I created some Impulse Responses for Bass guitar, that can be placed at the beginning of your signal chain, and emulate the sound of a fresh set of strings. They result in a much more clear and less muddy DI.
The way these IRs were made, is by tone matching Bass DI recordings before and after the instrument has been adjusted, to perform and sound in an optimal way. All the spectral differences are then summed up in various combinations and converted to Impulse Responses. Going from the frequency domain, to the time domain (with the help of Inverse Fourier Transform). Finally, a minimum phase filter is applied, to avoid pre-ringing.
Differences between the bad and optimal takes include:
- Fresh strings.
- Fret sanding and polishing.
- Pickup height adjustment.
- String height adjustment.
In essence, these IRs capture the sound of what fresh strings and a better bass setup sounds like.
This is definitely not a replacement for getting fresh strings, but it can easily add sparkle, grind and freshness to your DIs if they feel lifeless.
This package contains 11 Impulse Responses sampled at 48kHz. They come in lengths of 1024, 2048 and 4096 samples. To create these IRs, I used an Ibanez BTB806MS and a Fame Baphomet 4 (Warwick like).
You can listen to the clip below to check the effect of these IRs. The first part is the raw DI, without any IR in the beginning of the signal chain.