Like many, I don’t have a lot of money to spend on studio time, so I’m left to recording on my own. I’ve gotten better over the years with mixing and equalizing and in general, my production quality has gone up significantly. But one area where I haven’t been that satisfied is with guitars.
My “normal” way of recording guitars has been through close-miking my amps. But in the recent past, I’ve been using a lot of software sims for amps – they just make it easier. For instance, the amp models in the Amp Designer in GarageBand 10 (which is based on the Logic engine) are pretty damn good now. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have touched them because they were very dry-sounding and lifeless. But they’re so responsive and dynamic now that it’s just easier to use the models for recording.
Up until recently, I’ve just been using the default cabinets that are supplied with GarageBand, and admittedly, they’re just okay. They get the job done. And I’ve been able to EQ the guitar parts to liven them up.
But a few months ago, I discovered Impulse Responses (IRs), which are digitized profiles of speaker cabinets that were said to be extremely realistic. Companies like OwnHammer have huge libraries of cab/speaker sounds. I had heard recordings of IRs and was completely blown away by how good they sounded.
So today, I finally pulled the trigger and got the Core Library from OwnHammer to use in GarageBand. It took just a little while to get all the software configured and usable in GarageBand and once I had it set up, wow! What a difference in sound!
Below are clips that I made using a Silverface amp model totally clean, with the spring reverb set to 5. I used the default EQ settings on the amp model with no EQ in GarageBand.
Both clips actually sound pretty good. But the clip using the Impulse Response has a lot more definition – at least to my ears. 🙂
The GarageBand cabinet was the default for the Silverface 2 X 12 amp model. It is supposed to simulate the cabinet being miked with a Royer 121 ribbon. The IR I used was a profile of a 1 X 12 cabinet from a Deluxe Reverb and uses a combination of Shure SM57 and Royer 121 mics. I chose the IR file that positioned the mics roughly between the center and the edge of the speaker cone. You can’t do that with the default cabs in GarageBand!
With Impulse Responses, many are set up with different microphones PLUS positioning on the speaker cone. This is incredible because it allows you go really fine-tune the cabinet sound.
I’m looking forward to playing with this even more!
Guitar Gear 
The IR version is night and day better. I really should learn how to use garageband.
IRs can really put you in a realistic space
Absolutely! I’m never going back to amp sims, and it’ll be a rare occurrence if I mic another cab in the future. Yes, it’s a bit more of a chore to set up my amps to go output to a load box then into a DI, but the dynamics and the tone that result far outweigh any minor inconvenience. And damn! I’m only using GarageBand to record! 🙂
I looked at garageband for the first time in years the other day…it’s basically like logic now. Quite amazing. Certainly everything most people would need. If the Beatles had an ipad with garageband…lol
No kidding! I was a dedicated Logic user before OSX. Then when I got my new Macbook Pro a couple of years ago, I didn’t bother upgrading my old version of Logic. GB uses the Logic engine for digital encoding anyway, so the sound quality is great. Of course, you don’t get the fine tuning of Logic, but for demos, who cares? 🙂