*FREE* Far-Field Session #2 Cab Pack

If you position a mic right on (or near) the grill, room sound is minimal
This is not entirely true.. By doing that maybe you don't hear the reverberation of the room, but you're getting a huge reflection from the floor which is just a few inches away, and that reflection causes comb filtering.
One of Jay Mitchell's suggestions was to raise the cab by 2-3 feet when close-micing to reduce the level of floor reflections and yield a more natural tone (his "A" IR kinda proves that)
 
This is not entirely true.. By doing that maybe you don't hear the reverberation of the room, but you're getting a huge reflection from the floor which is just a few inches away, and that reflection causes comb filtering.

What you see on an ETC vs. what you actually hear can be two different things. Think of all the famous close mic'd guitar recordings you're familiar with. How many can you cite that you feel exhibit audible phasing issues? For that matter, consider the myriad YouTube demos of the Axe-Fx, Kemper, Helix and Amplifire. While I can certainly appreciate a good reflection free IR, I think the issues some are associating with traditionally captured near-field IR's are being blown completely out of proportion.
 
What you see on an ETC vs. what you actually hear can be two different things. Think about all of the famous close mic'd guitar recordings you're familiar with. How many can you cite that you feel exhibit audible phasing issues? For that matter, think of the myriad YouTube demos of the Axe-Fx, Kemper, Helix or Amplifire. While I can certainly appreciate reflection free IR's, I think the issues some are associating with traditional near-field IR's is being blown out of proportion.
I think they were saying the truncated nature of the IR produces the phase issues.
 
I think they were saying the truncated nature of the IR produces the phase issues.

If that's what were being claimed, it could be argued that most IR's have truncated early reflections. Ask yourself how many you've used or heard in demos / famous guitar recordings that actually exhibit audible phasing issues.
 
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!

Make sure you try the ones further off axis. They’ve got more low end. Also, most of us never hear our cabs on-axis because we’re standing and some distance away so off-axis is closer to what we experience playing through an amp.
 
If that's what were being claimed, it could be argued that most IR's have truncated early reflections. Ask yourself how many you've used or heard in demos / famous guitar recordings that actually exhibit audible phasing issues.

Truncating or windowing an IR cannot cause phase issues, and most IRs certainly do have truncated (or windowed if done correctly) early reflections. You will actually get less phase cancellations in a shorter IR because fewer reflections will be present. I think that in this case, calling them phase 'issues' may be confusing to people, because they will assume that if they hear an unpleasant artefact - they will assume that it is a phase cancellation, while in reality plenty of the sounds that we like contain lots of phase cancellations.

Closed back guitar cabs, or cabs with multiple drivers, for example, have lots of phase cancellations that make them sound how they do. As it has been pointed out, most guitar recordings have been recorded NF with a reflection from the floor that causes phase cancellations. This alters frequency response, and phase is the reason why. It doesn't mean it will sound bad. I cannot say what a reflection-free NF IR would sound like, because AFAIK none exist. It would be interesting to hear one. Even a test of an NF IR at various heights in order to hear the effect of attenuating the effects of the phase cancellation from the floor, at varied amounts, in an otherwise reflection free environment (to minimise other variables). I have the ability to do this test, but am not interested enough in NF IRs so I see it as a waste of valuable time (which goes by very fast during a FF IR capture session).
 
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Truncating or windowing an IR cannot cause phase issues, and most IRs certainly do have truncated (or windowed if done correctly) early reflections. You will actually get less phase cancellations in a shorter IR because fewer reflections will be present. I think that in this case, calling them phase 'issues' may be confusing to people, because they will assume that if they hear an unpleasant artefact - they will assume that it is a phase cancellation, while in reality plenty of the sounds that we like contain lots of phase cancellations.

Closed back guitar cabs, or cabs with multiple drivers, for example, have lots of phase cancellations that make them sound how they do. As it has been pointed out, most guitar recordings have been recorded NF with a reflection from the floor that causes phase cancellations. This alters frequency response, and phase is the reason why. It doesn't mean it will sound bad. I cannot say what a reflection-free NF IR would sound like, because AFAIK none exist. It would be interesting to hear one. Even a test of an NF IR at various heights in order to hear the effect of attenuating the effects of the phase cancellation from the floor, at varied amounts, in an otherwise reflection free environment (to minimise other variables). I have the ability to do this test, but am not interested enough in NF IRs so I see it as a waste of valuable time (which goes by very fast during a FF IR capture session).

By phase issues, I'm specifically referring to comb filtering.
 
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.
With two drummers, seven of Detroit’s finest, in a small club, and playing a supersession a few weeks ago? I guessed it was near field. The Z-Best cab was on my heels. That said, I was making a joke. But I was serious about my head hitting columns. I hate that.
 
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What you see on an ETC vs. what you actually hear can be two different things. Think of all the famous close mic'd guitar recordings you're familiar with. How many can you cite that you feel exhibit audible phasing issues?
I could cite a lot of them, a couple examples are metallica's enter sandman or pink floyd's money rhtythm tracks.
Phasiness doesn't mean it sounds bad though, those are two of my favourites guitar tones actually, and that phasiness probably adds character to the recorded tone in the mix.

But I think some of us are just more sensitive than others to phasiness, in my infinite IR search I've always prefered IRs that have little or no peaks/notches in the frequency graph and that usually translates into a more intelligible tone when playing live with other unmic'd
instruments.

I don't know if the issues are being blown out of proportion, I just know that for me both this pack and Jay Mitchell's cabs are a nice addition to my IR arsenal and I'd like to see more of them.
 
I could cite a lot of them, a couple examples are metallica's enter sandman or pink floyd's money rhtythm tracks.
Phasiness doesn't mean it sounds bad though, those are two of my favourites guitar tones actually, and that phasiness probably adds character to the recorded tone in the mix.

But I think some of us are just more sensitive than others to phasiness, in my infinite IR search I've always prefered IRs that have little or no peaks/notches in the frequency graph and that usually translates into a more intelligible tone when playing live with other unmic'd
instruments.

I don't know if the issues are being blown out of proportion, I just know that for me both this pack and Jay Mitchell's cabs are a nice addition to my IR arsenal and I'd like to see more of them.

As mentioned in post #108, I'm specifically referring to comb filtering, which, with the exception of its use as an effect(eg. flanger), isn't generally considered desirable.
 
Comb filtering is indeed what happens with boundary reflections.

I'm not contending it doesn't. I'm simply suggesting that, given the vast number of close mic'd guitar recordings that are met with varying degrees of exuberance and approval, I think the issue is getting blown out of proportion. Don't get me wrong, I think reflection free FF IR's have their advantages (depending on your use case), but of the very limited number I've used and examples I've heard, I didn't feel they sounded superior to my favorite close mic'd IR's, though I'd be very much inclined to use them for attaining more of the AITR flavor over neutral speakers, which is where I think they tend to shine.
 
As mentioned in post #108, I'm specifically referring to comb filtering, which, with the exception of its use as an effect(eg. flanger), isn't generally considered desirable.
And I generally agree, but this statement seems in contradiction to what you said earlier here:
What you see on an ETC vs. what you actually hear can be two different things. Think of all the famous close mic'd guitar recordings you're familiar with. How many can you cite that you feel exhibit audible phasing issues? For that matter, consider the myriad YouTube demos of the Axe-Fx, Kemper, Helix and Amplifire. While I can certainly appreciate a good reflection free IR, I think the issues some are associating with traditionally captured near-field IR's are being blown completely out of proportion.
The vast majority of those famous recordings exhibit comb filtering caused by floor reflections (which can be reduced by using multi-mic configurations or other classic studio tricks).
If it's desirable or not it's probably just personal preference for the most part, or just what we're used to hear in recordings.
 
Also keep in mind that a traditional Impulse Responce is represeting a miced cabinet, which can be used in all applications you normally would mic a guitar cabinet. If you want to use the IR to reproduce a guitar cabinet on a FRFR system, this wont replicate you the sound of the guitar cabinet. The reason here is simple: A guitar cabinet has something we call "the beam" - this is a zone were the speaker sounds very shrill, ice picky - this is a very unpleasured sounding zone, usually heard when putting you ears directly in front of the speaker cone. But normally you standing in front of your traditional guitar amp, this zone is below your knees.....but it's important because you hear a mix of the beam and the rest of the zones in the sound imission pattern at a certain angle before the cabinet, depending of your height of corse. This mix is what it is known as "guitar sound" or "amp sound in the room". If you want to recreate this with a FRFR system, you need the complete picture of a speaker, not just a few microphone positions, because you never get the same sound emission pattern of a traditional guitar speaker on a miced guitar cabinet impluse responce over a FRFR cabinet. This is physically impossible, except some smart people would work on a compromise to get as close as possible by measuring the Beam and emission pattern of a guitar speaker cabinet and try to create an impulse responce especially for FRFR usage only.....
Traditional IRs wont work because you never got the big picture of a cabinet, they only work for applications were a miced guitar cabinet normaly was used.....

It always amuses me hearing all these FRFR guitar sounds that lacks of upper mids and definition.....this could be done much better, but it requires a different approach of understanding as we known.....

cheers
P
 
And I generally agree, but this statement seems in contradiction to what you said earlier here:

The vast majority of those famous recordings exhibit comb filtering caused by floor reflections (which can be reduced by using multi-mic configurations or other classic studio tricks).
If it's desirable or not it's probably just personal preference for the most part, or just what we're used to hear in recordings.

I'm simply making the point that, in my opinion, constructive / destructive interference is only an issue if it produces an audibly undesirable result. For example, blending two IR's that lack phase coherence in nontrivial amounts generally produces a sonic result that I think many would consider undesirable. I can hear similar results with regard to various (stock) room IR's in the III. However, if reflections that are apparent in an ETC do not produce an audibly undesirable result, what difference does it make?
 
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I'm simply making the point that, in my opinion, constructive / destructive interference is only an issue if it produces an audibly undesirable result. For example, blending two IR's that lack phase coherence in nontrivial amounts generally produces a sonic result that I think many would consider undesirable. I can hear similar results with regard to various (stock) room IR's in the III. However, if reflections that are apparent in an ETC do not produce an audibly undesirable result, what difference does it make?
If the result is not undesirable for you it simply means that you like the effect that reflection is imparting or that it's relatively lower in level vs the direct signal (in this case it shouldn't be so apparent in the ETC though).

The advantage of reflection-free IRs imho is that it's easier to find one without phase issues cuz all of them will be so, with normal NF IRs you have to dig thru hundreds of them before finding one that doesn't have those issues. And IME those usually are multi-mic mixes, I've never used a single-mic IR in 5 years.
 
If the result is not undesirable for you it simply means that you like the effect that reflection is imparting or that it's relatively lower in level vs the direct signal (in this case it shouldn't be so apparent in the ETC though).

Yes, which is basically restating my point. If you like what you hear, it's not an issue. I would contend that reflections in NF IR's aren't an issue for most people because that's what they're accustomed to hearing.

The advantage of reflection-free IRs imho is that it's easier to find one without phase issues

As far as I know, a single mic'd reflection free IR cannot have phase issues, so yes, finding one without said issues is obviously easy. However, just because an IR is reflection free doesn't necessarily mean the result will be audibly desirable. For example, I've heard several samples of Jay Mitchell's FF IR, and I can't say I was anymore impressed with them than I have been with any number of NF IR's I've heard and used. Now, if my use case were centered around reproducing the AITR experience, that might be another story.

with normal NF IRs you have to dig thru hundreds of them before finding one that doesn't have those issues. And IME those usually are multi-mic mixes, I've never used a single-mic IR in 5 years.

How many 100% reflection free IR's have you used up to this point?
 
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