7. IR Loaders

How Do I Load an IR?

To use an IR, you need a piece of software that can, at a minimum, load an IR and know how to apply it to your signal in (close to) real time. Typically, it would be placed at the end of the effect chain in your DAW. Just make sure that the amp model you are using doesn’t have cab simulation enabled, we don’t want to cascade cab simulations. Like with anything else, there’s a bunch of options out there. I went through many of them and narrowed down to three options:

Ignite Amps NadIR (website)

Guys from Ignite Amps make some great effects and this IR loader doesn’t fall behind. It supports up to two IRs at the same time which can be blended continuously into mono or stereo output and adds no latency to the signal. Each of the the two IRs can be delayed by up to 20ms and you can apply low pass and high pass filters. Delaying one of the impulses for very little can help thicken by simulating two mics that are at different distances from the cab. The loader is very easy to use and easy to toggle between IRs that are located in the same folder. Two IRs covers a lot of ground, but I’d love to be able to add a third room mic. Still, a great plugin. And it’s free!

nadIR
LePou LeCab (website)

Like everything else from LePou, this is very good, and also free. It can load up to 6 IRs at the same time, transform each of them separately (low pass and high pass, delay, pan, phase flip) and mix them together. The only downside is that it introduces some latency, independently of the latency you get from the audio interface. You can usually get away with about 1ms of latency which shouldn’t be a problem. It’s very easy to use, similar to NadIR, but with more IR slots available.

lecab
RedWirez mixIR2 (website)

Nice plugin that can load and mix multiple IRs, but most importantly, operates with zero latency, regardless of the number of impulses loaded. It’s very powerful, but I don’t find it to be very intuitive and file browser is a bit clunky. Fortunately, it’s an operation you won’t need to repeat too often once you choose the IRs you like.

mixIR2
Leave A Comment

  • About

    The idea behind this site is to share my experience with Do It Yourself approach to guitars, amplifiers and pedals. Whether you want to save a couple of bucks by performing a mod or upgrade yourself instead of paying a tech, or want to build your own piece of gear from scratch, I'm sure you will find something interesting here. Also, this is the home of DIY Layout Creator, a free piece of software for drawing circuit layouts and schematics, written with DIY enthusiasts in mind.