baked in yields mixed results (pun intended). That said, mixing 2 IR’s made with single mics is often a great way to dial in a particular sound that you’re not finding otherwise. For example, mixing an SM57 and an R121 and adjusting levels to taste. That said, I’ve found great sounds both ways, so experiment, find what sounds good to you, and roll with it.
 
yyz67 said:
If they really are out of phase [which would be weird as the FM3 should load them as min phase], try putting a Filter block after the cab and invert the left or right phase to see if it fixes it.
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Possible the settings used when importing didn't have the best options?

I agree, they shouldn't be out of phase if imported correctly.
 
Lance Holland said:
I guess my point was that while I thought this would sound awesome. It didn’t.
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+1 - not always what we expect. I like to have different cab flavours left and right but not too different, otherwise it becomes impossible for me to dial anything in (maybe my inexperience). I tend to use the same cabs L/R hardpanned but throw some sort of minimal eq wrinkle into one of them (maybe just hi/low cutting one more or less than the other).
 
Funny this came up. I was futzing around with listening to the differences between York audio’s natural phase, minimal phase, and mixes.

I like them all for various reasons but it does make storing them a challenge as the phase properties aren’t marked. Thinking of colour coding then when I get around to it.

I think the main thing I’ve found is if using two irs, it’s best if they’re pretty different. The ribbon/small dynamic mic combo is a classic one because each mic is going after different frequencies.

I own the sigma 3audio Martin 45 pack. I do have a go to preset with two different irs blended at different volumes and sometimes different frequency roll offs. It works pretty well.

It’s tricky with acoustic guitars. Even two real ones on stage playing the same part doesn’t always sound good.

Sean Meredith-Jones
 
I'm not sure how accurate the graph is on the cabinet block that shows the portrayal of the IR, but some of the peaks are out of phase regardless of how you align them. I think that's what led to my issues. Regardless, two of the same IR or one muted sound much better.
 
If that was a wav file you imported, you can flip its phase and then re-import it.
 
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