Looking for authentic raw IRs without altered EQ-ing

So for the latest time, i have been using several ML cab packs and OwnHammer Heavy hitters Collections, and i have noticed that when all setting on the amp are stock and set at noon (mic'ed with a single sm57), they don't sound anything close to how the real counterpart does with the exact same settings.

The IR's generally seem to be noticeably high passed (and possibly low passed as well), cuz the main bulk of the tones is narrowly focused moreso on the midrange, often with an unpleasing bloated hump on the 200-350hz area.

In comparison, when listening to several playthroughs online where the players state that they have no post processing done on the recordings, it sounds a lot fuller, open and sparkling.

If i recall correctly, OwnHammer have on previous occations confirmed that they highpass their IR's, to fascilitate the tone sitting in the context of a mix more readily with less work.

As much as i can see that that application is useful and greatly appreciated by a lot of people, it's really not for me. And yes, i'm aware that the general recommendation is to blend in other types of microphones to supplement with lowend/highend characteristics, but this method also changes the overal sound of the initial IR that i was going for to begin with.

With that being said, i'm writing to see if anyone can recommend any IR's that are more geared to what I'm looking for?

Much appreciated and with best regards.
 
I have been playing around with some presets that have that bloated hump, but I have found it peaks about 4th fret on the A string. Which is about 140 Hz. I did a bunch of reading yesterday, and I think the problem might be in the speaker settings of the amp block. One I was messing with had a resonance of 125 Hz. I played with it a bit, and was able to get the low end a lot better, so I decided to research it to see what it actually does, and it can change the low end completely.

I still have to play around with it, and try to find the frequency, and Q to get it sounding its best, but from my reading starting around 80 for the frequency, and chug a bit, then move it around, and try to find the frequency where you have a good bit of oomph, but is not boomy. I'm going to be playing around with this a lot over the next while, but haven't had the chance to play with it too much. There is a Leon Todd video on youtube something like how to make a tight metal sound, and he goes over a lot of these things.
 
I'm not sure the bloated low mid hump is coming from the IR's entirely.. I've done tests with the real amps vs fractal models and I've noticed that the real amps have far less clutter in the 200-300 range.. I just knock 2-ish db down in that area.
 
Interesting input from all of you, thanks for sharing! :)

Right after i made the first post i actually started to consider the possibility that it might as well be the amp emulation that is causing the said low mid hump.

I have experimented with the speaker resonance settings on the amp block, and have found some improvement there as far as the boomy 120-130hz area.

But as far as the muddy 200-350z area, the only thing i've fun to remedy that, is to turn down the centerpoint of the depth frequency.
I find that it opens up the tone stack quite a bit, and clears up the low mids. On the 5150/6505 models for instance, the depth freq defaults to 180hz, and i tend to lower it down to 80-90hz, so the depth control resides more on the fuller bottom end spectrum.

What i've gathered from Cliff's previous statements on the forum however, is that the default value on the depth freq is not representative of the actual value, and is just an arbitrary number. With that being said, i still find that tweaking this parameter helps with the low mids.

Same thing with the presence freq, i raise it a bit, as i feel it tends to intrude a bit on the 800-1000hz area a bit on some amp models (such as 5150/6505).
 
So for the latest time, i have been using several ML cab packs ... and i have noticed that when all setting on the amp are stock and set at noon (mic'ed with a single sm57), they don't sound anything close to how the real counterpart does with the exact same settings.

The IR's generally seem to be noticeably high passed (and possibly low passed as well), cuz the main bulk of the tones is narrowly focused moreso on the midrange, often with an unpleasing bloated hump on the 200-350hz area.
I'm scratching my head here. All ML Sound Lab IR's that have ever been created are 100% raw and authentic with no post processing whatsoever. This is the #1 reason why I highly recommend people should use my IR's. Whether an IR producer is a professional audio engineer (and in most cases they are not! some are not even guitarists) you don't want pre-EQ baked into your IR's. Watch out for 125hz low end boosts and 2khz-4khz wide boosts and notching. There's a lot of that going on so be careful.

I've even posted comparison clips for people to judge which is something I doubt many IR producers would dare to do as it has taken a lot of experimentation in my end to get this kind of results. Here's a comparison between a real cabinet miced with an SM57 and driven with a Mesa Mark V compared to an ML Sound Lab IR of the same mic up.



There is no noticeable high or low pass and no hump at 200-350hz. They measure exactly the same response.

I'm thinking the real problem you're having is the exact opposite of what an IR is supposed to do and that's the power amp modeling as in resonance which is quite hard to get perfect. Especially when palm muting on high gain you can hear if these settings are off.
 
Interesting input from all of you, thanks for sharing! :)

Right after i made the first post i actually started to consider the possibility that it might as well be the amp emulation that is causing the said low mid hump.

I have experimented with the speaker resonance settings on the amp block, and have found some improvement there as far as the boomy 120-130hz area.

But as far as the muddy 200-350z area, the only thing i've fun to remedy that, is to turn down the centerpoint of the depth frequency.
I find that it opens up the tone stack quite a bit, and clears up the low mids. On the 5150/6505 models for instance, the depth freq defaults to 180hz, and i tend to lower it down to 80-90hz, so the depth control resides more on the fuller bottom end spectrum.

What i've gathered from Cliff's previous statements on the forum however, is that the default value on the depth freq is not representative of the actual value, and is just an arbitrary number. With that being said, i still find that tweaking this parameter helps with the low mids.

Same thing with the presence freq, i raise it a bit, as i feel it tends to intrude a bit on the 800-1000hz area a bit on some amp models (such as 5150/6505).

I don’t know what the q is on the depth freq knob but by moving it lower in the spectrum to 80 -90 hz you are essentially removing low end from 250hz. A lot of us low cut at 100 to 125 in the cab block to clear up flub.
 
80hz low resonance is perfectly fine. Greenbacks have low resonance frequencies at 55hz or 75hz depending on the model. When you use a low cut at 100hz (which is what I recommend doing in live situations when dealing with PA speakers) it doesn't completely remove everything below 100hz, so the low resonance frequency setting still makes a big difference at 80hz even if you low cut at 100hz.

Around 100-125hz is where the low resonance usually ends up being on something like a 4x12 V30 cab.
 
80hz low resonance is perfectly fine. Greenbacks have low resonance frequencies at 55hz or 75hz depending on the model. When you use a low cut at 100hz (which is what I recommend doing in live situations when dealing with PA speakers) it doesn't completely remove everything below 100hz, so the low resonance frequency setting still makes a big difference at 80hz even if you low cut at 100hz.

Around 100-125hz is where the low resonance usually ends up being on something like a 4x12 V30 cab.
Note that the speaker resonant frequency is different than the cabinet resonant frequency... And the Low Res Freq parameter is relative to the latter.

I'm sure you already knew that...
 
Note that the speaker resonant frequency is different than the cabinet resonant frequency... And the Low Res Freq parameter is relative to the latter.

I'm sure you already knew that...
Yes, the cab res freq will be higher. Usually 100-125hz while many speakers have low res freqs way lower. :)
 
What's an accurate method for setting the Low Res Freq parameter to match an IR?
It's actually equally important to get the high end frequency and the amount of resonance for both. It's all about the balance. The high frequency amount control is very powerful and it can boost your highs a lot which obviously means that you have to boost the low resonance even more. Think about those speaker resonances as sort of a smiley face middle scoop but instead it's boosting the low and highs in a very specific way that usually cuts the low mids 400hz-ish. One trick is to simply add post EQ at 400hz to try and simulate this effect rather than tweak the speaker page.

These things vary a lot based on the cabinet and amp that you're using so the only "accurate" method is to measure that cabinet being driven with a real tube amplifier. This is one of the main reasons why I still shoot IR's with the tube amp that's most commonly used with the cabinet that I'm shooting.

If I remember correctly, this is modeled in the Axe-Fx so that each amplifier speaker resonance is matching the most common cabinet that it's being used with. So a Mesa amp will default to a Mesa 4x12 resonance setting and even though you change the IR to something like a Marshall, it will not change these settings. What you can do is reverse-think about this. It's not 100% scientific but f.ex. if you're using a Marshall IR with a Mesa amp, maybe take a look at what the speaker page looks like on a Marshall amp sim and try those settings out. In general I will say that amps that are based on power amp distortion tend to NOT have that much speaker resonance while something like Mesa that's more preamp distortion, will have a huge amount of speaker resonance.

Many people and even IR producers confuse the low resonance frequency with the lowest low end peak in the IR. It's probably best to ask Cliff because he knows the science better than anyone.
 
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