Scrolling through IR’s vs moving mics

bke

Inspired
I wonder would it be technically feasible and if so in the fractal roadmap to change how ir’s work to be more about dialing in the cab vs scrolling through lists of IR’s. .

I firmly believe that the axe fx has the best amp modelling and effects out there, but I find myself more often using external cabs/ir solutions. I find it a lot more satisfying and get better results that way vs scrolling through then adding ir’s together.

for us sods who never record professionally or spend time in a studio (in other words more experience in plugging in to an amp vs understanding how to get good recorded done) I find the ir search a little depressing....

Discuss... be kind...
 
I think it’s safe to say scrolling through a list of hundreds of IRs can be a tedious exercise. That said, FAS tends to be conservative in their approach to user interfaces, so I wouldn’t expect to see any kind of a graphical interface like you see with other modelers anytime soon.
 
It's been discussed before. Cliff has said to do it right, you'd need hundreds or even thousands of IR's per speaker to offer truly accurate resolution in changing the mic position and angle and having different mic choices. Moving the mic a tiny amount can have a big impact on the tone, so you'd need a lot of sampling points to keep the end results truly accurate. The Axe FX just doesn't have enough storage space to facilitate that approach.
 
There are some purpose-built IRs that can sound extreme in some sense. Though otherwise I can't say I've heard a "bad" IR.
They're all usable, but there are so many, with so many combinations possible it can open the rabbit hole.

There are lots of guys who just find one good IR, and use it for pretty much everything. There's no shame in it.
When I roll through IRs, I give my ears a quick rest in silence before I play the next one. Otherwise it becomes a relativity thing.
Since doing this, I find a good one much quicker.

It's often amazing how many amps sound good with the default 4" Pignose cab. :)

There are also adjustments to HF/LF, mic distance, phase alignment, mic preamp, etc. that can get you a pretty dialed-in sound with which you can make custom IRs in Cab Lab Lite.
 
Yeah, I too find that scrolling from one cab to another often just fixates my attention on the tonal differences between each IR rather than allowing me to evaluate it in the context of the mix as well. A short bit of silence between cabs does seem to help "cleanse the palate".
 
It's been discussed before. Cliff has said to do it right, you'd need hundreds or even thousands of IR's per speaker to offer truly accurate resolution in changing the mic position and angle and having different mic choices. Moving the mic a tiny amount can have a big impact on the tone, so you'd need a lot of sampling points to keep the end results truly accurate. The Axe FX just doesn't have enough storage space to facilitate that approach.
That’s a narrow definition of “right”. It’s not obvious whether interpolation would be a problem, even if it doesn’t accurately emulate a mic that was positioned there. Plus, accurate interpolation is just one aspect of a graphical interface. Even if you simply use it to select among IRs without interpolation, it offers advantages over a textual list.

Or perhaps, just a proper browser with sorting, filtering, categorization etc. is the answer. The bottom line is there is a significant problem here and the solution will require some out of the box thinking and setting aside of preconceptions.
 
Part of the problem is consistency. Unless you only use IR's from a single source, their approach and naming conventions are all over the place. Using a graphical UI to select IR's would necessitate that they all conform to a standard method of naming or tagging each IR in terms of mic choice, position, angle, distance, speaker, cab, etc. That doesn't exist. There's no standard for things like mic positions or angles when shooting IRs, so how would you be able to correctly categorize IRs from different sources to fit a single graphical UI. Fractal would need to create such a standard for other IR makers to follow.

There's always room for improvement.
 
Are you asking “is there an easy solution?”? The answer, as is so often the case with difficult problems in life is “no”. :).
 
Yeah, I too find that scrolling from one cab to another often just fixates my attention on the tonal differences between each IR rather than allowing me to evaluate it in the context of the mix as well. A short bit of silence between cabs does seem to help "cleanse the palate".

I was messing around with some DI’s a few weeks back, trying different amps and cabs and ran into that same issue. I looped about 30 seconds of a song and would drop the volume down in between switching cabinets, then slowly bring it back up. It seemed to do the trick well enough that I wasn’t hyper focused on it.
 
I got the 1 day trial for stl amphub plug-in, I liked their implementation, options for two speakers, you move the mics around to taste, including distance and axis, was able to dial in really quickly. Used axe fx for all other tones/effects. But even red wirez mixir3 works ok, there are different positions available in steps.
If storage was a problem maybe you could select what cabs you want to install. There are thousands of factory IR’s on the system, I rarely use any of them. Also there are a couple thousand user slots. Maybe there’s room for more.



I seem to remember cliff saying he has a few ideas for the expanded storage on the latest axe fx model
 
How about just making it easier to scroll through them. If you pin the cab window you have to click on each one individually. If you try to use the arrow keys you have to hit enter. Why not make it so you can use the arrow keys without confirmation?
 
Back
Top Bottom