Low down on redwirez....

eda123

eda123

Inspired
Hey all,

Ive had my Axe for a week - im really loving the little black box and there is lots of room to explore and keep me busy for years :) But some good tones without much fiddling. Heck, I even love a ton of the presets on there...

So, many of you love the Redwirez IR's. Some have even said you "havent heard the AxeFX until you use Redwirez". How true is this in your opinion?

I dont want to spend another $120, to give myself even more avenues and options to explore - I want to keep things simple, and keep my A.D.D in check :) But, I will gladly enter this arena if its really a night and day better sound by most peoples opinion. Given this - are the Redwirez really *that* good?

Thanks!
 
Redwirez are great. The stock IRs are great. Just increases your variety and tunability - more arrows in the quiver so to speak. The Axe-Fx does just fine with the stock IRs however.

enjoy
 
It's just a matter of taste. I think a lot of users are still happy with only the stock cabs.
So take your time to explore those, and when you "hit the wall", start looking for others.
BTW, there are lot of free IRs on the web.
Cliff collected and processed a big bunch and put it up for download.
I don't know if it's still up and I've to look for the URL.
The advantage of the Redwirez is: huge choice of cabs, mics and mic positions and it's
well disclosed how the IRs were taken. With a lot of free IRs, you don't know about the mic position,
which power amp was involved etc., so it's a bit of hit and miss.
 
Personally, I like to use a new piece of gear for awhile before customizing it. If you've only had it a week, I'd say you should spend a month or more with it and then you'll know more about what (if anything) you are looking to change. Then, even if you want to try new cabs, you can narrow it down to a couple.
 
Just another set of tools you can - literally - put in your tool box.

If you have any engineering background at all, you'll feel *right* at home. If not, the 'choices' might overwhelm just based on quantity.

The Red Wire IR's are significant because they are professionally captured, processed and phase corrected for use with each other. The entire range is consistent based on speaker-mic-mic position-distance from speaker in naming convention. They have an available mixer in your 'My Stuff' that allows for blending different IR's together quickly, creating wav *and* Axe-FX 'syx' files for immediate upload into your Axe-FX.

The stock cabs in the Axe-FX are of at least the same professional quality; but you are limited to one mic position per mic chosen per speaker. You can do a pseudo 'mix' using stereo cabinet blocks or dual mono cabs, but your options and choices might not be optimal for your tastes.

There are other collections out there - OwnHammer and LeCab - and many, many free cab IR offerings from all over the place.

The options opened up are incredible; but approach it with a plan. Just 'trying' different IR's can be a full time job and utterly overwhelming.

The Red Wire site has a really good approach for using IR's if you do not have any engineering experience prior. Look under "Tutorials".

All IMHO.
 
RedWirez is still giving away one of their collections for a Marshall cab. Download that and check it out. It will give you a good idea of what you can do with them.
 
I don't hold that opinion, "havent heard the AxeFX until you use Redwirez," but for sake of experiementation and flexibility, I purchased some Red Wirez IRs.

Currently, I'm using a stock cab and a Red Wirez cab in my go-to patch.

To keep costs down, consider:
1) There is a refund option if you don't like.
2) You don't have to purchase the whole bundle; you can purchase a single cabinet library and future library purchases will be discounted as you buy more. The red wirez website will keep track of your purchases so it's easy as pi.
 
I buy one cab every few weeks or so.

I buy one and experiment until I get the sound I want and if I can't then I buy another.

It helps if you know what ur preferences are in the real world. For instance, I dont like 4x12's. I've always used 2x12's so I stuck to those. And I've always like celestian blues and greenbacks.

But, yes, I think they are worth every penny!
 
It took me a while to learn the impact CAB choice has on the tone of a patch. I used to go straight to tweaking the AMP block when I wanted to make a change, but after some time I realized that the CAB blocks can have equal or more impact. Since this got through to me, I've done a lot more CAB tweaking and have purchased a number of RW cab bundles. They really add to the possibilities. One thing I'd suggest is to ensure your understanding of how user Cabs work within the axe: There's only 10 user cab slots and you cannot changes the names - your stuck with user1, user2 ... user10. So, you have to remember which IRs you put in which slot. I keep an excel sheet handy which notes which IR I put where. Once you have a system for this - your on your way pretty well.
 
The Axe's stock IRs are actually somewhat different than any 3rd party IR you are likely to acquire, and folks around here seem to forget this fact.

My understanding is that the stock IRs were all recorded using reference mics; which are designed for the flattest possible, most faithful, least coloured, recording of the source material.
I.e. They are designed to not sound like mics at all.
And Cliff has stated that he has some sort of a propriety IR editing process that further "removes" the mic sound as much as is possible, whatever that means.
That's why the stock IRs interact so well with the stock mic sims, also based on IRs of the mic I presume, in the Cab Block.

Most of the stock IRs are of close-mic'd cabs.
A few are far-field.

So, theoretically speaking, the Axe's IRs are more capable of making your FRFR speaker take on the characteristics of an un-mic'd guitar cab than any other 3rd party IRs that are out there at the moment.
All the 3rd party IRs are designed to get your FRFR speakers sounding like a mic'd up guitar cab.
If what you're after is that "amp in the room" feeling through your FRFR speakers, then you're probably going to be able to accomplish that better with the Axe's stock IRs (and no mic sim) than with any 3rd party IRs.
 
joegold said:
All the 3rd party IRs are designed to get your FRFR speakers sounding like a mic'd up guitar cab.
Click to expand...

Red Wirez packages include Earthworks TC30 IRs (close mic'd), which are flat between 9Hz and 30kHz.
 
yek said:
joegold said:
All the 3rd party IRs are designed to get your FRFR speakers sounding like a mic'd up guitar cab.
Click to expand...

Red Wirez packages include Earthworks TC30 IRs (close mic'd), which are flat between 9Hz and 30kHz.
Click to expand...

Right.
But to my ears the RW TC30 IRs never quite sound right.
Plus they use very few mic positions for the TC30 IRs.

FWIW
RW started using TC30's after *I* brought up these same issues a couple of years ago.
When they first started out they were not using TC30s on any of their IRs.

All I know is that the IRs in the Axe (when used with no mic sim) sound way better than any RW TC30 IR I've ever heard.
My conclusion is that the RW guys are not using the same recording process with the reference mics that Cliff is using.
 
Not sure if we're talking about the same IRs, Joey. Let's check.

RW came with farfield IRs at one point. After the hype settled, there was a common opinion that these didn't live up to expectation. These can be found in the /TC30-Ref-FarFields folder of some of the cabs.

Some of the packages also include a /Earthworks TC30 folder. Those are close-mic'd IRs If I'm correct, and seem to sound a lot better. The first BigBox didn't include this folder.
 
I don't think that any of the RW packages that I own have any far-field IRs taken with the TC30.
I.e. They're all close-mic'd.

Not really sure what your point is at this point. :)
 
joegold said:
That's why the stock IRs interact so well with the stock mic sims, also based on IRs of the mic I presume, in the Cab Block.
Click to expand...
I recall an earlier post stating that the "mic sims" are EQ curves. Is that all that is needed to simulate a mic?
 
LMO said:
joegold said:
That's why the stock IRs interact so well with the stock mic sims, also based on IRs of the mic I presume, in the Cab Block.
Click to expand...
I recall an earlier post stating that the "mic sims" are EQ curves. Is that all that is needed to simulate a mic?
Click to expand...

That could be.
I'm not sure.
I just assumed they were based on IRs of the mics.
 
Point of fact:

Cliff used the same Earthworks TC reference mic as Red Wire does.

And Red Wire does have Earthworks TC far field IR's.
 
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