Hi

I have been seeing a lot of Impulse Responses (IRs) on our sister site recently.

what do you do with these and what software do you use to read them.

many thanks

Storm

 

You use them with a guitar cabinet sim, a convolution reverb, or other IR loader.
They contain a sample of some real space's acoustic response, which can then be applied to the incoming audio, changing its spectre and/or adding reflections.

 

Load them into your favorite convolution processor/reverb. It's really that simple.

 

ahh ok, so it mimics the characteristics of said device?

I've seen some devices aren't reverbs, say it's a compressor or an MPC, so what does the IR do for this type of hardware?

 

Thank you Baxter

Any suggestions for a good IR Loader

 

SIR3, MConvolutionMB, LiquidSonics Reverberate 3, Kilohearts Convolver, TH-U, Overloud Supercabinet....

 

Perfect thank you so much.

Have a great weekend

 

Don't trust when IRs are advertised as more than reverbs or EQ snapshot (that includes cabinets or just the frequency response of something)

Besides that, the other guys have explained it just fine.

 

For those rare souls that use Linux, LSP Reverb Impulse, LSP Impulse Response, BlueLab BL-Impulses will do.

 

few different use cases actually:
1) reverb
2) guitar/amp sim

and in ideal scenario, you need IR in same samplerate and channel count/layout your DAW and IR loader is, else you often end up with unwanted results

 

3) Sound Design - you can use any Sample as an IR and create crazy sounds / effects with it.

 

IR's are similar to stamp collecting, you can never have enough!

 

Last edited: Apr 11, 2024

the technique (of "unfolding" a folded response) does always the same; it changes frequencies over time.
because it basically multiplies the spectra of the two input signals which each other.

so it only depends on the IR file you are using if it recreates a notch filter, a 3-band eq, an echo effect or a room reverb of an actual physical room.

in industry products it is mostly used for "eq" and "reverb" but you can do lots more with it.

tzhe process of "folding" and "unfolding" are identical and in theory relatively simple.

but what is difficult is to make them use lesser CPU by calculating it more clever than sample by sample.

the latter is known as FIR filters, which are closely releated.
you´ll find those in many reverbs, auralfilters, decoders, fixed frequecny filters and minimal phase EQs. the response is often only 128, 512, or 4096 samples long here, and to calculate they go the long way without optimisations.

 

Last edited: Apr 18, 2024