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Absolutely. The reason for my post is that based on a lot of posts above I suspect that many people believe a far-field IR will introduce some of the room sound, and therefore you should blend a small amount of them with a close-miced IR. Like you would mics in the studio. But that's not at all how they work.

In my experience, it depends on the FF IR. I've used some (eg. Ownhammer) that do, in fact, sound like they were mic'd at a distance, despite the lack of any notably audible room reverberation, thus blending them with a NF IR can yield a nice balance with respect to recording based tones. On the flip side, while the FF IR's in this set were mic'd at a distance, they sound great and upfront enough on their own to my ears that I, personally, don't feel a need to blend them with any other IR's.
 
In my experience, it depends on the FF IR. I've used some (eg. Ownhammer) that do, in fact, sound like they were mic'd at a distance, despite the lack of any notably audible room reverberation, thus blending them with a NF IR can yield a nice balance with respect to recording based tones. On the flip side, while the FF IR's in this set were mic'd at a distance, they sound great and upfront enough on their own to my ears that I, personally, don't feel a need to blend them with any other IR's.

You're right, it's not wrong to blend them but if the intent is to add a room sound there are better ways to achieve it.

A well shot FF IR that doesn't include reflections will sound upfront becuase the delay is compensated for and you're getting none of the reverberation clues that would indicate it was miced from a distance. I'm gradually coming to the opinion that they are a better approach than micing a real cab for recording - with a real cab if you want the sound of the whole cab then you're also getting some of the room, and if you don't want the room then you're pretty much only hearing the speaker cone. That's fine if you have a good sounding room that you want on every guitar part on every recording... With a reflection-free far-field IR you get the whole cab and none of the room (which you can easily add later if you want it).
 
Far-field IRs are not the panacea some are making them out to be. Some things need clarification:

1. A far-field IR will still not sound exactly like "amp in the room". The reason for this is that the dispersion of a guitar cabinet is very different than that of a FRFR speaker. An FRFR speaker has far wider dispersion at high frequencies, by design. With a guitar cabinet the low frequencies are less directional than the highs. This causes the cab to interact with the room differently.

So even if you capture a far-field IR it will not sound the same through a FRFR speaker.

2. Most of the time we are not in the far-field of a guitar cabinet. At 10 kHz the far-field of a 12" speaker is about 18 ft. So usually we're in the far-field at some frequencies but in the Fresnel zone at others. At a typical distance of, say, 5 ft. we are only in the far-field at frequencies below roughly 3 kHz. Above that we are in the Fresnel zone.

3. Because of #2 the sound at each ear can be quite a bit different. That six inches or so between our ears makes a big difference. When using a far-field IR the same sound will be presented to each ear. Even when in the far-field the sound changes pretty dramatically vs. angle because the dispersion is a function of frequency. One ear will hear more highs than the other.

4. A cab with more than one speaker creates significant challenges. For example, a 4x12 has a far-field at 10 kHz that's roughly 100 feet! If you capture an IR of that cab at, say, 10 feet you are nowhere near the far-field. At anything other than nadir (aka boresight, 0 degrees) the individual speakers will contribute with different times of arrival. This results in extremely phasey sound (we were able to get some 4x12 IRs by using a special trick but in general you need to be very far away).

We don't hear this phasiness when listening to the real cab though because of #2. We get very different signals at each ear and our brain processes these. When using a Fresnel-zone IR of a 4x12 the same signal goes to both ears.

5. Many guitar cabs are open back. A far-field IR of an open back cab through an FRFR monitor will sound very different because you're not reproducing the sound coming out of the back of the cab and bouncing off the walls.

6. The sound of recorded guitar is near-field. This is what most people are used to hearing. So if you're trying to get the sound of your favorite record you won't get that with far-field IRs.


The takeaway from all this is that if you truly want the sound of amp in the room the best way to get that is to use an actual guitar cab. This isn't to say that far-field IRs are useless. They will give you a roughly similar sound to a guitar cab but it's just not the same.
 
FYI, far-field IRs don’t really capture the room reverberation as they aren’t long enough, so there’s no reason they need to be blended with close-miced IRs. They are perfectly useable on their own (in fact many would argue they are better than close-miced IRs).

FYI, for me, these sound way better blended with my original IRs, than they do alone. I guess I failed to mention trying them alone, but yeah, did not dig them at all that way. YMMV
 
I suspect that many people believe a far-field IR will introduce some of the room sound, and therefore you should blend a small amount of them with a close-miced IR. Like you would mics in the studio. But that's not at all how they work.

They sure sound great that way though!;)
 
Far-field IRs are not the panacea some are making them out to be. Some things need clarification:

1. A far-field IR will still not sound exactly like "amp in the room". The reason for this is that the dispersion of a guitar cabinet is very different than that of a FRFR speaker. An FRFR speaker has far wider dispersion at high frequencies, by design. With a guitar cabinet the low frequencies are less directional than the highs. This causes the cab to interact with the room differently.

So even if you capture a far-field IR it will not sound the same through a FRFR speaker.

2. Most of the time we are not in the far-field of a guitar cabinet. At 10 kHz the far-field of a 12" speaker is about 18 ft. So usually we're in the far-field at some frequencies but in the Fresnel zone at others. At a typical distance of, say, 5 ft. we are only in the far-field at frequencies below roughly 3 kHz. Above that we are in the Fresnel zone.

3. Because of #2 the sound at each ear can be quite a bit different. That six inches or so between our ears makes a big difference. When using a far-field IR the same sound will be presented to each ear. Even when in the far-field the sound changes pretty dramatically vs. angle because the dispersion is a function of frequency. One ear will hear more highs than the other.

4. A cab with more than one speaker creates significant challenges. For example, a 4x12 has a far-field at 10 kHz that's roughly 100 feet! If you capture an IR of that cab at, say, 10 feet you are nowhere near the far-field. At anything other than nadir (aka boresight, 0 degrees) the individual speakers will contribute with different times of arrival. This results in extremely phasey sound (we were able to get some 4x12 IRs by using a special trick but in general you need to be very far away).

We don't hear this phasiness when listening to the real cab though because of #2. We get very different signals at each ear and our brain processes these. When using a Fresnel-zone IR of a 4x12 the same signal goes to both ears.

5. Many guitar cabs are open back. A far-field IR of an open back cab through an FRFR monitor will sound very different because you're not reproducing the sound coming out of the back of the cab and bouncing off the walls.

6. The sound of recorded guitar is near-field. This is what most people are used to hearing. So if you're trying to get the sound of your favorite record you won't get that with far-field IRs.


The takeaway from all this is that if you truly want the sound of amp in the room the best way to get that is to use an actual guitar cab. This isn't to say that far-field IRs are useless. They will give you a roughly similar sound to a guitar cab but it's just not the same.

Thanks Cliff

That was a great read

I think in the end the cabs you posted sound really good especially mixed in with some other IRs to taste

Thanks again
 
You're right, it's not wrong to blend them but if the intent is to add a room sound there are better ways to achieve it.

If the intent is to reproduce the sound of a room mic, reverb alone doesn't always or necessarily cut it, in my opinion.

I'm gradually coming to the opinion that they are a better approach than micing a real cab for recording - with a real cab if you want the sound of the whole cab then you're also getting some of the room, and if you don't want the room then you're pretty much only hearing the speaker cone. That's fine if you have a good sounding room that you want on every guitar part on every recording... With a reflection-free far-field IR you get the whole cab and none of the room (which you can easily add later if you want it).

If you position a mic right on (or near) the grill, room sound is minimal, and many famous guitar recordings are traditionally near-field. The truth is, most people have absolutely no idea what many of their favorite recorded tones sounded like directly from whatever cab was used in the room they were recorded in, and ironically, many guitarists attempt to reproduce the sound of their favorite recorded tones through their real cab.
 
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Maybe a lot of people are looking at these from the wrong perspective. For me these IRs are a way to make my full range cab sound less "full range and flat" and more "guitar speaker range with some character" without the culprits of close-mic'ed IRs. Compared to my real guitar cab my full range setup sounds way more similar to it with these IRs than with near-field IRs which I always feel are missing something in the highs, some certain "silkyness" and "broadness". They tend to sound "narrow". (The low end boominess due to the proximity effect can be handled with.)

I don't think we necessarily need IRs of 2x12 or 4x12 cabs, just IRs that accurately capture the characteristics of a certain speaker (i.e. V30, Greenback ...) to turn the "full range flat response" into "guitar speaker range with some character". A perfect reproduction of one certain cab in one specific room is neither needed (for me) nor possible (most likely).
Btw: The farfield IR of Cliffs old Mesa cab finally made me understand why he likes it so much. It's a monster. The near field IRs I always found pretty meh and mostly unusable.

tl;dr: These IRs rock, gimme more, please. I'd pay for it (as I did for the first FF pack). :D
 
FYI, for me, these sound way better blended with my original IRs, than they do alone. I guess I failed to mention trying them alone, but yeah, did not dig them at all that way. YMMV
They sure sound great that way though!;)

All good mate. Do what sound best to you.


If the intent is to reproduce the sound of a room mic, reverb alone doesn't always or necessarily cut it, in my opinion.

Fair enough. Personally I don't like the sound of far-field IRs that have reflections and I'd rather use reverb and/or delay for that purpose, but each to his own.


If you position a mic right on (or near) the grill, room sound is minimal, and many famous guitar recordings are traditionally near-field. The truth is, most people have absolutely no idea what many of their favorite recorded tones sounded like directly from whatever cab was used in the room they were recorded in, and ironically, many guitarists attempt to reproduce the sound of their favorite recorded tones through their real cab.

True. Not to mention people don't usually hear the recorded guitar tone in isolation.
 
Do you recommend aligning the far field cab if used with another cab IR?

Thank you for these cabs I think they sound really good, definitely among the best I have tried. Sounds awesome mixed with my other favorite IR.

I haven’t yet, but I have the same question about whether best practices would be to align all impulses when using one farfield IR. I am assuming the blank at the beginning of the farfields is just the gap caused by mic distance from the cab.
 
I haven’t yet, but I have the same question about whether best practices would be to align all impulses when using one farfield IR. I am assuming the blank at the beginning of the farfields is just the gap caused by mic distance from the cab.
You should align impulses ideally but sometimes a little misalignment adds character.

The gap at the beginning is because they aren't min-phase, they are auto-trimmed. The distance from the mic to the cab would be much greater but that's automatically removed (and we manually reduce it before-hand in the IR Capture menu).
 
Personally I don't like the sound of far-field IRs that have reflections and I'd rather use reverb and/or delay for that purpose, but each to his own.

I suspect it's because you're using such FF IR's in isolation. For recording, the trick is to combine them with near-field IR's, however don't blend them together using a single Cab block. Load them into separate Cab blocks and run the far-field IR in parallel with a Reverb block set to Medium Room with Mix @ approx. 50% and Time set to around 0.90 seconds, then set the balance of the near-field IR to around -45 and the balance of the far-field IR to around 70. Assuming both IR's are aligned, you shouldn't hear the audible phasey characteristic inherent in most far-field IR's, and the end result will generally sound far more authentic, in my opinion.
 
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I don’t know much about IRs, and FRFR units haven’t done it for me. (I guess that my brain needs near field responses from the back of my knees and mid field response from my head. By the way, my head doesn’t like hitting columns either.)
What's hitting the back of your knees isn't near field unless you're standing right in front of your cab...

Near field is what the mic placed close to the speaker in that cab hears.
 
I find these work very, very well and I like them - but they're not useful on their own.

What I am finding is that by replacing a 57 IR I'm getting a much more realistic and fuller sound, blending with something with a little more bottom end

Thanks very much!
 
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