what makes one speaker IR quieter than another?

jzucker

Experienced
just bought the celestion redback IRs. Relatively new in their shop. They are about 3db quieter than other IRs I have from redwirez and others.

[edit] FYI - I heard back from celestion and they acknowledged there is a problem with normalization in some of the IRs in this package and they are going to re-process them and reset my download count!
 
Last edited:
I have found that a lot of the third party IR's I have imported are much lower in volume than the factory ones as well, to the point I just delete them.
 
I have found that a lot of the third party IR's I have imported are much lower in volume than the factory ones as well, to the point I just delete them.

one thing that's painful with the FM3 is that the level control is global in the preset. I can't vary it with a different scene. I can probably vary it with a different channel but it's inconvenient for how I have things setup
 
yes - they tend to vary. My OCD makes me measure the difference with can on/off and put a compensating value on cab level so if I want to turn the cab block off to use my real cabs, volume stays constant. The rest of my volume levelling is done at amp block level
 
yes - they tend to vary. My OCD makes me measure the difference with can on/off and put a compensating value on cab level so if I want to turn the cab block off to use my real cabs, volume stays constant. The rest of my volume levelling is done at amp block level
the problem for me is if I want to use 2 different cabs in a preset.
 
one thing that's painful with the FM3 is that the level control is global in the preset. I can't vary it with a different scene. I can probably vary it with a different channel but it's inconvenient for how I have things setup
The OUT blocks have a separate level controls for each scene. You can also assign a scene controller to the level parameter of the cab block and adjust the level that way per scene as well.
 
The OUT blocks have a separate level controls for each scene. You can also assign a scene controller to the level parameter of the cab block and adjust the level that way per scene as well.

ah, thanks.

Is there an IR editor that I could use to "normalize" it? I tried loading it into an audio editor but that obviously doesn't work too well...
 
I also noticed that some cabs seem to react differently to different frequencies - ie: I'll have two different cabs in the cab block hard panned left/right and levelled left to right with the individual cab level controls while playing middle/hi strings - but then when I play lower chords the left/right levelling is off again - tricky!
 
ah, thanks.

Is there an IR editor that I could use to "normalize" it? I tried loading it into an audio editor but that obviously doesn't work too well...
Cab Lab can adjust levels and let you blend them. The IR controls in *Edit are based on Cab-Lab, you can blend/mix 3rd party IRs then write the resulting version back to disk.

Take a look at the interface… cab-lab-main.jpg

PS - The Wiki's entry for Cab Lab might be useful too.
 
Last edited:
I also noticed that some cabs seem to react differently to different frequencies - ie: I'll have two different cabs in the cab block hard panned left/right and levelled left to right with the individual cab level controls while playing middle/hi strings - but then when I play lower chords the left/right levelling is off again - tricky!

That's just due to the different frequency response of the two IRs. For example, if one side has much less low end response, the other side will seem more prevalent when you're playing low notes.
 
Cab Lab can adjust levels and let you blend them. The IR controls in *Edit are based on Cab-Lab, you can blend/mix 3rd party IRs then write the resulting version back to disk.

Take a look at the interface… cab-lab-main.jpg

PS - The Wiki's entry for Cab Lab might be useful too.

thanks. Not sure if I want to spend $50 to fix a $11 IR from celestion. Seems like a good tool if I had a bunch of cabs I wanted to sample... I emailed their support and mentioned that the output is about 3db lower than the 4 other IRs I purchased from them. Maybe they'll fix it.
 
thanks. Not sure if I want to spend $50 to fix a $11 IR from celestion. Seems like a good tool if I had a bunch of cabs I wanted to sample... I emailed their support and mentioned that the output is about 3db lower than the 4 other IRs I purchased from them. Maybe they'll fix it.
Remember that you can adjust the output of the IRs relative to each other in the Cab block, and make up for a 3db loss easily, elsewhere in your layout.
 
Unfortunately, they need to have a level control on each cab in a block.
Huh?

Each Cab block has an individual level that is relative to the others in use on that channel in the block, and the block itself has a regular Level control that can be used to set its output to whatever you want.

For instance, imagine that CAB 1 in this block is -3db and CAB 2 is 0db…
Screen Shot 2022-03-15 at 12.03.58 PM.png

I can set CAB 2 to be -3db relative to CAB 1 and the overall block level is adjusted automatically…
Screen Shot 2022-03-15 at 12.13.43 PM.png

The two CABs are balanced at that point, and the total block output is automagically back to 0db.

The Blocks Guide talks about this:
Screen Shot 2022-03-15 at 12.10.36 PM.png
 

Attachments

  • Screen Shot 2022-03-15 at 12.05.30 PM.png
    Screen Shot 2022-03-15 at 12.05.30 PM.png
    331.9 KB · Views: 3
@Greg Ferguson , i finally got around to trying this and i can't get the individual speaker level to do anything. I have it set to -40 and it's still super loud. What am I doing wrong?

1647726921519.png
 
Of course you can’t. You have only one cab enabled so the setting is ignored.

Enable the other cab also.

I don't want to enable the other speaker. I want to be able to switch between the two of them while auditioning. I guess I'll have to use a different workflow involving channels.
 
thanks. Not sure if I want to spend $50 to fix a $11 IR from celestion. Seems like a good tool if I had a bunch of cabs I wanted to sample... I emailed their support and mentioned that the output is about 3db lower than the 4 other IRs I purchased from them. Maybe they'll fix it.
You're saying you think it slipped their mind to normalize this IR? :). That's extremely unlikely. By their very nature, different IRs have different frequency responses. That means you should expect level differences when playing a guitar through them. Use channels if you need to switch between different IR configurations in the cab block. That's what channels are for.
 
You're saying you think it slipped their mind to normalize this IR? :). That's extremely unlikely. By their very nature, different IRs have different frequency responses. That means you should expect level differences when playing a guitar through them. Use channels if you need to switch between different IR configurations in the cab block. That's what channels are for.

No, gotta disagree about the levels and frequency responses. I have a redback speaker and it's very efficient and very loud. I hear no difference in efficiency between it, my alnico 90, G12H-75 or dvmark speakers whereas there is a drastic difference between the redback IR and the Alnico 90 and G12H-75 IRs. It's more than 3db too. Might be 4-5db, almost 1/2 the volume.
 
No, gotta disagree about the levels and frequency responses. I have a redback speaker and it's very efficient and very loud. I hear no difference in efficiency between it, my alnico 90, G12H-75 or dvmark speakers whereas there is a drastic difference between the redback IR and the Alnico 90 and G12H-75 IRs. It's more than 3db too. Might be 4-5db, almost 1/2 the volume.
Sure, but as I'm sure you know, there are other factors besides the speaker that contribute to the frequency response.

The bottom line is: it's not reasonable to expect that IRs won't need level adjustments. The level controls are there for a reason :).
 
Back
Top Bottom