We’ll be honest here – getting hold of some impulse responses isn’t going to teach you new chords, improve the accuracy of your fingering technique or make you into a virtuoso player overnight. All these require regular practice and commitment. But for many guitar players, getting in that practice can be a challenge in itself, especially if most of your practice needs to happen at home.
But what if using impulse responses could help you fit in more practice, give you better feedback on your playing and give you motivation to keep going? Find out how having access to pro quality IRs could help you on your journey to becoming a better guitar player.
Practice Cab Free
The ideal practice setup is a fixed place where all your gear is set up and ready to go – your amp, your guitar and your cabinet. However, not everyone has the luxury of a dedicated practice space – you might be in the bedroom one day and in the basement the next. Or, if you practice as part of a band, you might take it in turns to practice at each other’s homes.
It’s just human nature – if you have to carry your cabinet between rooms or between different venues, this is probably going to make you think twice about fitting in a practice session.
But with impulse responses you can take your “cab” with you anywhere. Just plug together your guitar, your amp and whatever DAW or amp modelling gear you use, and get great sound straightaway. This means you have more scope for getting in a quick practice session at times and places where you can’t take your cabinet.
Better Feedback
A key element in developing any skill, is the quality of feedback you get. Only by hearing or seeing how well you did can you start to make the adjustments you need to improve. Our IRs help you get better feedback in three ways:
- You get better, more accurate tone, suited to the track you’re trying to play. This means you’re not fighting the tone to get the result you want – it’s easier to hear whether the difference is the way you’re playing or the speaker/cabinet you’re hearing it through.
- It’s easier to make a recording in, for example, a DAW setup than in a live setup. If you record your playing in a physical setup with a microphone and separate recording device, the quality isn’t likely to really represent how you sounded. But if you record with your IRs you get to really hear how you sounded.
- If you use impulse responses to get a great tone, it will also sound better to anyone listening, so you’re more likely to get appreciative comments rather than negative ones – which can be a great encouragement to keep at it.
Do Not Disturb
Many players who practice at home with a conventional amp/cab/speaker setup are limited to times that are socially acceptable to their own families or neighbours. While we’d always recommend being considerate to those around you, this type of restriction can severely limit your practice time.
One option is to plug headphones into your amp – but this bypasses the cabinet/speaker so you don’t get the same tone through the headphones as you would if you were listening to your speaker.
But by applying impulse responses to your guitar signal and THEN listening through headphones, you are able to hear the tone you want without disturbing anyone – for as long as you want, day or night.
Self-Motivation
An ounce of motivation is worth a pound of effort – and being able to get great sounds out of your guitar is the best motivation there is to keep going and try out new techniques.
Guitar players play guitar because they love the sound of a guitar, but unless you’re strictly acoustic, a big part of that sound you love is determined by the speaker you’re hearing it through. Celestion IRs have been professionally engineered to the point of being just about indistinguishable from the real thing under general listening conditions. Not only that, you get a wide range of mic positions and mixes to try out for each speaker IR you buy, enabling you to easily switch between different tones to find a sound that fits the song you’re practising, or which just sounds better to you.
In short, using IRs gives you better tone, better feedback and more control over when and where you can practice. This could add up to that vital extra couple of hours per week which could make all the difference to your progress.
Check out our range of impulse responses here.
Or download our free IR demo here.