The Six String Side: Boss IR-2 Amp & Cabinet Pedal

The Boss IR-2 Amp & Cabinet pedal.

When I started this blog nearly 20 years ago, I stated that it was a "Bicycle and guitar oriented elixir....". Well, the "guitar" part sort of got pushed out by the bicycle stuff, but I've always been playing. In an Easter post, several years ago, I mentioned playing my '90 Strat, and someone suggested I detail the fleet,which I have done in the past. (Just search "the Six String Side" in the search box in the upper left of the header to find those older posts)

Now I post about guitar related stuff whenever something significant comes my way.  I hope you enjoy this change of pace here.

Okay, so this is a bit of an unusual accessory for guitar players. In simplest terms, this pedal is an approximation of a traditional amplifier and speaker cabinet for electric guitar. Why would anyone that plays electric guitar want this thing? The answer to the question is a part of this review. So is the evolution to how we got to this place. Finally, I will give an overview of the pedal and my take on it. 

Before I get started, a disclaimer: I bought the Boss IR-2 Amp & Cabinet pedal with my own money. Boss has no idea that I have written this and have not supported me in any way. This is my opinion on this product.

How We Got Here: Traditional electric guitar in its most basic format is a system of a guitar, an amplification device, and a electrical cord to connect those together. The amplification device, typically either a vacuum tube  design or a solid state design, has a loud speaker to broadcast the notes made by the guitarist on the guitar. 

Amplifiers are typically very LOUD. This was fine back in the day when public address systems in venues either did not exist, or were barely audible above a typical crowd. But as times changed, and sound design, front of house tech, and tastes changed, loud guitar amplifiers were deemed as not desirable. Added to this was the growing home recording and playing scene which required sound levels to be very low, or even silent other than to the guitarist. 

The IR-2 amp & Cabinet pedal is a traditionally sized Boss pedal.

Why Would A Guitar Player Want Something Like The IR-2?: As technology advanced, guitar players were able to tame their loud amplifiers with "load boxes", or by running them into devices that not only loaded the amplifier, to keep it from blowing up, but added a sampled speaker response (Impulse Response) to mimic very closely what an actual loud speaker does when it is driven by an amplified guitar signal. You could even use such a device to play quietly with headphones on. 

These devices eliminated the amplifier and speaker arrangement, mimicking them as closely as possible, and allowing anyone to play on a stage without a roaring amp, or at home and have some fun rocking out without annoying the neighbors. The trouble, until now, was that these devices were either not good, expensive, or large.and cumbersome. Sometimes all three at once. The Boss IR-2 solves several of these issues. 

What It Is; Obviously, it is small. It comes in the traditional Boss compact pedal format pioneered by Boss in the late 70's, and is an iconic design that has stood the test of time. It isn't cheap, but it is affordable compared to many similar products out in the marketplace. Boss asks about $200.00 for the IR-2. But is it any good? I'll get to that part. Hold on.. 

The pedal features dual concentric pot controls and an 11-way amp selector.

The Boss IR-2 Amp & Cabinet pedal is what it sounds like, an amplifier and cabinet replacement tool. The "IR" in the name stands for "Impulse Response". So the pedal can take a guitar signal, amplify it, and send out a signal.  That signal, when hooked up to a powered speaker, a front-of-house PA, or an audio interface, sounds like a "real electric guitar" being played. Supposedly.....

To do this Boss has simulated (modeled) several amplifier types, provided a stereo output, a USB connection, a mono input, and a remote switching option jack. Three dual-control concentric potentiometers control a three-band equalization section, "Ambience" control, output level, and overall gain level. There are eleven modeled "amps" to choose from as well. There is also an effects loop. 

The pedal can be powered using a typical DC pedal supply or internally by the traditional Boss 9 volt battery snap, which if I am not mistaken, makes the IR-2 the only device of its type to be able to be powered independently of an external power supply. This allows you to use the IR-2 Amp & Cabinet pedal as a portable device, if you want to do that. 

The pedal can be powered by a 9V DC input or by an internal 9V battery.

I'm not going to review every sound and feature here. That would take far too long and there are great You Tube videos on this device that do that anyway. What I am going to do here is give my two cents on how the device is useful to me, will be useful to me, and what I like and don't like about it. 

Playing The Boss IR-2 Amp & Cabinet Pedal: The first thing I did was to plug in an eighth inch headphone jack, (oh yeah, the IR-2 has a head phone jack as well!), and I plugged in a guitar to the input. Oddly enough, I had sound without turning on the pedal! A long press on the pedal foot switch brought up my amp selection. It sounded pretty good. There was a reverb on the signal as well. This reverb was a spring type, but you can perform a certain procedure using the knobs and foot switch in a certain way to choose a different ambient effect. You can use a Hall type reverb or a Plate type besides the Spring which is the stock setting. I ended up on the Plate setting. The "Ambience" control serves as a level control for this effect. It sounds good without being overbearing or ridiculous, even at the higher settings. 

The IR-2 will "remember" your tonal settings and gain and level settings you choose if you leave an amp selection and go to another. You can return to the previous settings simply by tapping the foot switch, or remote switch, if you use an auxiliary foot switch. The indicator light will go from green to red to indicate either settings and you can tab back and forth at will. But......if you reach down and select another amp, the first settings disappear, and now you have the new amp choice and the previous one. There is no Midi capability or easy way to store presets at all. By the way, a long press on the foot switch turns the IR-2 off. 

The pedal has an effects send and return. Note the tiny print to indicate the amp sims.

I also found that when making tonal changes, it may take a few seconds for those to register audibly. But once the pedal starts tracking one change, other changes are instantaneous. I played with the IR-2 as a stand-alone practice tool using the internal battery. Boss says the battery that is shipped with the pedal is for "demonstration purposes only" and that it may not last long. I replaced it with a standard Duracell battery and I found that this lasted about 3-ish hours. 

I also integrated this set up using a fuzz pedal in front of the IR-2 and on one occasion I used a boost pedal. Both sounded great and did what I expected. So, you could set up the IR-2 to be a "bedroom practice tool" and all anyone would hear would be the natural acoustic tone of your particular guitar. Meanwhile, you'd be rocking out. Nice! 

Next, I wanted to see if I could integrate the IR-2 into my existing pedal board. Ideally, all my gain pedals would run straight into the IR-2's input while my modulation and time based effects would go into the effects loop of the IR-2. The output can then be sent to a traditional amp, probably via the "return" of the effects loop of that amp, or by sending the signal to a direct box and then to a sound board, or to an audio interface. You could run the IR-2 into the front end of a traditional amp, but that is kind of the least appealing way to take advantage of this device, in my opinion. (Or maybe not. See UPDATE below) At that point, just plug in your amp and bypass the IR-2, but that said, you can do this. Simply follow the procedure on Boss' website and disable the Celestion impulse response and then use the physical amplifier that you have. 

My test showed me that the Amp & Cabinet pedal integrates easily into the pedal board, (which is a hot mess as I am constantly changing things out), and that my effects all do their thing as I expect. Again, I had my modulation/time based effects in the effects loop of the pedal, and it all worked perfectly, although I cannot say what difference it makes compared to running everything straight in. I didn't try it out that way. 

 What I Don't Like About The IR-2 Amp & Cabinet Pedal: First of all, there is no physical manual. I tried scanning the QR code which Boss claims takes you to a user manual, but after registering my pedal with them, I was sent to the product page which tells you nothing about things like how to switch reverb. 

I ended up learning how to use the deeper functions of this device from an independent You Tuber review, otherwise I would have been stuck with spring reverb. Not that spring reverb is bad, but what was bad was that I couldn't use what I paid for to use. Boss could do a lot better here. If there is a manual, I didn't find it online. Maybe I missed it. It shouldn't be that hard to find if it is there. I will say that in my defense, if - in fact - the manual is there online.

Secondly, those tiny knobs, the tinier print, and the way the controls are set lower behind the foot switch make this annoying as heck to dial in. But, yeah......whatta ya gonna do? The form-factor of a Boss pedal only has so much real estate, and this is a very pedal board friendly device. If it were bigger it would get too much for desktop use or to be stuck on many peoples pedal boards, especially if you use a lot of effects. So, while that is annoying, I will live with it because of the form-factor and the price in light of what you get here. 

I was a bit disappointed in the 9 volt battery life, but maybe I expect too much. Yeah.....I probably do! So that maybe is not a real negative there. There was one other annoying bit, but I'm going to get to that in my "Conclusions" on this device.

What I Do Like About The IR-2 Amp & Cabinet Pedal: The sounds range from "pretty good" to outstanding. I'm not a heavy rock or metal guy, so I'll leave those sounds for someone else to critique, but what I would use here would make me happy in a live or recording context. As a practice tool they are more than fine. 

The versatility of the device is great. I can use it anywhere as a practice amp with headphones running off a 9 volt battery. Yeah.....you'd burn through a lot of batteries! Three plus hours isn't all that long. But you have that choice which is fantastic. You could definitely use the IR-2 as a back-up to a physical amp. If your amp craps out at a gig, the IR-2 could step in as a sub and get you through a gig well enough, I reckon. And of course, for all those venues that hate physical amps or stage volume of any kind, the IR-2's small footprint make it an easy thing to choose for your gigging needs. And it sounds pretty good to boot, I think.  

What I will Likely Do With The Amp & Cabinet Pedal: After messing around with this thing, I think I'm going to set up a mini-board using the IR-2, a dirt pedal, a delay, and a tremolo. This will sit on my desk and I'll use this to record things and to play along with music "silently". With all the amp sims and two choices, or "channels", I would have enough variety in sound to satisfy my needs for enjoying practicing or sketching out recording ideas. 

Testing the Amp & Cabinet pedal.

Conclusions: There is a lot to like here. Quiet practice, recording possibilities, a device that can help keep stage volumes to a minimum, or this could be a big part of a "fly-rig" or bail you out at a gig when the house amp dies. It sounds decent. Maybe not "just like" the amps it claims to emulate, but totally believable as a guitar "amp" and your effects can really be integrated well. All a big plus from where I sit. 

That all said, I have grown up playing physical, "real" tube amps and one thing the IR-2 and its ilk cannot do, two things they cannot do, are push air and create a feedback loop. Both things being a HUGE part of the experience of playing an electric guitar. 

Try turning up a tube amp and "chunk" some rhythm guitar part. Feel that? It's the amp moving the air physically around you. Now hit a single note, let it ring out, and feel that amp start to pick up on a certain frequency and "feed back". The IR-2 gives you neither of these physically felt, visceral feelings. In that sense I feel kind of detached from the guitar as I played the IR-2, especially if I was practicing along with recordings of my favorite music. Update 12/13/24: Just listened to a 'That Pedal Show" episode concerning Leslie/Fender Vibratone and how digital and physical air movement causes different experiences. Worth a listen - and listen on headphones! Episode on YouTube HERE.

Additionally I felt that my effects lost that interaction with an amplifier by using the IR-2. Again, it is something you have to have had experienced playing loudly with an amplifier to have felt that. Musicians who have always played "in the box" without amps on stage, (or in the home), may not miss what I missed. 

On the other hand, I can play along to music again and enjoy "electric guitar sounds" such as they are today. I can record things on guitar into my computer using the IR-2 and an audio interface or direct into my computer via the USB port on the IR-2. I can practice anywhere silently with headphones using the 9V battery option. Now if some sound engineer tells me that I cannot bring an amp, I can get "my sound" reliably with my effects and the IR-2 going to a direct box or front of house PA. 

Maybe young folks who grow up on these sorts of audio interfaces will never miss a "real amp" experience, but as for me, I'm not selling my amps anytime soon. Even if I rarely get to use them. The IR-2 can fill in the blanks, but that "real amp" experience? I'm not ready to give up that just yet.  

UPDATE 3/3/24: I wanted to jump back into this post to let anyone know who cares what my experiences have been with the IR-2 in a pedal board set up. I decided to keep the IR-2 on my board as seen above and I am running dirt pedals into it which include a fuzz, treble booster, mid-boost, a Marshall-in-a-box pedal, a Boss OD1 style pedal, and a fuzz style distortion. The modulation effects are run through the IR-2's effects loop. Those effects are a tremolo, a phaser, a delay, and a reverb. 

I can run direct to front of house, but as of now, I have not had time, nor opportunity, to do that....yet. I have done something that most guitarists would not consider, I think, and that is to run the whole set up straight into a Deluxe Reverb reissue. I didn't even toggle off the IR-2's cab simulation. I know..... You can't do that! But I did. So..... 

It sounded great. Interestingly, I was using the IR-2's Twin Reverb simulation into the "real" Deluxe Reverb and it sounded fine. Like a "bigger" sound, but still that Fender clean tone. Overdrive was glorious through this set up. The sound? I really did not think it was weird or negative at all. I used a big, washy delay, a big reverb, and the tremolo. All sounded fine. I messed with the treble booster and the distortion during rehearsal just to see, and those worked as I would expect.

 I got lots of compliments afterward too. So, yeah.... It may not work in every instance, but I say experiment. You never know until you try. 

A couple of notes: I think you really have to be fastidious with your power cable runs on your pedal board when using the IR-2. My first attempt was met with a LOT of noise, but after straightening out the spaghetti under the board which I caused when I rearranged the board, everything was pretty quiet. I was surprised, actually. 

The other thing would be to make sure you run the level control on the IR-2 at a slightly lower level than the amp you are driving or things get grainy and really loud. Otherwise, I will definitely be using this set up more.