Over one year ago Celestion brought forth their DSR (Dynamic Speaker Response) available through there then over expensive software SpeakerMix Pro – Studio Grade Plugin for IRs and DSRs (celestionplus.com).

Now no longer a static IR but a dynamic one claimed to give movement to the cabinet IR, better feel, better response, better feeling your actually playing through a real cab.

So my question for all us guitar nerds in search of the digital alternative for studio and/or live play;

Q: Why has this new tech not taken the cabinet IR market by storm and replaced static IR's?

I demoed the celestion speakermix pro almost a year ago and found it definitely added more realism, bloom and movement to the IR. When you dug in to the note it had that response missing from static IR's it definitely had some extra mojo. I believe Two Tones claim they have DynIR's in their Wall of Sound which I tried but found they didn't have the same feel as the Celestion.

Thoughts, critiques?

I'm aware some have tried putting a dynamic eq before their chosen IR loader but it's not quite the same. To me theirs added harmonics and some type of compression/expansion going on but the celestion tech is above my pay grade.

 

Are you sure that they offered to share / rent their patent?
If they own the technology and are not willing to license / rent it, this may be the answer, to why it's not all over the place.

 

This topic is interesting because almost all cab/sims are still plain IR based, despite some enhancements here and there.

In fact, the best ones are the Nebula cab libraries. They capture both the dynamics and the slight distortion.
Didn't know about that Celestion plugin, sounds interesting.

What I gather after all these years is that modelling cabs is quite difficult, at least hard on the CPU. And since the distortion at the amp-head is bigger or way bigger it's still not worth going beyond plain IRs. Because they still sound good enough.

 

Last edited: Aug 5, 2022

Don't believe its a patent thing, but a possibility. Like I said Two Notes are now also dabbling with the Dynamic IR cabs too - DynIR Technology - Impulse Response for guitar players - Two notes (two-notes.com)

The Celestion was my favourite out of these two mentioned but I'm not a fan of how its a internet only option (i.e. software calls home as part of activation so requires a constant internet connection) which is why I never purchased SpeakerMix Pro back then. Remember Native Instruments despite selling perpetual licenses for their old plugins they simply turned of the server and people where left with no way to activate and lost dollars of investment in NI products.

Kazrog also dabbled in the idea too but took it no further I believe. Maybe its just chasing the proverbial rabbit down the whole looking for that extra bit of realism in the digital world but as I said Celestion had some mojo to it and I found it did add a new dimension to vst amp sims/cabinet IR's.

 

I vaguely remember Nebula 3 libraries had a few cabs but never gave them a go back then. Not sure if they're still around either. Did find these available for N4 - PowerCabs – DiBiQuadro Audio but for some reason the trial refuses to authorise in my bought legit N4 and can't be annoyed raising a ticket with Acustica to see if they're any good.

Yes static IR's are undoubtedly good. You can get really close these days to the real cab but believe me if your a nerd who keeps looking for that extra little something Dynamic IR's have that extra something. I did find the Celestion better than Two Notes but maybe just needed to spend more time dialling in the tone?

 

Even though I have a limited experience playing with real cabs, I wonder how much improvement will these dynamic IRs make, especially when the differences between a properly mic'ed up cab and an IR of the same setup are this close?

Yes, IRs can't replicate the feel of having a real cab in the room with you. But as someone who's primarily played with modellers and plugins, IRs have never felt unnatural to me. On the contrary, I sometimes have difficulties dialling in a tone when I do have a real amp next to me.

If it's somehow possible, IMHO the battle that needs to be fought is trying to replicate the feel of an amp in the room, rather than trying to make IRs dynamic.

 

Not the same. Apparently DynIR is still static IR's, just presented in a way that it's easier to blend (that's what they mean by dynamic).

 

for real ? so basically they are all MPT files ?

 

That's what i got from the description on their website (and why i said apparently) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Two Notes are marketing their IR's as DynIR. They claim they are dynamic if one uses the overload feature in WoS between 0-20%. This they say imitates distortion of the speaker and adds harmonics making the static IR dynamic. But I still found Celestion an altogether different experience, much better in my opinion.

 

I agree with @mk_96. I read carefully Two Notes plugin site. Seems the "dynamic" part is about recording a lot of IRs with different input volumes. Besides the usual variations (mics, close, far, angle, distance to cone, etc). With some little tricks to emulate the distortion using static IRs. I think Amplitube 4+ also does that.

The Celestion one seems to be the real deal according to their claims. It's emulating the distortion (non-linear) part, not adding some trick on top of static IRs. They stress a lot the distortion unlike Two Notes, so that's my takeaway.

 

My main Cab sim is Nebula 4 loaded with OwnHammer 412-GTR MAR-CB MIX MSC.
Studio Vintage or Studio Modern versions

The real deal is LOW freq cab resonance.
That "palm mute" rumble.
It can't be reproduced by static IRs. And is a big part of "lifeless" feel on high gain sims.

That's why some devs added algos to resonate those freqs.
NadIR STL is one of them

But it is just a "guessed" feature.
You need to know the original cab resonance freq, how much it resonate ...

HP distortion is a part of it too, BUT it is much more subtle than low freq resonance.

I will try Celestion one now
Note : Not possible to test it ... so no go for me

PS : as a side note, non linear cab features are reproduced by PROFILERS.
Because they are non linear by nature.
Kemper, Neural DSP plugins/Quad Cortex, Mooer MNRS 2/GE Labs, THU Rig Player ... and of course Nebula cabs

 

Last edited: Aug 5, 2022

I remember the Ownhammer developer saying that the effect was minimal.
This was many years ago so I don't know if they still think the same way today.

Another individual developer also said that he could not release a commercial plug-in for Dynamic IR because Acustica Audio owns the rights to it.

 

I read ages ago that short IRs supposedly do not capture low end all that well. Maybe worth a shot trying longer IRs.

 

DiBiQuadro Powercabs sounds awful anyways :P All of them sound quite harsh and thin.

Ownhammer made a couple of impulse libraries for Nebula 3 that are quite good, but they are not for sale any longer. They are basically the same IRs that were in their earlier cab packs, but with an added power amp/tube section and speaker distortion.

There are two different tube varieties (or I think that it's meant to be two different types of tubes) and you can also dial in the speaker distortion to your liking. The tube slider changes the sound from 0 = off, 1 = a bit more lows and low mids, 2 = a bit more scooped and more lows. If the amp sim you are using has a power amp section you don't need to have this enabled. The speaker distortion (H-dist) does not only add a bit of saturation but changes the whole impulse with it, so these are real dynamic IRs just like the rest of Nebula and Aqua libraries.


I think that you can still get them over at the sister site if you want to give them a try. For being such old libraries (2011-2013) they are surprisingly good!

 

Last edited: Aug 5, 2022

OwnHammer MAINLY dropped the ball because it was too much work for them AND few customers AND too much support (because Nebula is a b1tch).
I know ... i was in NON OFFICIAL contact with them

Here is THE SAME OwnHammer capture in Nebula format AND IR format :
https://www.mediafire.com/file/d0frb5cz5djyysi/TEST_NN1.wav/file
https://www.mediafire.com/file/0k5946h0vehpgc6/TEST_NN2.wav/file

One is muddy in the low end, the other clear and dynamic
Same for other freqs, but more subtle
And it is even more obvious in a mix

Guess ?

@Arabian_jesus Yes, those impulses still rules for 10 years.
Sadly, no successor anywhere ...
The only "alternative" : profilers BUT with less flexibility (cab is fixed on each profile)

For now my dream rig is THU Rig Player with disabled cab AND Nebula 4 + OwnHammer 412-GTR MAR-CB MIX MSC
This is what you hear on ONE of those two tracks
The other is NadIR "dry".

PS : DI is from here
https://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum...i-pack-real-drums-on-the-backingtrack.711085/

 

Last edited: Aug 5, 2022

Found them ;-) Will give them a try thanks.

 

Not sure if there's a problem but there is a 14 day demo available here: Celestion SpeakerMix Pro Demo | From Celestion Digital (celestionplus.com)

 

There are others that have

Since Celestion doesnt have a trial (oops they apperently have a trial version when it was released there was no trial and not some months after the release aswell) so i had to rely on YT videos and frankly i didnt hear anything that was revolutional in those videos.

 

DynIR from Two Notes is for mic placement only.
There is no dynamic resonance capture : it is "regular" IRs
Same with MixIR and others.

Some IR loaders have "afterward" resonance : NadIR, Libra ...
https://www.thegearpage.net/board/i...litube-and-cypress-tt-15-free-plugin.2075897/
But it seems they only simulate AMP resonance ... not cab

Here is an old plugin (sadly no EAR update) trying to imitate it ... but no setting on it :
https://plugins4free.com/plugin/2393/

As said earlier, i will stick with Nebula + OwnHammer AND OR profilers for a long time