Are all cab IRs terrible?

[N4860]

I’ve tried to understand why you’d want to use an IR and I couldn’t. Why make your bass sound like it’s going through some speakers, before it goes through some other speakers?

I don't often use cab sims in my signal chain, but I can see why someone might. If you are trying to replicate the sound of a bass that was recorded using a mic on a cab, the idea of a cab sim makes sense. Plenty of bass players over the last 70 years or so have miced their cab for studio recordings. So in that case, the bass is going through speakers, recorded, and then going through speakers again when you play the recording.

 

[N4860]

As I mentioned in my post above, IR's aren't something I typically use but I have experimented with them when recording. I can understand how someone would say that they sound like they are putting a blanket over the "cab", but that is not always the case. The times that I've used IR's successfully is when they are paired with simulated amp software. The Two Notes Torpedo Wall of Sound software for example is one that I recall using where if you don't use a cab sim, the sound can get very bright/harsh, in which case adding the cab sim to tone down those high frequencies really helps. I experienced the same thing with the amp models that came with my Antelope Audio recording interface.

 

[Iristone]

Some Cab IR will shape the midrange similar to a peak or notch filter, and that's why I like Cab IR. But the quality of bass IR does seem to lag behind guitar IR. Maybe it's less market, or technically it's really more difficult to capture good IR for low frequency?

 

[D.M.N.]

I use Dr Bonker's cab sims for recording, and they sound pretty damned close to the actual cabs I have, certainly enough for in the mix.

 

[projectapollo]

The only cab sim I’ve heard that sounds good is the origin bassrig super vintage.

 

[agedhorse]

It’s not uncommon for IRs to translate poorly into a live mix and line environment. This it also true of mic’d cabinets. That’s why DIs (or D I + mic) can sometimes be a better approach.

 

[Jammy Jellyfish]

I use Dr Bonker's cab sims for recording, and they sound pretty damned close to the actual cabs I have, certainly enough for in the mix.

Which exactly? Dr Bonkers does have a sample for $1.99... but if Shift-Line's SWR IR wasn't bright enough for me, I doubt the AC406 will be. The Hartke might do the trick, though...

 

[logdrum]

If you are piping them back to a bass cab of course they are not going to be good and will sound boxy. I usually test a cab IR with a freq sweep of a triangle wave from a synth. A good one will have some resonant peak

I will also couple it with a room convolution IR. I have a powered cab by Bergantino. Many times I do removerr the cab from the signal

Since many recordings are direct to console anyway, then it usually is not needed for most bass tracks. So best practice is never to track a bass track with IR baked in -- always track a signal you can reamp later, or a very strong but nor overly EQ'ed console recording

 

[John D Harris]

I've been fiddling with a Two Notes Opus modeler for about 15 months, which includes their DynIR Engine for Cab Sims.

I've gone through almost every IR in their catalog (you can preview them online with the Opus), while using my Sennheiser headphones, and found a few that I like, but most of the Presets I've created do not use Cab Sims, because I like the sound of my bass guitar run through one of their Preamp &/or Power Amp models (usually just preamps).

But I don't generally go for a very processed sound - call it DI plus - just enough to warm it up.

And also, part of that is I spend a lot of my time playing through a Rumble 100 combo - so no extra mud needed!

The Cab Sims I do like are the more transparent sounding ones.

Of course, for overdriven or distorted sounds, Cab Sims help make them sound more natural.

If you want to mimic an SVT and a Fridge, you're going to need the Cab Sims.

 

[jking138]

I play through an Aguilar AG v2 head that has a cab sim. My chain is Bass > Origin Effects Cali76 Bass Compressor > Aguilar > DI2 out > Audient iD4 MkII > Sennheiser HD650. All the included Aguilar SL and DB cab IRs sound... muffled? Like someone put a carpet on top of the cab. I loaded some of the free cab IRs from Shift-Line, but they also sounded muffled. I can't seem to EQ highs back in.

I don't know if it's the Aguilar cab sim, the IRs I've tried, the Sennheisers, or because I've gotten used to playing without cab sims? Although I wish I had a tool (LPF?) to "muffle" some of the highs, just not that much.

Maybe you don't need an IR. I've found the same thing, even using well known VSTs in a DAW can sound too dark.
I end up cutting more bass and boosting more treble than I would do with a real amp.

 

[mikko93]

I'm using Parallax both on recordings and live and I absolutely love the cab section on it. The trick there though is that the lowest band only gets compressed and EQ'd and doesn't go through the cab section where as the mid and high bands go through the drive, cab and EQ sections but bypass the compressor.

 

[gepettus]

Depending on the type of show or venue, I usually bring an M-VAVE Baby Bass pedal that I bought five years ago. I have to say that 95% of the presets I’ve downloaded are practically unusable. The EQ curves are either too extreme or clipped.

When I bought the unit and in the months that followed, I think I experimented at home with over 100–150 presets, obsessively searching for a decent sound. I only managed to find it with 4–5 presets.

Ampeg_SVT-810E_Olympic_MkIIIS_edition2
Darkglass DC410C_API_U87-B0
Traynor1510_Pg87_dc
1 EDEN (I don’t remember the file name)
1 Kustom (I don’t remember the file name)

Disappointed with the Gallien-Krueger IRs—I couldn’t find a decent one. I mention this because it’s the amplifier brand I’ve been using for years across different models.

It’s a tool that works in certain situations, but sometimes it’s counterproductive depending on the amplifier you’re using, and the same goes for the quality of the PA speakers being used. In fact, it’s often a good idea to try the bypass because, depending on various factors, it sometimes sounds better without the IR enabled.


Cheers!

 

[JamesGrant]

Yes….
I have opinions…. I think there are 3 ‘core’ ‘cab’ sounds that the majority of bass players have in mind to emulate , Ampeg B15, Ampeg SVT with 8 x 10 fridge and ‘hifi clean (ie; flat)
The trouble is, two of those are so linked to the bass guitar/strings/preamp/amp/cab that if you take just the cab in isolation then it sounds poopie. The other one is ‘no cab’!

Good devices which emulate or recreate the preamp/amp/cab tend to do better than IR only as they are starting with ‘raw bass guitar’ and ending in ‘the sound you hear’ and can transform the sound however they choose to get the result.

So yes, IRs for cab sims for bass guitar are a waste of time (in my humble opinion). In a DAW or sound desk, EQ and compression is far more useful as you can get the sound you need without having to fight against some ‘pre-printed’ horrible EQ.
Live, you’d do this by DI and micing the cab and attempting to get the best possible result (attack from DI, wool from cab) (or… the sound guy just uses the DI signal and congratulates you on your lovely rig, whilst secretly wishing you’d just switch it off and go DI only…)

Oh and the bass guitar and strings makes quite the difference!!

 

[IanStephenson]

Maybe someone who knows more than me can clarify, but in my theoretical understanding Impulse Responeses are only going to be meaningful for linear systems. Eg, room acoustics are probably pretty linear: if 10% of the sound bounces back from a surface, it doesn't matter (within reason) if that's 10% of 60dB or 10% of 110dB.

If I'm interested in reproducing a speaker, they're only linear during the "boring" bit of their operating range. If they're operating linearly they're accurately reproducing the input sound (subject to EQ - which essentially what an IR is). If the speaker is colouring my sound in "interesting" ways, then that's probably because I'm driving it near its limit where it becomes non-linear - where they start to break up, and do weird things that can't be modelled by a simple IR. This isn't something most of us do - its more of a guitar thing, but also specific styles of bass playing where break up, and the speaker response are more important than wanting a big loud clean sound.

It would be possible to measure the IR at different sound levels by playing different levels of white noise (white noise is used for measuring rather than impulses, as impulses do bad things to speakers), but that doesnt' account for what would happen if a loud bass note is played at the same time as a quiet higher note. Otherwise all you're doing is applying an EQ to the output to (basically) roll off the high and low end, and add a peak around the frequency of the high pass filter.

I've not really used IR's and my technical understanding is based on a purely theoretical background (from a long time ago in a different field), so this is as much a question as a comment - how do IR's handle non-linearity? I can understand that speaker models can certainly be build that incorporate it but they wouldn't be IR's as I understand them.

 

[DWA2469]

I’ve tried to understand why you’d want to use an IR and I couldn’t. Why make your bass sound like it’s going through some speakers, before it goes through some other speakers?

Correct me if I am wrong because I have never used them but isn't the point of a cab sim supposed to emulate miking said cab and sending it to foh?

 

[TheArchitect]

I play through an Aguilar AG v2 head that has a cab sim. My chain is Bass > Origin Effects Cali76 Bass Compressor > Aguilar > DI2 out > Audient iD4 MkII > Sennheiser HD650. All the included Aguilar SL and DB cab IRs sound... muffled? Like someone put a carpet on top of the cab. I loaded some of the free cab IRs from Shift-Line, but they also sounded muffled. I can't seem to EQ highs back in.

I don't know if it's the Aguilar cab sim, the IRs I've tried, the Sennheisers, or because I've gotten used to playing without cab sims? Although I wish I had a tool (LPF?) to "muffle" some of the highs, just not that much.

I find 99.9% of cab sims to be not to my liking in the least. Guitar or bass. Its why I don't bother anymore. A bass through a passive DI to the board is how a large percentage of the classics were recorded and is still considered a very valid approach. I mic guitar amps.

 

[Jammy Jellyfish]

Maybe I don't understand the purpose of cab sims? I thought that since the new Aguilar heads came with cab sims that worked with the headphones output that at least one purpose was to try to make smaller speakers (headphones) sound like bigger speakers (bass cabs).

 

[JamesGrant]

Maybe someone who knows more than me can clarify, but in my theoretical understanding Impulse Responeses are only going to be meaningful for linear systems. Eg, room acoustics are probably pretty linear: if 10% of the sound bounces back from a surface, it doesn't matter (within reason) if that's 10% of 60dB or 10% of 110dB.

If I'm interested in reproducing a speaker, they're only linear during the "boring" bit of their operating range. If they're operating linearly they're accurately reproducing the input sound (subject to EQ - which essentially what an IR is). If the speaker is colouring my sound in "interesting" ways, then that's probably because I'm driving it near its limit where it becomes non-linear - where they start to break up, and do weird things that can't be modelled by a simple IR. This isn't something most of us do - its more of a guitar thing, but also specific styles of bass playing where break up, and the speaker response are more important than wanting a big loud clean sound.

It would be possible to measure the IR at different sound levels by playing different levels of white noise (white noise is used for measuring rather than impulses, as impulses do bad things to speakers), but that doesnt' account for what would happen if a loud bass note is played at the same time as a quiet higher note. Otherwise all you're doing is applying an EQ to the output to (basically) roll off the high and low end, and add a peak around the frequency of the high pass filter.

I've not really used IR's and my technical understanding is based on a purely theoretical background (from a long time ago in a different field), so this is as much a question as a comment - how do IR's handle non-linearity? I can understand that speaker models can certainly be build that incorporate it but they wouldn't be IR's as I understand them.

You are correct. Most IR is an impulse response, ie; for a given narrowband input impulse, this is the resultant output. There are some multi-volume, multi frequency IR systems that morph the applied transform depending on the input level and frequency spectrum at the input but these tend to be inside powered systems which ‘know’ what the amplifier output level is, know what the input signal is, and the speaker system is also well known (ie a reverse bias can be applied to cancel out the character of the cab/speaker) and so know what ‘range’ to use. No guitar cab IR includes this as far as I know! I suspect that’s what the FRR cabs are supposed to achieve, and for electric guitar I think they are… ok. (Though a clean solid state amp/cab does a fine job too - even a well powered Boss Katana is totally fine, and MUCH cheaper!)

Also, the IR doesn’t distinguish between direct speaker and cab resonance, nor the fun parts where air movement through ports/vents results in non-linear behaviour as the volume of air moving increase and the ‘compressibility’ of the air with volume relative to the port dimensions affects the damping of the speaker all of which are acoustic volume related. So the IR only really captures the speaker/cab system at a given volume for a single impulse (where the impulse is not a wide-spectrum bass guitar and the volume is likely not the volume you’re interested in)

 

[el murdoque]

I think the IR thing washed over from the guitar crowd and no one asked critical questions before applying it to everything.

The situation 25 years back was that when getting to the venue, on stage you'd find a mic on a stand in front of the place the guitar rig goes and a DI box in front of the place the bass rig goes, and that was pretty much the standard. The bass signal was taken sans amp (pun intended).
Bassists are used to that kind of thing, and bass cabinets usually have a much larger frequency range compared to guitar cabinets.
The latter pretty much act as a bandpass filter while the former often can double as FRFR cabinets.

In my humble opinion, you only gotta do something about the topic when you're using dirt.

When your band travels with FOH personnel, or you have enough rock-star-power to request a mic'ed bass amp, you'll have to deal with DI and have done so forever.

 

[BarfanyShart]

For bass - in a typical bass instrument application - I agree all cab IR/sims are terrible, in the same way that all real life bass cabs are different kinds of terrible.The worst feature on any piece of bass gear is a cab you can't turn off. I feel like HPF for live applications and LPF for recording is almost all you need to worry about that. That said, I do use guitar cab sims in the high chain of a crossover pedal board to great affect, but that is a guitar/bass hybrid solo thing, not bass-in-band stuff.