With the growing ubiquity of guitar amp simulation we now commonly find ourselves in front of our laptops, guitar plugged into a sound card, chasing an inspiring tone. This is guitar production in 2020. Very few of us have access to a full-on recording studio and real guitar amps/cabinets can be too loud for apartments or late night playing so we work with the tools at our disposal.
Sometimes, the cabinet simulation that’s built into guitar amp sims can be detrimental to the sound. In these cases, Impulse Responses (IR’s for short) and Convolvers (plugins that load IR’s) are a must. Impulse Responses are plentiful and are an easy way to achieve a more personalized, finished guitar tone.
In this series of articles we will first take a look at the plugins that emulate guitar cabinets, broken down into 3 basic categories: Convolver, Algorithmic and Hybrid. Subsequent articles will detail how to find Impulse Response files to use in these plugins, how to use/blend/manage these files and lastly, how to make your own Impulse Responses.
Impulse Response Loaders (Convolvers)
Free IR Loaders
Melda: MConvolutionEZ (FREE)
Normally regarded as a reverb IR loader, MConvolutionEZ has become my absolute favorite Convolver for loading single IRs for one simple reason: speed. Folder navigation is always on screen and easy to navigate. The folder tree makes navigating sub-folders a breeze. You can flip through a large list of Impulses with the up/down navigation arrows on your keyboard or with single clicks (others require a double-click), which is nice after selecting your 324th IR while holding a guitar in your lap. You can also assign favorites for quick back-tracking while you fall into the IR sub-folder rabbit hole.
MConvolutionEZ comes with the usual High Pass and Low Pass filters you expect from other cabinet sim loaders. It also loads stereo IR’s if you happen to have any of those. Other IR loaders have more bells and whistles but this one is my secret weapon for quickly navigating my huge IR collection. A top choice for me and it’s 100% free!
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Ignite Amps: NadIR (FREE)
Probably the most ubiquitous FREE IR Convolver. NadIR allows the user to load a pair of IRs. They can be blended in series (mono-summed) hard panned in parallel (stereo) or you can manually control the panning of each IR (dual-mono). Options include phase inversion, independent gain and solo controls, HPF, LPF, Delay for lining up the phase correlation between two IRs from different makers, Resonance which adds a bit of a smiley-face EQ to simulate power amp impedance, and Room which is a built-in room reverb IR.
This is the IR loader everyone uses when they are just getting started with IR’s. Most never feel the need to go further because NadIR does pretty much everything you’d expect from a Convolver. I wish it would auto-align impulse peaks on its own. I wish the Delay knob had an extra zero after the decimal or allowed for sample-based time alignment. Sometimes, while mixing IR’s from different producers, you can never get it just right. But for free, this is an amazing tool.
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Honorable mention to LePou and Pulse (same plugin as NadIR but no longer updated)
Aurora DSP: FenrIR (FREE)
New to the scene and making a huge impact, Aurora DSP are already well known for their bass plugin, Mammoth. They offer a very slickly animated IR loader with a unique horizontal slider to align the peaks of 2 Impulses. The best part of this free offering is the ability to export your results. It is a brand new plugin and still undergoing updates so stay on the lookout for future enhancements. For a v1.0, this is a KILLER freebie!
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Premium IR Loaders
STL Ignite: Libra
Libra is a more robust version of NadIR, offering the ability to blend up to 8 cabinet IR’s. With the exception of panning, Libra offers much of the same functionality as NadIR. The Cartesian Mixer gives the user a very easy to understand visual guide to finding their ideal tone. Libra also allows users to “freeze” their configuration to save on CPU as well as export your IR mix to an individual IR that can be loaded onto your hardware device or reintroduced into Libra with 7 more cabinets for further blending.
Menu navigation is slow and clunky but, once you are all set up, it’s a lot of fun playing around with the Cartesian Mixer. This is more of a sound design tool than a “have fun jamming” tool. Once I get the sound I like, it gets exported and loaded into MConvolutionEZ for later use. The manual states that it will auto-align impulses but that has not been the case in my experience. I have the same wishes for Libra as I do for NadIR (alignment at single-sample increments). Still, pretty awesome.
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3Sigma/TSE: Impulsive
A more robust derivative of the NadIR cab sim, Impulsive offers some very useful enhancements for its dual cab loader. They offer superior folder navigation (folder up/down/swap) and a larger browser display, making their IR browser one of the easiest to navigate. Other unique features include the ability to change the number of samples that are read from an impulse response, giving the user different tones from a single IR. They also include a Movement knob which simulates speaker excursion.
When I want to blend 2 cabinets and I have huge folders to explore, I reach for Impulsive. Impulsive also aligns much better due to adding that extra zero to their decimal (hold CTRL while dragging the Delay knob to access milliseconds). Great GUI, easy to use. Worth buying if you are a hardcore IR hunter and want a more enjoyable, precise workflow that is similar to NadIR.
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Ugritone: Trve Cab
Trve Cab takes an analog approach to loading and mixing up to 8 different impulse responses on a GUI that resembles a mixing console and recording studio. Each channel comes equipped with HPF/LPF, solo, mute, pan and gain knobs. They offer their own packs of IRs that include several unique mic placements based on old-school, secret-sauce recording techniques (behind the cabinet, directly above the cabinet, back of the room, etc.) but they also allow you to load your own IRs and blend them however you like.
The ability to pan each IR gives Trve Cab an edge over Libra. However, it lacks a master gain control or any kind of delay/alignment component. You will get the best experience out of Trve Cab if you use the Ugritone cabinet packs. Otherwise, I suggest using IR’s that come from the same developer or IR’s that are all Minimum Phase Transform (MPT – no silence before the first amplified sample in an IR). The lack of alignment parameters is unfortunate but when used correctly, this is a cheap and useful tool for multi-mixing IRs.
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Audio Assault: aIR Impulse Loader
Audio Assault are known for offering very inexpensive and comprehensive plugins over all the major genres of audio shaping. Their aIR Impulse Loader is a very unique take on the IR shaping genre, giving the user access to modules that can be loaded into a container. Modules like EQ filters, phase alignment, normalization, visualization and more.
The user can then export the final result as a single IR. This is a great concept but in use, its a bit clunky. I had a hard time navigating to my IR folders and understanding how to blend 2 or more IR sounds together. Im hoping they bring a bit of clarity to the process as this is an excellent concept and one that will bring a huge level of control to users for a very low price.
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Forward Audio: FaIRmageddon
FaIRmageddon is very special. A newcomer in the cab sim world, FaIRmageddon offers a synthesis of the features we’ve seen from other cab sims as well as several unique options that stretch and manipulate your impulse responses in ways we havent seen before. They offer a mixer that’s visually similar to Libra’s Cartesian mixer but they go much further with impulse modulation (formant, pitch, transfer function intensity, EQ). Their system has an auto-alignment tool to line up your IRs from different developers and the ability to easily consolidate your configuration to slot “A” and continue to add new IR’s to the other 3 slots.
One of the most exciting features is the tone-matching section which can modify your blended IR sound to mimic the sound of a reference track. Feed FaIRmageddon a recorded guitar tone from one of your favorite artists’ albums and it will do its best to make your current IR sound conform to the general EQ curve. It definitely gets you in the right direction but it is not a 100% match.
Version 1.00.004 is making excellent progress and you can look forward to the updates they have coming. The dev is always quick to respond and is happy to hear new ideas for enhancements. A clear winner of a plugin for the IR editing scientist.
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Waves: PRS Collection
Yes, this is an amp sim*. Yes, you can get it on sale for $29. Yes, their upgrade policy is insulting to their customers. All those things are true but hear me out: this is an EXCELLENT cabinet simulator for a simple, utilitarian purpose: aligned exports. Disable the amp sim portion of any of the Waves PRS models and use the cab sim whenever you want to quickly blend 2 cabinets with varying phase/alignment/volume problems that you cannot solve with the other IR loaders mentioned in this article (I’m looking at you, STL).
It’s as simple as flipping the “Fix Time” switch and exporting. You instantly have a perfectly aligned cabinet blend with zero effort or frustration. If you already have this amp sim, consider it when you need this kind of work done and the 0.00ms precision on NadIR is giving you trouble and stealing your mixing time.
*Honorable mention to BlueCats IR loader within their Axiom/Destructor plugin. No export function but comes with a great IR adjustment suite.
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Algorithmic Convolution
ML Sound Labs: Mikko
Mikko is awesome. Its an algorithmic multi-speaker, multi-mic cabinet simulator that is similar to the cabinet section of most modern amp sims with much more depth, tweakability and superior sound quality. Mikko allows you to combine 7 microphones and 10 cabinets in any combination, blending up to 9 iterations in a single instance which can then be exported as an IR.
There is a free “Player” version with 1 speaker type and less features, as well as other premium speaker packs that can be added to the 10 that come with the “Essentials” model. Awesome tweakability and a super intuitive visual GUI. Its fun and easy to get great sounds from this cab sim. The export feature is a great bonus as it allows you to further blend these sounds with your other IRs.
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Hybrid Systems (algorithmic convolution and IR loaders)
Melda: MCabinet and MCabinetMB
This is my favorite IR loader as of the time of writing this article. Particularly MCabinetMB.
Melda are known for going above and beyond in terms of depth of features. MCabinet and MCabinetMB are no exception. You can create an IR from scratch within the program or you can load anything from a single IR file to an entire folder of IRs, where MCabinet will figure out the average impulse of the entire folder. From there, you can tweak your cabinet sound with EQs, resonators, width, tilt and other unique parameters that allow you to accentuate or smooth out certain features of your IR. The “smoothing” algorithm is the secret-sauce of this plugin. It gets rid of those honky whistle sounds that plague so many otherwise great sounding IRs. You can now clean up those resonant peaks and export an improved variant. This plugin has given new life to so many of my abandoned IR folders!
MCabinetMB allows you to load up to 6 different cabinets, each with their own suite of parameters. The IR alignment for MCabinetMB is the best Ive used so far. That, combined with the independent Smoothing, EQ and Resonance options for each cabinet bring this to the very top of my list.
You can also skip the cabinet entirely and simply export IRs of their Resonance algorithm. This allows you to add a very unique and infinitely customizable stereo spread to any of your IRs. With their Randomize buttons, its easy to make a stack of “stereo resonance IR’s” very quickly. Then you simply load these into the free MConfolutionEZ (because it supports stereo IR’s) and place this after your cabinet IR plugin loader.
This one goes deep and is one of my favorites for cleaning up IRs or modifying them to fit your needs. An absolute monster, once you learn how to use it. If you use commercial IR’s but you want to make them more unique and more “yours”, this plugin is the best way to do that, hands down.
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Get Good Drums: Zilla
Similar to Ugritone Trve Cab, Zilla offers users a mixing console with all the usual features. What makes Zilla special are their absolutely awesome sounding internal IRs, giving you selection over speaker, microphone and cabinet shape. These sounds are mix-ready and blend together really well. You can also add your own IRs into the mix and there is an export feature, as well. This is one of the best hybrid cab sims for quick and easy, high quality results. No delay adjustment so you will have to use MPT IRs.
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Two Notes: Wall Of Sound
Another hybrid system that allows the user to mix their own IRs with internal Two Notes cabinet algorithms. Extra features include EQ, harmonics, compression and filters. They offer over 40 different cabinets and microphone configurations with the ability to adjust mic placement in a 3d environment. No export feature and you need to pay extra for more cabinets but the effects chain is killer and keeps this on the same level as the others in this list. Not my go-to but many people swear by this plugin.
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This is a cursory glance at all of the IR loaders I’ve used in the last few years. Each of them have something special which is why they made this list. I think its amazing that we have all these options at our disposal. When I started using amp sims, the only cabinet option was whatever came built-in. These cabinet sounds were awful by todays standards (hello, Line 6 POD users). If you take away the cabinet simulation from early amp simulation and you add in todays IR’s and algorithmic cab sim plugins, you can get some amazing guitar tones!
Wrapping things up
IR’s are all about personal choice and control. When you dont have a studio and you cant play very loud, the tones you can achieve (many of them for free!) in current year are amazing!
This concludes my list of current and viable IR plugins. Next time, were going to look at the Impulse Responses themselves as well as some hints and tips for management of these gigantic, unwieldy folders of literally hundreds of .wav files. Lastly, were going to look at ways to make your own Impulse Responses. Thanks for reading and happy tone-hunting!
