IRDX Core - How to add speaker dynamics to any amp sim or IR

👉 Get a free trial NOW: 🎥 Watch the IRDX Tech video: Join producer Jens Bogren on a walkthrough of the IRDX Core plugin and see how you can add realistic speaker dynamics to any Impulse Response or non-Bogren Digital amp sim. IRDX Core — Speaker Dynamics Breathe life into your guitar amp sims and cabinet impulse responses. Simply add IRDX Core after your guitar amp or IR loader plugin and discover the natural movement, the 3D sensation, the slightly jagged edges, and the unpredictability you could previously only obtain by recording an actual guitar cabinet at high volumes with a microphone. What’s wrong with IRs? As much as Bogren Digital loves impulse responses, it’s important to understand that all IRs have a significant limitation: they can only capture a static, linear image of the tone curve and resonances of the cabinet. Real-life guitar speakers, on the other hand, are non-linear, which is a fancy way of saying they react dynamically to the signal that is being fed into them. It’s those non-linearities that IRDX faithfully emulates and adds to your amp sim or IR loader. This is the IRDX difference The IRDX effect may seem subtle at first. But going back and forth between enabling and bypassing it, here’s what you’ll notice: With IRDX Core disabled, every stroke on the guitar sounds similar, and the guitar seems somewhat two-dimensional and lifeless. With IRDX activated, differences between the individual strokes are more discernible, the sound wakes up, and you get all the changes over time that are so important to keep the listeners’ attention. Using IRDX Core in a mixing situation adds width, movement, and excitement to guitar tracks. It also helps guitars sit better with the other instruments. With IRDX Core activated, the guitar sound reacts more realistically to your playing when you play through an amp sim in real time. How do I use the IRDX Core plugin? In any major DAW, launch the IRDX Core plugin on an insert slot that immediately follows an IR loader plugin or a guitar amp simulation that includes a model of a speaker cab. You can use IRDX Core to enhance any such plugin — except for the Bogren Digital ones! That’s because all our amp sim plugins already have the IRDX technology built into them, so there’s no need to add IRDX Core after those. But any other brand’s IR loader or guitar amp plugin will sound better if it’s followed by IRDX Core. In most cases, no adjustments are necessary in the IRDX Core plugin. But you may want to use the calibrate function or manually adjust input/output volume to ensure you get a healthy level from your amp sim into IRDX Core. If you prefer the IRDX effect to be more pronounced, you can switch from Normal to Intense and fine-tune the effect using the IRDX Amount knob. Groundbreaking IRDX Technology IRDX technology breathes life into the guitar sound by adding dynamic and true-to-life behavior to static speaker impulse responses. Impulse responses are excellent at capturing the tonality and resonance of a guitar cabinet. But by nature, they are only static snapshots in time. Real-life guitar speakers react dynamically to the input from the amplifier — they move air, compress, and break up depending on how hard they are being pushed by the amp. An impulse response can replicate the tonal characteristics of a real cab but not the dynamics and other non-linearities. As a result, the sound of an IR can be two-dimensional, lifeless, and fatiguing. The IRDX technology, developed by producer Jens Bogren, uses advanced machine learning methods to reconstruct the difference between a real cab and an impulse response. Any impulse response can be processed with IRDX, and the result is a guitar amp sim that reacts like a real amp, easily fits in a mix without sounding stale, and feels great to play. Music written, and performed by Federico Ascari: 0:00 Intro 0:44 What is IRDX Core? 01:18 Session overview 1:52 Audio examples 2:51 Analyzing the differences 3:30 IRDX in Ampknobs 4:14 Plugin controls 4:59 Calibrating the input 6:25 Calibration tips 7:25 Input gain vs knob amount 8:50 The intense mode 9:32 Outro