Impulse Response vs. Real Cabinet Recording – Can you hear the difference?
Impulse responses are a great way to get an amazing guitar tone in seconds. IR packs are perfect for home recording, if you can’t get to loud because of your neighbors. But nowadays they are also used a lot in recording studios because they are easy to use. Never before did you have the possibility to have so many different sounds from hundreds of cabinets at your fingertips. But still, some people think that cabinet simulation with an impulse response lacks depth and certain dynamics. During the production of our new impulse response pack “Marsh 1960A” (based on the Marshall 1960A cab), I took the time to test different IR capturing techniques to get realistic sounding impulse response files.
In the player below are 4 different sound examples. One of it is the real setup. Three are impulse responses recorded with different IR recording techniques. Can you spot the difference between the real setup and it’s simulated counter-part?