3rd party .TSR IR with mic type,distance,position please

jazzyjoepass

New member
Hi, I've owned a Two Notes Torpedo Live for about a year. I am the second owner and I bought this off another owner for half the price.
I have some negative and positive feedback and some suggestions to Two Notes. I hope you will take this constructively and take the feedback to improve the product. I really think there's a lot of potential here but Two Notes missed the mark somewhere on certain aspects.


Negative comments
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I have to say when I first used the Torpedo, I could never bond with the Torpedo and had left it sitting on the shelf for about a year or so.

Scrolling through the the presets, I found cabinet simulations pretty unusable.
The cabinet tones are unlike what I hear of the real thing in person and have a tendency to sound harsh, thin and most of all, stiff.
The tone reminded me of getting a DI direct output from a tube amp to the mixer without a cabinet simulation or load box.

If I disregard the similarity between the real thing and the Torpedo for the time being and concentrated on just getting a usable sound, I'd have to do a little bit of tweaking on the parameters on the Torpedo. I realise this is the case and most of the IRs required some EQ and adjustments of other parameters like distance, type of mics, mic'ing position, etc.

If I needed some tutorial guide on tweaking the cab simulation or video demo, I was unable to find any relevant, because most of the demos are based around heavy metal tones. I have yet to watch a video preview that doesn't use heavily tweaked tones, but straight dry un-EQ'ed tones and not in a mix situation. I prefer to audition sounds dry because that gives me a good indication of tonal quality of the IR samples without the bells and whistles, background mixes, etc.

And because of the negative initial impressions, I think that might also be putting people off from exploring with the Two Notes Torpedo Live.
Most people would prefer to be able to select presets and use them on the fly and that gives them the confidence that there is potential with the product and encouraged them to further explore.
A lot of studio/soundcheck time can be cut if Two Notes designs good usable presets.



Positive comments
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I think Two Notes captured a niche market here. The difference that sets Two Notes apart from the other DSP modelling technologies (ie. Kemper, Fractal Axe FX, Line6, etc) is that your source is still a real analog amp (eg. valve vacuum tube amp).

So recently out of wanting to maximise my investment, I took the time out to explore the Torpedo further. Despite the same setbacks, I thought probably the IR samples was probably not good and I bought myself some 3rd party IRs. Interestingly enough, the Torpedo became so usable that I became so inclined to using it with my collection of guitar amps. The 3rd party IRs sounded warmer and didn't have that stiffness you get when you DI an amp to a mixer.

This whole deal turned me on to the Torpedo. I've found a new use for this product and it's opened up whole new avenue of possibilities for my setup with my valve amps.


Suggestions
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I think Two Notes forte is not in the creation of the cab IRs but the design of these DSP cab simulation/loadbox hosts, which you have done well.

Two Notes has the Torpedo Capture utility to create personal IRs, but I wonder if Two Notes can release a full fledged software to create .TSR cab simulation IRs that can access the other parameters (distance, mixing position, mic types, etc). I hope Two Notes are willing to release information on how to create them. This could create a bigger market for Two Notes products as then 3rd party designers would be able to create custom IRs for Two Notes and reinforce Two Notes position in the market.



Regards,
MIKE.
 
Thank you Mike for this in-depth review.

Building good presets is really hard, as they depend a lot on what you put before the Torpedo Live. between an amp that tends to sound a little dark and, say, a 5150, there is a world of difference on how to set the mic position to get a useable and easy to mix sound.

But if you have suggestions to make to help in this, or even presets to share, I'll take some time to listen to them and understand what you want.

This said, that is strange:

The tone reminded me of getting a DI direct output from a tube amp to the mixer without a cabinet simulation or load box.

Well, if you have even low level of distortion in your tone, even the worst placement of a microphone with a guitar cabinet in the Torpedo Live (a bass cabinet may sound harsh with distortion) is far away from a DI output on an amp. But knowing that is what you felt is interesting. Basically it is very simple to compare the DI sound with the simulation, all our products have a bypass on the simulation so one can quickly do an A/B comparison.

Two Notes has the Torpedo Capture utility to create personal IRs, but I wonder if Two Notes can release a full fledged software to create .TSR cab simulation IRs that can access the other parameters (distance, mixing position, mic types, etc). I hope Two Notes are willing to release information on how to create them. This could create a bigger market for Two Notes products as then 3rd party designers would be able to create custom IRs for Two Notes and reinforce Two Notes position in the market.

If you take a look at the thread I started today about the "most wanted cabinets", we offer now to studios to participate in this. We give them the Torpedo Capture Studio software and operating instructions and the way to sell those IRs through the Two Notes store. It is only the beginning but any interested studio should contact me.

Again, thank you for your feedback. :thumbsup:
 
For what it's worth, I had a similar experience in that when I first scrolled through some of the presets I was really disappointed and my first few attempts at creating my own cabs were remarkably underwhelming.

After I loaded up some Ownhammer and Redwirez impulses I was liking the unit better because I could create my own IR cocktails in my DAW and then ship them to the torpedo live for live use.

But now I find I have come full circle and am getting most of my tones from the Torpedo Live itself. i have over a dozen different cab setups and the majority are built right in the box.

I admit there are some cabs I will probably never use but the ones I do use I use all the time now.

I'm sure there is an adoption curve to technology like this and it is probably helpful and important for a company like Two Notes to realize that education and information in regards to using the TL and other products in the line are essential to a good end user experience.

For what it's worth I love my TL now and am about to buy another as a backup just in case... I don't want to have to live without it.
 
gtrgriff3 summed up what I felt regarding initial impressions and the lack of education/information on using the products.

I feel alot of non-metal users are left out in the cold when most of the videos online are heavily distorted tones.
There's also quite a lack of official videos on the product that I found it hard to convince other mates of mine to convert over to Two Notes.

I'm happy I made the extra effort to overcome my initial negative impressions and explore more.
Imagine my surprise when I ran my Matchless thru an Ownhammer Alnico Silver cab IR - so real !!!

I'm glad there's gonna be more third party cab IRs now that Two Notes is opening up the creation of the samples.


Cheers.

Mike.
 
I have been using my Torpedo C.A.B. with a load box and my amp head for over a year now. While I initially found useful tones using the built in mic and cabs, I found it hard to get the kind of dynamics that I wanted. I started messing around with third party IRs and blending/mixing IRs and I haven't looked back. Most recently I have created my own IRs using the Torpedo Capture software, a PreSonus AUDIOBOX, an Shure SM57, an Audix i5, and my own 2x12 cab and amp head. I then used the Torpedo blender software to give me a mix of an SM57 capture and an i5 capture. The result has been the most realistic speaker sound that I have ever gotten with a blended IR. Now since I was using my own amp head running through its pre-amp and power amp sections, I'm not sure that my TUR file would work for anyone else, but it works great for my exact equipment.

I would love to be able to purchase 3rd party TUR files, as well as have the ability to capture a snapshot of a static TSR file setting to mix with another static setting (mix mic and speaker or various microphone positions on one speaker). To me a blended or mixed IR of two different microphones on the same speaker lends itself to the best sound and dynamics. For me the dynamics part of the equation is the biggest thing, because if I can get that right with an IR blend, it sounds and feels just like my real guitar cab out of an FRFR speaker or in headphones.
 
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