FullRes IR - it is gonna happen?

wtfoley3

wtfoley3

Member
Hi, all. The addition of FullRes capability in the AX3 a few firmware upgrades ago seemed like it was a pretty big deal… AITR and all that. Pretty processor-intensive, it seems, which I always assumed was part of the thinking behind the Turbo hardware model. But... haven’t really seen much on the FullRes IR front since and there doesn’t seem to be a surge in FullRes IR packs available yet from 3rd parties. Any thoughts on this and the future of FullRes in the AX3 ecosystem?
 
Playing the devil’s advocate here or atleast what I see, but I don’t think there’s enough of a market to have a good enough ROI for the time and process of properly making a “good” fullres IR , better time investment to capture traditional miced methods and sell those instead

Most people probably have the AX3 MK1, that only have 10 Full res cab slots to change/occupy (would be kind of tedious to keep swapping it out for other 3rd party full res IRS unlike just filling out the 64 slots in the MKII or turbo version)

People are used to a close mic’d guitar tone for a recording, not a room mic’d guitar tone (would get lost alot easier in a mix due to nature/reverb of it) don’t get me wrong they have their uses to make it livelier etc , but I think that’s niche

They take up quite alot of CPU, and again with most people having the AX3 MK1, people ain’t gonna be too happy about that, especially the crazy signal routers and tone tweakers (even lessening the potential AX3 MK1 market)

This all assuming most people have the MK1 version which I would bet my own unit on
 
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random thought

As much as an art close cab micing is….

maybe the vendors just don’t have the experience micing a “good” room mic’d sound yet (whatever that entails) and honing their craft or adapting their skillset to the “new” room mic’d sound to put out a good product

That’s just my speculation though
 
I may be in the minority but really not something I even think about it.
It's not like we are watching in SD and know that HD is out there and a huge improvement.
 
I said when those fullres hit I really didn’t enjoy them much. Nothing I couldn’t get with a little room verb and a fraction of the cpu hit. Seemed like a good idea that just didn’t manifest itself practically.
 
I often think back to the dummy-spitting that went on when it became evident that FullRes was a MkII thing. I remember thinking that once the Firmware Acquisition Syndrome died down, everybody would carry on loving their MkI’s just like they did the day before they’d ever heard of FullRes. I guess some just gotta want what they can’t have… and then we even got it on MkI’s anyway.

It is super cool, but I don’t use it. I felt really sad that this awesome initiative by Cliff was met with such complaining, and he even said it was all very off-putting or words to that effect. I was waiting for “that’s IT! No firmware for you! One year!”

Hey… Firmware Acquisition Syndrome… FAS…
 
I have a MK1 and use the factory legacy fullres IRs on every preset I can spare the CPU. Since most of my presets are OD-amp-cab-delay-reverb it's usually not an issue. I've played around with using 3rd party long IR's in the scratchpad slots but their temporary nature means having to load them every time I power the unit up, so I don't end up using them often.
One rule of thumb for me when I use them is, I turn the early reflections all the way down in the reverb block because these IR's take care of all of that.
I love that Cliff was able to shoehorn this functionality in to the MK1's in some fashion so MK1 owners at least have a chance to dip their toes in the pool. I have a MK2 Turbo in my want list, but I'm getting by just fine with my MK1 until I have some 'waster' money to grab one. The last 2 years with no gigging, all my spare cash has gone in to replacing my DSLR gear with mirrorless camera lenses and body.
 
ApocalypticKatana said:
People are used to a close mic’d guitar tone for a recording, not a room mic’d guitar tone (would get lost alot easier in a mix due to nature/reverb of it) don’t get me wrong they have their uses to make it livelier etc , but I think that’s niche
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This is where I see FullRes breaking down for the vast majority of people.

Unless the sound is being listened to in a room with no reverberation, the FullRes sound has to compete with the existing echoes and reverb in the room which will overwhelm, or at least heavily color the sound. In other words it’s echo and reverb inside echo and reverb.

Playing live we can end up playing in rooms with cement, tile or wood floors, bare walls, of terrible dimensions, and no sound treatment. In those rooms we shouldn’t even use reverb in our preset because it only adds clutter, so a finely nuanced FullRes ends up burning CPU and then lost in the overall sound. And that’s why we use standard IRs, which trim off the tails before the recording room’s sound gets captured, and we can save the CPU for something else. The regular IR generates the sound of the real cabinet and the room does its thing so it’s that rig in that particular room.
 
I actually love the sound of fullres, I think it adds a special something in place of reverb… but in a bar full of drunks, nobody cares. Are they even listening? I don’t know.
 
tysonlt said:
I actually love the sound of fullres, I think it adds a special something in place of reverb… but in a bar full of drunks, nobody cares. Are they even listening? I don’t know.
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Are they listening? The odds are good that the majority are not listening closely enough because they don’t care. They’re there for the society around them, maybe to dance which isn’t a time for critical listening, and mostly yelling to be heard.

I used to run FOH so I am used to listening to the room in general when I’m not playing, either when setting up or am on a break or am there to see friends play, and most rooms, especially with bottles clinking and customers yelling, are terrible listening environments. They’re about as good as our garages, not as good as our living rooms, worse than our entertainment or music rooms, a lot worse than home studios, and abysmal compared to a pro-studio’s recording or control room so nuanced sound doesn’t have a chance.
 
Greg Ferguson said:
Are they listening? The odds are good that the majority are not listening closely enough because they don’t care. They’re there for the society around them, maybe to dance which isn’t a time for critical listening, and mostly yelling to be heard.

I used to run FOH so I am used to listening to the room in general when I’m not playing, either when setting up or am on a break or am there to see friends play, and most rooms, especially with bottles clinking and customers yelling, are terrible listening environments. They’re about as good as our garages, not as good as our living rooms, worse than our entertainment or music rooms, a lot worse than home studios, and abysmal compared to a pro-studio’s recording or control room so nuanced sound doesn’t have a chance.
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Yeah I’m ok with it, they’re there for the energy, to blow off steam, and to reminisce about the 90s and 00s. Takes pressure off perfecting my patch and back on to fixing my playing!

Except that ONE lady who EVERY TIME requests Elvis and abuses us for not obliging 🤷‍♂️
 
wtfoley3 said:
Hi, all. The addition of FullRes capability in the AX3 a few firmware upgrades ago seemed like it was a pretty big deal… AITR and all that. Pretty processor-intensive, it seems, which I always assumed was part of the thinking behind the Turbo hardware model. But... haven’t really seen much on the FullRes IR front since and there doesn’t seem to be a surge in FullRes IR packs available yet from 3rd parties. Any thoughts on this and the future of FullRes in the AX3 ecosystem?
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We have added the 1370 ms IR folders to all of our V2-series IR cab packs. Customers can download them for free, even if they have already bought them years ago.
 
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