Your Favorite Third Party IR Bundles

TheloniusJ

Experienced
So I'm 99% happy with the tones I'm getting from my FM3, but am more and more recognizing the importance of IRs. I have been using only included IRs so far, but am thinking about buying a bundle.

Currently I'm looking for tones covering the spectrum from Allen Hinds, Mark Lettieri, Scofield, and Robben Ford.

Anyway, if you have a strong recommendation for a particular bundle, I'd love to hear it. Or if your opinion is that the Fractal included IRs are equally good, I'd love to hear that also.
 
York Audio and Ownhammer make great IRs. I personally never found the need to use anything other than what was in the unit, and use Yek's Amp list to pinpoint which cab I want to use and go from there.

Way back when, I was using someone's free custom IR for my Mesa Tones on the Axe Fx II. And I really like Leon Todd's custom IRs for those high gain tones. For what you are looking for, there are plenty of cabs in the FM3 that would sound great.

For example, for the ODS amps, these are the recommended cabs: Dumble 2x12 or 4x12 (G12-65, EVM)

Here is a link to Yek's Amp wiki: https://wiki.fractalaudio.com/wiki/index.php?title=Amplifier_models_list#ODS-100_FORD_PAB_MID

What I personally find is that the settings on the amps themselves matter much more than the cab to a degree. Once you dial in a pleasing tone, with a recommended cab, you can always try a few different cabs, or even mics and placements to see if you like them better.
 
Awesome. Greatly appreciate your input @Ron_R

I should have mentioned that my primary tone right now is using the Carol-Ann Tuscana Clean with two cabs (4x12 TV 160 B and 4x12 TV 121B Rev). I did not do anything super extensive to select that pairing (I honestly don't remember exactly how I stumbled on those).

I was using the ODS-100, but moved away for some reason. I really still dig it.
 
Awesome. Greatly appreciate your input @Ron_R

I should have mentioned that my primary tone right now is using the Carol-Ann Tuscana Clean with two cabs (4x12 TV 160 B and 4x12 TV 121B Rev). I did not do anything super extensive to select that pairing (I honestly don't remember exactly how I stumbled on those).

I was using the ODS-100, but moved away for some reason. I really still dig it.

Robben Ford is all Dumbles. All the time.

Lettieri uses a combo of PRS, Fenders and Supro Amps.

John Scofield uses Vox30s and Mesa Boogie Mark 1s.

Allan Hinds is all over the place with his amps.

You may want to give those amps a try as far as emulating the artists' sounds. Except Hinds, LOL.
 
Totally. Every time I try to emulate Hinds, I get discouraged because I realize so much of it is in his hands..and that requires practice. Haha.

Seriously though, I did a private lesson with him in October and I'm pretty sure he was just plugged into a Fender with some Strat he just put together that morning and he sounded phenomenal even through Zoom.
 
Totally. Every time I try to emulate Hinds, I get discouraged because I realize so much of it is in his hands..and that requires practice. Haha.

Seriously though, I did a private lesson with him in October and I'm pretty sure he was just plugged into a Fender with some Strat he just put together that morning and he sounded phenomenal even through Zoom.

What's interesting is that Howard Dumble (RIP) created the first Dumble amp after hearing Robben Ford play live, and every amp he built was for a specific artist. There is story Ford tells in a recent YT where he and Larry Carlton were playing a gig together and decided to plug into each others' Dumbles to give them a go. According to Ford, it sounded awful. Each amp was voiced by Dumble for each artist.

So yeah, tone is in the fingers!!
 
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In the box IRs are great but there's not many pre-mixed IRs there. I like 121/57 mixes and don't want to mix them real time in the cab block due to the cpu hit. So given this, over the years I've purchased IRs from a bunch of different sellers to pre-mix. To me, they all sound pretty good but I've never owned any of the cabs they capture so if an IR is way off I probably wouldn't know it other than comparing to other IR sellers. What it comes down to for me wrt IR packages is how efficient/easy it is to select and audition mic combinations and placements for a given cab/speaker - the best I've
found from this pov is ML SoundLab Mikko.
 
In the box IRs are great but there's not many pre-mixed IRs there. I like 121/57 mixes and don't want to mix them real time in the cab block due to the cpu hit. So given this, over the years I've purchased IRs from a bunch of different sellers to pre-mix. To me, they all sound pretty good but I've never owned any of the cabs they capture so if an IR is way off I probably wouldn't know it. What it comes down to for me wrt IR packages is how efficient/easy it is to select and audition mic combinations and placements for a given cab/speaker - the best I've
found from this pov is ML SoundLab Mikko.
I love that mix as well. I use fractal's CabLab software to mix my 3rd party IRs. It is 100% worth it so you can get a blend without setting up 2 cabs. It saves me some DSP as well. The only downside to CabLab is you can't mix the factory IRs.
 
I recommend the Factory 1 811-834 Brownface Super (captured by Fractal), with either the 4x12 Brit Greenback, 4x12 Brit TV, or 4x12 Euro Speaker Impedance curves. Those curves are just as impactful as the IRs themselves for the overall feel. The Greenback and TV are more similar to each other, but the Euro is a totally different feel. I found these all work well with the Dumble or any of its derivatives, like Carol-Ann, in the Axe. Best of luck finding what works for you!
 
I tried a few 3rd party IRs and found what I was looking for after using Redwirez. Other IR makers have some great sounding IRs but the Redwirez had a rawness and 'natural' highs to them that I really like. I had quite a few of their individual packs from back in the day and still took the plunge and bought their remastered bundles. No complaints or regrets at all. They don't have individual packs anymore, just bundles but they are well worth the money for what you get. Last I knew, they had a free Marshall 1960 pack available.
 
How loud is the room sound on those? I've never tried them, but I've been wondering about a brand that sounds more "dry," without having to trim the IR length to avoid the sound of the reflections.
How loud is the room sound on those? I've never tried them, but I've been wondering about a brand that sounds more "dry," without having to trim the IR length to avoid the sound of the reflections.
Honestly i dont know.. I start from the ir and set the amp and effects around it.. I ve tried many irs but at the end i only use one with eminence legend v12 speaker.
 
I recommend the Factory 1 811-834 Brownface Super (captured by Fractal), with either the 4x12 Brit Greenback, 4x12 Brit TV, or 4x12 Euro Speaker Impedance curves. Those curves are just as impactful as the IRs themselves for the overall feel. The Greenback and TV are more similar to each other, but the Euro is a totally different feel. I found these all work well with the Dumble or any of its derivatives, like Carol-Ann, in the Axe. Best of luck finding what works for you!
Solid suggestions. I'll check those out.
 
always intrigued me how often I read IR related conversations that center around which sellers' IRs sound "better" than others', but not so much discussion about which IRs sound most true to the character of the given cab / speaker / mic / micpre. I guess it could have to do with level of skill with the capture process or added "sauce" as I'm not sure that if brand A's IR sounds musically better to my ears than brand B, it necessarily means that the brand A IR is more accurate / "true".
 
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always intrigued me how often I read IR related conversations that center around which sellers' IRs sound "better" than others', but not so much discussion about which IRs sound most true to the character of the given cab / speaker / mic / micpre. I guess it could have to do with level of skill with the capture process or added "sauce" as I'm not sure that if brand A's IR sounds better to my ears than brand B, it necessarily means that the brand A IR is more accurate/"true".
Well, I can only really speak to my perspective (obviously). I'm not really that interested in authenticity of the IR as much as how well it works sonically for my needs. Getting subjective impressions from those who have used various third party sellers was all I was looking for.

I imagine there are folks who are looking for an accurate emulation of a real world product, this just isn't me.
 
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