This is new to me. I know it’s been around for a little while, but honestly, I never heard of it until like 6 months ago. I had no reference for it. Now I do.
I own a Hotone Ampero amp modeler & effects processor and as such, during my learning of uses and features of the device, came across programmable slots labeled “IR Loader”. Quite honestly, I just assumed they were extra slots for patches. Sort of, but not really… So, I did some online research and have learned a little more than what I knew a month ago! 🙂
The “IR” portion of IR Loader refers to Impulse Response. According to Wikipedia, this means,
..the impulse response, or impulse response function, of a dynamic system is its output when presented with a brief input signal, called an impulse. More generally, an impulse response is the reaction of any dynamic system in response to some external change.
In simpler terms IR’s are simply “samples of an acoustic space that you can immediately recall and use in recording and live settings.” The difference between a cab simulation and an IR is that the impulse responses are actual snapshots of the acoustic environment while cab sims are a type of emulation created digitally with software. One is the real thing the other is a software generated version.
What you should also be aware of is that a captured impulse response does much more than capture the speaker “environment” –Â it captures the cab itself, how the sound bounces around the cab, the room it’s in, the microphone, the preamp, any phase issues, etc. Literally every single nuance of the actual representation is captured. At this point you really start getting into engineering concepts of sound, that, quite frankly, are way over my head (at least for now).
This quote really sums up the reality of impulse response technology,
We have to remember that we are capturing everything in the signal chain… the cab, the mic, the preamp – everything, and they all play their part in making a guitar tone, a guitar tone. This is why some IR’s are so expensive, because you could literally be buying an IR that was recorded in the greatest acoustic room in the world, through the perfectly broken-in speaker, in the most perfectly tuned cab, into a mind melting microphone and then running through a preamp that is worth more than your house. And this is just one capture…
The applications are very real. IR is not only for a studio musicians. Gigging musicians (even us local, dive bar musicians) can benefit from IR technology and applications, and the cost of doing so is well within the grasp of the working musician. There are pedals under $200 that accept IR loads, there are modeling units (such as the Hotone Ampero I have that I spoke of earlier) that make loading and use of IR loads in a real-time, live show environment a piece of cake. With Digital Audio Workstations (DAW) so affordable and commonplace, having and incredible IR load loaded in your DAW for studio recording is not only affordable, but the combinations of IR’s seem endless.
I still have to play with this, and maybe I am off-base for real world application, but I don’t think so.
This is once scenario I plan on trying out. I have a Quilter Superblock US (SBUS). It has three cab sim settings (Bright, Normal and FRFR (Full Range, Full Response) and three voicings (57 Tweed, 61 Blonde and 65 Black). In FRFR mode the voicings are disabled so that you get a workable FRFR response with no coloration. In front of this I plan and plugging in the Hotone Ampero. This is where the IR will get loaded (the Ampero has slots available to load IRs and then call them up in a patch setting).
Setting 1: SBUS in FRFR mode, with the Ampero feeding an IR for a cab sim.
Setting 2: SBUS in FRFR mode, with the Ampero feeding an IR for cab sim and an amp model.
Setting 3: SBUS in Normal mode, with one of the SBUS voicings (I prefer the 65) enabled, and the Ampero feeding an IR for cab sim.
Those three settings are how I understand impulse response to work. The proof will be in the pudding once I have actually run these scenarios. I’ll be posting another blog post in the future with the results of my test!!