OrbitCab — Free Guitar & Bass Cab IR Loader (VST3/AU/CLAP)

OrbitCab is a free, open-source cabinet IR loader for guitar and bass. Load a cab impulse response and hear your DI through real cabinet tone, right in your DAW — no account, no cloud. It’s the cab in your chain: drop it after your amp sim, preamp, or amp-head capture (NAM and the like). NAM models the amp, OrbitCab is the cab.

Get it — free

Grab the latest release on GitHub, no sign-up:

Download OrbitCab

VST3 and CLAP — plus a standalone app — for Windows, macOS and Linux, and AU on macOS; Windows and Linux ship both x64 and ARM64. No AAX/Pro Tools build: the AAX SDK needs an Avid agreement and PACE/iLok signing, which a free, open-source project can’t ship.

What’s inside

Two IR slots, A/B blend — load two cabs, crossfade between them on one MIX fader.
Per slot: HPF, LPF, trim, phase flip, dry/wet, and an IR-start (head) offset.
Auto-level — swap IRs without the volume jumping; you hear tone, not loudness.
Four snapshots (A/B/C/D) and presets — switch live, save your own.
Drag-and-drop any WAV IR. Input/output trim, one-click bypass.
Bundled CC0 IR packs (Brutal, Emerald) — the same ones in the cabinet IR editor.

How to hook it up

Everything upstream makes your tone. OrbitCab is the cabinet — the speaker, mic and room that make it sound real and sit in the mix.

In the box

The simplest rig, and the most common today — no hardware amp at all. Record a dry DI through your interface’s Hi-Z input, build the tone in the box with an amp sim like NAM, and let OrbitCab be the cabinet. NAM makes the amp; OrbitCab makes the speaker.

Amp line-out

Got a head or combo with a line-out or DI? Run it into your interface’s line input — just switch any built-in cab sim off, so OrbitCab gets a cab-less signal and supplies the cabinet. (A line-out is often the preamp voice — or speaker-compensated, depending on the amp; for full power-amp character, use the load box below.)

Load box

The studio classic. Drive your amp wide-open into a reactive load box (Two-Notes Captor, Suhr Reactive Load, Boss Waza TAE…) instead of a speaker — it gives the power amp a safe load and a line-level DI of the whole amp, minus the cab. OrbitCab puts the cab back. Never run a tube power amp without a load; the load box is that load.

Preamp / DI pedal

Using a preamp/DI pedal (Orange Guitar Butler, Ampeg SGT-DI…) or a modeler (Helix, Kemper, Quad Cortex)? That box is your amp. Turn its cab sim off, send the DI to your interface, and let OrbitCab be the cabinet. Leave the cab sim on and you’d stack two cabinets.

Just pedals

Just pedals — drives, fuzz, a wall of dirt? Record the pedalboard straight through the Hi-Z input, but pedals aren’t an amp: add an amp sim (NAM) in the DAW first, then OrbitCab. Pedals → amp → cab, the same order as a real rig, just in the box.

Don’t: double cab

The one thing to avoid: feeding OrbitCab a signal that already has a cabinet — a mic’d cab, or an amp/modeler with cab sim left on. Two cab stages in series sound fizzy, boxy and small. Run one cab stage, not two — switch the other one off.

Why load the cab in your DAW?

Even with a top modeler — Quad Cortex, Helix, Kemper — this isn’t about sounding better: load the same IR and it’s the same cabinet, the same sound. It’s about fit. The cabinet does most of the tone-shaping between your amp and the mix — it’s what makes a guitar sit — so the cabinet is the one thing you move to re-seat it, and OrbitCab keeps that move inside the project. Commit the amp (cab sim off) to the track and the tone is locked; then, with that amp sound untouched, reshape how the guitar sits in the mix as drastically as you need — swap IRs, blend two, ride HPF/LPF and level while the song plays, days or weeks later. No re-amping, no re-recording: the amp stays exactly as you played it; only the cabinet moves.

It’s how we record, too. Whatever makes the tone — a tube preamp (Victory V4, Friedman IR-X), a preamp/DI pedal (Orange Guitar Butler, Ampeg SGT-DI), a modeler or amp-in-a-box (Quad Cortex, Fender Tone Master Pro) — we run it with the cab sim off and let OrbitCab be the cabinet in the DAW. The amp stays hardware; the cabinet stays a mix decision.

Privacy

No silent phone-home, no accounts, no keys. The only thing OrbitCab ever sends is an optional "check for updates" ping — version only, no personal data, entirely your call.

Free and open-source under AGPL-3.0 — the license is about the plugin’s code, not your music: anything you record with OrbitCab is yours.

Part of the Felitronics gear line by Darwin’s Cat / Lafox Records.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s a cabinet IR?

A short WAV that captures how a real speaker cabinet and mic color the sound. Run a raw, fizzy amp or amp-sim signal through it and it turns into a miked-up cab. OrbitCab is the player for those IRs.

Is OrbitCab an amp sim?

No. It's the cabinet — the speaker stage. Put it after your amp sim, preamp, or amp-head capture; on its own it won't add gain or distortion. The amp makes the dirt, OrbitCab makes it sound like a miked-up speaker cabinet.

Does it work with Neural Amp Modeler (NAM)?

Yes — that's the classic pairing. NAM models the amp, OrbitCab the cab: load an amp NAM model, drop OrbitCab right after it, and add a cab IR.

Does OrbitCab work for bass?

Yes. Load a bass cab IR and it works exactly like it does for guitar — two slots, blend, the lot.

Can I load my own IRs?

Yes. Drag and drop any standard WAV impulse response into either slot — your own captures or third-party packs. The bundled CC0 packs are there if you don't have any yet.

VST3, AU or CLAP — which do I need?

VST3 works in most DAWs on Windows, macOS and Linux. AU is for Logic and GarageBand on macOS. CLAP is for CLAP-capable hosts like Bitwig and REAPER. Install whichever your DAW scans — or all of them.

Does OrbitCab run on Linux?

Yes — native VST3 and CLAP builds for Linux, both x86_64 and ARM64. No Wine, no bridge.

Is OrbitCab really free? Is it open-source?

Both. Free, with no account and no trial; and the source is open under AGPL-3.0. The license covers the plugin's code, not your music — anything you record with it is yours.

Does OrbitCab collect telemetry?

No accounts, no silent phone-home. The only thing it can send is an optional "check for updates" ping — version only, no personal data, entirely your call.

What do the blocks in the hook-up diagrams mean?

A quick glossary of the boxes:

DI / dry signal — your guitar or bass straight in, no amp and no cabinet.
Hi-Z input — the high-impedance "instrument" input on your interface (for a guitar, bass or instrument-level pedals).
Line input — a line-level input, for an amp's line-out or a load box.
Amp sim — software that models the amp itself (e.g. NAM): the gain and voice, no speaker.
Load box / reactive load — hardware that replaces the speaker so a real power amp has a safe load and a line-level DI.
Cab sim — a cabinet/speaker simulation built into an amp, pedal or modeler; turn it off before OrbitCab.
IR (impulse response) — a short WAV capturing a speaker cabinet and mic. What OrbitCab loads.
OrbitCab — the cabinet: it plays your signal through the IR.

Will OrbitCab get the stains out of my jeans?

No. It's a cabinet IR loader — not a washing machine, not an amp, not a pack of herring. It loads cab IRs and makes your DI sound like a real speaker. One job, done properly. The jeans are on you.