Shure SM57 vs Sennheiser e609 (with video comparison)

Hello and welcome to this week's article!

Today we are going to compare two schools of thought, the two most common and beloved dynamic microphones for electric guitar: the Shure SM57 and the Sennheiser e609; two industry standards in the same price range, super solid and capable of whitstanding huge sound pressures.

Those two microphones features a similar sound curve, meaning they are particularly receptive towards the midrange, which is very common and useful when microphoning a guitar speaker, especially in a live environment, but they have their own characteristics.
For our comparison we have microphoned the same cab (an Orange 2x12) through the same poweramp (a Marshall Jvm) exactly in the same position (straight towards the edge of the dustcap), in order to tell better the differences.

What we can hear is that while they are both mid rangey, the Shure has much more low-mid content and less high end, which is why it gets paired often in studio with other microphones that add some sparkle, while the Sennheiser is more scooped, slightly less musical but much more aggressive, which makes it more suitable for certain kinds of music or tunings.

It's interesting to notice also the interaction between the two microphones in the sample, when they are played together: they sort of complete each other, and this is one of the reasons why many albums are quad tracked with both microphones on both sides: because they sound fuller.

Which one to choose? We suggest you to download our free impulse pack and try for yourself, with your guitar and your music stile the one that sounds better!


Something about the video:

First you can hear the sample recorded with the SM57 on both sides, then one with the Sennheiser on both sides, then one with the Shure on the left side and the Sennheiser on the right one, and finally the same samples without drums and bass.

The impulse used is the one done by us, the free Trident pack (click here to download), and we used the impulse on the orange cab, pointing towards the edge of the dustcap.

Signal chain: Ltd MH-417 - Focusrite Saffire Pro14 - Ignite TSB-1 - Nick Crow 7170 - Ignite NadIR - Trident Impulse pack (no post eq used)

Let us know what do you think!


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TRIDENT IR PACK: FREE impulse response suite exclusive for Guitar Nerding Blog!

Hello and welcome to this week's article!

Today we are talking about the result of our IR creation experiments, lasted for months, done my me and my friend Dano (Thank you man!) in our rehearsals room, from which I have written my How to capture an Impulse Response from an amp article (click here to read it!).

The result is a custom Ir pack that I have called Trident IR Pack, and it's a pack consisting of 14 48khz impulses created using the power amp section of a Marshall JVM Vintage Modern head, into two cabs, a Marshall 1960 4x12 and an Orange 2x12.

The impulses were captured by two microphones, a Shure Sm57 and a Sennheiser e609, two industry standards, through Presonus Xmax preamps.

There are serveral impulses, taken from the microphones in various positions, and each one has a naming code, which must be interpreted this way:

gnb = Guitar Nerding Blog

mar jvm = Marshall JVM Head

mar412 = Marshall 4x12 cab

org212 = Orange 2x12 cab

57 = Shure sm57

e609 = Sennheiser e609

45deg = the microphone was at 45 degrees, pointing towards the center of the speaker

center = the microphone was pointing straight to the center of the speaker

dustcap = the microphone was pointing to the sweet spot between the dustcap and the cone

edge = the microphone was pointing to the edge of the cone

For best results I suggest you to blend 2 impulses with a cab loader such as Ignite Amps NadIR.

Let us hear your creations using this pack and help us spreading the word!

Enjoy!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD TRIDENT IR PACK! 

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How to capture an impulse response (IR) from an amp (with free plugins) Part 2/2

CLICK HERE FOR PART 1/2

Now that we have everything ready, let's put our microphone in front of our cabinet (using one of the positions suggested in our article about how to microphone a cab) and now we need to nail perfectly our gain staging, which means let's plug our guitar into the amp until we reach a volume in which the power amp section is giving its best, and let's setup the input gain of our audio interface to make sure the signal is captured loud and clear, but without any clipping. 

Now follow those steps:

1) go on Voxengo Deconvolver, click on "Test Tone Gen", generate the sweep (the sound that covers all the audible spectrum) and save it somewhere in your desktop, then import it into a mono track in your Daw.

2) Connect a jack cable from the output of the audio interface to the return of the effect loop of your amp (making sure the loop is on and if there is a mix knob, it is at 100%).

3) play the sweep file you generated, so that it will come out through your amp, and at the same time record the resulting sound with your microphone into another mono track, making sure it's captured at a good volume, but without clipping.

4) export your recorded sound as a wave file, 24bit 48khz (muting the original sweep track!).

5) now go back to Voxengo Deconvolver and load in the first file browser (Test Tone File) the original sweep you have generated, and in the second file browser (File Folder) the recorded file you just exported. Make sure the bit depth is 24, the "MP transform" box is ticked and so the "Normalize to -0.3dbFS" one, and click the "Process" button.

6) The file resulting from the processing will be your IR. Now you can import it into an IR Loader, such as Ignite Amps NadIR. This is the moment in which we can test our tone and eventually see if the mic positioning is correct, if the volume is right, and this will take a bit of trial and error before we start really nailing the perfect IRs.

7) Repeat the process with all the microphone positions you want, all the different microphones, amps, cabinets you have and you'll create your own collection of IRs, so that every time you will want to play your favourite guitar amp simulator it will sound like it's  played in your rehearsals room or studio!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE RESULT OF OUR IR CAPTURING EXPERIMENT: THE FREE TRIDENT IR PACK!

I hope this was helpful!

CLICK HERE FOR PART 1/2

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How to capture an impulse response (IR) from an amp (with free plugins) Part 1/2

Hello and welcome to this week's article!

Today we are talking about an extremely interesting topic: how to capture an Impulse Response.

Impulse responses consist, said in very simple terms, in playing a sound that covers all audible frequences from a source and capturing it with a microphone, then we subtract the original sound from the captured wave and what remains is the interaction between the source, the ambient in which the sound is played, and the microphone that captured it.
This resulting file can be applied in form of Reverb to any track we have, so that a vocal track can sound as it's recorded in a church, or in a room without resonances, or in the shower booth and so on.

Impulse responses are particularly interesting in the world of home recording for one purpose: amp simulators;
why? Because amp modeling is out there by 20 to 30 years (according to whether we are considering also the analog simulation), and still, even if the circuitry of the amp today is emulated to an impressive degree of realism, there is a technological bottleneck regarding cab simulation, somehow it never seems to sound close enough to the real thing and it's the main reason why people still in 2019 keeps making records using the same techniques of 50 years ago.

Impulse responses are a workaround to this technological bottleneck: they substitute completely the other types of cabinet simulations, and just replace them with a Reverb that recreates the sound captured from the guitar cab with a microphone; the result is so much more realistic that this technique has basically substituted completely all the other ways of simulating a cabinet, and are (in a slightly more elaborated way) the core of high end digital guitar amps such as the Kemper.

Internet is full of great impulses that can be downloaded for free (such as the Guitarhack or the Catharsis ones) or paid (like the Ownhammer ones), but if we have the right tools we can do them on our own, so that we just need to capture with our microphone and cab all the positions once, and then we can have fun at home without having to set up the recording gear every time.


What do we need to capture an IR?

A good guitar amp (possibly with a tube power amp) with effects loop and a good cabinet

A microphone (possibly an industry standard such a Shure SM57)

A good audio interface connected to a computer with a Daw

A software that creates impulses, such as Voxengo Deconvolver, that can be used for free with some limitation, but that is perfectly usable to create IRs.


CLICK HERE FOR PART 2/2


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Review: Ignite Amps Emissary 2.0 and NadIR 2.0 (with video sample)

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!
Today we are going to talk about the new version of 2 free plugins from our friends of Ignite Amps (click here to read our interview), a producer of amps and stompboxes that offers them in Vst version as free plugins.

After having won the KVR Developer Challenge 2018 with the Pro F.E.T. and having had a nice booth at Namm 2019, the company is already back to action with the version 2.0 of their 2 most popular plugins: the Emissary virtual amp and the NadIR impulse loader.

The Emissary features the same characteristics as the version 1.0 (reviewed here), plus it adds a completely rewritten tube simulation engine (and it can be noticed by comparing the 2 versions side by side, the new one has more harmonic richness), an improved power amp section and now there is a preset management system, which was not featured in the previous version.

Speaking of NadIR instead the improvements are even more: the impulse loader features a new user interface, a preset management system and two new controls, the resonance control, which simulates the interaction between a power amp and a speaker (for the IRs captured from a solid state power amp), and the room control, which acts as reverb.

All I can say is that these plugins kicks ass, and they keep getting better and better, so make sure to download them and to follow Ignite amps, because I think this company is one its way to become one of the best in the industry.


These two plug-ins will be released in the next few weeks, together with many other surprises, so make sure to check out their Facebook official page and the official website.



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Review: Mercuriall Audio SS-11X with video sample

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we are reviewing a new guitar (pre)amp simulator from Mercuriall Audio: the SS-11x!

As we know (check out our interview) Mercuriall Audio is a Russian audio company that produces guitar amp simulators, some free and some paid, and that is developing a very interesting roster of software, ranging from the emulations of Engl and Marshall to the Mesa Boogie amps, but this time the SS-11X replicates a very peculiar preamp: the AMT SS-1B, a 3 channel tube guitar preamp stompbox created by another Russian company, Amt electronics, which is a producer specialized in preamp pedals, and that is receiving international acclaim for the quality and the innovation of its products.

Compared to its hardware counterpart, the SS-11X offers several extra features: a built in Noise Gate, a serie of boosters (from the classic Ts9 to a full blown distortion), a reverb and an array of good impulses, including some made by Ownhammer, one of the best impulse studio around.
Some of these impulses include also power amp emulation, since the vst doesn't have a power amp section.

The preamp section features 3 channels, 2 separate eq sections, separate gain and level, bright and tone shift switches.
I have been able to achieve surprisingly good tones, very realistic, proof of the fact that technology has taken giant leaps forward in guitar amp modeling: the plugins I am reviewing lately are all very good, to a level that was unthinkable just 3 or 4 years ago, and in this specific one you can really hear the tube sound, the harmonic richness, that makes the crunch fat and meaty.

I suggest this Vst to anyone who wants to achieve good, warm, saturated crunch tones, but the plugin is good also, using the included booster and impulses, for obtaining screaming metal rhythm parts and solos.
The quality to price ratio is impressive, and there is also a free demo version downloadable from the website.

Thumbs up!


Specs taken from the website:

- SS-11X modeling is officially certified and approved by AMT Electronics

- SS-11X is modeled using our next-gen Neural Hybrid Engine. This in-house technology has been in development for 5 years

- All tubes are modeled independently

- Pedals and preamp are working within the same oversampling cycle. Thus, there is no latency build-up and no additional losses when using several anti-aliasing filters

- Stereo-mode: right and left channels are modeled independently. This mode is useful for processing stereo signals. For example, a panned double tracked guitar

- Plugin supports CPU multi-threading

- Cab IRs from (in alphabetical order):
1. George Constantine Kratsas - Mercuriall Audio artist
2. Morton Studio
3. NC-REC
4. NRQ’s Studio
5. OwnHammer
6. Sound Way Records
7. TA Production
8. USOUNDWORKS

- Option to load your own cabinet IRs (mono/stereo)

- Option to load your own reverb IRs (mono/stereo)
Maximum IR length is 262144 samples (~5.9 sec @44.1 kHz)

- Reverb IR blend

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Review: Dr Bonkers Sound Lab Impulses (with video sample)

Hello and welcome to this week's article!

Today we're reviewing some impulse response pack from Dr Bonkers Sound Lab!

Dr Bonkers Sound Lab produces Impulse Responses for guitar and bass, both in Wav format and in Fractal Axe Fx Format, in a variety of sample rates, up to 96khz and 32bit.

Each cabinet impulse comes in 7 versions, tracked with different microphone settings, and in 4 different folders: the HyperReal version (which is the main version these impulse should be used and consists in a mix of several microphones), the Choice Mixes version, which is an alternative version of the HyperReal ones, and the version with the single microphones, both unprocessed and created with the addition of a power amp for extra harmonic richness, both in 200ms and 500ms version.

Today I spent some time playing around with the HyperReal versions, and since I imagine these "almost mix ready" versions will be the ones that will be used by most of the users, I have made a video comparison of my favourite impulses of the 5 cabinets Dr Bonkers suggested me would be more suited for metal.

For the video I have just plugged my Ltd Mh-417 with Emg 707 pickups to my Focusrite Saffire audio interface, and from there I have used exclusively Free Ignite Amps vst plugins:  Ignite TSB-1 - Ignite The Anvil - Ignite NadIR.

Here's a short description of the 5 IRs I have chosen for the video: 

- Mesa Boogie Recto Cab 4x12: this is a classic cab for metal, and it is probably the one that will need less fiddling during mixing. The tone is balanced, with a tight low end and a very usable, aggressive midrange.

- Marshall 1960 Jcm 800 Lead 4x12: totally different flavour compared to the Mesa Boogie one, this cabinet sounds more scooped and with a more sparkling high end, I bet it would give its best in standard tuning, maybe in a hard rock song or old school thrash metal.

- Marshall 8x10 Bass Cabinet: This is a bass cabinet that is usable also for guitar, but of all the impulses I have tried in this package is the most "boxy sounding". I would see it more suited for a mid rangey bass than a guitar tone, but surely it lends itself to many creative uses.

- 1960 Sunn 2x15 Guitar and Bass Cab: This tone is extremely bassy as the wide speaker suggests, and works in my opinion particularly fine with genres like doom or stoner. The mid range is slightly scooped but the highs remain intellegible and defined.

- Oahu 1x6 Guitar Cab: from this small speaker I would have expected a radio-like sound, yet it produces a very nasty, aggressive high mid range that puts in the spotlight all the gain of the amp. Obviously it lacks in the low end area, therefore a combination with another impulse would be suggested.

Before recording I have played with both the suggested microphone combinations and with the single microphones, trying to blend them in the impulse loader, and I must say the possibilities are really infinite, also because for each microphone there are several positions, and I am also quite sure that spending more time in mixing and matching the single microphones in various positions makes possible to come up with even better results than those in the HyperReal mixes, so I incourage all of you guys to check out these impulse packs and spend some time with the various combinations, because the possibilities are really infinite.

Thumbs up! 

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Best Free Guitar Amp Sims 2017 3/3: Nick Crow (with video sample)

CLICK HERE FOR PART 1/3: Ignite Amps

CLICK HERE FOR PART 2/3: LePou


Hello and welcome to this week's article!
In this third and last part we are talking about Nick Crow Labs plugins!
The name Nick Crow refers to a guy called Nikolay Voronin, but unfortunately it is not easy to find informations about this producer, all we know is that he has created some exceptional tube guitar amp simulators, freeware, and both in 32 and 64 bit format.

In this comparison we are using the same criteria as in the Ignite one: 

in all the samples we have used all Ignite Plugins (except obviously for the amp sim): TSB1 - Tyrant Screamer, the Power Amp Simulator TPA-1 (yes usually all amp simulators have also a power amp section modeler but this one really adds a lot of weight to the sound, I suggest you all to add it to your chain), and the NadIr impulse loader as a speaker simulator.

Basically the Ignite chain is the same one used also for the comparisons of the other producers, the only thing that I have swapped is the amp simulator, all the rest is identical, and the general rules I have used in recording these samples have been:

- no post production of any kind: no eq, no comp, only a limiter in the master bus.
- all the amp simulators have been left as flat as possible (often I have left them totally untouched, and all in the overdrive channel), I have made just some small adjustment in the controls to even out the volume and let it sit a little better in the mix.

On a last note I would like to add that I did not compare the Tube Driver, which is another plugin from the same producer, because it's a tube preamp, but not specifically made for guitar, therefore it sounds too different and with not enough gain.

After listening to this comparison my key takeaways are the following:

7170: A simulation of the lead channel of a Peavey 5150 III. It is incredibly chuggy (in a good way), it replicates well a 5150 crancked to the max and sits very well in the mix, I can't praise enough this plugin.

8505: A simulation of the Peavey 6505, a little less extreme and slighly darker sounding of the 7170 but still very similar (after all it's the same difference between the first model and the following 2 ones, also in the hardware version). Unlike its lower numbered sister, this one lets us also achieve (with some tweaking) a clean sound.

Wagner Sharp: This simulator is an emulation of the Sharp channel from a Bogner Triple Giant amplifier, but it actually sounds extremely close to the 7170 (only a little cleaner and with a more controlled gain). It is chuggy, and it's the last descendent of the first Wagner, the first guitar amp simulator that I have used, and that made me fall in love with this type of plugins.


In conclusion of this 3 parts article, what are my favourite plugins?
My criteria is how useful can one plugin be in a mix, so I'm evaluating these criteria:

- how well it sits in a mix
- how controllable is the gain (which means how clean/intellegible or dirty/confused) it sounds
- how much time do I have to spend tweaking to make it sound well in the mix (the less, the better)
- is it aggressive enough to be in a modern metal production?

And these are the three vst amp simulators I think everyone should have in their Daw at all times:

- Nick Crow 7170
- LePou Lecto
- Ignite Anvil

Let us know what do you think!


CLICK HERE FOR PART 1/3: Ignite Amps

CLICK HERE FOR PART 2/3: LePou


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Best Free Guitar Amp Sims 2017 2/3: LePou / Poulin (with video sample)

CLICK HERE FOR PART 1/3: Ignite Amps


Hello everyone and welcome to the second part of our free amp sims shootout!
Today we are talking about one of the most prolific plugin producers in the scene: the canadian Alain Poulin!
He has produced several plugins, starting with the first, classic one Solo C (which I have not included in the comparison because there is no 64 bit version), developing his coding towards both replicas of existing heads and the creation of completely new ones.

Today his plugins are used by millions of home producers worldwide, because they are free, lightweight, sound good and have a very nice interface.

In this comparison we are using the same criteria as in the Ignite one: 

in all the samples we have used all Ignite Plugins (except obviously for the amp sim): TSB1 - Tyrant Screamer, the Power Amp Simulator TPA-1 (yes usually all amp simulators have also a power amp section modeler but this one really adds a lot of weight to the sound, I suggest you all to add it to your chain), and the NadIr impulse loader as a speaker simulator.

Basically the Ignite chain is the same one used also for the comparisons of the other producers, the only thing that I have swapped is the amp simulator, all the rest is identical, and the general rules I have used in recording these samples have been:

- no post production of any kind: no eq, no comp, only a limiter in the master bus.
- all the amp simulators have been left as flat as possible (often I have left them totally untouched, and all in the overdrive channel), I have made just some small adjustment in the controls to even out the volume and let it sit a little better in the mix.

After listening to this comparison my key takeaways are the following:

Hybrit: this Marshall simulation is surprisingly versatile and gainy, I had to lower the master a bit to match the others, but if you it even to 3/4 makes it absolutely usable also in thrash metal, it has a lot of attack and tight response.

Le456: this is modeled after an Engl Powerball/Fireball, and you can hear that it has nailed the loud midrangey character of the head, I see it very usable in a classic/power metal record, where the real one is the queen of the most famous albums.

Lecto: this head is clearly based on a mesa Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier, but it has something unique; while the texture of the sound and the gain structure are clearly modeled after the original one, this head adds an extremely musical midrange, that makes it one of the amp sims that sits better in a mix, ever. This is a must have.

LeGion: this is an original one, meaming that is not modeled after any other head in particular. It is created to have a lot of gain and to not need a booster, but somehow it sounds a bit thinner and with less body that it should. I can see it used in Djent or other genres with extremely low tunings, where the thicker strings can make up with the general thinness of the amp sim and find a very clear and tight sounding sweet spot.

LeXtac: modeled after a Bogner Extasy, is not very suited for metal, it is round, warm, but muddy in the low mids and I see it very good in classic rock or pop, where gain is lower and the thickness of each strum sound be wider.


CLICK HERE FOR PART 1/3: Ignite Amps

CLICK HERE FOR PART 3/3: Nick Crow


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Best Free Guitar Amp Sims 2017 1/3: Ignite Amps (with video sample)

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today is a special day, because we are presenting an article with a shootout of the best guitar amp sims with video samples, divided by author.
We know that there are many others out there but we chose the three top producers, because they had enough simulators to compare and because many others does not have a 64 bit version (which are the only ones I have used).

Let's start with the italian pride: Ignite Amps.

These guys make both hardware and software products: they let you use freely the vst version of their amps and pedals, and if you want they can also manufacture a real version of their softwares, like the beautiful Emissary head letting you customize it according to your taste.

In the video we actually use almost their entire plugin lineup:

in all the samples we have used their od TSB1 - Tyrant Screamer, the Power Amp Simulator TPA-1 (yes usually all amp simulators have also a power amp section modeler but this one really adds a lot of weight to the sound, I suggest you all to add it to your chain), and the NadIr impulse loader as a speaker simulator.

Basically the Ignite chain is the same one used also for the comparisons of the other producers, the only thing that I have swapped is the amp simulator, all the rest is identical, and the general rules I have used in recording these samples have been:

- no post production of any kind: no eq, no comp, only a limiter in the master bus.
- all the amp simulators have been left as flat as possible (often I have left them totally untouched, and all in the overdrive channel), I have made just some small adjustment in the controls to even out the volume and let it sit a little better in the mix.

By a quick listen to the samples you can really tell the different shades of the three simulators:

- The Anvil is aggressive and very versatile, it is based on the amp with the same name by Andy Zeugs and features three independent channels (a clean that is Fender style, a crunch that is modeled after a Plexi and a lead channel based on an Engl).

- The NRR-1 is but modeled on a Soldano X88R base (the base also for a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier), but with some modification requested by the (former) Fleshgod Apocalypse guitarist Cristiano Trionfera: it's slightly darker than the Anvil (and still today, even if it can't be heard in the video, I think it has one of the best clean channels around), and unlike the Anvil, the Rhythm channel has also a boost function.

- The Emissary is much more mid-oriented: there is a lot going on in the high mids area and the eq allows you to control and fine tune low and high mids; with some tweaking this could be one of the most screaming amp sims you can find (in facts it is also used extensively in the extreme metal scene, also live!). This is probably one of the most tube-sounding amp sims around, and also in this one the clean channel is beautiful and warm (click here for a more in depth review).

What do you think? Which one do you prefer?


CLICK HERE FOR PART 2/3: LePou

CLICK HERE FOR PART 3/3: Nick Crow


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Review: JST Conquer All vol.4 (with video sample inside)

Hello and welcome to this week's article!

Today we're going to review the latest Impulse response pack from Jst: Conquer All vol.4!

Joey Sturgis is a popular producer from United States, the man behind the iconic sound of The Devil Wears Prada, Born of Osiris, Asking Alexandria and many other bands, and this is yet another very usable ir pack for various genres, but particularly suited for rock and metal.

This pack features 3 folders: Eq IRs (the impulse responses already Equalized by Joey, to start playing immediately with a polished sound), RAW (the same impulses but not equalized, to leave us total tone shaping freedom) and Kemper, which are the impulses in the Kemper format.

The speakers included in this pack are 3 Marshall (a 4x12 and 2 2x12 each with different speakers) and one Orange 2x12 with V30 speakers.

Each of these cabinets has different combinations of microphones (both on and off axis) and preamps, and it is very interesting to try to combine two impulses or more, since they are all perfectly in phase.

I must say that these impulses live up to the Jst name: they are solid products, very usable also in a professional studio environment and at the right price.

I consider the equalized version a bonus, since it lets us use a bit of Joey Sturgis tone with any guitar amp, both virtual or real. 

The sample you can hear on the top of this article was created by combining 2 impulses: an sm57 straight and a Sennheiser md421 blended together, with no post eq added; I have chosen the ones passing through a Neve preamp because they have a bit more rolloff on the high end, making them more realistic and less scratchy. It is literally the guitar (a self built Harley Benton Sg Kit) and the virtual amplifier (Tse X50II).

Specs Taken from the website:

Conquer All Volume IV Includes EQ'd and RAW IRs and Kemper Compatible IRs

There are 4 unique setups with 24 IRs for each setup

- Marshall 2x12 oversized 212 cab with Celestion Vintage 30s

- Marshall Mode 4 412 cab with Celestion K100s

- Marshall Vintage Modern 212 combo with Celestion Greenbacks

- Orange 212 Open Back Cab with Celestion Vintage 30s

Preamps Used

- Don Classics Neve 1073 clone

- API A2D

Microphones Used

- Shure SM57

- Sennheiser MD421

- Beyerdynamic M201

- Sennheiser E906

- Shure SM7B

- Neumann TLM103


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Mixing 2 or more Guitar Impulses

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!
Today we are going to talk about the subtle art of mixing two or more impulse responses, recreating in the digital age a technique, the multi-miking, that is a world professional studio standard.
As we know impulse responses are snapshots of an ambient response captured by a microphone/preamp chain, which mantains the eq curve of the captured moment and allows us to apply it to our sound, and this method has proven to be particularly effective with guitars and bass amp simulators, making it the best replacement for a real speaker.
Another interesting characteristic of impulses is that they can be also captured from a song, and applied to our chain to "steal" part of their sound (here is a tutorial on how to do it).

What we are talking about today is blending together the sound of two or more impulses recreating what producers are doing by decades: if one microphone only takes part of the total sound let's mix and match more than one in order to capture the full spectrum.

The first thing is to check out if there is any phasing issue: the best paid impulse packs are usually phase coherent, but if we are mixing impulses found in different sources or the free ones it's better to make sure that one impulse is not putting the other out of phase.

Once we are sure that our impulses are phase coherent we need to load an impulse loader that allows to use multiple impulses, for example the free Ignite Amps NadIR, which allows to load two impulses, or the paid Redwirez MixIR 2, which allows to load many more.

My suggestion is to start with one impulse that we really like; the first one is really important because it will be the fundament of our tone, then find out what is lacking (if anything), for example "in the mix the guitar sounds too dark", or "the mid frequences are not focused" and so on, and then try to apply some of the classic microphone techniques used by the famous studios (the three most common are listed here) or to experiment with some new one: the idea is to compensate and enhance the first tone with a second impulse that captures it from a different angle, then you blend this second impulse in, rising or lowering its volume, and then adjust the whole guitar track (or buss) volume in order to fit it perfectly in the mix.

The two microphones technique is very popular in studios everywhere because it widens enormously the scope of sounds we can achieve, and it's interesting to see how some producer likes to add more and more microphones (even 8 or 10!), but beware, because the more microphones (or impulses) you add, the more you need to be good, otherwise the sound will rapidly become cloudy and unmanageable.

Let us know your favourite multi-Ir techniques!


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Video day!

Hello everyone!

I have updated all the download links in the website and created two videos related to two previous articles, and I have updated them:

Review: Boss Katana Head (With 2 video samples!)

and

How to create guitar cab impulses from a song (free plugins and IR included!) PART 1/2

so now you can hear a direct usb recording sample for the Boss Katana and a sample made with the impulse created for the tutorial, free to download, which I find it's pretty realistic.

Let us know what you think!

Cheers!

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How to create guitar cab impulses from a song (free plugins and IR included!) PART 2/2

CLICK HERE TO READ PART 1/2

This happens because our impulse is too long, so what we need to do is to make it a little shorter, until it is half a second to one second (or even shorter: you will need 3 or 4 tries before get the right lenght, because it varies from impulse to impulse according to how dry we want our sound to be), and let's load an eq on its vst slot: since we are dealing with a produced and mastered song it will probably have certain frequences a little over-emphasized, so it's a very good idea to set a high pass filter starting from 50 to 100hz, and a low pass one at around 10khz. This way we will tame the excessive low end and some unwanted fizz in the high area.
An additional check that can be done is to compare the volume of our impulse response with others and see if it's clipping, if it's too high, or it's too low, and adjust it accordingly.

5) Now let's put this track in solo, export it in mono again, load it again in the cab simulator in our project and let's play again some riff with our guitar. Does our impulse still need some tweaking? If so, let's adjust lenght and/or eq again and repeat this operation until the sound is as close as possible to the original album, then save it with the name of the song and soon you will have a personal impulse library with the guitar tone your favourite songs!

Additional awesomeness: I have explained the simpliest version of how to clone a guitar tone to turn it into an impulse, but the truth is that there it would be so much more to say.
If you want to dig deeper into this world and for example fine tune furthermore the impulse you can also use an eq matching program to fine tune and copy even more the eq curve by following the procedure explained in this tutorial, this way you would combine two different cloning techniques into one.
Some producer also like to copy the overall response of a vst chain (or part of it), whether we are talking about a guitar, or a snare mixer channel, or a kick and so on, and use it in future projects to clone a certain tone print (this is also the way in which some vintage hardware modeler work), so the concept of impulse responses could be scaled in almost every aspect of our mix, but this is another story.


This sample impulse has been created based on one of my favourite guitar sounds of all times: Clenching the fists of Dissent from Machine Head.
I have tried it with TSE X50 II (but any other Peavey 5150 sim like the TSE X50 or the Nick Crow 8505 with a Tube Screamer as a booster in front should do), fiddling a bit with the eq and using the learn mode for input, and ROSEN DIGITAL PULSE as cabinet simulator.

Let me know what you think about it!

IMPULSE: MACHINE HEAD - CLENCHING THE FISTS OF DISSENT

Happy 5th birthday, Guitar Nerding Blog!


CLICK HERE TO READ PART 1/2


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How to create guitar cab impulses from a song (free plugins and IR included!) PART 1/2

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!

To celebrate the first 5 years of Guitar Nerding Blog we are presenting you a juicy 2 parts tutorial!

Today we are going to learn how to create a guitar cab impulse response (or IR, click here and here for two dedicated articles on how to use them) starting from a song we love. 

The idea is to take a part of the song in which you can hear only the guitar, clone it and turn it into a convolution impulse, then load it into a cabinet simulator and use it with our favourite amp simulator, to get a result as close as possible to the original one.

Small premise: this method doesn't guarantee miracles, but in order to get really close to the sound we want to copy we should do a little research: using a the type of guitar, string gauge, tuning and pickups similar to the one the guitarist has played on that album, can make a lot of difference.

1) What we need is the free version of Voxengo Deconvolver, a standalone software produced by Voxengo that does everything we need also in the demo version, so we don't actually need the paid one.
We open it, and from the main interface press the Test Tone Gen button and save somewhere the generated wave file.

2) Now we need to open our Daw and load the song we want to copy. What we need is a song with a part in which you can hear only the guitar playing. We cut this part, even if it's just 10 seconds, and export it to 24 bit and 44khz mono, without touching the volume.

3) Let's open again Voxengo Deconvolver, load the generated test tone file in the first slot, the exported sample from your favourite song in the second one, choose the output folder and tick the 2 boxes "MP Transform" and "Normalize to -0.3 dBFS". Then let's click to Process and export our file.

4) What we have here is the raw impulse taken from our favourite song, which needs to be refined: let's create two new mono tracks: one in which we will import our impulse, and another one in which to load a guitar amp simulator that emulates some amplifier similar to the gear of the guitar player of the song, let's deactivate from it (if present) the internal cab simulator and load an external cab sim, and load our fresh impulse inside of it.
Let's try our sound: chances are that it will sound like we're playing in a cathedral, with the sound soaked in reverb.

CLICK HERE TO READ PART 2/2



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Review: Rosen Digital Audio - Pulse

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we are going to check out a new free Impulse Response loader from Rosen Digital Audio: Pulse!

Rosen Digital Audio is a studio that produces and sells Impulse responses and Kemper profiles created with their own professional equipment, in a studio environment, and the quality of their impulses is definitely high, among the best and most realistic ones offered today.
What the studio didn't have yet was a proprietary impulse loader, so they teamed up with Ignite amps (click here to read the interview),  the producers of the best Ir loader around, NadIR, and they came up with a modified version of their plugin with some additional feature and a pre-loaded Rosen Digital Ir, calling it Pulse.

Pulse therefore is very similar to Nadir and like its brother it is free, it's a very low latency plugin for real time playing, recording and mixing, it allows to load two separate impulse and to switch between them or blend them, and it has a real time sample rate conversion that is not very common in the other Impulse loaders.

The additional and unique feature of Pulse that makes me suggest it to everyone is the built in Impulse Response Pulse CAB, a very versatile Impulse response created for this plugin, that sounds pretty good in almost every genre.

The conclusion is that if you have loved NadIr you're going to love Pulse even more, since it packs the same quality and features, and an additional IR bundled, making it the best Impulse loader on the market today. And it's free!


Features taken from the website:


– Multi-platform

– A/B Control

– Real-time Sample Rate Conversion

– Compatible With All 3rd Party IR’s

– Blend Mode W/ Phase Control

– HP/LP Filters

– PULSE Cab IR Built Into The Plugin

– List View

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How to use Guitar Cabinet Simulators (with free Vst Plugins)

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we're going to talk about Guitar Cabinet Simulators, in an article that should be taken as an evolution of our first article about Speaker Impulses, which can be found HERE.

After we have chosen our favorite Guitar Amp Simulator from this list, it's time to find a good speaker, and we'll be good to go for recording or even for live playing, if we have an audio interface that grants us a low enough latency.

Today there are essentially 2 ways of simulating a speaker sound:

- A way that tries to recreate how actually the cabinet works and that usually lets you play with the interaction between one or more types of microphones and the speaker.
Usually programming this type of simulation takes a lot of work and this is why you can find it mostly on paid plugins (like Amplitube, or Overloud Th2), but that sometimes some producer still provides for free, like the good Mercuriall CAB 2.1 and 3 which lets you choose among various microphone types and positionings.

- By using convolution impulses (IRs), which are basically a "photo" of how the interaction of a certain sound source, a certain ambient, and a certain tracking hardware respond to an audio signal.
These Impulses can therefore recreate easily the behavior for example of a Celestion Speaker on a Mesa Boogie cabinet, miked with a Shure Sm57 straight to the dustcap.
Convolution impulses are a way to "start from the end", from the final effect of the microphoning instead of going through the recreation of every single component, and they often lead to results which not only has nothing to envy to the classic approach, but also avoids the usual "digital grit" of the old way to simulate a speaker.


There are many IR loaders made specifically to load impulses for guitar, some of them are paid (like Redwirez MixIR2, or Kazrog Recabinet), and some are free. Let's see the best Free IR impulse loaders:

- Rosen Digital Pulse
- Ignite Amps NadIR
- Kefir
- Lepou Lecab
- Voxengo Boogex

And now let's see the best free guitar cab IRs to be loaded in the aforementioned Cab Simulators:

- Our Exclusive TRIDENT Ir pack made by Guitar Nerding Blog
- GuitarHack Impulses part I by GuitarHack
- Recabinet Demo by Recabinet
- Free Redwirez IR Library by Red Wirez
- Kalthallen Cabs by Kalthallen
- IR Library by Noisevault
- God’s Cab by SignalsAudio
- Fredman Impulses by Catharsis Studio
- Beamsonic Impulses by Nick Beamso
- Orange Cab Impulse by fearcomplexmusic

- IRs by le Châtelet

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How to sound like: Metallica (with sample and using only free Vst Plugins)

Hello everyone and welcome to the second episode of our "How to sound like" serie!

Today we will talk about a sound that is considered to be one of the most imitated of all times: Metallica's Black Album rhythm guitar tone!

This tone is considered to be one of the best guitar tones ever produced in heavy metal, and it was created with a guitar equipped with Emg active pickups through a Mesa Boogie Triaxis preamp, a Mesa Boogie Simul Class 2:90 power amp and a Mesa Cabinet.

The cabinet was microphoned with several microphones, but the producer, Bob Rock, always stated that a good part of the sound was achieved with a common Shure Sm57.

The sound is bassy, but with a surprisingly rich mid range and a medium amount of gain, that makes it very defined and sets hit somewhere between thrash metal and hard rock; the result is very euphonic.

To achieve a sound that tries to get close to the original one I have used (as you can see from the image) the amazing Tse audio Tube screamer simulator, the Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier made by Lepou called LECTO and the best Free Impulse loader on the market: Ignite Amps NadIR. 

Then I have loaded in NadIR a free Impulse made by sampling the tone from the Enter Sandman song from the BGelais Metallica Golden Ir Pack, and I have just made the tweaks on the amp that you can see in the image.

If you feel that there is still too much midrange content compared to the original song, you can also lower the "tone" control from the Tube Screamer, even up to zero.

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Acoustic Guitar Vst Simulators (free Vst Plugins)

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!
Today we're going to talk about acoustic guitar simulators, which are those plugins that takes the sound of our electric guitar recorded straight into the audio interface, and try to turn it into the sound of an acoustic guitar.

This article implies obviously that we don't have an actual acoustic guitar, nor ways to record it with microphones, which actually would be the best way to track it, so let's just focus on how to turn the sound of our electric guitar into the one that resembles an acoustic one!
Someone can also use this method to use his electric guitar to play some part which would be too unconfortable to be played with an acoustic one, and inserting them into an acoustic sounding context.

Usually plugins that tries to replicate the sound of an acoustic guitar works by modifying the eq, the transient, the resonance and other parameters of the original sound, or by applying an IR impulse, to recreate the resonance of a real acoustic guitar (Click Here for a vide made by Chandler Guitar, which also contains an acoustic guitar IR impulse to download).
Once we have turned the sound of our guitar into a sound that resembles an acoustic one, we can mix it as we would treat the sound of a real acoustic one, and the result sometimes can be strikingly resemblant.


Here are some interesting plugins, some free and some paid, to simulate an acoustic guitar sound:


Voxengo Boogex: a classic free IR impulse loader, that if we use with specific acoustic guitar impulses can really turn our electric guitar sound into an acoustic one.

Nusoft Deepboard: an interesting, small and free plugin that turns the sound of our electric guitar into an acoustic one

BodiLizer: a paid (30$) acoustic simulator which uses an internal IR impulse.

Positivegrid Jamup: a great paid plugin, probably the best in the market today, which has also a good acoustic simulation

Waves Maserati Acg: another paid plugin, designed by the producer Tony Maserati, which has a set of tools for shape the acoustic guitar sound



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HOW TO USE IMPULSES (free VST plugins included)

Hello and welcome to another post of this blog! Today we're going to talk about Convolution Impulses. 

Convolution impulses are digital simulations of the reverberation of a physical or virtual space. 

Why do we need them? Because today those are the best replacement for guitar cabinet simulation. In facts, you may have noticed that the main issue of Guitar Amp Simulators (both hardware, like Pods, or software, like Amplitube) is the cabinet simulation and microphone response: they sound harsh, fizzy and plastic, because although they are impulse-based, their response is not accurate enough.

The web nowadays is full of impulses free to download and to experiment, and many of them are really accurate and realistic, that is the reason why many studios use them instead of microphoning a real cabinet. They are great for Reamping too, and can be used with any kind of preamp (a preamp vst, a digital multieffect or a real tube head, through its preamp out), taking the place of power amp, cabinet and microphone.

Just connect the preamp/pedal output into your soundcard, load one of the programs made to play them (for example on this guide we're gonna take a look to VOXENGO BOOGEX), load an impulse and play: if you hear a normal tone, with no harshness/fizzyness, you're done.

WARNING: Do not connect the power amp output of your head to your audio interface! Use the preamp output or the Fx-Send. If you have a tube power amp, you have to connect it to the cabinet anyway in order to prevent tube damages! 

Here's how to load an Impulse on Voxengo Boogex: 

First off turn off the cabinet simulation of your software or hardware (for example, with Amplitube 2: go into the cab section and activate the BYPASS switch you see in the upper right corner, or with the Pod Hd just take the cab icon away from the chain of your preset, setting it to No Cab), if you have bypassed the cab correctly, when you play a distorted preset you'll hear an awful sound, fizzy as hell, no bass, harsh... You're hearing how an amp sounds like without a cab. 

Now load Voxengo Boogex (I chose to explain this among the others because it's free, not too heavy for the ram and with zero latency, but there are many others around for free, as KeFir),
Boogex is an amp-sim, if you want to use it ONLY for cab simulation, you have to set all the parameters FLAT, or it will change your eq/sound.
So, open it and set, from the left: Lows Mids and Highs to 0db, Tone to 0%, Drive to 0db, Dynamics to 0%, Phase to 0%, The "Out" control it's the volume control, Dry Pre Cab and Dry Post Cab to "-inf" (knob all the way down).
The "Speaker Cabinet Impulse Response" button MUST be ON, obviously, then click on "file" and select your impulse (a .wav file).
Another interesting thing about Boogex: this software features a built in Low Pass Filter and High Pass Filter. Since they can't be totally bypassed, the best thing to do is to open them to the max, by clicking on the green point in the right area of the graphic section of the interface and move it all the way to the right, then click on the white point in the left area and move it all the way to the left. This will deactivate the filters.

Here are some great free impulses to load:

Andersson - Periphery IR

The Metallica Golden Ir Pack

The Guitarhack Impulses

and here is our custom IR pack exclusive for our blog: TRIDENT IMPULSE PACK!

If you have or know some other interesting impulse to suggest to our readers feel free to tell us!

Additional Awesomeness: some speaker simulator plugin (such as Poulin's LeCab2) gives you the opportunity to load more than one impulse and blend them together, as if the speaker is microphoned with two or more mics. This opens up a very interesting world of variables, if carefully managed, but can also harm your final result, so use it carefully :)

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