IRs Alignment

Juca Nery

Juca Nery

Inspired
Vendor
So the picture is from an AXE FX III, but is it necessary to align the IRs, or do you do it? If so, why?

For me sounds good as they are.

ThanksScreenshot 2025-02-19 at 23.08.20.png
 
IRs slightly out of phase sound good to me as well, most of my presets are similar to your photo. I do have some presets with them aligned though, just depends upon what I'm hearing and the overall tone/feel of the preset.
 
EDIT: Missing an important word :)

FWIW i don't really mess w alignment much.
There are a lot of more predictable changes we can make w these tools.
I know there's cool stuff to be found, and maybe I'll go there, but not today.
 
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Juca Nery said:
So the picture is from an AXE FX III, but is it necessary to align the IRs, or do you do it? If so, why?

For me sounds good as they are.

ThanksView attachment 151730
Click to expand...
IMO that is perfect , I never align after watching and episode of Chris Basefords , He theory in the real world you could never have 2 mic’s on a cab at the exact same spot
Physically you could not line them up that way as there would be no space , they would be on top of each other

Based on this real world example and his comments any recording you have ever heard would have some distance between mics
 
I will add that, when adding an additional IR, if things don't sound quite right the Alignment page is the first place I look.

It's definitely worth exploring different settings/'spacing', even extreme misalignment, and hear the impact they have on the tone. There are some cool out of phase tones that can be created with just this parameter.
 
A huge percentage of iconic guitar tones were created with multiple mics somewhat out of phase due to varying distances from the source (mere mm's can have a big influence on the sound), and it's a very powerful tool that can sculpt the mids, de-fizz the top end and more, or of course totally suck depending on you the engineer.

Multiple ways to use it as well, from using multiple mic's slightly out of phase, to putting a single mic or mics slightly out of phase vs the DI'd signal (Cab Block's Air Control), which mimics getting a filtered DI of the amp head in addition to however many mic'd signals, and then blending them together all while adjusting the phase relationships.

These are all tricks of the trade from way back.
 
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When using dyna cabs if you want to emulate the real world phase cancellation somewhat between 2 mics that are not time aligned, for every cm back you move a mic just multiply that number by 10 and adjust the alignment to that number. We don't have mic angle options but you can use this to kinda emulate the "Fredman technique" when the mic levels alone just aren't getting things done.
 
Randalljax said:
IMO that is perfect , I never align after watching and episode of Chris Basefords , He theory in the real world you could never have 2 mic’s on a cab at the exact same spot
Physically you could not line them up that way as there would be no space , they would be on top of each other

Based on this real world example and his comments any recording you have ever heard would have some distance between mics
Click to expand...
FWIW we're talking about phase alignment, not a specific mic placement. Even on the same speaker at the same, time multiple mics could be phase aligned in different placements.
 
This ↑. The alignment has to do with the distance between the speaker and mic, not the distance between mics. Sound waves take time to travel through the air (roughly 1 foot per ms), so the further the mic is from the source, the more delayed the recorded signal will be relative to any other mics.
 
The only "problem" you might run into is phase cancellation changing the tone if your guitar is summed to mono. And that's only an issue if you L/R pan the cab mics. If you're really paranoid about it, just check how it sounds in mono and make sure you're cool with the resulting tone.
 
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