What kinds of information/data are included in an IR?

la szum

Axe-Master
Talk to me like I am stupid and don't know a gosh darn thing. Cuz I am. :)

I have been doing my own investigative research and feel like I am missing some
specifics. Maybe I am barking up the wrong tree here. Not sure.

For instance, I know that micing a specific cabinet that has a specific speaker in it
is part of creating and capturing an impulse response (if those are the proper terms
to be using?). But what I feel like I am missing an understanding of are the other
things that might be "baked" into the process. Is compression included? If so, to
what degree? Are folks using mic pres? You kind of have to with any kind of condenser
or ribbon mic, right?

I am sure some of this has been beat to death, but I am not seeing specific information
related to some of the questions I have. Just wanting to fill in gaps in my understanding,
and hopeful the resulting conversation is helpful to others.

Thanks!
 
IR's are linear EQ/filter curves. That means that their effect on the signal will be the same regardless of the input level. They are not able to recreate non-linear responses like compression or clipping. They will mostly just recreate the linear frequency response of the system used to capture the IR.

Another potentially big part of the IR sound is the room in which it is captured, especially for long IRs like FullRes.
 
Talk to me like I am stupid and don't know a gosh darn thing. Cuz I am. :)

I have been doing my own investigative research and feel like I am missing some
specifics. Maybe I am barking up the wrong tree here. Not sure.

For instance, I know that micing a specific cabinet that has a specific speaker in it
is part of creating and capturing an impulse response (if those are the proper terms
to be using?). But what I feel like I am missing an understanding of are the other
things that might be "baked" into the process. Is compression included? If so, to
what degree? Are folks using mic pres? You kind of have to with any kind of condenser
or ribbon mic, right?

I am sure some of this has been beat to death, but I am not seeing specific information
related to some of the questions I have. Just wanting to fill in gaps in my understanding,
and hopeful the resulting conversation is helpful to others.

Thanks!
No expert, but here's my educated guess:

i) IRs will almost always have a mic pre in the chain,
ii) probably won't have a compressor.

EQ is probably trickier and will likely vary. Some may try to get EQ changes just through mic placement and others may do some EQ on the way in or after a capture.

(They also phase correct, time correct, and normalize but that's standard.)

I would be cool if vendors listed their signal chain, but that's probably part of their "secret sauce".
 
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