# Feature requests for a new stage positioning plugin?



## chimuelo (Sep 18, 2010)

*Re: Features request for Early Reflections plugin*

I would love to see that.
I have a DSP plug for ER's but it is algorhythmic in nature which means when you want to get realistic sound you need to use a Multi FX rack with several instances loaded, and each will have it's own sample delay.
Way too complex and resource hungry IMHO. 

Would you store these in RAM......?
That would be ideal for sample streaming instruments. The ER's MUST be accessed at the same time as the virtual instruments target buffers, which is measured in Nanoseconds. Right now my DRAM access is 11.5 ns.

Just as an example,.....
Most Orchestral recordings avoid the natural ER's and record in the middle of a famous Hall instead of the stage.
A plug like this would allow the user to use dry authentic/virtual instruments and then have the choice of using ER's or not.

I welcome this and wish you well....


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## Justus (Sep 18, 2010)

*Re: Features request for Early Reflections plugin*

Hi Peter,
I want to support you but I have to think about it 

But I can tell you that I like some of the features of IRCAM Spat (especially "Source Warmth", "Source Brilliance", "Room Presence" and all the Radiation Controls).
May be you want to have a look at the demo version (http://www.fluxhome.com/products/plug_ins/ircam_spat)?
Could be inspiring...

Kindly,
Justus


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## Mr. Anxiety (Sep 18, 2010)

*Re: Features request for Early Reflections plugin*

Peter, great idea and I'm sure you'll end up with a cool product.

Is it safe to assume that you are making a VST plug that allows one to "place" the individual sections or groups of players of the orchestra into their proper depth perspectives within a space. Sorry, for the basic question, but want to make sure of the objective.

In that case, you'd make a plug that you put on individually for each stem or channel of the WW - Brass - Strings - Perc - Soloists?

And it would be VST + AU? What about Pro Tools? RTAS as well?

So it's a custom reverb plug for ERs with presets for section placement (WW,Brass etc.) so the user can quickly pop this into a stem or channel and get the sound to push back into the room at the appropriate amount? Of course, pre-fader. 

Just trying to clarify what it is you're setting out to do, then I can respond to features, etc.

Best of Luck

Mr. A.


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Sep 19, 2010)

Hey Mr. KeepItCool 

You're questions are actually answered in my first post. I will go for VST and AU indeed. I have not yet investigated RTAS code support. I have a very limited budget (read: none), so buying a Mac will be a serious reason for stopping with smoking  I think experimenting with ProTools will be too expensive for the coming months, but of course it is a very important platform for this concept.

The embedded impulse responses will be tailor made for:
V1, V2, Vla, Celli, CBS
Flutes, solo flute
Clarinets, solo clarinet
(and so on - quite a lot of presets).

I will make the IRs for the most common orchestral seating, but will also support positioning adjustments and channel swapping, so that you can for instance put the second violins on the right side.

For all instruments sections, the plugin will use TrueStereo IRs, for solo instruments mono-to-stereo IRs will be used. What will make this plugin stand out from other more general IR plugins, is that it will also handle the panning of the incoming signal. So, you should just feed an unpanned stereo or mono signal and the plugin will use a preset stereo panning and then apply the early reflections. When you adjust the dry/wet ratio, the panning/positioning will remain "correct".

You are correct that it will be a pre-fader insert plugin.

Density and coloring will be handled by run-time mixing of separate but matched IRs with early reflections. The first bank of IRs will be based on synthesized/modelled spaces plus stuff from my Lex 960L, TCE 6000 and Bricasti M7 libraries. 

I hope to be able to start sampling real spaces this winter, but this will require additional investments in recording and playback devices. I have some nice ideas for removing effects added by speaker(s) and microphones, in order to get a really representative capture of the space sampled. For this project, I will have to compete with Audioease - and since I live in the same area as them, I may try to "re-do" some of their Dutch halls and chappels with my approach.

Cheers,

Peter


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Sep 19, 2010)

*Re: Features request for Early Reflections plugin*



chimuelo @ Sat Sep 18 said:


> I would love to see that.
> I have a DSP plug for ER's but it is algorhythmic in nature which means when you want to get realistic sound you need to use a Multi FX rack with several instances loaded, and each will have it's own sample delay.
> Way too complex and resource hungry IMHO.
> 
> ...



I hope to be able to get this working at zero latency, which for VST programmers means that I have to do all the processing on the buffer passed by the VST/AU host. I have already found some very handy code optimization tricks.

Thanks for handing me the idea to be able to use this plugin as well within sample players!


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## chimuelo (Sep 19, 2010)

I was thinking it to be used outside of the sample playback devices.
It would get its own Core and load several instances.
Check into how Pyramix bypasses the OS and steals a core for itself.

http://www.merging.com/products/show?product=1&page=1 (http://www.merging.com/products/show?product=1&amp;page=1)

The sample buffers are just targets from what I understand pre-streaming, therefore having it stored in RAM would give it the proper placement in the memory subsystem.
I mean whats the use of adding an effect to a sound that has already been formed..?

Thats what VST based verbs do now from what I understand.
They just add a tail and since they come after the sound has already been formed its cool. Its latency actually is a natural pre delay already.....

DSP reverbs, and hardware DSP based reverbs use RAM for this process and thats why a Bricasti Model 7 is probably the best realtime space recreator available.
I am in no way a technical afficiando, but I have used hardware, DSP and Native for years and Love Reverb. But I don't use Grand Canyon tails, etc.
I just try and recreate the actual space I require.

I often play really large wooden stages that have a natural backslap and a natural room/stage built in. Adding some tail or even ER's isn't necessary, but a slight amount makes my samples sound more realistic. 
The carpeted stages means I have to add the hardware and DSP verbs in my AUX channels and redo my mix during the soundcheck. No biggie as I must have the space there since the stages are dead, and usually have an additional riser thats also full of deadening material.

A plug like this might just get me to leave the hardware at home. The FOH usually has some ancient SPX90 for the mains anyways.
But I love making sure my stage monitors make certain instruments up front ( usually dry ) and others, percieved further back in the mix.
DSP and hardware verbs are perfect for this.

I use to have this crappy gig at a place called Vacation Village ( Vacated Village ) where the FOH was also a security guard.......... :mrgreen: 
We called him Sargeant Sound, but I always told him to take off the God Awful Alesis Quadra Sperb.............it was truly the most haneous sounding effect I ever heard. And some folks wondered why I chugged large quantities of Jager at that gig.

At any rate, I wish you well Peter and look forward to this.
I have asked developers for this and a sostenuto pedal for years........I got one of them now...

Ankyu...


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Sep 20, 2010)

lee @ Sun Sep 19 said:


> Just a simple question: How could Mr Roos make a plugin working at the sampler level? You mean he would ask NI if they were interrested in implementing his thingie into Kontakt?
> 
> If I´m not mistaken, Gigastudio was the sampler that allowed 3rd party vst plugins?
> 
> /Johnny



I admit I haven't checked if Kontakt supports VSTs... Sorry, I still run several Gigastudio PCs and assumed that other sample players also support VSTs. Sorry for this incorrect point of view. Anyway, I think plugins like this should be run within a sequencer's mixer. Using it within a sample player like Gst might help for some "load balancing".


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Sep 20, 2010)

Justin M @ Sun Sep 19 said:


> Hi Peter,
> 
> If possible it would be great to have some EQ (even if just LP/HP) and also a delay function. This would help enormously to blend the dry (direct) sound with the ERs; depending on stage placement.
> 
> Justin


 
Thanks, this is also on my list. Shifting the ERs in time will be in it and I will also look at providing some EQ stuff, but this is another area where sound quality it very important - and I am not sure if I also want to implement high-end equalization algorithms...


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## gmet (Sep 22, 2010)

Thanks Peter,

Just to be clear; I know that you are designing this for ERs, however I was actually refering to EQ and delay of the dry (direct) signal. This always creates the same challenges as getting the right balance of ER & Tail. If the plugin could operate at two levels:

1. Pan, EQ and direct delay of the dry signal
2. Stage placement ERs

Justin


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## gmet (Nov 19, 2010)

Just a quick bump Peter to ask how development is going!

Regards,

Justin


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Nov 22, 2010)

I'm sorry that there have been no recent developments, or tests. Two months ago my old development laptop died, and although I can still access the HD, I have not yet created a new development environment.

The main reason is that I have to focus on getting new IT projects, which are my main form of income - and the last two years have been very bad, financially.
I did make a detailed research and development plan, and the outcome was that I'd need to invest a LOT of time to create this product. So it's now on the backburner, although I will set up a development environment and do some proof of concepts.

For my free time, my AudioHelp project (a big community that I am developing in Drupal) has a higher priority, as it looks it will have a much higher ROI than the Stage Positioner plugin.

Thanks for asking!

BTW, I was away last week, visiting my pregnant daughter on Curacao, where I also got the chance to swim with Doplhins!

If you want to see the photos, check my FaceBook profile (be-friend me first, if you are not yet connected).

Cheers!


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## jlb (Nov 22, 2010)

Peter, Just to let you know I love the idea of a Stage Positioner plug in and would be happy to pay quite a bit of money for one. Is there anything else available that does this?

jlb


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## Dietz (Nov 22, 2010)

jlb @ Mon Nov 22 said:


> Peter, Just to let you know I love the idea of a Stage Positioner plug in and would be happy to pay quite a bit of money for one. Is there anything else available that does this?
> 
> jlb



... cough ... www.viennamir.com ... cough ... :wink:


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## germancomponist (Nov 22, 2010)

/\~O


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## Hannes_F (Nov 22, 2010)

edit: Go Peter go! :wink:


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## paoling (Nov 23, 2010)

Hannes_F @ Tue Nov 23 said:


> jlb @ Mon Nov 22 said:
> 
> 
> > Is there anything else available that does this?
> ...



This is a kind of MIR. The site is not so goodlooking though... Anyway in some months there should be out MIR PRO..


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## Hannes_F (Nov 23, 2010)

edited because distracting from the thread topic


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## germancomponist (Nov 23, 2010)

edited because distracting from the thread topic.
0oD


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## Hannes_F (Nov 23, 2010)

edited because distracting from the thread topic


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## Justus (Nov 23, 2010)

Somehow I have the feeling that Hannes and Gunther are the same person and each split personality has an account here. >8o 
Just kiddin!


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## germancomponist (Nov 23, 2010)

edited because distracting from the thread topic.
0oD


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## Hannes_F (Nov 23, 2010)

edited because distracting from the thread topic


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## jlb (Nov 23, 2010)

Thank you guys for the suggestions, I have seen Vienna MIR but I wasn't convinced, I will have a look at the other ones.

jlb


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## Mr. Anxiety (Nov 26, 2010)

Peter, How is this project coming along?

Mr A


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