"Of all my IRs, which sounds the most like this Tone Match?"

Eric T Amble

Eric T Amble

Inspired
("cross-bump" of thread from another forum)

Hi everybody,

I'm a cover band guy ('80s metal), and I'm looking to cop the rigs from the albums as nearly as possible (using information from the 'net).
Because I know that a lot of the album sound is "studio magic" best left to my FOH engineer, I'm looking for something a little more "guitarist-y": the sound that really came out of the real rig in the studio.
IRs are a sticking point. For example, I have, like, a couple dozen "1960A with Vintage 30s" IRs.

In the past, I've:
  1. Set up the rig (with a Looper block in front to play the riffs);
  2. Done a Tone Match to the album after the AMP block;
  3. Set up a CAB block on a different row from the Tone Match; and
  4. Used a Mixer block with an LFO to alternate between the Tone Match and the CAB, effectively auto-A/B-ing them while I scroll through my list of IRs.

Has anybody run into a better way to take a Tone Match, and get the IR that most closely resembles it? I'd love to know. I almost wonder if Cab-Lab (or similar) could have some kind of analysis function that would rate the similarity between the Tone Match and the IRs.

Thanks,
Eric
 
well if you turned the tone match block into a cab block, and then import it into cab lab, you would be able to see the freq plot, and then load different IR's to view their freq plot, and be able to compare them and pick the IR with the closest freq plot.
just an idea.
 
tone match is a eq match, so maybe pick an IR you enjoy and fine tune with eq. I do not use tone match much because it has never sounded quite right to me because of not being able to get good isolated tracks, but if you make a match you can see the eq change in the tone match graph and re eq your tone. reshoot the match and see how the graph changes. if you do this a few times you can get the line in the graph all but straight.
 
Pwrmac7600 said:
well if you turned the tone match block into a cab block, and then import it into cab lab, you would be able to see the freq plot, and then load different IR's to view their freq plot, and be able to compare them and pick the IR with the closest freq plot.
just an idea.
Click to expand...

I was just about to suggest this. IR's are just EQ curves, so you could easily help identify the closest IR's by doing this.

Another option would be to just research what amp/cab was used during the session and try and recreate it that way. Or maybe just do a direct tone match but run it in parallel so you can blend it into your tone to taste, rather than it being 100%. If you've got Ozone, you could also use that to tonematch instead of the AxeFX, as it has a smoothing option to make it perfectly accurate, or more of an approximation. You could tweak that to taste and then export the curve as an IR.
 
Yeah, good call! I actually got a pretty good Randy Rhoads Tribute tone that way--by mixing an Altec 75-watt IR with a Tone Match from the "Suicide Solution" solo. I should look into Ozone!
 
Eric T Amble said:
Yeah, good call! I actually got a pretty good Randy Rhoads Tribute tone that way--by mixing an Altec 75-watt IR with a Tone Match from the "Suicide Solution" solo. I should look into Ozone!
Click to expand...

If Ozone is out of your price range, there's also FabFilter Pro-Q 2 which is less than half the price, or there's Voxengo Curve EQ which is free. I don't know if either plugin has the same variable accuracy/smoothing options as Ozone, but you could always just blend the perfect matches with your original signal. :)
 
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