Any Suhr Reactive Load users here? Worth the price?

I found the stock irs not great for what I do. Maybe they are designed to be played live at a loud volume. I really like the suhr Celestion greenback ir. It’s the 57 bright I believe. That works great with my Friedman. I want to try the York audio irs as well.
 
Bardagh said:
Have had my RL:IR for a few years now and it’s definitely worth it. Vastly superior IMO to amp sims, the Kemper etc.

The catch is you need great impulse responses, and to me the ones that come on the RL aren’t great. They’re too dark and sound a little weirdly processed. I think I’ve tried something from just about every IR maker out there and the ones I’ve recently picked up from @easstudios are really the best IMO.

I had actually shelved my Suhr RL for the most part because I got tired of auditioning hundreds of IR’s and not finding something that worked when songwriting but since I got a selection of dude’s IR’s I am using it quite a bit again. They just sound and feel really natural, and he even included IR’s where he’s tried to counter the effect of the RL’s greenback 4x12 impedance curve.
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I think I’ve got Ownhammer loaded on my RLIR. Have you used those, comparatively? I am wondering how they stack to eaststudios you mention.
 
I'll just never understand why there's a 3,5 mm headphone jack on the RLIR. It's a studio device, not a fuckin' walkman. Same for the St.Rock React:IR.
 
Shipping tomorrow, can't wait to get my hands on this.

Any recommendation regardind IR's? I would like to check for a 4X12 V30 good one, without eq post process etc, you know, trying to emulate my real setup as possible.

Some of the IRs used by @ultimateguitarmetaltones sound really good. :geek:
 
I thought about one of these, but ended up getting the Fractal LB-2 X-Load instead. Extremely useful piece of gear!
 
MrDowntown said:
I think I’ve got Ownhammer loaded on my RLIR. Have you used those, comparatively? I am wondering how they stack to eaststudios you mention.
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Yeah I have although I think all my Ownhammer IR’s are their older ones and they supposedly do them differently now. The ones I have are OK but I can still tell they have some post processing/filtering on them. It especially bothers me when it seems like there is a low pass filter applied, because it makes dialing in your amp harder and weirder.

When I run a JCM 800 into the thing but no matter what I do it just can’t sound bright, something is fucky. Of course when you’re mixing stuff you apply some filtering to the extreme high and low end of your guitar tracks but one size doesn’t fit all and it always seems that guys who make some of these IR’s go for something excessively smooth.
 
I have only tried the Two Notes Torpedo Captor X and Suhr RLIR, but I vastly preferred the Suhr even with the exact same IRs loaded into them and all of the fancy Two Notes EQ bs turned off. No matter what I did, there was always an annoyingly fake high end fizz in the Captor X. Maybe mine was defective, but the Suhr RLIR was exactly what I expected it to sound like. It has now become the most useful piece of gear I own, and I highly recommend it to everyone who owns a tube amp.

It's a lot more versatile than just an IR loader. There's a line out at the speaker level which you can use to run a W/D/W setup, there are both printed and non-printed IR outs, you can attenuate with it, play music through it, pipe it to studio monitors and jam out, requires absolutely zero external software, made by one of the companies with some of the best customer service on the market... The list goes on and on.

My favorite IRs are the Bogren Digital ones, especially the Kohle ones. Amazing for metal recording.
 
DaveShred86 said:
Is that big the difference between the RL and the RLIR?

I am willing to use the RL with IR downloaded from here and there, just trying to emulate my 4X12 V30...
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Other than the IR in the RLIR, the RLIR also has a high cut switch and a pad switch. The high cut switch is if you are planning to use it to reamp (slaving). You can mod the RL to add the high cut switch, which is what I did to mine, cause I use my amps into the Suhr RL, then take the line out into a power amp, then to a speaker cab, basically making my own fryette power station.
 
Code001 said:
I have only tried the Two Notes Torpedo Captor X and Suhr RLIR, but I vastly preferred the Suhr even with the exact same IRs loaded into them and all of the fancy Two Notes EQ bs turned off. No matter what I did, there was always an annoyingly fake high end fizz in the Captor X. Maybe mine was defective, but the Suhr RLIR was exactly what I expected it to sound like. It has now become the most useful piece of gear I own, and I highly recommend it to everyone who owns a tube amp.

It's a lot more versatile than just an IR loader. There's a line out at the speaker level which you can use to run a W/D/W setup, there are both printed and non-printed IR outs, you can attenuate with it, play music through it, pipe it to studio monitors and jam out, requires absolutely zero external software, made by one of the companies with some of the best customer service on the market... The list goes on and on.

My favorite IRs are the Bogren Digital ones, especially the Kohle ones. Amazing for metal recording.
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Now there is something I am thinking about.

"My favorite IRs are the Bogren Digital ones, especially the Kohle ones. Amazing for metal recording."

Are these under heavy EQ / effects etc? I would feel a little bit like cheating, you know, maybe I'm wrong but, wouldn't that maybe alter a lot the character an natural sound of the amp ?

What I am trying to replicate at max is my Mark III through a "vanilla" 4X12 V30 cabinet, of course there will be always differences, but using these Kohle IR's, will that make a big difference with how my amp sounds through my 4X12 on my rehearsal room?

I'm just trying to avoid loosing the natural sound and character of the amp and let the IR do the work.

As I'm writing this I feel that I am wrong all the time haha
 
DaveShred86 said:
Now there is something I am thinking about.

"My favorite IRs are the Bogren Digital ones, especially the Kohle ones. Amazing for metal recording."

Are these under heavy EQ / effects etc? I would feel a little bit like cheating, you know, maybe I'm wrong but, wouldn't that maybe alter a lot the character an natural sound of the amp ?

What I am trying to replicate at max is my Mark III through a "vanilla" 4X12 V30 cabinet, of course there will be always differences, but using these Kohle IR's, will that make a big difference with how my amp sounds through my 4X12 on my rehearsal room?

I'm just trying to avoid loosing the natural sound and character of the amp and let the IR do the work.

As I'm writing this I feel that I am wrong all the time haha
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To answer your question directly - yes. They are EQ'd and processed to fit mixes just like the other Bogren Digital IRs that Jens makes.

I do not believe any IR could ever match that of a real room feel or sound. Even if you were to run it through FRFRs. You're going to get a miked sound. It is inherently different and which is why some people don't get along with them. They have never heard their amps under a mic and/or have never directly compared what the room sounds like versus what the microphone is pickup up in the DAW. You lose that feedback loop between your guitar and the speaker cabinet's waves reverberating against you. You lose that ability to radically shift the sound you hear simply by moving off to the side. You lose that bass response by coupling the cabinet to the floor by removing the casters.

As someone who focuses mostly on recorded tones, this is perfect for me. For a casual player who wants to play at night or in low volume environments, I also feel it's great. For someone who is looking to easily A/B between a real speaker cabinet and an IR like you're describing, I would say it is not ideal...but I think it is also something you should try and see how it is for your specific situation.
 
Code001 said:
To answer your question directly - yes. They are EQ'd and processed to fit mixes just like the other Bogren Digital IRs that Jens makes.

I do not believe any IR could ever match that of a real room feel or sound. Even if you were to run it through FRFRs. You're going to get a miked sound. It is inherently different and which is why some people don't get along with them. They have never heard their amps under a mic and/or have never directly compared what the room sounds like versus what the microphone is pickup up in the DAW. You lose that feedback loop between your guitar and the speaker cabinet's waves reverberating against you. You lose that ability to radically shift the sound you hear simply by moving off to the side. You lose that bass response by coupling the cabinet to the floor by removing the casters.

As someone who focuses mostly on recorded tones, this is perfect for me. For a casual player who wants to play at night or in low volume environments, I also feel it's great. For someone who is looking to easily A/B between a real speaker cabinet and an IR like you're describing, I would say it is not ideal...but I think it is also something you should try and see how it is for your specific situation.
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I understood and aggree with all you said, it's quite obvious and I think I just formulated myself quite bad about what I really wanted to ask.

I am sorry for that.

My real concern is that if I use certain IR's, they are going to add gain or distortion or they are going to radically change the character of the amp, of couse, I mean the miked amp, and I will not feel that I am playing the IIC+/III stravaganzza I have now.

But anyway the consensus here seems to be that even using IR's, you can steel feel the tone of your amp.

I'm so much in love with my Mark III I don't want it to sound too different, but I have seen that on Kohle's package there are some impulses that can work great for me, specially on the "Rainbow" (....) package. There's some Mesa 4x12 love in there.
 
DaveShred86 said:
I understood and aggree with all you said, it's quite obvious and I think I just formulated myself quite bad about what I really wanted to ask.

I am sorry for that.

My real concern is that if I use certain IR's, they are going to add gain or distortion or they are going to radically change the character of the amp, of couse, I mean the miked amp, and I will not feel that I am playing the IIC+/III stravaganzza I have now.

But anyway the consensus here seems to be that even using IR's, you can steel feel the tone of your amp.

I'm so much in love with my Mark III I don't want it to sound too different, but I have seen that on Kohle's package there are some impulses that can work great for me, specially on the "Rainbow" (....) package. There's some Mesa 4x12 love in there.
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No worries, totally get it. The IRs shouldn't add gain (unless you're using those crazy Kohle Chainsaw ones which are specifically manipulated to make the IR sound like it has an HM2 in front of the amp. The Rainbow ones are much more natural sounding). However, there may be a perceived gain increase. Pete Thorn did an amazing video on this very subject:

I used to own a Mark III, and it was my main amp for many years. Miss it a ton and totally understand you wanting to try to get the closest "in the room" sound as possible with that bad boy without the IRs mucking about with the sound too much. On the stock Suhr RLIR, check out the four cabs from Bank 2. Those will be your V30 4x12 cabs. See how that works first. If it's not working out for you, PM me, and I will see if there is something else that might work out for you based on what you feel is missing.
 
I finally figured out how to get a good sound out of my Suhr RL. I was using a regular guitar cable into my computer's recording interface and it didn't sound very good at all. Finally figured out I needed a TRS cable and the Line Level on my interface and it sounds great! I tried York Audio's Friedman Greenback/V30 IRs and a couple of the IRs sound just like my cab which is a Marshall 1960B with WGS Invaders and Retro 30s. Looking forward to trying more.

I'm going to have to figure out how to get it into my FM3 so I can experiment with all the great IRs in it.
 
jchrisf said:
I was using a regular guitar cable into my computer's recording interface and it didn't sound very good at all. Finally figured out I needed a TRS cable and the Line Level on my interface and it sounds great!
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I am planing to use a good XLR mic cable, directly into my Audient ID22 Mic input 1 , I guess that will be more or less like using a TRS through line?
 
Code001 said:
No worries, totally get it. The IRs shouldn't add gain (unless you're using those crazy Kohle Chainsaw ones which are specifically manipulated to make the IR sound like it has an HM2 in front of the amp. The Rainbow ones are much more natural sounding). However, there may be a perceived gain increase. Pete Thorn did an amazing video on this very subject:

I used to own a Mark III, and it was my main amp for many years. Miss it a ton and totally understand you wanting to try to get the closest "in the room" sound as possible with that bad boy without the IRs mucking about with the sound too much. On the stock Suhr RLIR, check out the four cabs from Bank 2. Those will be your V30 4x12 cabs. See how that works first. If it's not working out for you, PM me, and I will see if there is something else that might work out for you based on what you feel is missing.
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Thank you very much again friend, will check the video asap this night.

When I saw Kohle's Chainsaw I immediately thought about HM2 and other stuff to "super-gain" (.........) the signal, I guess that there must be at least one IR on Rainbow that's more or less vanilla, but who knows...

I just purchased the RL version, not the RLIR so not preloaded IR's here! haha...

Will try various 4x12 v30 IR's and if they don't make it I will PM you for some help (sorry if I'm bothering you already too much). By the way, did you ever use your Mark III with the Suhr loadbox?
 
DaveShred86 said:
I am planing to use a good XLR mic cable, directly into my Audient ID22 Mic input 1 , I guess that will be more or less like using a TRS through line?
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Check out the post by John Suhr. It is very confusing because the manual for the regular RL really doesn't mention much but John has posted a lot about it at TGP. But it sounds like you don't want to use mic levels:
https://www.thegearpage.net/board/i...lr-ts-trs-line-hi-z-etc.2387577/post-35339778
If it’s the Original RL is transformer isolated out, use XLR to TRS to the interface. Line level settings in the DAW. Or use mono in to the instrument level input. Can really do either but balanced is better to cancel out any interference in the cable. One might handle ground loops differently than the other. Preferable the input is 25K or higher but I’ve seen no real issues going in to 10K. Try it both ways and see what works for your DAW. Mono in to the instrument input works fine but if there is any issues I’d recommend the XLR to TRS. And if you have an option for input impedance choose something like 25K or higher

For the RLIR that has balanced low impedance dual line drivers. It is happiest with balanced TRS to TRS going in to 10K or lower input impedance. If you ever get weird ground loops or squeals with the interface, common with Scarlett and some others, simply clip the shield of the cable at one end only. That has always eliminated any issue.

Make sure you never go in to the Mic input and don’t use direct boxes. Make sure you obey digital levels on the DAW and make sure you are monitoring only the IR track in the software if you are adding IR in the DAW.

If that doesn’t answer it please use our Customer Service.
Thanks
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So..this would mean...

Guitar to amp - > ampt to suhr amp input - > suhr xlr out to audient id22 in with an XLR to TRS cable

should I increase gain level on that input? or just let it at 0? haha, I feel I am really bothering you guys...
 
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DaveShred86 said:
So..this would mean...

Guitar to amp - > ampt to suhr amp input - > suhr xlr out to audient id22 in with an XLR to TRS cable

should I increase gain level on that input? or just let it at 0? haha, I feel I am really bothering you guys...
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On the iD22 you have the ability to run straight to the converters and bypass the preamps due to the two inputs having a send and return. Just plug the 1/4” cable into the channel’s return input on the back.

You won’t be able to increase or decrease the gain at the interface or use high pass filter or anything but it does sound different. You may prefer it or you may prefer going through the preamps but it’s worth checking out.
 
DaveShred86 said:
Thank you very much again friend, will check the video asap this night.

When I saw Kohle's Chainsaw I immediately thought about HM2 and other stuff to "super-gain" (.........) the signal, I guess that there must be at least one IR on Rainbow that's more or less vanilla, but who knows...

I just purchased the RL version, not the RLIR so not preloaded IR's here! haha...

Will try various 4x12 v30 IR's and if they don't make it I will PM you for some help (sorry if I'm bothering you already too much). By the way, did you ever use your Mark III with the Suhr loadbox?
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Didn't have the RLIR when I had my III, but I did use my RLIR with a IIC+. Worked well.
 
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