That'd be cool, but there are so many IRs out there already, commercial and not, it'd be a shame to leave those behind.
There seem to be multiple threads going on, as usual, so, after a couple of cups of tea, I'm probably gonna make it worse. As usual.
The way I see it…
The existing IR/.wav format and definition don't seem flexible enough. To add metadata would either mean extending the file with the metadata trailing the .wav content, or doing away with the .wav format entirely and going with something more modern, similar to what other audio formats have done. Extending the .wav file would probably break apps that don't read the files correctly, but, well, that'd be their own fault. Metadata appended to the file could be parsed easily enough if there's a specification for the contents… but in the long run, I don't think that's flexible enough, because we, well, I, want more.
The whole discussion about an alternate GUI and added flexibility in defining the sound of the IR by changing mics and their placement, really requires multiple IRs shot with multiple mics in different positions to be accurate. Not having that discrete information means waving a wand behind a curtain and I'm not convinced that'd be all that accurate because not enough information is currently collected in IRs now; Trying to interpolate between two mic positions seems like a potential major fail because speakers, cabinets, microphones, and room acoustics encompass a huge number of interactions. All those would need to be bundled together into a single file, with the attending metadata defining each mic and its position or incremental change in position and angle, the speaker(s) in the cabinet, and maybe the room size and surface, and possibly architectural information such as ceiling height, support columns if we want to play with things like churches, and the materials involved. I'm sure there are other attributes we'd want, but I'd start there. A GUI or editor could use that information, based on the mic positions recorded, to provide options.
Seems to me that video motion control rigs would let us pre-program the motions of mics. With the appropriate software, we could let the software step them through various positions, capturing the IR and storing the mic positions then moving to the next.
Whether it's worth investing the time to create all that is the question. I don't care much about a "new and improved" GUI because being able to search and sort consistently across my thousands of IRs is more immediately important, and that alone is a herculean task.
Keeping them attached to presets reliably has been discussed previously, and needs to be nailed down first.
And after my spelling and editing checks I see…
FWIW we've been working on something like this for the past six months or so. We have several robots that we use for automated IR capture, custom control software, etc., etc.
I didn't want to spill the beans this early but...
Your patience will be rewarded.
DANGIT Cliff! You stole my caffeine-fueled imagineering.
I want to be the first to welcome our computer-controlled IR-capturing overlord!
