Stock vs Commerial Cabs (and where to start)

I don't get why this is a big deal for people - if you are able to drop $2000 + on this box, why would you not spend an extra $15 to $30 on at least one cab pack (be it FAS or 3rd party) to expand the sound possibilities?
To me, the big investment in cab packs is not the money but the *time* involved. Cab packs are extremely expensive in this regard. IMHO. And my music time is extremely valuable (way more than $15-$30/hour).

For the most part I have locked down my user cab slots at this point and I'm glad for it... Having them constantly shifting and evaluating pack after pack of cabs that are just subtle variations on what I already have can get me personally stuck in a viscous cycle that is counter productive (I'm sure others find it inspiring but for me it quickly hits diminishing returns).

For my work flow it is probably better to have a solid, stable core of cab slots that I know well and then I adjust live tones with onboard tools (mostly simply high/low cuts in the cab block, maybe a dephase here or there) or when recording via post processing.

In fact, I have been considering wiping some cab blocks in user slots that I never seem to use but always feel compelled to audition.
 
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To me, the big investment in cab packs is not the money but the *time* involved. Cab packs are extremely expensive in this regard. IMHO.

For the most part I have locked down my user cab slots at this point and I'm glad for it... Having them constantly shifting and evaluating pack after pack of cabs that are just subtle variations on what I already have can get me personally stuck in a viscous cycle that is counter productive (I'm sure others find it inspiring but for me it quickly hits diminishing returns).

For my work flow it is probably better to have a solid, stable core of cab slots that I know well and then I adjust live tones with onboard tools (mostly simply high/low cuts in the cab block, maybe a dephase here or there) or when recording via post processing.

In fact, I have been considering wiping some cab blocks in user slots that I never seem to use but always feel compelled to audition.
Another reason why I did not look into IRs as I have same problems with all the choices the AxeFx is delivering. So I really feel what your saying. I definitely will only search for the stable and as much as possible all round cabs ;)

If I ever have a great song or a hit potention song to be recorded I can always search for the perfect one ;)
 
Many of Fractal's CabPack IRs have an IR or 2 in the firmware already, so it's like having a little Whitman's Sampler of the various fractal cab pack offerings built right in. OwnHammer, cabir.eu and RedWires all offer a freebie cab... not sure about The Amp Factory, but there are also many OH, RW, and TAF IRs in the firmware too

Do you know how to find the freebie from Cabir.eu? I would like to check them out. The IR is the piece of the puzzle missing for me, they all lack that top end openness and bite I love from a real speaker and mic. Not fizz but sizzle. Thus far OH IR's seem to work the best for me overall.
 
Something that surprises me about the IR market is that we don't see celebrity producers or mix engineers releasing packs. Something akin to Steven Slate CLA, Terry Date etc... expansion packs. I would imagine people would pay a decent penny to get the mic and processing skills of some of the big dogs of guitar sound out there. Imagine something similar to the Justin York OH pack, for $50-$75 you get a Marshall 4×12, Mesa 4x12 and a 2x12 open back cab (or what ever just naming those as most common) mic'd and processed by Ross Robinson, Rick Reuben, Bob Rock, Mutt Lange etc.. or maybe just done in a famous studio. I could be completely wrong but seems like there could be a market for that.
 
What I'm trying to get at here is that you will eventually spend less time tweaking once you get the IR side of things taken care of.

I spend zero time tweaking--I have 4-5 stereo UR cabs that I know I like and switch between those when I look for a new tone. If the amp I'm trying doesn't 'hit me' right in the first minute or two I'm moving on to something else. There are 200 and something amps plus how many stomp boxes and compressors which can fine tune the overall voicing and feel...sorry man I know you have a passion and I know you sell 'em but that's a whole heckuva lotta variables already.

If I wanted to spend hundreds of dollars in order to make my $2k box sound it's best I would've bought a Kemper ;)
 
Something that surprises me about the IR market is that we don't see celebrity producers or mix engineers releasing packs. Something akin to Steven Slate CLA, Terry Date etc... expansion packs. I would imagine people would pay a decent penny to get the mic and processing skills of some of the big dogs of guitar sound out there. Imagine something similar to the Justin York OH pack, for $50-$75 you get a Marshall 4×12, Mesa 4x12 and a 2x12 open back cab (or what ever just naming those as most common) mic'd and processed by Ross Robinson, Rick Reuben, Bob Rock, Mutt Lange etc.. or maybe just done in a famous studio. I could be completely wrong but seems like there could be a market for that.
I think you are misevaluating the demand significantly. Judging by what others--essentially hobbyists--are charging for this I have to think Mutt Lange is gonna pass unless he can put more than a couple of $20 bills in his pocket.
 
I spend zero time tweaking--I have 4-5 stereo UR cabs that I know I like and switch between those when I look for a new tone. If the amp I'm trying doesn't 'hit me' right in the first minute or two I'm moving on to something else. There are 200 and something amps plus how many stomp boxes and compressors which can fine tune the overall voicing and feel...sorry man I know you have a passion and I know you sell 'em but that's a whole heckuva lotta variables already.

If I wanted to spend hundreds of dollars in order to make my $2k box sound it's best I would've bought a Kemper ;)
Well first of all I don't sell anything. :) FAS does and I work on the packs for them. And sure you sound like you're happy with your options already. I would personally choose 5 amp sims and 200 IR's over 200 amp sims and 5 IR's any day. An IR is way more powerful. That being said if it ain't broke you don't have to fix it.
 
I think you are misevaluating the demand significantly. Judging by what others--essentially hobbyists--are charging for this I have to think Mutt Lange is gonna pass unless he can put more than a couple of $20 bills in his pocket.
Having talked with many well-known engineers many of them don't think they're the best people to do the job. We IR producers spend way more time placing mics than these professional producers. Also if they put their name on a pack like that they are potentially hurting their own business. If you're known for your guitar tone then you most likely do reamping etc. and they make way more doing that.
 
I think you are misevaluating the demand significantly. Judging by what others--essentially hobbyists--are charging for this I have to think Mutt Lange is gonna pass unless he can put more than a couple of $20 bills in his pocket.

You're probably right, though the demand may not be there now it could be down the road. I'd have to imagine it wouldn't be too hard for them to do if they're in a project and the cabs are already mic'd up to shoot some IR's. With the industry changing and making money on the recording side (i.e. companies, producers, studios etc) it'd be an opportunity for extra revenue streams for minimal effort, though it may be $40 or so dollars a pop it can add up, especially as demand increases.
 
Having talked with many well-known engineers many of them don't think they're the best people to do the job. We IR producers spend way more time placing mics than these professional producers. Also if they put their name on a pack like that they are potentially hurting their own business. If you're known for your guitar tone then you most likely do reamping etc. and they make way more doing that.

That's a great point I didn't consider.
 
Well first of all I don't sell anything. :) FAS does and I work on the packs for them. And sure you sound like you're happy with your options already. I would personally choose 5 amp sims and 200 IR's over 200 amp sims and 5 IR's any day. An IR is way more powerful. That being said if it ain't broke you don't have to fix it.
You don't sell anything? You have a clickable ad below every post you make. I have no issue with it but let's not get too comfy hiding behind semantics lol.

I probably have at least 200 IRs on my computer now of some sort of Celestion speaker and Marshall type 4x12...and I'm not hunting them down. What that says to me is that there is no "correct" way to produce these things. I get the advances in resolution (prob not the right word) but when three aftermarket 'studios' can put out 200 distinctly different sounding IRs of essentially the same cab it just tells me that we are just all mind f***ing this.

But hey, it's just my opinion. And we all know what they say about those.
 
The way IR's are done "right" is subjective and I believe all IR producers will say their way is correct. We all have our free samples. You can try them out if you're interested. My free samples are stock cabs in the Axe-Fx.

My packs have the "Ace" folders for people who don't want too many options. I myself also only use the smaller "Ace" folders as well.
 
I can only speak for myself, but I just feel it's not needed. It's not like the older cabs are 'lower quality' and it's not like there aren't a plethora of choices in the box already. Whenever I start to try and compare more than 2 or 3 IRs for a preset the differences just get fuzzy anyway. Never mind a download of dozens upon dozens of different mics/placements and mixing options....

Do you really want to 'get the sound just right', or do you want to play the guitar??

This!
 
I get what's being said here but the Factory selections just don't do it for me. For guys like me the Fractal was a huge investment most money I've ever spent on a single piece of music gear, would love to not spend additional money to get the sound but it's really the only way I've found to get where I'm trying to go sonically. The Factory cabs just always to me (and this is just my opinion which is highly subjective) seem to not have that blanket on the cab type of sound and don't really feel or sound organic. Again this is just my opinion.
 
I'd have to imagine it wouldn't be too hard for them to do if they're in a project and the cabs are already mic'd up to shoot some IR's. With the industry changing and making money on the recording side (i.e. companies, producers, studios etc) it'd be an opportunity for extra revenue streams for minimal effort, though it may be $40 or so dollars a pop it can add up, especially as demand increases.
You would be surprised how much time it takes to produce a decent cab pack.

What works for one song and one band may not work for another mix with another band. For example Eddie Kramer is famous for his notebook full of the tried and true mic choices with positioning, cabinet, guitar, style, mic preamp, sometimes compressor, and board EQ combinations. Yet he still needs to experiment from time to time to serve the needs of the song and mix after so many years in the biz.

Since studio time is money that is usually paid for by the label and/or band; either party is usually not too keen for Producer A to spend several hours sending frequency sweeps through an artist's beloved cab. Some studios get downright nasty when you suggest capturing their cab in such a way, unless they get a royalty on the sale. As many studios view ir capture process as cutting into the potential studio booking time revenue, if their cab is out there for X dollars buyout price versus so many dollars per hour/day/week/month to block out the studio to record that cab per artist, they sometimes fear it makes their business model even more endangered than it currently is.

If the producer even gets the OK to use the particular cab, then it takes a lot of time per mic position per speaker to find the "right" one. Whether you are doing 3 or 5 or 8 mic positions, you multiply that by at least 5 different trial and error positionings that you have to review for sonic quality, multiplied by the number of speakers in the cab, multiplied by the number of mics used to capture the cab, multiplied by the time used to test for phase coherency between captures, and you can rack up a lot of money in studio time very quickly. Even if you run and gun shooting ir's at the studio blindly, and review them at a home studio, then there is the time spent by a producer to review those ir's to winnow them down to the winners (which is taking him away from other projects with billable hours), as well as the danger that one position's options are not optimal and you have to go back reshoot that position on that cab in yet another way with a particular mic and all the logisitics/money that goes into that.

If the producer is using a home studio space, unless the hand of Zeus touched the space with optimal acoustics for ir capture, which may be different from a producer's usual acoustical recording requirements depending upon style/taste, then there is the cost to treat that space that must be recovered in an amortized way along with any mic purchases and/or rentals.

No matter how many options you capture, there is always a potential customer base who will desire yet another mic choice, mic positioning, post processing, power amp , mic pre, speaker variety, or even variety of cabinet you did not use as a desired make or break choice required to purchase your cab pack.

If you capture too many options, then certain customers feel bewildered or intimidated by the amount of options and will not purchase the cab pack as they will feel that they are being lead down a rabbit hole of time wasting on their part auditioning options that won't work with their particular guitar, amp, style, genre, band arrangement, mixing aesthetic, or song choice. To try and predict all those options proactively for a potential customer can bend one's mind, since one size does not fit all in most use cases

And the producer is taking the fiscal risk to recoup all of the above based on a certain break even point of sales, which may or may not happen.

If you compare this effort to a traditional flat fee plus points on a project that a big time producer usually gets or the usual rates that a studio commands, then you understand why many of them shy away from this type of project. It truly is a labor of love for all of us who do it.

So "minimal effort" is usually not really minimal effort if you start adding all this up.
 
The main reason factory selections don't do it for some, is we all have different setups. Some go direct, others in-ears, others SS amp and FRFR cab, others tube amp and FRFR cab or guitar cab (even the different sizes and types of speakers make a difference). You get my point.
But if you take the time to make some adjustments (there are so many tutorials available), you can achieve your tone, with the factory cabs. I know this first hand. With that said, I'm only referring to live sound and not studio. I know there is a difference and live may not be as critical.

The thing about custom cab packs is, after spending the money for a cab pack, it may not work for you at all, for the same reason above and more. You buy a cab pack, an if your guitar, AXE setup, EQ settings, speakers, monitors or ears, PA and even string choice and technique are not the same, the tone may not sound like it was intended. I purchased a couple of packs, only to find, since my rig is different, they didn't work for me. I tried all the suggested choices of gear. But for live, it just didn't do it for me. Believe me, I have tried at great expense, to use FRFR and direct to PA. But after many adjustments and EQing, when I would compare the sound coming out of the PA direct vs. mic'd cab, the mic's cab won hands down. So I took some advice, right here from the forums, and tweaked the factory cabs to my own liking. Lately, with the firmware updates and tweaks provided by Fractal, I have been able to to achieve a true feel and tone, that insures I don't miss my Triaxis, Marshall DSL, Fender Twin, Bogner and more. I'm not saying don't buy the cab packs. For others it may be the right choice. But from the very beginning, I never followed the norm with using the AXE. I just don't like the direct sound or FRFR, so I use tweaked cab blocks, (yes cabs are turned on), and adjust each preset to sound correct for me, into my 2:90 tube amp and 4 x 12 guitar cab, and mic my guitar cab to the PA.
We all have different ears, but are searching for the same results.
 
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