Can you reproduce the sound of an Orange PPC412, a Fender Deluxe Reverb, a Marshall 1960A, a Mesa Rectifier, a Vox AC30, a Roland Micro Cube, an Orange Micro Crush...? Yes you can!
YES YOU CAN!
Orange PPC412
Fender Deluxe Reverb
Marshall 1960A
Mesa Rectifier
Vox AC30
Roland Micro Cube
Orange Micro Crush
For each sample:
* 1 rhythm guitar to the left
Amplifier simulator Aradaz Crunch
Cabinet simulator LeCab, with the following IRs:
1 cab 80% left (microphone Royer R-121), 1 cab 60% left (Shure SM57)
* 1 rhythm guitar on the right
Amplifier simulator Aradaz Crunch
Cabinet simulator LeCab, with the following IRs:
1 cab 80% right (Royer R-121), 1 cab 60% right (Shure SM57)
* 1 solo guitar in the middle
Amplifier simulator LePou LE456
Cabinet simulator LeCab, with the following IRs:
1 cab 10% left (Royer R-121), 1 cab 10% right (Shure SM57)
This configuration is always the same, only the cabinet changes
(Orange, Fender, Marshall, Mesa, Vox, Roland)
For Roland Micro Cube and Orange Micro Crush, I used IRs that I created, (downloadable here), with a combination of a Shure SM57 dynamic microphone and a Rode NT5 static microphone.
For all other samples, I used IRs from the Redwirez retail collection.
As you can hear, even when always using the same amp head, the final sound will change a lot depending on the cabinet and the mike used, which is completely logical. You must find the right combination between the head and the cabinet. You can even use the head only if you wish. All of this is virtual, you may do things the way you like them!
FREE IMPULSE RESPONSES
On the Internet, you can find IRs made by people and freely distributed. Unfortunately, their quality goes from excellent to very poor. The only way to know is to try them. I gathered some IRs from various cabinet brands: Mesa, Fender, Marshall, Vox, Orange, Soldano, London City... That's already a very good start. The microphones used to make these IRs are classics from Sennheiser, Shure, Rode, AKG, Neumann...
For free, you will have something to make some good mixing.
I add two zip files containing a total of about 950 more IRs. It's a wide collection, but the file naming is somewhat messy. Some names are crystal clear, some others... you'll have to guess...
On this page, you can download IRs that I created with my own amps. Audio samples will give you an idea of the type of sounds you can expect.
These IRs are audio files to use in IR loaders such as LeCab 2 or MixIR 2, in order to assemble a virtual cabinet simulator.
You can also buy professional, high-quality IR packages. They sound really good, because the designers of these IRs have access to a lot of hardware and can provide us with a wide range of IRs. With each cabinet, several microphones are used, and each microphone is placed at different places before (or even behind) the cabinets, so you get nuances that will enrich the sound. Users can then combine several IRs for each guitar or bass take in order to get THE sound they're looking for.
Each cabinet offers a minimum of 550 IRs. The whole collection costs 121 dollars (about 90 euros), which is OK considering the number of IRs and the amount of work put into it. And good idea: you can buy each cabinet IR collection separately. You get the first cabinet collection for 10 dollars (about 7 euros) and the next cabinets will grant you volume discounts.