Available Now at Northeast Music Center!

MESA/Boogie CabClone IR Cabinet Simulator & Reactive Load – 8 Ohm

Your favorite tube amplifier, sixteen professionally captured MESA cabinet sounds, and the freedom to record, perform, or practice without putting a microphone in front of a speaker. The MESA/Boogie CabClone IR 8 Ohm combines a reactive load, impulse-response cabinet simulation, balanced DI, headphone monitoring, and USB IR management in one compact professional tool.

The MESA/Boogie CabClone IR 8 Ohm gives guitarists something incredibly useful: the ability to keep using the sound and feel of their real tube amplifier while eliminating many of the complications associated with microphones, cabinets, stage volume, and recording environments.

Connect your amplifier to the CabClone IR and you can send a cabinet-simulated signal directly to a recording interface, mixing console, or front-of-house system.

Want to use your physical cabinet at the same time? You can.

Want silent operation without a speaker cabinet? The CabClone IR's internal reactive load makes that possible when the unit is properly connected and configured.

Want to practice through headphones? That's built in as well.

Available from Northeast Music Center, the CabClone IR is an extremely powerful solution for players who love their tube amplifier and want to integrate it into a modern recording or live-performance setup.

KEY FEATURES & SPECIFICATIONS:

• 8-ohm version
• Designed for use with compatible tube amplifiers
• Internal reactive load
• Supports amplifiers up to 150 watts RMS
• Cabinet-free silent operation when properly configured
• 16 factory MESA proprietary cabinet IRs
• Two banks of 8 cabinet presets
• BANK A – LIVE
• BANK B – STUDIO
• Eight different MESA cabinet configurations captured with two different microphone approaches
• Dynamic + Ribbon microphones used for LIVE bank
• Condenser + Ribbon microphones used for STUDIO bank
• Third-party IR compatibility
• Large internal IR library capacity
• USB connectivity for IR management
• Balanced XLR DI output
• Headphone output
• Dry / uncompensated Line Output
• Ground/Lift switch
• Output Level control
• MIDI connectivity
• Speaker output for simultaneous use with a physical cabinet
• 2ms latency
• 96kHz / 24-bit AD/DA conversion
• 48kHz / 32-bit processing
• Supported IR format: WAV / Mono / 48kHz
• 24-bit IR files preferred
• Maximum IR length: 100ms

YOUR REAL AMPLIFIER — NOT AN AMPLIFIER MODEL

This distinction is important.

The CabClone IR isn't trying to replace your amplifier.

You still plug your guitar into the amplifier you already know and love.

Your tubes.

Your preamp.

Your power section.

Your controls.

Your gain structure.

Your amplifier's actual response underneath your hands.

The CabClone IR sits between the amplifier and the rest of your recording, monitoring, or speaker system and provides the load and cabinet simulation necessary to use that amplifier in ways that would otherwise require a physical speaker cabinet and microphone.

For players who have invested in a great MESA tube amplifier, that's a very different proposition from simply replacing the entire rig with a digital amplifier model.

16 MESA CABINET IRs INCLUDED

This is where the CabClone IR becomes considerably more powerful than the original analog CabClone.

MESA includes 16 proprietary cabinet impulse responses organized into two banks of eight.

The same eight cabinet configurations appear in each bank, but they were captured using different microphone combinations.

BANK A – LIVE

Uses Dynamic + Ribbon microphones for a more immediate sound intended to work particularly well in live or dense mixes.

BANK B – STUDIO

Uses Condenser + Ribbon microphones, providing an alternate professionally captured interpretation of the same cabinets.

This gives you sixteen immediately accessible cabinet/microphone combinations without connecting a single microphone.

EIGHT LEGENDARY MESA CABINETS

The factory IR collection includes:

1. 4x12 Rectifier Standard – Celestion Vintage 30

2. 4x12 Rectifier Traditional – Celestion Vintage 30

3. 2x12 Rectifier Horizontal – Celestion Vintage 30

4. 1x12 Rectifier – Celestion Vintage 30

5. 1x12 Thiele – Celestion C90

6. 2x12 Lone Star – Celestion C90

7. 1x12 Lone Star 23 – Celestion C90

8. 1x12 California Tweed 23 – Jensen Alnico Blackbird

And because each cabinet was captured in both LIVE and STUDIO banks, you have 16 factory IR choices immediately available.

That gives you an impressive amount of MESA history inside one compact unit.

ONE AMPLIFIER — MANY DIFFERENT CABINET PERSONALITIES

Think about what this means in practice.

Take one great MESA head.

Run it through the 4x12 Rectifier Standard IR and you have the familiar authority and Vintage 30 character associated with a large closed-back Rectifier cabinet.

Switch to the 1x12 Thiele C90 and the entire personality changes.

Move to the California Tweed/Jensen Alnico capture and you're in another tonal world again.

And because the LIVE and STUDIO banks use different microphone combinations, you can quickly compare two professionally captured interpretations of the same cabinet.

That's an enormous amount of flexibility without physically owning eight different speaker cabinets.

USE YOUR REAL SPEAKER CABINET — OR DON'T

The CabClone IR gives you both options.

You can connect a compatible speaker cabinet and simultaneously send the IR-processed signal to your interface or mixing console.

That makes tremendous sense on stage.

Your cabinet provides the physical sound and feel you want behind you while front-of-house receives a consistent cabinet-simulated direct signal.

No microphone placement.

No microphone stand.

No worrying that somebody bumped the microphone between soundcheck and the performance.

And importantly, MESA's internal reactive load also allows properly configured cabinet-free operation.

That means you can record or practice silently without connecting a physical speaker cabinet.

INTERNAL REACTIVE LOAD

This is one of the most important features of the CabClone IR.

A tube amplifier's speaker output cannot simply be connected to an ordinary line-level input.

It needs an appropriate load.

The 8-ohm CabClone IR provides an internal impedance-matched reactive load designed for that job, supporting compatible amplifiers rated up to 150 watts RMS.

That allows the amplifier's power section to remain part of the signal.

And for many guitarists, that's exactly the point.

The interaction between preamp, phase inverter, power tubes, output transformer, and load is an important part of what makes a great tube amplifier feel like a great tube amplifier.

IMPORTANT — THIS IS THE 8-OHM VERSION

This particular CabClone IR is the:

8 OHM MODEL

That specification matters.

When connecting a tube amplifier to a load device, proper impedance matching is essential.

MESA produced impedance-specific versions of its CabClone products, and this unit is intended for an appropriate 8-ohm amplifier output.

At Northeast Music Center, we strongly recommend checking the amplifier's speaker-output requirements before connecting any load box or cabinet simulator.

This isn't a specification to guess about.

THIRD-PARTY IRs

You're not limited to MESA's factory library.

The CabClone IR supports compatible third-party impulse responses.

Connect the unit to your computer via USB and it appears as a file-storage device, allowing compatible IR files to be moved into the CabClone's library and assigned to available preset locations.

MESA specifies compatible IR files as:

WAV

Mono

48kHz

with:

24-bit preferred

and a maximum length of:

100ms

Longer files are truncated to 100ms.

So you can begin with MESA's excellent factory captures and then build a personalized IR collection over time.

DIRECT TO YOUR RECORDING INTERFACE

This may be one of the CabClone IR's most useful applications.

Instead of:

Amplifier → Cabinet → Microphone → Microphone Preamp → Interface

you can create a direct recording chain built around your actual amplifier.

No microphone placement.

No room acoustics to fight.

No excessive volume in the house.

And perhaps most importantly, repeatability.

Find a combination you love and you can return to it again.

Tomorrow.

Next week.

Or six months later.

That's enormously useful when recording an album or project over multiple sessions.

BUILT FOR THE STAGE

The same principle becomes valuable live.

A traditional microphone in front of a guitar cabinet works beautifully—but there are variables.

Microphone position can change.

Stage bleed can become an issue.

A stand can get moved.

Different venues provide different microphones.

With the CabClone IR, the DI signal can remain consistent from venue to venue.

Your favorite amplifier still creates the tone.

The CabClone IR simply gives front-of-house a predictable way to receive it.

HEADPHONE PRACTICE WITH YOUR TUBE AMP

There's also a headphone output.

That's particularly useful for players who own exceptional tube amplifiers but can't always operate a speaker cabinet at practical volume.

The CabClone IR's internal load allows the amplifier to operate properly while the IR processing provides the cabinet component of the headphone sound.

So instead of practicing through something completely different from your main rig, you can practice through your amplifier.

MIDI CONTROL

MIDI compatibility takes the concept another step.

Instead of treating the CabClone IR as a device that has one cabinet sound selected for an entire performance, compatible MIDI control can allow different cabinet IR presets to become part of a more sophisticated switching system.

Clean tone?

Choose one cabinet.

Crunch rhythm?

Another.

Lead?

Another.

That makes the CabClone IR particularly attractive for professional rigs where amplifier switching, effects, and cabinet simulation are being controlled together.

BUILT FOR PLAYERS WHO DON'T WANT TO GIVE UP THEIR AMPLIFIERS

That's really the story of the CabClone IR.

Modern guitarists have incredible digital options available.

But plenty of players still own tube amplifiers for one simple reason:

They love them.

They love the response.

They love the dynamics.

They love the way the power section interacts with the speaker load.

They love the sound.

The CabClone IR doesn't ask those players to abandon their amplifiers.

It gives those amplifiers a way to work in a modern studio, stage, and silent-practice environment.

At Northeast Music Center, that's why we see the CabClone IR as much more than a recording accessory.

It's a bridge between two worlds.

Your real tube amplifier on one side.

Modern IR-based recording and live connectivity on the other.

And right in the middle:

MESA/Boogie CabClone IR.