These make a huge difference to your sound, by the way. Good amp sims can really a difference in the tone when recording in to a DAW, and subtle cab simming makes it sound more natural. It works best in my experience when you can’t really tell the cab sim is there and it just sounds more natural.
As an example, here’s a track I recorded of me working on Hysteria at about 2/3 speed a few months back, just the clean bass and my drum machine for tempo:
here’s the clean bass track with the amp and cab sim mentioned above applied in Reaper (Ignite Amps SHB-1 and NadIR IR sim, respectively):
Sounds so much better and more natural, like a tube amp and a real speaker.
Pretty sure IR files are more than just a fine-grained EQ - they are a signal convolving mapping. In other words, a mapping of what the output sound is for a given input across a broad frequency range. In theory they can change the sound in ways that EQ cannot (as EQ is purely increasing or decreasing amplitude of things already in the signal, not mapping it to something that might be added by the amp or cab you are modeling).
no, I use the Line 6 cab sims integrated in my preamps, but IR files is definitly something I plan to investigate ! I’d like to try to use only the preamp section on the PODs (I can disable the cab sim) with a more modern IR sim, I’m pretty sure it could sound killer.
I must confess I never took the time to look really at IR files and VSTs.
Reaper comes with some great VSTs already built in of course, but man, so many good amp/cab sims, effects, and virtual instruments out there.
This is a spot on clone of my old synthesizer and I am sorely tempted to buy it:
Add that VSTi, plug in a midi controller, and you get a fully capable and programmable synthesizer in reaper that sounds almost exactly like a real ESQ-1.
I would recommend to download the pack that I linked to in the first thread.
He made this pack as a FREE pack for people to do something nice during Covid. I can’t say for sure how long he will keep it up or keep it FREE.
If you download it now, you will have it for future. I really like the SWR WorkingMan IR files in the pack and one of the Ampeg’s too.
Just a thought, download now so you have later when you decide to play with. Or use it in your DAW for $h!tz n Giggles
They can do reverb when implemented on a powerful enough processor. They contain the information about how a signal decays over time in a space. The convolution of a microphone IR, however, does indeed simplify down to only EQ since the mic isn’t adding any reverb. An IR could simulate the reverb knob on an amp, but only for one setting on the dial. It would require a different IR file to be loaded for each reverb knob setting. An IR could give you the sound of a particular cabinet in a particular space such as a GK 15” at the Village Vanguard and it would reproduce the reverb of that room if used with a powerful enough convolver. Not all processors may implement the reverb tails though. When not processing reverb, it collapses into frequency modification only.
VST modules, however, have many more tricks and techniques to produce an effect beyond IR files. They are hybrids using both IR and other methods that IR aren’t capable of. An IR file could simulate the warmth character of a clean tube channel, but it would have problems simulating tube overdrive, for example. The reason for this is that low to moderate distortion is dynamically interactive with how you are playing from moment to moment. The VST modules would implement this outside the IR slot to be realistic.
There’s tons (hundreds) of free IRs out there as well, so no big deal if this one goes away or he starts charging.
Lots of links searchable, or in threads like this:
Most DAWs will need a VST plugin to load IRs. Ignite’s NadIR comes with a solid set, really like them. Haven’t counted them but it’s a lot. It’s also a nice plugin to use in the DAW; it allows mixing two cabs and has a nice UI. I linked it above in the thread.
That makes sense, yeah. VSTs are basically app extension plugins and thus fully programmable so anything sensitive in the time domain or other kinds of dynamics could be handled by code in the VST easily, while the IR is a simple mapping of signal in to signal received, and thus not dynamic at all.
The rest of this post can be ignored by people who are not software developers - the remainder of this post are not end user technologies, but methods for writing VST plugins.
This is interesting, Steinberg has the VST SDK up on github
Well the Zoom is too big and has too many other things I would never use, and the Line6 is crazy expensive. I don’t have Reaper running and recording every time I play, so that’s not a good option either.
That Joyo device would fit nicely into the empty space I have on my pedalboard
yeah but it’s not really useful if you plug your pedalboard into your actual bass amp, because the IR replaces the frequency and phase response of a cab when you don’t have one
if you want to play with cab sims but not necessary in IR format, you can find a used Bass POD XT (bean) for pretty cheap. I paid 30€ for mine. the preamp/amp sim can be disabled so it becomes a cab-only sim with a lot of options.
If you are playing live the cab sims are used to feed either the house PA system or you can use what’s called a “Full Range Flat Response” speaker instead of your bass amp. It has to have a good low frequency or sub section though, which will probably turn out to be more expensive than a bass amp/cab.
when you play “live” (with your actual bass amp) , you don’t need a cab sim at all because your amp integrates an actual cab, so you just plug your pedalboard into the amp’s input and that’s it
when you record, you plug either your pedalboard directly, or the output of your amp, into your DAI ; then you can add a software IR with a VST in your DAW to replace the amp’s cab that is not recorded
that’s how those things are meant to be used primarily.
… and so, you don’t need a hardware way to play IR files at all. GAS problem solved.
so wait, i’m now totally confused. so you can’t use an IR pedal just like any other pedal, like bass > IR pedal > amp? because that’s what i was doing with my zoom and the cabinet sims on it, and they sounded pretty great through my amp? i understand that if you use an IR with a cab and an amp simulator that the amp simulator would then compete with your own amp so you could either set your amp flat to minimize this, use the amp’s effects loop or just run a cab sim with no amp, correct?
You sure can. What you could end up with is a series of two cabinet tone imprints on your signal, which also could be fine or not depending on what you are going for.
The real amp/cabinet you are going through will have it’s own tone color. If you put a cab sim in front of it, you will have the sound of that cab sim being played back through another real cab. So in the end you won’t be hearing the sound of the cab sim at it was created; you’ll be hearing how that cab sim sounds after it’s played through your cab. The cab sim will sound most like the cab it’s simulating when fed to studio monitors.
If you are going through headphones, I think some systems will let you tell it what kind of headphones you have and it will even optimize for that. I don’t think the same thing exists for amp/cabs since there are all kinds of knobs that could have been turned.
i have ordered the mooer radar, it was a cheap way to play around with cab sims. i really actually like the ones built into the zoom so i wanted to try going a little further. i currently am not using my amp’s preamp section, bypassing with the effects out, so i don’t really think the amp will color the sound of an IR cab sim too much. but you’re right the cab itself will add some coloration. anyways at the end of the day if you plug it all in and you like it, who cares
