Something Cool I've Been Working On

prometh - for what it's worth..
I'm one of those that can't hear a difference between hires and lores
of course it don't actually mean there's not a difference, just that I'm personally not hearing it..
or maybe, I'm not sure what to listen out for, or that my studio monitoring isn't quite good enough to make it noticeable [which is also a good possibility]

out of curiosity..
it'd be interesting to see a lores, hires and ultra-res curve of the same cab

edit: that said...
my configs are all different..
live I use traditional 4x12 cabs [so the cab sims are off]
practice I use a stereo cab [which is of course a pair of lores cabs - and it serves a very good purpose offering great tone at lower cpu and emulates my live tone pretty good I think]
but when I reamp in the studio I use mono hires [mostly cos it seems to be the optimum thing to do even if my ears can't tell the difference] because my guitar tracks are built up of layers of mono tracks..
 
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clarky said:
prometh - for what it's worth.. I'm one of those that can't hear a difference between hires and lores of course it don't actually mean there's not a difference, just that I'm personally not hearing it.. or maybe, I'm not sure what to listen out for, or that my studio monitoring isn't quite good enough to make it noticeable [which is also a good possibility]
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Likewise. I tend to run lo res all the time. Never really felt it hurt my sound.
 
electronpirate said:
This is interesting. Although it was awhile ago, I tried a few from him, and it sounded like this. Absolutely nothing musical about it. Couldn't get it to work with any tweaks. Thought it was me.

Of course Jay *said* it was me...
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When Jay released his initial far-field IRs I commented that they sounded boxy and weird, and he replied (I paraphrase) "Of course they sound boxy, speaker cabinets are boxes". I did not like his reply. I thought the IRs sounded pretty weird, myself. I don't use them...
 
FractalAudio said:
It's All we care about is recreating the sound of that speaker as it would be recorded as accurately as possible.
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Emphasize 'as it would be recorded in that space, by that person(s)'.

And that's the forest that people are missing.


Finaldo said:
When Jay released his initial far-field IRs I commented that they sounded boxy and weird, and he replied (I paraphrase) "Of course they sound boxy, speaker cabinets are boxes". I did not like his reply. I thought the IRs sounded pretty weird, myself. I don't use them...
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That's just a dipshit answer, though. Not anything to bridle over personally, but functionally. Particularly given his pedantry....or probably his answer was due to it. On that note.....


FractalAudio said:
pedant - definition of pedant by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.
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HEHN HEHN HEHN HEHN. Oh man. I can dig the range of that scale, and sometimes its the personality of the person that determines the degree.


swervedriver said:
Or in other words, does a more accurate capturing of speaker resonance frequency have a signifcant effect on a (much) larger part of the response frequencies (instead of just around that particular resonance frequency)?
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Yes. Any part in the chain can add content, and low content manifests as harmonics above. Or, more simply, refer to the definition of 'harmonic'.


lauke-lux said:
Cliff you must have been sleeping with "Calculus" for years. The way you are dealing with this must be close to Einstein level. Congrats and looking forward to hear it in due time. Thanks so much again go FA
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Perhaps, but remember there are a lot of gadgets in the world now, and a lot of people putting them out, and they have lots going for them to get there.
 
Robboman said:
My first comments on this thread!

1). Thanks Cliff!

2). I've read and believe I grasp the majority of the 'science' being debated so hotly here and on TGP. My inner geek finds techy things interesting, so I like to read and occasionally engage in discussion when time permits. I marvel at the sheer volume of detailed math analysis and technical debate in our community of 'musicians'. Also, as a somewhat normal person, I continue to find Jay Mitchell's personality highly amusing :)

3). For those readers who'd rather devote energy to making music. It's actually very simple...

4). Try out UltraRes(TM) when available. If it sounds better, it is better. If it doesn't, I'm guessing the old res options will still be in there for you.

5). If you're still not sure what 'better' sounds like, you may have bigger issues.


Everyone's true goal is to sound 'better', so again, feel free to stop at point 4 if you trust your ears. But maybe you've read this whole thread and are bamboozled by all the science, yet you still care what makes one thing 'better' than another thing.


6). The science talk mostly concerns how to make an IR represent a mic'd cab in an ideal studio environment versus how to make a 'raw' IR that doesn't contain studio room reflections. This often extends into.. how to make an IR devoid of mic\preamp\amp coloration.

* The 'studio' IR concept is easy to grasp, it involves commonly accepted means by which all great amplified guitar recordings have been made for the past 60+ years.​

* The 'raw' IR concept can get very complex, and this is the bulk of the science talk - Truncated? Far-field? Neutral calibrated reference mics? Anechoic chambers?​

7). If you in fact play guitar, it may be wise at this point to consider YOUR actual goal. How to achieve the best 'studio' IR or the best 'raw' IR is not really the goal. For most of us, the goal is to sound 'better'. It comes down to what fits your application the best.

Here's the parts that are strictly IMO

a). For me, the only useful application for 'raw' IRs is in trying to make your FRFR monitor sound like an 'amp in the room'.

b). For all other musical purposes, say recording or send to FOH live, I prefer 'studio' IRs. I want all the room, gobo effects, early reflections, color, etc. Everything that exists in my favorite recordings.

My personal method for achieving 'amp in the room', is to use a real guitar cab. Simple and works very well. IMO, if you insist on obtaining 'amp in the room' via IRs into FRFR, you are in for a big challenge. Don't forget to ask yourself.. why bother? I know.. variety of cabs, matching ideal cab to each amp.. etc. IMO.. still not worth it.

Cliff's new UltraRes thing seems like a great new feature.. but it's not meant to improve 'amp in the room' specifically, and likely won't. And hey.. maybe we should all just hear it in action first, then decide.

Cheers!
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Nicely summarized! :)
 
I liked the far fields, but I always used them mixed with other cabs. In my mind it was an attempt to get closer to a bigger more open sound. Placebo or something different all together I had results that I liked. With that said it's been quite a few firmware revisions since I've used them.
 
FractalAudio said:
pedant - definition of pedant by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.
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Wow. You guys must have really butted heads somewhere. Can't imagine what would have you post such a thing...

To give Jay his due: his speakers seem to still mop the floor with anything else out there. He doesn't just work for Frazier, he owns the company and he gives lectures on speaker design. Literally wrote the book on it. He does have vast knowledge about speakers, acoustics and apparently also IRs for convolution reverb purposes. He should know quite a bit about it. I enjoyed reading him putting laymen in their place about speaker behavior and design, but only when they were too stubborn to give in.

Too bad he considered Cliff one of those laymen... They would have made a great team. Hope they make up some time.


Currently I think my biggest problem is not the info in the IR. It's the speakers I reproduce them with. Should go save up for a CLR, I think.
 
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Scott Peterson said:
My only comment about the 'debate' on TGP is simple and I stated it there: this isn't even out, it isn't in anyone's box except for Cliff's and yet you have pages of debate and so forth.

NO ONE OTHER THAN CLIFF HAS EVEN HEARD OR USED THIS YET.

Drives me batty. Cart before the horse and all that. There's a whole lot of assumption in some of the threads; .
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And that from one of the owners of TGP.

I think that's funny.
 
Dutch said:
Wow. You guys must have really butted heads somewhere. Can't imagine what would have you post such a thing...

To give Jay his due: his speakers seem to still mop the floor with anything else out there. He doesn't just work for Frazier, he owns the company and he gives lectures on speaker design. Literally wrote the book on it. He does have vast knowledge about speakers, acoustics and apparently also IRs for convolution reverb purposes. He should know quite a bit about it. I enjoyed reading him putting laymen in their place about speaker behavior and design, but only when they were too stubborn to give in.

Too bad he considered Cliff one of those laymen... They would have made a great team. Hope they make up some time.


Currently I think my biggest problem is not the info in the IR. It's the speakers I reproduce them with. Should go save up for a CLR, I think.
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Thanks for posting this, man! Browsing over the last few pages, I was seriously considering to drop the forum from my usual morning read... Just too much negativity, aggression, and personal attacks for my taste. BTW, all things I have never seen from Jay [though I think that from time to time, his attitude (as I *perceive* it) does not translate too well over the Internet].
 
Cliff is doing a wonderful thing here by continuing to expand on the possibilities of the Axe II and future versions. I have to respect a man that pushes forward each and everyday, cliff is a machine!!!! And on top of it, while he's doing all this greatness, he has to listen to the negativity that goes with being at the top of his game. I Salute you brotha!!!!
 
Stratoblaster said:
I set up my personal FRFR monitoring to achieve a tone I'm personally satisfied with and send that thru Output 2 with the Global EQ flat.

I send the Output 1 via XLR to the FOH and adjust Output 1 Global EQ to be mix friendly, or leave that flat and adjust the FOH mix at the board.

Generally, my personal FRFR monitor tone is fuller/fatter in the low end/low mids which competes with the full mix, so all I need to do is a gentle low end rolloff, again either thru the Global 1 EQ or the board. Sometimes I need to boost or cut the FOH high end ever so slightly but rarely.

So, I just use Global EQ on Output 1 to adjust for different rooms/mixes/FOH, etc. while leaving my Output 2 Global alone. If I find my personal monitoring tones are deficient for a given room I'll adjust Global EQ Output 2 accordingly, again, this is for personal taste and independent of the FOH mix.

I'd rather have 'too much' than 'not enough' in the frequency department as I like to remove stuff that's there vs adding freqs that are not there to EQ for the mix.

Gigged last weekend with a player I've not played with for a while (hasn't heard the Fractal rig for some time) and he was seriously digging the FOH tone of my guitar...and I was very satisfied with my monitor/stage sound so everyone was happy!
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To follow this up and for those interested, I decided to use the IRs that best suit the application...concurrently. That means one IR goes from the main to the board (Output 1) and the other goes to the FX Loop (Output 2). I'll be using the Studio Mix IRs from OH for Output 1 and the equivalent Live Mix IRs for the loop (Output 2). The philosophy is that this is truly the closest to giving me a "cab" tone to my ear if I hook my CLR to Output 2 while sending the board a close mic'd tone that can be shaped there as needed. Early testing was promising but I'll need to check this at a gig. This approach does gobble up some resources though. I use Wah, Drive, Flanger, Phaser, Amp, Chorus, Delay, Reverb, PEQ (for lead boost), 2 Cabs (one for each output) and the FX loop for each of my patches. This consumes 85% of my computer resources so enough room to do it and I'll never have more than 3-4 things on at any one time.
 
The myopic only see the IR as a capture of the speaker's "unadulterated" response. As I stated before I believe the future is treating IRs as capturing the entire recording chain including mics, preamps, etc. and have pushing in that direction. We have already seen the fruits of this labor in the Producer Pack and OwnHammer V2 IRs. We used mainly PP and OH IRs at Axe-Fest this weekend and the results were stellar. Andy Wood's tone was among the best guitar tones I've ever heard live and we dialed it up in 10 minutes under far less than ideal conditions. It consisted of the Two Rock amp model and the EV 12L Mix IR.

When you include more than the speaker response in the IR you can have low-frequency resonances that persist for tens of milliseconds or more. Truncating an IR destroys this LF information.

In many cases this LF information loss would probably not be perceptible. In other cases, from experience, it can be extremely noticeable. The bottom line is that you can always remove the information if you don't want it but you can't add back what isn't there.
 
Not myopic at all, you just have differing goals.


FractalAudio said:
The myopic only see the IR as a capture of the speaker's "unadulterated" response. As I stated before I believe the future is treating IRs as capturing the entire recording chain including mics, preamps, etc. and have pushing in that direction. We have already seen the fruits of this labor in the Producer Pack and OwnHammer V2 IRs. We used mainly PP and OH IRs at Axe-Fest this weekend and the results were stellar. Andy Wood's tone was among the best guitar tones I've ever heard live and we dialed it up in 10 minutes under far less than ideal conditions. It consisted of the Two Rock amp model and the EV 12L Mix IR.

When you include more than the speaker response in the IR you can have low-frequency resonances that persist for tens of milliseconds or more. Truncating an IR destroys this LF information.

In many cases this LF information loss would probably not be perceptible. In other cases, from experience, it can be extremely noticeable. The bottom line is that you can always remove the information if you don't want it but you can't add back what isn't there.
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I have an issue with any person claiming something cannot be improved or something is impossible, etc. I say let the geniuses of the world prove them wrong and we'll all benefit in the end. Everything I have heard from Cliff has been revolutionary. Personally I will be waiting for this new advancement and we can all be the judge.
 
yek said:
Whether a block is ON or OFF doesn't affect CPU%.
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Ah...well, the good news is I'm still under 90% with this approach so I don't suspect I should have issues running my patches this way. For others who are CPU intensive patches, then you might have to use the GEQ or something similar to shape the sounds and it sounds like that's what some folks are doing. I think the OH Live IRs sound a bit more natural in the approach to roll off the highs and lows.
 
One type of myopic only see the IR as a capture of the speaker's "unadulterated" response.
Another type of myopic see the IR as a capture of the entire recording chain including mics, preamps, etc.
The ones with a broad view see both serving a different purpose.
As far as which is better (for me) .... I'll let my ears decide
Who says an IR with the whole chain (studio setup) can't be used for live use?
If it sounds good....
But I always felt I never got the pure "unadulterated" sound from any IR
Even with the TC30
Until I mixed the four TC30 IRS "cap" - "cap-edge" - "cone" - "cone-edge" at 0"
That gave me a fuller, more complete sound as where if you only used one out of four, you only get a piece of the puzzle.
All IMHO and YMMV.
But making these mixes and then using the mikes and playing with the proximity parameter gave me very good results.
 
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