With Technology giving us new features every month (instead of every year) and AI about to conquer this field as well, many might wonder if Impulse Responses have now become irrelevant in the modeler/plugin industry. While the options offered to the user have now become too many, Impulse Responses are still kept like a treasure to the ones that have already found what the market has to offer and want to try it (and might be the only thing they trust blindly) with any new gear.
But why would Impulse Responses still be relevant when the technological advancements have provided us with almost all tools we need? In order to understand the answer to this question we need to realize the impact of the Impulse Response to someone’s sound. And to realize the impact, let’s perform a simple test:
Using your modeler/plugin, put an EQ effect at the start of your chain and have some drastic settings, for example a bit too much bass or a bit too much treble. Something that would be noticeable right away. Then, move that EQ effect with the exact same settings right at the end of your chain. If it was noticeable before, now the difference will be tremendous to your ears! And if you think that is happening only with EQ, try doing the same thing with a simple db boost. Same thing.
What does that test teach us? It teaches us that any change we make to our signal chain has more impact as you put it further in the end of your signal chain. To further compare the “positions” of this example, the db boost at the beginning of your signal chain would be a db boost (or simply gain) for your pickups, while moving it at the end of your signal chain it would become a master volume! Now we understand how impactful and Impulse Response is because it is something we usually put at the latter stages of our signal chain.
Ok someone might say, but doesn’t that mean that an Impulse Response is just a fancy EQ that I could simple create on my own? Short answer, no. Although the technical specs are for another article and might not be interesting to a guitar/bass player that wants to focus on his music, some examples prove that it is not just EQ. When creating an Impulse Response, we can also put compressor, alter the phase or even create Mastered Impulse Responses that maintain consistency when changing Audio Sources (Headphones, Speakers etc).
To summarize our topic, Impulse Responses are able to still be relevant and as it seems will be one of the most important part of our Tone in the future as their impact to it plays a major role and is the main reason that advanced users would start a Rig/Preset from an Impulse Response they know well or match the desired amp with one!
The NVA Impulse Responses include LIVE (Raw, Filtered) and STUDIO (Mastered, Enhanced) versions of the IRs that are suitable for different situations!
Discover the NVA Impulse Responses here.