Celestion is celebrating its centennial anniversary with the release of the Celestion 100 Impulse Response Collection. Headliner finds out how these meticulous and accurate digital downloads bring the tone of the Celestion 100 guitar loudspeaker to DAWs and modelling amplifiers…
The latest from Celestion is the Celestion 100 Impulse Response Collection, a downloadable library of impulse responses designed to meticulously capture the tone of the Celestion 100 loudspeaker — recently introduced in 2024 commemoration of the company’s 100th anniversary — for any digital music production platform.
Whether in a DAW for recording or a modelling amplifier for performance, these impulse responses (IRs) place one of the most iconic and historically significant Celestion sounds within arm’s reach of any musician, recordist or producer.
The Celestion 100 speaker traces its roots to the original G12, a general-purpose 12-inch radio speaker that was later fortified to meet the rapidly evolving demands of electric guitar amplification in the ‘50s and ’60s. This iteration became the T530 or Alnico Blue, which worked so well that it was installed in the Vox combo amps (a favourite of The Beatles) that powered the ‘British Invasion’ of the early 1960s.
Today’s hardware Celestion 100 delivers the tone of those early Alnico speakers and its many descendants and variants, but with more durable materials, state-of-the-art manufacturing processes and precise tolerances — akin to a collectible automobile that has been not merely restored, but tastefully modernised.
The Celestion 100 Impulse Responses digitise these sonic characteristics via a meticulous recording process, beginning with studio-quality, go-to guitar cabinet microphones such as the Royer R-121 ribbon, Shure SM57 and Sennheiser MD421.
Each IR thus offers a variety of mic type and placement options and can be loaded into any IR host within a DAW or into stand-alone amp modelling hardware. The result is an authentic speaker emulation that sounds every bit as outstanding as its hardware counterpart.
With the Celestion 100 IRs, musicians can expect a blooming low end and bell-like treble coupled with a sweet, shimmering midrange. When overdriven, the IRs compress gradually and musically, softening the notes’ attack in the exact same fashion as classic Celestion alnico loudspeakers.
The complete Celestion 100 IR Collection includes five cabinet configurations: 1 x 12 open-back, 1 x 12 closed-back, 2 x 12 open-back, 2 x 12 closed-back and 4 x 12 closed-back.
These reflect the most widely used setups for studio recording and onstage use across single, dual and four-speaker cabinet sizes. Each of these can also be purchased and downloaded as a single impulse response, though the full collection represents a significant cost savings compared to buying IRs individually.
Paired with a DAW and IR loader plugin, modelling amp hardware or amp-top load box, the Celestion 100 Impulse Response Collection provides authentic tone alongside lively and dynamic response, all without introducing latency.
These benefits create a playing experience that is as credibly vintage as any speaker can achieve, but with real-world performance that is predictable and reliable in today’s most demanding recording and performance applications.
The Celestion 100 Impulse Responses join an extensive family of acclaimed Celestion IRs, including the Shades of Greenback Collection, G12-50GL Lynchback, Neo Creamback, Copperback, Hempback, Vintage 30 and many more.
The Celestion 100 Impulse Responses are available for download as individual IRs and as a complete collection at celestionplus.com.
The introduction of authentic Celestion Impulse Responses represented the company’s forward step in making its celebrated speaker tones available as digital downloads. Celestion IRs capture the essential behavior of a speaker in a particular cabinet in the specific space in which it was recorded, including the frequency and phase response of single drivers as well as the interaction of multiple speakers.
They offer significant benefits in both recording and live production, enabling the desired tone to be precisely and consistently reproduced regardless of the recording or live sound environment.
Celestion’s own SpeakerMix Pro sees the company delivering a truly forward-thinking studio software solution that enables users to get every ounce of tone from Impulse Response technology. The companion Dynamic Speaker Responses (DSRs) for the plugin exemplify the next generation in speaker response emulation, representing a true advancement in the technology of digital speaker tone.