StickMan
Experienced
Up till now, there have been a large number of IR's that I really didn't like because they sounded way to nasally, and "not present". They were basically the opposite of "amp in the room", and no matter what I did, I couldn't get them to sound good (to me). By and large, this was most of the cabs labelled "boutique", "euro" or recto. The set of four "basketweave" cabs were borderline, as were the two "Pre-Rola" cabs that were added a few version back. There was something I really liked about the two "Santiago" cabs as far as tone went, but I couldn't get them to work for me.
What I found was that many of those IR's would sound OK at low gain, but then started to approach something like "under a wet blanket" as the distortion was increased.
There were a bunch of cabs that seemed to sound a lot more open to me. I liked most of the 4 or 5 OH cabs that were added a little while back. Number 22 (?), the 2x12 Double M160 always sounded good to me. At one point I went through all of the cabs, and I colour coded the ones that sounded more open, to save time when looking for a cab for a particular patch.
So, today, I was rethinking my Conford preset based on something posted in Yek's Cornford thread the other day. I hadn't really changed anything, but I thought the IR wasn't quite right. Cliff had made a comment this week that the IR's were sounding better, so I ended up pinning the cab selection window and walking through the first 170 or so factory cabs.
Wow! Just wow!
There is something way, way different in this firmware. Virtually all of the cabs are now open enough sounding that I'd consider using them. It's amazing. I didn't mess around with any other settings, and I wasn't very scientific about it. When I finally unpinned the cab listing, I could see that I had a null mic with 0.62 proximity set, moderate high and low cut and no dephase.
The only cab that still felt really "not present" to me was the Santiago Altec. That isn't to say that I liked all of the cabs, just that I wasn't going to rule out a whole bunch because they sounded "wrong"
I also thought that a lot of the cabs sounded more like I'd expect them to. For instance, the 1x6 and 1x8 cabs sound a lot "boxier" now, more like what you'd expect a teeny speaker to sound like. The 10" cabs all seem a little bit punchier now. The 15" cabs picked up something, too. I'd really consider using one of those now.
I'm a little worried that this is some side-effect of some bug. It doesn't seem to match up with anything that you'd expect from what Cliff said about this release. So I hope it stays this way in future releases.
What I found was that many of those IR's would sound OK at low gain, but then started to approach something like "under a wet blanket" as the distortion was increased.
There were a bunch of cabs that seemed to sound a lot more open to me. I liked most of the 4 or 5 OH cabs that were added a little while back. Number 22 (?), the 2x12 Double M160 always sounded good to me. At one point I went through all of the cabs, and I colour coded the ones that sounded more open, to save time when looking for a cab for a particular patch.
So, today, I was rethinking my Conford preset based on something posted in Yek's Cornford thread the other day. I hadn't really changed anything, but I thought the IR wasn't quite right. Cliff had made a comment this week that the IR's were sounding better, so I ended up pinning the cab selection window and walking through the first 170 or so factory cabs.
Wow! Just wow!
There is something way, way different in this firmware. Virtually all of the cabs are now open enough sounding that I'd consider using them. It's amazing. I didn't mess around with any other settings, and I wasn't very scientific about it. When I finally unpinned the cab listing, I could see that I had a null mic with 0.62 proximity set, moderate high and low cut and no dephase.
The only cab that still felt really "not present" to me was the Santiago Altec. That isn't to say that I liked all of the cabs, just that I wasn't going to rule out a whole bunch because they sounded "wrong"
I also thought that a lot of the cabs sounded more like I'd expect them to. For instance, the 1x6 and 1x8 cabs sound a lot "boxier" now, more like what you'd expect a teeny speaker to sound like. The 10" cabs all seem a little bit punchier now. The 15" cabs picked up something, too. I'd really consider using one of those now.
I'm a little worried that this is some side-effect of some bug. It doesn't seem to match up with anything that you'd expect from what Cliff said about this release. So I hope it stays this way in future releases.
