# Instrument spatialization (comparing VSS, Silverspike R2, Altiverb 6, QL Spaces, and B2)



## dannthr (May 9, 2014)

So today I engaged in a Facebook group discussion about spatializing and staging musical sound sources, and I thought I would make a video running through some of the plugins I have to add to the discussion.

I'm sharing it here for the interest of the community and I welcome additional comparisons for other products or thoughts and suggestions on this topic.

For the record, I don't have an iLok 2 right now, so I'm only on Altiverb 6 and Paralax-Audio provided me with an NFR of VSS which I can no longer update.



I feel this is a topic upon which I spend an unhealthy amount of time exploring and developing, I welcome anyone else to share your mutual obsession.


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## Hannes_F (May 10, 2014)

Good job, Dan!


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## dannthr (May 10, 2014)

Thanks, Hannes!


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## PhilipeZ (May 10, 2014)

Nice dan! Many thanks for that. Was quite informative indeed


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## muk (May 11, 2014)

Thanks for the video Dan, very informative! I didn't know Silverspike R2, and it looks very interesting. Dan, do you find that it holds up well against newer competition sonically? Too bad it's only 32-bit.
Some other plugins with a spatial positioner feature are Magix Origami, and the Hofa IQ-Reverb. Origami is a bit dated, but the positioning sounds good in my ears. Both Origami and Hofa IQ let you load custom IR's, which is another plus.


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## dannthr (May 14, 2014)

Hey guys, thanks for the kind words.

Muk, I couldn't seem to track down Origami, but Hofa seems to take a very similar approach to spatialization as Altiverb--by separating the direct, the ERs, and the LRs into independently controlled parameters--they're applying this independent control to simulate some kind of spatial positioning effect.

My only concern with this is the accuracy in representing timing across the stereo field--especially in dramatically panned positions.

Now, it may be that this is a nuance that is not truly appreciable, but I feel it's a big component to our perception of the presence of space, and so I suspect that it's still a worthy goal/aspiration.


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## muk (May 14, 2014)

Origami is part of the Independence sampler workstation:

http://pro.magix.com/en/independence/in ... .1013.html

My impression is that it handles volume and timing differences between the stereo channels extremely well.

Why do you think that using ER's only, for example, does interfere with the timing/delay?


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## dannthr (May 22, 2014)

ER impulses? or Algorithmic ERs?

ERs convey a great deal of stereo timing information.

In impulses, the ER portion of the impulse is dependent upon the source sampled position and any manipulation or attempt to simulate a change in source positioning results in mangling the spatial integrity of the space.

In Algorithmic reverbs that do NOT have a positioner with real-time ER calculation, we are stuck in the same way we're stuck with impulses--we can't manipulate the stereo timing details to properly represent the spatial positioning of our source.


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## Krayh (May 22, 2014)

What about Ircam Spat?


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## Hannes_F (May 23, 2014)

Krayh @ Fri May 23 said:


> What about Ircam Spat?



Ircam SPAT is a league of its own because it can do all of the above and much more, however it does it very clean and is extremely gentle to the quality of the original recording. Quite a beast to handle though and still 32 bit (which does not bother me though). And expensive.

I waited loooong until it was discounted at 50% which happens once in a few years but then I immediately grabbed it and it would be one of my 'I'll take that on the island' plugins.

But depending on which libraries you use (for example if you use Spitfire libs) you might not need it _at all_.


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