To IR or not to IR - Cab Pack purchase worth the money?

Given the fact that IRs from the Cab Packs are superior to stock IRs - yes, "custom" IRs are well worth spending money for them.

BUT... given the fact, that you have to spend money for an entire Cab Pack just to get the IRs you want (along with other IRs you don't give a shit about) - well, let's say that it makes me wonder is it really worth paying for example a hundred bucks for Cab Pack 3 just for couple of useful IRs and all the rest that is completely useless and won't be loaded to AFX... ever.
 
I've bought 4 cab packs from ML Sound Labs. While not every IR works out well with every amp, I find quite a lot of them very useful for lots of applications. Really digging Cab Pack 16 with the "Sukr" cabs. Really good for blending with other cabs and I use the 65 cab as my main lead tone right now. Cab Pack 9 is my favorite. If one IR doesn't work with a particular amp, try a different one.

A good example of the cab thing not working with all amps: I recently have fallen in love with the Dumble amps. Using one of the factory Dumble IR near the end of the factory list for my clean Dumble sound, its just beautiful! Using the same cab with the Dumble gainier amp is nothing but muddiness and farty sounding now matter how I tweak every setting I can find in the amps parameters. However blending those cabs with one of the ones from CP16 really opened the tone up. It is now cutting, yet not harsh.. Thick and Fat, but not flubby and farty. I've tried the Dumble gainier channels with other cabs, but since I'm not that familiar with the amps, I haven't quite found the right cab outside of using one of the factory Dumble cabs with the CP16 cab blended.
 
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Obviously this is a topic that everyone will not agree on and it's okay if you feel content with stock IRs. There are a few really good ones in there in my opinion also.

However the maestro Cliff himself has said that IRs affect your tone sometimes even more than the amp sim, maybe even more than your guitar. So for people who spend time choosing specific guitars and A/Bing pickups, strings, picks or anything like that and after that comparing different amps it would be extremely ignorant to limit yourself with your IR choices. That's not a sales pitch but an honest opinion. Some amp sims never even worked for me before trying them out with some specific IRs that made me go: "aaaahh.. so that's what it's supposed to sound like".

The thing most people seem to have forgotten is that a year ago I was one of you guys and I still am right now. The reason I started shooting IRs was that I was tired of people not doing these packs the way I wanted them done. After purchasing a Cab Pack that is based on f.ex. a Marshall TV cab, I want to feel like I went to the store and bought a worn in 4x12 TV cab, took it into the studio and a professional shot every usable sounds out of it and gave me the IRs. But instead of paying $1000 I would pay 2% of that price tag. Which IMO is a an absolute bargain. I want everyone who buys a pack from me to feel like after they got the pack they now own that cab in real life. I want it to feel like it's worth at least $1000.

That's one of the main reasons I was the first IR producer to start doing all four speakers in a 4x12 cab and I think I'm still the only one doing that. That's 4 times the work load and sorry but a 4x12 has four speakers. Not just one. That's 25% of the tonal variety that real cab could've given you. Cab Pack 7 was my official FAS pack and it's still one of the best packs anyone has done. There will not be new revision for it since I did it properly the first time. :D (Same goes for other cabs.)

I'm personally not seeing the problem with pricing. Answer me this: Have you even switched pickups on your guitar? How much did it cost? How much did it change your tone? I assure you all of the Cab Packs give you way more tonal variety than having 10 different pickups in your guitar. It's just that paying for something digital seems to be a barrier for people. However I'm glad that people with this problem represent "laggards" on the gaussian curve:

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The sad part is, I can relate to the guys who have spent money on a pack they didn't like. I've been there myself. F.ex. the Sturgis IR pack was a huge disappointment to me since I know Joey is awesome at what he does. It just didn't work for me. But the thing here is.. if you don't like one of my Cab Packs you most likely wouldn't like the real cab either. My captures are as clean as possible. There's 0% coloration. So if you really think about it you spent $25 on a Cab Pack instead of spending $1000 on a cab that you would've ended up not liking. So maybe it still wasn't a bad purchase? Depends whether you're a glass half full person or not. :)
 
This thread has greatly exceeded my expectations! Thanks everyone!

As I stated, I will "gamble" $30 on this, convinced I will find at least one great IR (covering 40% of my main preset bank) and a few others that I will like better than what I have now. I may never be a collector, but I will be a smarter user with even better tones if I'm right to do this.

Ordering tonight, tweaking Saturday. I will report back. And FYI, I'm a hard sell - long-time player, still very active in live and recording gigs, great stable of instruments, and already delighted with my Axe tones. So if I can be convinced...

Greg
 
Satch4u3 said:
I have purchased and wasted a lot of money on cab packs. It's just a rabbit hole to be honest. I realize that the third parties put a lot of time and effort into making these and god bless you for that. But stock IRs will do you fine.
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Giving a "like" for bucking the trend and acknowledging that while, mostly a blessing, IRs can be a curse too. I find managing them and evaluating them counter-productive sometimes. That said, most cab packs/collections have freebies or individual selections in the stock IRs so you can evaluate them before purchase and I think everyone who uses FRFR regularly (most AFX users) can benefit from a couple of choice packs. I tend to 'collect' things/accessories for my gear but with cab packs; I skip a lot of them and only have picked up a couple judiciously.

Another point to note, if you are totally new, some of the forum posted Cab IRs are quite excellent/useful and there are some classic Free IRs out there to explore too.

Also, OP: You can get one of Fractal's own Cab PAcks free to get your feet wet. It is not UltraRes but that does not mean there is not good stuff there and will give you a taste of the cab pack experience.
http://forum.fractalaudio.com/news/102778-cab-pack-1-now-free.html
 
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Okay, bought the pack and unzipped it, but no time to experiment last night. Big weekend coming up!

Advice needed - as alluded to to above, having a thousand IRs is not a good thing (unless there's a really cool way to audition these quickly...).

So I'm confident this Pack will fix me right up for Fender tones. Will any of them be an upgrade for Marshall tones? I'm using both Friedmans. Also I have a Mesa MkIIC+ patch that is giving me some trouble, maybe it just needs a great IR.

Thanks again. I will report back on my findings. I'll also download Cab Pack 1.
 
zenaxe said:
Giving a "like" for bucking the trend and acknowledging that while, mostly a blessing, IRs can be a curse too. I find managing them and evaluating them counter-productive sometimes.
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I agree.
I bought the redwirez bundel a few years ago and it was really hard to go through all the CABs without getting ear fattigue. After a lot of try and error I copied all cabs with a certain mic/angle/distance (e.g. all speakers but only SM57/cone/2 inch distance) to a separate folder to get a feel for the differences. Next I tried a lot mix recipes and struggled with the many possibilities. Finally after a few weeks of tweaking I found a set of 5-10 CABs which worked for me.

It would be nice if Mikko could offer an online service (like redwirez did) where you can upload short wav samples and listen to them how they sound with different IRs.
 
Is there a way to audition IRs? It doesn't look like Cab Lab can do it. Or Axe Edit. Right now I just copy a preset up "out of the way", make a copy or two in neighboring slots, and swap in and out, going back and forth. It works but I'm thinking there must be a better way. I thought someone had written something to do that, but I can't locate it now and expect it might not work with current IRs and FW.

Anyone? Or have you found a way better than mine?
 
A final note. Again my thanks to all for their worthy comments.

I could not be more pleased with my $30 investment. The Urban IRs and Mikko's ML Double Verb IRs replaced every single IR - including my Friedmans and Mesa Mark IIC+. I found obvious and ear-pleasing upgrades with little tweaking. There is something going on here that's hard to describe to any who haven't tried these. Tones are purer and "more real" (yeah, I know). It's like there is less "stuff" and much more "pure stuff" - sorry, best I can do.

Let me add this - when I began to play in high school, me and my friends would to anywhere to hear bands play. And I heard a lot of great rigs put together on the cheap. It was years later when I actually saw a Marshall stack or half-stack, but I did see a lot of Marshall heads (probably Plexis back then) sitting on Bandmaster or Dual Showman cabinets. And they sounded amazing, even if they looked funny (which they didn't back then). So hearing a Friedman BE through a Fender Twin cabinet was cool - pleasing to the ear and very focused in the mix. I've always preferred the focus of smaller cabs.

I was skeptical but got over it very fast. I still have some exploring to do, but I am still walking tall after yesterday's gig with the best tones I've had in 45 years of gigging.

So much respect to Mikko for a great quality package!
 
Ya, the ir challenge thread helped me break from my original rythme tone based on a axe change tone with friedman hbe and a tone match block. I had trouble getting the hbe amp to not sound dull with any stock cab or even cp 13 which i bought recently. The tone match block was bright but a bit grainy.

I tried the angel model and lots of the cabs in cp13 sound killer. Variety in cab packs is probably a good thing. Some cab irs just don't jive with some amps. Just like real cabs
 
I have bought a few. Fractal cab packs and redwires and own hammers. It can be a rabbit hole and it depends how much you like to tweak. If your a serial tweaker folders of 1000's of irs is probably heaven.

One the 1000's of irs I own I currently use 1 from cab pack 13 for pretty much everything. And if It doesn't work I use a stock ultra res cab. That said I like that 1 ir allot.

That said it all comes down to how much you like try different ir's. I'd rather use less and tweak the amp to get the sound
 
mongey said:
I have bought a few. Fractal cab packs and redwires and own hammers. It can be a rabbit hole and it depends how much you like to tweak. If your a serial tweaker folders of 1000's of irs is probably heaven.

One the 1000's of irs I own I currently use 1 from cab pack 13 for pretty much everything. And if It doesn't work I use a stock ultra res cab. That said I like that 1 ir allot.

That said it all comes down to how much you like try different ir's. I'd rather use less and tweak the amp to get the sound
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That is also one of the approaches I use myself. When I find an IR that I really like I don't feel like exploring a lot after that since the next day I might prefer something else and the next day... etc. and for that reason although my packs have the fast "Ace" folders you may or even should disagree with my choices if you really dig in since we don't all like the same things. Except when it's pizza = CP7 or hamburgers = CP13. :lol That is the approach essentially. Find an IR that you like the most and use that IR. When you buy a real cabinet you don't change the mic positions every single time you start playing your amp. You'll find the positions that work and use them. Don't treat digital differently just because it's easier. It should make easy things even faster and easier. :) If you're the type of guy who places mics with their eyes and is fine with it then I suggest using my Ace choices and not worry about the rest. They got through quite many ears and judging to get to that point that they're named Aces.

To make things more simple I usually have top 10 IRs which is the 10 first user IR slots and when ever I find an IR I really like it gets onto that list and those IRs are always the ones I try first when creating tones. Obviously the list keeps changing all the time but some IRs have stayed on that list for many many many months. Most of what I have in there right now are unreleased but the ones that I still have in there have stayed there through all kinds of tests. That includes: CP7 USA Trad SM57-MD421 01, CP8 ML Brit TV SM57-R121 F01, CP13 SM57-MD421 02, CP13 ML USA Bulb SM57-R121 03, ML Double Verb SM57-MD421 04... the rest I can't sadly talk about right now. Between 11-20 is where I have all the Ace Alloys from ML Class-A which will be out next. I'll most likely land on a few favorites and two of them will make it to my top 10 for sure.

But back on topic: Is a Cab Pack purchase worth the money?

Hells yes if you ask me off or on the record. If you're that guy who was happy with a Behringer 4x12 cab with whatever speakers were in it miked with whatever mic you found you most likely don't care about IRs either. (Why did you get an Axe-Fx if you're that guy? :) ) But if you have a nice guitar or even a nice amp on top of that cab and say that you really care about your tone then I would like to inform you that a crappy guitar through a crappy amp going through an awesome guitar cab will sound better than what you're experiencing since out of these three the cabinet will affect your tone the most.

What I'm getting at here is: How much money have you spent on a pickup change? How much money have you spent on a single pedal? How much money have you spent on something completely insignificant tonally but visually pleasing like a cool looking strap? Do you have two or more guitars that sound pretty much the same? How much do you spend on strings in a month? I don't feel like even proving my point. IRs are way cheaper and affect your tone so much more than any of the things I just mentioned.

So I guess the real question is "Are stock IRs enough?" right? I think it's all about how important your tone is to you. Once again if you've ever changed pickups on your guitar or f.ex. A/B'd different strings, drive pedals, amp heads or done something like that to find your tone. Then my answer for you is stock IRs are not enough. An IR affects your tone way more. That is not opinion, that is fact. :)

The reason there are IRs from existing Cab Packs as stock IRs is to give people samples to find which Cab Pack would suit them best.
 
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