Cabinetron IR Loader – Three Body Technology

Review license provided by Three-Body Technology – All thoughts and opinion’s within this review are my own and do not reflect those of the developer or others.

INTRO

Threebody Technology are famous for their fantastic, competition shaking, Kirchoff EQ plugin. One of the best software EQs in the business. They have also previously released various other products including Heavier 7 Strings, a virtual guitar instrument. Three Body Technology have now turned their expertise towards creating what they claim to be the Ultimate Cabinet IR Loader, and it certainly does seem to be one that is packed with all the features that many have been dreaming of, and certainly will shake up the competition.

Experience

Cabinetron by Three-Body Technology is an IR loader that I must say has blown me away. I’ve had a truly fantastic time getting to know it (and I’m still getting to know it more to be fair). Sonically, Cabinetron is very impressive and it does what it says on the tin (and much much more). Visually, it’s a very well organised and highly practical interface. It’s CPU-light, quick loading, and has a nice customisable and modern GUI. You can import, phase-align and mix together any of your existing IRs with the visual mixer or you can try the 100s of IR presets that are included. Once happy there’s even a no fuss export feature – so you get a handy mixed-down custom IR that will be ready to be used in any other 3rd party IR loader or hardware device / floor modeler that you own.

The EQ section speaks for itself, featuring many of the core functions of the critically acclaimed Kirchoff EQ, so for anyone wanting to get clinical and really get deep into shaping their tone – you couldn’t ask for a better EQ section.

Briefly, I had a go with the tone-match feature and I was very impressed, it seems to do a great job. I was able to import a song into my daw, find a part where it was just the isolated guitar playing, hit a button and it captured the tone. The result was very close indeed. Admittedly it’s an advanced feature that requires spending time with, and also it is a superfluous feature, but I think there are some people who will absolutely love using this.

Not only is Cabinetron full of great tone-shaping and editing tools, but it is really fun to jam with too. There are enhancements such as the ‘doubler’ (makes things big and wide sounding), the ‘non-linear’ control which simulates the non-linear behaviour of a speaker, and you can add a little room reverb to get the ‘in the room’ sound dialled in for good measure too. With a tool like this one could spend hours tweaking and refining, but straight out of the box it’s effortless to get a great tones in no time. Oh yeah, there’s also a secret weapon called ‘mutate’, which allows you to enhance each IR with one of the 31 included preset eq shapes. Really handy!

UPS/DOWNS

It’s 99% positives here, Cabinetron is a comprehensive and feature rich IR loader that is both easy to use, and is also a surgical tone-shaping tool that will allow you to pretty much do anything you have ever wanted with IRs. There are a few refinements to the interface that I feel would improve Cabinetron further, however these are mostly just basic UX / GUI work. I would love to see collapsing panels like we see in Melda’s plugin interfaces, and also the ability to resize lower than 100%, as the interface takes up a lot of screen space on smaller displays. I’d also like to see some global macros such as being able to globally hp/lp all IR slots at the same time. Three-Body Technology seem positive and receptive to user feedback, so hopefully these and other peoples feedback will be taken on board – and with a tool like this there are bound to be a few areas where things could be made ‘just right’, but it’s already feeling like an incredibly well honed and thought out tool and I would be happy as is. High marks all around!

Conclusion

Quite possibly the most exciting IR Loader released in years, and is definitely one of my favourite utilitarian product releases in the last few years too. I wouldn’t hesitate to snap this up if you are looking for a ‘does it all’ IR loader. It comes with 400 included IR presets, so it’s suitable for both newer users wanting to get started, and also those more experienced users who are looking for surgical precision in their tone shaping and would welcome the extra features. The 50% intro price is very fair, and I’d recommend you check out the trial/demo version – take it for a spin to see if it works for you. =)

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See more – release video from Three-Body Technology :