some wacky thought I just had

[bryan_kilco]

Was thinking about speaker impulses and had a thought:

Would it be possible to create an impulse of something like a studio monitor or even something like a home stereo and have it be useful? Or take an impulse of an old busted up record player speaker.

Maybe it's a really dumb question, maybe it's already been done, but it's just something that popped into my head. Like for example, get an impulse of say a Yamaha monitor and use it for reference with say an Equator. Am I just crazy?!?

 

[~BURNY~]

Welcome to last decade.

Monitors: IK multimedia does this. ARC system. The general consensus is that it sucks.

Old busted record player: Adioease Altiverb and Speakerphone.

 

[abt]

I used to have a pair of these with this built in http://alesis.com/prolinear720dsp
It actually worked pretty good but overall they were not great monitors.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

I had a pair of M-Audio AV40 monitors. It was a bit like having an impulse of an old busted up record player, except you couldn't turn the impulse off.

 

[xTomx]

Focusrite have their VRM boxes, not much good either.

 

[EOC]

Focusrite VRM

 

[userchanged1]

not exactly the same, but i did have a similar revelation the other day.

Wouldn't it be possible to make an impulse that is a profile of a whole signal chain instead of just a cab?

It sounds so fucking obvious in my head but i'm sure i'm missing something here...

and yes i realize that is exactly what a kemper does but that piece of hardware costs an arm and a leg so it would be badass if i could just load a chain-impulse into lecab and have basically the same thing for free. I mean my pc must have more computing power than a kemper.

feel free to mock me if this thought of mine is retarded.

 

[bryan_kilco]

I mean my pc must have more computing power than a kemper.

I dunno, bro. Looking at the Kemper specs:

Magic

 

[ze kink]

TB Isone is pretty cool, only works with headphones though. It's also more complex than just utilizing impulse responses, and honestly more of a room simulator.

 

[harmonic1]

Smyth Realiser A8

I've had major GAS for this before, wanting to just bypass all LF room-mode problems at home by taking the measurements in a proper studio and bringing them back. But it's $$$$.

 

[tedtan]

Like for example, get an impulse of say a Yamaha monitor and use it for reference with say an Equator. Am I just crazy?!?

Equator is set to release a device some time around this July that allows you to change the response of their D5 and D8 speakers through Bluetooth. I'm not sure if this is just EQ changes (most likely), or if it will affect the distortion characteristics/transient response/etc. of the monitors, or what, but they've mentioned that it will have settings for Yamaha NS10s, completely flat, etc. right out of the box. They've already been talking it up for a few months now, but we'll have to wait a few more before we see if it's any good. I'm definitely interested in checking it out, though, when it's released.

 

[schismatic]

not exactly the same, but i did have a similar revelation the other day.

Wouldn't it be possible to make an impulse that is a profile of a whole signal chain instead of just a cab?

It sounds so fucking obvious in my head but i'm sure i'm missing something here...

and yes i realize that is exactly what a kemper does but that piece of hardware costs an arm and a leg so it would be badass if i could just load a chain-impulse into lecab and have basically the same thing for free. I mean my pc must have more computing power than a kemper.

feel free to mock me if this thought of mine is retarded.

Whole hardware chains already modelled in Nebula. Check out Henry Olonga's stuff.

Also, ARC does not suck at all. It should be used to enhance an already treated or partially treated room. It helps a lot with bass.

 

[RiF]

There are some things to consider when thinking about impulse responses to capture gear or chains of gear:

1. IRs do only capture static frequency curves. They do not capture distortion or any non-linear behaviour, be it over time or amplitude-induced.
The Kemper KPA is not taking IRs, it does more than that and uses a completely different technology (which I haven't understood at all, although I've read the patent paper).
Nebula takes this approach a step further, but I've never used it.

2. For approaches like "make monitor A sound like monitor B" or "make microphone A sound like microphone B" by using IRs, mind that you need to capture the DIFFERENCE of your current device and the device that you want to let it sound like. And your current device needs to be a superset of all attributes of the to-be device to be able to replicate it.
See Slate's Virtual Microphone System for a try to do that by using a full(er) range and neutral reference microphone in hope that it can be turned into any other microphone by modifying it's sound by software (don't know if IRs play any role in here).
IK ARC has a similar approach by measuring the frequency response in your room with your monitors and then it calculates the difference to a flat curve and applies EQ (maybe even more) accordingly.

 

[fdsaevad]

... how hard would it be for kemper to profile every other piece of analog hardware? eq's, comps etc. ... you know, if they can profile every amp/stomp in existence. they could come out with another box.

i wrote that on their forum the other day wasted, should check up on that.

 

[Nimvi]

ARC does not suck at all. It should be used to enhance an already treated or partially treated room. It helps a lot with bass.

Agree, from what I've heard it does work. The problem is when people use it to compensate for a lack of room treatment or just generally horrible situations. You can even out a 2db bass spike, but not a full null. Not to mention that it does nothing for first reflections.

... how hard would it be for kemper to profile every other piece of analog hardware? eq's, comps etc. ... you know, if they can profile every amp/stomp in existence. they could come out with another box.

Considering that the Kemper is only one of the first incarnations of these devices, I can definitely see something like that happening in the future. Would be cool to be able to build your own compressor from individual parts within a device and having it sound convincing. That would unlock some real creativity!

 

[RiF]

... how hard would it be for kemper to profile every other piece of analog hardware? eq's, comps etc. ... you know, if they can profile every amp/stomp in existence. they could come out with another box.

i wrote that on their forum the other day wasted, should check up on that.

Hmmm... I don't think they can. They even say that the KPA is not made for bass amps! I know there are some bass amp profile out there, but it's not made for that, so it might be a hit or miss with the KPA.
Same goes with weirdo amps. I've heard it does not profile very weirdo amps with odd distortion characteristics (e.g. which are sounding like crap to most ears) too good.
It seems to be made for guitar amps and the profiling process seems to assume that it is a guitar amp within a certain range of topologies that it's dealing with and not simply "anything that processes audio".

 

[fdsaevad]

it isn't about the weird amps or bass, it's about who's profiling them and their setup. nothing ampfactory can't get to sound good.

... shoot some weird noise into a device, record how the device changes the noise.

'profiling'.

if it can be done on stomps, amps, cabinets, preamps, why couldn't it be done on something simple like a compressor? all that would change would be the tweaking parameters (instead of treble eq, they have ratio, say).

ya, i'm a genius, thank you very much.

 

[egan.]

No, RiF is right. The Kemper manual straight up tells you it does poorly with some things. It actually names the tubescreamer specifically. IME it has never accurately captured DI's for bass...B7k, BDDI, 400rb di, db750 di.

 

[RiF]

I've read Christoph Kemper's patent paper trying to find out how the KPA does it's thing. To be honest, I did not understand most of it
But it does not talk about profiling ANY kind of audio. It talks about the profiling process of guitar amps. especially the aspect of the distortion characteristics get mentioned over and over again.

So I guess we have still a little to wait for that magic box that can profile any audio processing device.
But who knows, I would not have thought that something like the KPA would be possible a few years ago. And now it's here.

 

[userchanged1]

and a year from now someone will have figured it out and made a free vst out of it, while deviously adding minor tweaks that void the patent.