ML Sound Lab Episode 7: Cab Pack Comparison Part II

Which Cab Packs did you like?

  • I

    Votes: 17 47.2%

  • II

    Votes: 1 2.8%

  • III

    Votes: 11 30.6%

  • IV

    Votes: 10 27.8%

  • V

    Votes: 7 19.4%

  • VI

    Votes: 9 25.0%

  • VII

    Votes: 16 44.4%

  • VIII

    Votes: 8 22.2%

  • IX

    Votes: 3 8.3%

  • X

    Votes: 15 41.7%
  • Total voters
    36
ML SOUND LAB

ML SOUND LAB

Cab Pack Wizard
Vendor


Pretty self-explanitory. Take a listen to the clips and vote for as many as you thought sounded good. The more the merrier so we get more reliable numbers. :)

I want to thank you guys for pointing out a few flaws with the part I comparison. I hope this one has them fixed. First of all there were no pauses between the Cab Packs which forces your ear to usually think of a change as a change for worse. These pauses let your ears rest just enough. Also I've leveled all of the packs a bit louder so you hear them properly and I gave them somewhat equal audible loudness so it's closer to an actual use case of these packs.

Guitars are quad tracked with SM57-MD421 Alloys on the sides and SM57-R121 Alloys on the inside tracks. Some packs are still in early beta.

Happy voting! :)
 
To me, 6 & 7 are extremely similar as if it's just very slight mic positioning changes. Maybe my ears are tired, but they are my personal favs of the bunch.
 
Right off the bat, VII. I'll come back later to listen again and then vote.

I can't say exactly why.

They're all great though, honestly.
 
At first I thought I liked III, but I ended up voting for VIII and X. Upon listening again, I'm kind of waffling between VII and VIII.

I was just about to buy one of them, but now I guess it's most sensible to hold off to figure out which ones are the ones I like (A, K, VII, VIII, and X). When do we get the 411?
 
They are so good they all sound the same on my wonderful top of the line built in speakers on my desk top at work... lol Will try and give a listen at home tonight where I have a proper set of monitors :D
 
Thank you guys for voting! This comparison is working a lot better already. :)

ChrisMetal86 said:
They are so good they all sound the same on my wonderful top of the line built in speakers on my desk top at work... lol Will try and give a listen at home tonight where I have a proper set of monitors :D
Click to expand...

Well I was "kind of" hoping most people would feel this way. :lol In all honestly this is just 2 Alloy IRs from each collection. F.ex. for the USA Bulb that's 2 IRs out of over 200 IRs that are in that pack so this is not the perfect truth of all truths but this is definitely a good thing to do so people get to vote for the different cabs based on their tone and not their name. :) Although this comparison will make people understand why some names have become as big as they are. :lol
 
Nearly impossible to choose. All have a unique character, and none sound "wrong" (i.e. mismatched).

V is smooth, and there's something in there I really like, maybe the pick attack. VIII actually sounds like the low end was thumping just a bit too much.

VII just eeks out over some of the others ones for me.
 
My rankings:
1. X
2. VII
3. III
4. VI
5. I
6. IV
7. II
8. VIII
9. V
10. IX

As pima said, none of them necessarily sound "wrong." I don't think any of the cab packs sounded better in every possible way compared to another one. For instance, cab packs VII and VIII seemed to give more presence to the bass while cab pack X gave the whole mix an overall sense of balance, imo.

My ranking depends on the style of the riff that was played as well; I probably would have ranked the packs differently under a different style of riffing.

This was a fun comparison!
 
CitizenKang said:
My rankings:
1. X
2. VII
3. III
4. VI
5. I
6. IV
7. II
8. VIII
9. V
10. IX

As pima said, none of them necessarily sound "wrong." I don't think any of the cab packs sounded better in every possible way compared to another one. For instance, cab packs VII and VIII seemed to give more presence to the bass while cab pack X gave the whole mix an overall sense of balance, imo.

My ranking depends on the style of the riff that was played as well; I probably would have ranked the packs differently under a different style of riffing.

This was a fun comparison!
Click to expand...

Thank you for the thorough review! :) That was really awesome!
 
Okay guys. Here come the results. I need to state a few obvious things that may not be so obvious to all people in here. My Cab Packs include hundreds of IRs f.ex. Cab Pack 13 has 227 IRs and this clip is only using 2 of those IRs which means that these clips represent under 1% of the tones available from one of these extremely versatile Cab Packs. If I chose different IRs of the same packs I'm sure we would get radically different "winners" but this is all fun although the newer cabs may have less science/experience behind the IR choices. :) I hope this clip succeeded in showing you that just about any of these packs is capable of producing extremely high quality professional guitar tones. :)

Any votes that come after these results don't matter in the spirit of being blind-folded and all. Bare in mind that many of these "packs" aren't official packs at least yet so the naming for the official releases may change and some are in early production.

1st place: Angle 4x12 tied with Cab Pack 7: USA Trad 4x12 (interesting fact: these two cabinets have the exact same dimensions but different speakers and grill cloth/metal)
2nd place: Citrus 4x12 tied with USA 2x12
3rd place: Cab Pack 12: 5153 4x12 tied with Brit HW 4x12
4th place: Cab Pack 13: USA Bulb 4x12 tied with Cab Pack 8: Brit TV 4x12
5th place: Cab Pack 9: Euro 4x12 tied with Citrus 2x12 (interestingly both are cabs preferred by a couple of pro guitarists with all my packs :lol )

So here's the listing:

I: Angle 4x12
II: Cab Pack 9: Euro 4x12
III: Citrus 4x12
IV: Cab Pack 13: USA Bulb 4x12
V: Cab Pack 8: Brit TV 4x12
VI: Brit HW 4x12
VII: Cab Pack 7: USA Trad 4x12
VIII: Cab Pack 12: 5153 4x12
IX: Citrus 2x12
X: USA 2x12

I want to thank everyone for voting and remember to have fun with these IRs. :)
 
I own a "Citrus 2x12 CB" but sounds very different than IX... I also had 2x12 OB Citrus, something is not right with IX. Is it EQ'd?
Citrus 2x12 has some really pleasant mids with highs rolled off. On the IX I cannot hear the mids I am used to.
Also Citrus 2x12 I have has a growl I never heard on any other cab I. That growl is not present in IX.
Everything I said is only just my opinion, not facts.
 
kisslorand said:
I own a "Citrus 2x12 CB" but sounds very different than IX... I also had 2x12 OB Citrus, something is not right with IX. Is it EQ'd?
Citrus 2x12 has some really pleasant mids with highs rolled off. On the IX I cannot hear the mids I am used to.
Also Citrus 2x12 I have has a growl I never heard on any other cab I. That growl is not present in IX.
Everything I said is only just my opinion, not facts.
Click to expand...

The Citrus 2x12 is in a very early stage so the IR choices were most likely bad. It sounds huge!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom