PreSonus Blog

Ampire has a User cab that can load impulse responses. You knew that, right? What you may not know is that you can load stereo cab impulses, and they magically make the User cab stereo. If you’re thinking “but creating impulses is such a hassle,” it’s not—let’s get started.

How It Works: Overview

Start by downloading the 44.1, 48, and 96 kHz stereo impulses. These are 1-sample spikes, so if you listen to them, don’t expect a thrilling audio experience. To create the impulse response, load a stereo impulse into an audio track, but no other audio—just the impulse. Send the audio to two cabs, set up in stereo (e.g., using two FX Channels, panned as desired). Don’t include any amps or effects—only the cabs. Bounce or otherwise mix/export the result. This is the stereo impulse response.

Step-by-Step Instructions

For the sake of example, we’ll assume you want a 4×12 M65 and a 2×12 VC 30 as your stereo cabs, but you can use any cabs you want, including cabs from other amp sims. Referring to fig. 1, this setup works for Artist or Pro.

Figure 1: Setup for creating a stereo impulse response.

1. Create a stereo audio track, and load the impulse that matches the song’s sample rate.
2. Create two FX Channels.
3. Insert an Ampire into each FX Channel. Make sure that amps and effects are bypassed.
4. Choose the 4×12 M65 cab for one Ampire, and the 2×12 VC 30 for the other one.
5. Create a pre-fader Send to each FX Channel from the Stereo Impulse track, so you can turn the Stereo Impulse track’s fader down.
6. Pan the FX buses as desired to create a stereo image for the two cabs.
7. All the faders and Send levels should be set to 0 (except for the Stereo Impulse track fader, which should be all the way down). Note that the Send levels default to -6.0, so set these to 0.

Create the Impulse

1. Click on the Stereo Impulse, then type Shift+P to set the loop indicators to the impulse length.
2. Select Song > Export Mixdown. Choose the appropriate options (fig. 2). 64-bit float works fine for this application. Also check Import to Track.

Figure 2: Export your Impulse Response so you can use it with Ampire.

3. Click on OK. This creates a track with an Impulse Response that’s the same length as the original impulse, and imports the new Impulse Response to a Song track.
4. Normalize the Impulse Response you just created to around -3 dB.
5. Create a folder for your stereo impulse responses, open it in the Browser, and drag the normalized Impulse response into it. Your work is done.

Fun Time!

DOWNLOAD THE IMPULSES HERE

Create an audio track, load Ampire, plug in your guitar, and select an amp. Choose the User cab, and then click on the + symbol in the Mic A: field. Navigate to where you saved the impulse response, load it, and kick back with your cool stereo cab.

To get you started, the folder you downloaded with the impulse also has stereo Impulse Responses for the M65+VC30 and 4x10American+2x12Boutique stereo cabs. Try them with the new High Gain and Painapple amps…you’re gonna love ‘em.