I was watching a YouTube review of the hotone IR pedal and the reviewer made a great point. He said that a $70 IR pedal will sound the same as a $400 one if they are loaded with the same IR, they are just digital playback boxes. It’s what IRs you load into them that matters. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get rid of my zoom pedal because it’s so big. The problem is I would need about 3 pedals to replace it, so I’m still kicking it around.
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That’s not necessarily true. That would be like saying it doesn’t matter if you get a Zoom B1on or a Line6 Helix rack mount, as they are both just “digital boxes.”
It’s true that the IR files make the most difference, but not true that it’s the only difference.
In particular there could definitely be difference in added noise, fidelity (depending on the processors in each, etc).
It does not mean that “more expensive” definitely means better, but there could absolutely be qualitative differences.
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I’ve been into high end stereo for a bunch of years but shudder at the word audiophile, a group of people that believe all sorts of nonsense and snake oil stuff. One of the things they used to argue is that expensive DVD players sounded better than cheap ones. This could be easily disproven by just using various tests, like frequency responses. Any difference was outside of the human ears hearibg range. It’s the same argument, bits is bits. Both an expensive and a cheap IR loader have a processor in them that provides bit perfect playback. Using your example, I would be willing to bet that if you did a frequency response with a line 6 against say a cheap multieffects they’d come out very similar. The value of a line 6 is not in fidelity, it’s in the proprietary sounds there engineers have come up with, the ease of use, the build quality, the famous name, etc.
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Oh yeah don’t get me started about audiophiles, and especially around cables. Trust me when I say I am the last person that would argue that more expensive automatically means better.
But in this case the processor speed does make a difference. Amp and cab sims can be relatively expensive, at least on the Zoom they were. And the difference between a cheaper Zoom and a Kemper or Helix is a lot more than just the actual effects programming.
My concern with the cheaper pedals versus “better” ones is the noise, tone suck, or fidelity loss added by the pedal itself. As an example, there’s a lot of Behringers that are perfect clones of their originals and absolute steals, but also some that are notorious for some tone degradation.
In the case of purely digital pedals, a part of this can be the processor. The processor in the B3n and B1four is simply more capable than the one in the B1 or B1on/MS-60b/B3, as another example, as evidenced by the amount they can process at once.
So you may indeed find $70 pedals that sound the same as $400 pedals - but it is far from guaranteed. It’s a case by case thing.
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Sure there can be many applications where processing power can affect performance. I just highly doubt that a pedal running a single cab sim would be processor limited. After that, I really don’t see much opportunity for excess noise, I would imagine it’s just a simple DAC out at that point. I think it’s added features of other IR pedals that add value, that 2 notes can do a lot.
But I still think it’s overpriced 
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Their stuff is definitely expensive, agreed.
I wouldn’t get it simply because I do this all in the DAW, where processor speed is not an issue. But even then I would be more likely to go for something like the one @T_dub posted. I don’t need to put the IR sim between my nonexistent amp and cab 
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Actually, the IR pedal from Hotone is a $199 pedal, same as the JOYO. The $70 came from the quote from the video.
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Yeah - like @itsratso said, the price is not really the issue here - I agree completely with that. I only take issue with the video saying all these are created equal, because in fact, pedals aren’t
Regardless of price.
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Yeah I was more paraphrasing, I don’t even think he named prices. I think the cheapest one I’ve seen is the mooer. Moorer. Moooroar. Whatever
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Those actually get pretty good reviews, even though they are probably the same circuit as other inexpensive clone pedals.
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The fact they put it in a mini as opposed to a larger box taking up more room, I suppose allows the JOYO to have more GUTS, and more accessible features on the front of it, but they seem to be comparable in terms of tech
All that is true, but there is usually, and I say that with a grain of salt, there is usually a price RANGE from which you want to be LOOKING within. There is a bottom to what you can cut out and still build a quality device.
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Yeah totally true.
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Okay you techie guys are talking WAY over my head, I keep reading these comments hoping to catch a clue as to what IR is. Sorry, I’m just a lowly aspiring bass player, not a techie, so I have to ask, what is “IR”.
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@PamPurrs, had to look that one up as well. Here’s some useful info:
It’s basically files that allow you to recreate a specific sound of an amp, cabinet…
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yep, exactly. when you had your zoom it was all those bass cabinet simulators, like to sound like your playing through a 1960s SVT bass amp or whatever.
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It’s a fancy word for EQ curve. Everything in the chain boosts some frequencies and reduces some frequencies, coloring the sound. The speaker cabinet isn’t perfect; it changes tone. The mic isn’t perfect; it changes tone.
It’s possible to measure all those tone colorations by putting all possible frequencies into the system simultaneously for a split second and then measuring what comes out. Et voila, an IR measurement. It’s like setting as many EQ knobs as you need, maybe 100s, all at once to make the same final tone as that equipment would.
It’s a bit of a funny concept to me because recording engineers and front of house engineers are trying to overcome problems caused by that equipment to begin with. They are moving the mic around and applying more EQ to try to get those systems to sound good despite their limitations and coloration. And here we are going to great effort to recreate the problem we are going to eventually try to at least partially undo. If it were me I’d take the DI tone and start straight away by turning EQ knobs to get the end tone I want without an IR in the middle. However, it is a nice and easy way to make something in headphones sound like what someone is used to without doing any work. Depending on the skills of the front of house engineer, it may work out better to send them an IR processed signal if they don’t know what to do with a DI feed to make it sound good.
What would be the bomb would be to measure the IR of the room you are about to play in and have the pedal fix the problems for the front of house engineer before sending them the signal. Then you actually could give the whole room the color of tone you like. I haven’t seen anyone do this yet!
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Sounds very much like room correction, which your denon avr does.
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I created a thread with posts about what they are, and a place for people to share sites where you can download good, free ones HERE
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