The impulse response thread

[Test4echo]

I’ve recently been doing some recording, and instead of micing a cab, I’ve taken advantage of the direct out of the reactive load in my amp. There are a few impulses included with the amp, and they sound decent, but nothing that’s blown me away. I haven’t ever looked too hard into impulses (for tracking with amp sims I have a handful from years ago), and now there seem to be so many options that I can’t figure out what’s worth getting. I tried the two notes plug-in and I really don’t get along with it, so I’m looking for traditional impulse files.

What are your favorite IRs?

[Budda]

Freebies: Leon Todd has a bunch of marshall and mesa IR's - if anything you can probably find them on the fractal forum (not sure if he has his own site or puts them in the YT comments of vids etc). Cliff at Fractal has some too:

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/free-far-field-session-2-cab-pack.151232/

(looks like the farfield 1 and harry joyce IR threads have been taken down)

Paid: York Audio, Ownhammer, ML Soundlabs are the names I see a lot. I want to try a York Audio pack but don't have a favourite cab and thus no starting point .

[desertdweller]

I've owned and used a ton of IRs (Redwire, ML Soundlab, Bogren, York Audio, etc.) and I always come back to Ownhammer. They're just awesome for me and my music, sound great by themselves or in a mix, and sound the most like my 4x12 in the room.

having said that, they definitely require a high and low pass filter (9-10k LP, 90Hz HP) or they can sound fizzy, where some other IRs come out of the box with HP/LP filtering ingrained in the IR.

[lespauled]

I've never found an IR that I was truly blown away by. But out of the ones that I have tried, the best I've found were OwnHammer. I've since used IRs to find what kind of speakers I want to use in my cabinets. Over the years I have tried a lot of things, like creating EQ Tone Matched IRs, and EQing some frequencies out, and creating new IRs from that result (also using the tone match method).

[Nemesis9K]

Ownhammer and recently Bogren Digital

[Tony]

Freebies: Leon Todd has a bunch of marshall and mesa IR's - if anything you can probably find them on the fractal forum (not sure if he has his own site or puts them in the YT comments of vids etc). Cliff at Fractal has some too:

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/free-far-field-session-2-cab-pack.151232/

(looks like the farfield 1 and harry joyce IR threads have been taken down)

Paid: York Audio, Ownhammer, ML Soundlabs are the names I see a lot. I want to try a York Audio pack but don't have a favourite cab and thus no starting point .

Get the £1 sample pack

[Budda]

Get the £1 sample pack

My axe fx came with a couple free ones, but I know from his posts that YA has changed how he creates the IR's - essentially newest ones are the best ones.

I don't mind dropping a couple bucks (cheaper than bass strings?) to check something out, just undecided on which option.

[Tony]

My axe fx came with a couple free ones, but I know from his posts that YA has changed how he creates the IR's - essentially newest ones are the best ones.

I don't mind dropping a couple bucks (cheaper than bass strings?) to check something out, just undecided on which option.

That's the issue. I wish more companies had a demo system like two notes do. It would make things much easier

[Nick]

Bogren ones are good ml soundlabs also but not all of theirs.

[Adam]

I wasn't blown away with the bogren when I tried them on my kemper. Maybe it was the profile I was using, but I found them a bit nasal and fizzy. Maybe that's what makes then work in a mix though 🤷

[RevDrucifer]

I’ve got over 40,000 IR’s at this point and I DEFINITELY have my preferences over companies.

York Audio > Everyone Else

I think the biggest thing, and York has hinted at this as well, is that Justin (I think that’s his name) actually listens to what he’s capturing instead of slapping a mic on it, shooting the IR, moving the mic an inch, shooting another and repeating. I’ve gotten Ownhammer packs with like 700 IR’s or whatever and 3 sound good and 1 sounds great. Fuck that.

If you’re into heavy guitar tones, save yourself some time and money, go to York Audio’s site and buy the DV77 cab pack. I’ve never found a speaker that works so well with so many different amps and that particular pack, the first 12 mixes (IR’s shot with multiple mics) are FLAWLESS. Most of the presets they are in did not even require tweaking of the amp block. Mesa’s, Peavey’s, Marshall’s, I’ve even got it on a Matchless and it sounds fucking great.

[Test4echo]

Thanks for the responses. Looks like I have a few things to try out!