# Reverb for Spitfire-based orchestra



## kimarnesen (Jan 18, 2018)

I’m struggling to decide how to use reverb and which one(s) to use. At first I was thinking a combination of convolution and algorithmic, but as the Spitfire orchestra were recorded in Air Lyndhurst, maybe just an algorithic one is enough? 

Not everything is Spitfire of course, but Strings, woodwinds, most of the brass and Perc are, so some others will have to work together with it.

Anyone with experience and want to share thoughts or even examples?


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## Geoff Grace (Jan 18, 2018)

I usually prefer the combination of convolution and algorithmic reverbs, but of course there's no hard and fast rule. You may find this video helpful:



Best,

Geoff


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## lucor (Jan 18, 2018)

It's just a matter of taste really. Christian Henson, who basically uses Spitfire/AIR samples only, just uses an algorithmic reverb. Jake Jackson, who works with a lot of Spitfire samples and of course real Air Lyndhurst recordings, always uses a convolution reverb (often in conjunction with an algorithmic one). See these 2 videos for reference.


I'd say, just experiment a bit with all possibilities and look what you like best. 
Edit: Geoff beat me to it.


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## NoamL (Jan 18, 2018)

It depends how dry the other material is...but it's likely to be much drier than Spitfire right? I would try to find a reverb that matches the length of AIR, put that on the non-Spitfire material, and then only a very small and subtle amount of reverb on the dry + Spitfire bus. You might not even need the second reverb? The thinking behind this is that you will probably not get as good results from putting the Spitfire material through a lot of plugin reverb, as you would by simply mixing to taste the wide selection of mics within the Spitfire libraries. The outrigger mics are especially powerful for getting an in your face sound with nice ambience afterwards, those are probably my favorite.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Jan 18, 2018)

I basically only use a bit of Seventh Heaven on Spitfire. For other libraries I use a variety of Altiverb settings.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jan 19, 2018)

kimarnesen said:


> I’m struggling to decide how to use reverb and which one(s) to use. At first I was thinking a combination of convolution and algorithmic, but as the Spitfire orchestra were recorded in Air Lyndhurst, maybe just an algorithic one is enough?
> 
> Not everything is Spitfire of course, but Strings, woodwinds, most of the brass and Perc are, so some others will have to work together with it.
> 
> Anyone with experience and want to share thoughts or even examples?



I don´t think that you need that much or any additional reverb because having ambient, tree micings and outriggers provides you more enough with ambience. Sure it is up to every single ones taste to add more reverb but I don´t think that this is improving the allready great sound. Point of Spifire approach was imo to create a library which creates a most natural and believable space through its available micings.


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## Sami (Jan 19, 2018)

If you use the ambient mics, I find the samples lose whatever little detail they have left in them once you put additional reverb on. The only way to use Spitfire libraries with reverb is with dry mics only in my opinion.


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Jan 19, 2018)

For Spitfire only, I don't think I'd use any additional reverb. I use SF in combination with other libraries though and in this case, as a final smooth tail over everything, any nice algo verb will do. I like the Waves H-Reverb, which is massively underrated. My sends on SF stuff are usually only -9 Db, perhaps even less.


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## kimarnesen (Jan 19, 2018)

Thanks a lot! As Jake Jackson says, just a little bit of reverb on the already wet libraries is good to give a sense of one room. Is a combination of convolution and algorithic a must for that purpose? To glue things together? And just use the tails from the algorithmic?

I’ve got Spaces and 2Caudio breeze already, but as a noob on these things, I wonder if there are specific reverb combinations that works well together?

I’m not necessarily looking for advice on which reverb to use, as it will just give 100 different recommendations, but more a general question.


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## synthpunk (Jan 19, 2018)

Ki, Demo Valhalla Room, LV-426 Big Hall on a effect buss PFL? dial in to taste. If you like it, $50. Most of of the convolution verbs are too pristine to my ears, like life you need some randomness/imperfection to it all.

Christian .H just switched to a Bricasti, so you could also demo 7th Heaven. I will be evaluating it more in depth very soon as well.


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## Rodney Money (Jan 19, 2018)

kimarnesen said:


> Thanks a lot! As Jake Jackson says, just a little bit of reverb on the already wet libraries is good to give a sense of one room. Is a combination of convolution and algorithic a must for that purpose? To glue things together? And just use the tails from the algorithmic?
> 
> I’ve got Spaces and 2Caudio breeze already, but as a noob on these things, I wonder if there are specific reverb combinations that works well together?
> 
> I’m not necessarily looking for advice on which reverb to use, as it will just give 100 different recommendations, but more a general question.


Since you have Spaces, when I combine Spitfire with other libraries I use Hamburg Cathedral, I believe the 2.2 setting which tends to have a sound reminiscing of Air Studios when in "Spitfire mode." Here's some Spitfire bones with the tree and close mics with Hamburg preset but dialed between 11:00 and 12:00.


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## kimarnesen (Jan 19, 2018)

Rodney Money said:


> Since you have Spaces, when I combine Spitfire with other libraries I use Hamburg Cathedral, I believe the 2.2 setting which tends to have a sound reminiscing of Air Studios when in "Spitfire mode." Here's some Spitfire bones with the tree and close mics with Hamburg preset but dialed between 11:00 and 12:00.




Thanks! I’m on a train with bad connection so will have to listen later


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## Ron Kords (Jan 19, 2018)

I used Lexicon for ages but recently changed to Relab VSR S24. Really nice, you can demo it too!


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## conan (Jan 19, 2018)

I use Seventh Heaven or QL Spaces on the non-AIR libraries like Saccone, and maybe a touch of Lexicon PCM to glue the room.


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## Living Fossil (Jan 19, 2018)

Exponential Audio reverbs are very transparent and therefore work great on sounds that already have some reverb.
But i guess you can get good results with most reverbs if you take some time to explore different settings.
(personally, i think it's a good thing to explore/compare plug ins regularly with fresh ears, i.e. for 10-15 minutes before you start your actual work. In my experience for making decisions about reverbs fresh ears are absolutely mandatory, as long as you don't have your proven setup)


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## Aceituna (Nov 6, 2020)

conan said:


> I use Seventh Heaven or QL Spaces on the non-AIR libraries like Saccone, and maybe a touch of Lexicon PCM to glue the room.



Is it posible to get the "AIR sound" using Heaven Seaven (or QL Spaces)? How?
I would like to use it (if possible) for mixing non-Spitfire libraries with Spitfire ones.


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## GNP (Nov 6, 2020)

Okay tell you what. I bring the crowbar, you bring the speakers, we break into Air Lyndhurst in the dead of night and record our own IR.

WHO'S WITH ME, WHOOOOOOOO


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## Aceituna (Nov 6, 2020)

GNP said:


> Okay tell you what. I bring the crowbar, you bring the speakers, we break into Air Lyndhurst in the dead of night and record our own IR.
> 
> WHO'S WITH ME, WHOOOOOOOO



Ohhh, thanks....
Really helpful.


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## GNP (Nov 6, 2020)

Okay okay, do you have Altiverb? I heard from Meyerson that his favorite preset in there is the Worcester space, which he uses on 'dead' (sampled) orchestras to mix with the live orchestras (usually from Air, I presume). Might be worth trying out.

Still, I say we break into Air and record our own IR though. Don't worry about the security guard, I'll dip laxatives into his coffee while he sleeps. He'll be in the toilet for hours.


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## Aceituna (Nov 6, 2020)

GNP said:


> Okay okay, do you have Altiverb? I heard from Meyerson that his favorite preset in there is the Worcester space, which he uses on 'dead' (sampled) orchestras to mix with the live orchestras (usually from Air, I presume). Might be worth trying out.
> 
> Still, I say we break into Air and record our own IR though. Don't worry about the security guard, I'll dip laxatives into his coffee while he sleeps. He'll be in the toilet for hours.



I don´t own Altiverb.
Spaces and Spaces II, Studio One´s, Seventh Heaven (not the PRO), Halls of Fame, Dragonfly. That´s all.


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## GNP (Nov 6, 2020)

Aceituna said:


> I don´t own Altiverb.
> Spaces and Spaces II, Studio One´s, Seventh Heaven (not the PRO), Halls of Fame, Dragonfly. That´s all.



SEE? TOLD YOU WE SHOULD BREAK INTO AIR! IT'LL COST FREE!

Anyway Seventh Heaven is based on the Bricasti reverb, which Meyerson uses as well. But if you're talking about non-Spitfire libraries...you might wanna save up for something like Altiverb.


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## Aceituna (Nov 6, 2020)

GNP said:


> SEE? TOLD YOU WE SHOULD BREAK INTO AIR! IT'LL COST FREE!
> 
> Anyway Seventh Heaven is based on the Bricasti reverb, which Meyerson uses as well. But if you're talking about non-Spitfire libraries...you might wanna save up for something like Altiverb.



Spaces II wouldn´t be an alternative for Altiverb?


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## GNP (Nov 6, 2020)

Well given if that's what you have, I sure hope so. But you'll have to find the closest space that blends well with what you wanna blend with. I personally do not own Spaces II, so I can't comment.

Looks like you'll have to do lots of experimenting...


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## jcrosby (Nov 6, 2020)

GNP said:


> Okay okay, do you have Altiverb? I heard from Meyerson that his favorite preset in there is the Worcester space, which he uses on 'dead' (sampled) orchestras to mix with the live orchestras (usually from Air, I presume). Might be worth trying out.
> 
> Still, I say we break into Air and record our own IR though. Don't worry about the security guard, I'll dip laxatives into his coffee while he sleeps. He'll be in the toilet for hours.


If you have Albion One you can actually make your own IR by stacking a few percussion hits in one of the Albion One percussion kits and flattening them out with EQ. (Removing any resonances.) You probably want to snip off any flamming at the very beginning of the audio file so the attack is uniform.

Being that I don't want to irritate SF I won't say which kit, which hits, etc, but if you do some research on the range of methods used for capturing IRs, and look at the response on an analyzer it should be pretty easy to figure out which ones to use...If it's the tail you're after specifically these will do fine, especially if blended with a little algorithmic reverb


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## GNP (Nov 6, 2020)

jcrosby said:


> Being that I don't want to irritate SF



Ooooops....too late


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## GNP (Nov 6, 2020)

That said, I don't think it's always an imperative to match spaces all the time. I once did a piece that had LASS, Sonic Implants Symphonic Strings, and abit of Hans' personal strings, (all from different halls), and I slapped one space from Altiverb over all of them, and suddenly they all came to life, each somehow standing in a space of their own, but in togetherness. It sounded really quite...awesome. 

Sometimes a different space can bring out things in a library from another space in a wonderful way. Sometimes they clash, in which case obviously don't use it.


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## easyrider (Nov 6, 2020)

Great lesson how to use reverb like the pros...Can be done with any reverb....


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## Joël Dollié (Nov 6, 2020)

I don't like reverbs that are too dense anymore especially on libraries that are already wet like spitfire. By dense I mean Seventh heaven, kind of too soupy. I just use a combination of VSS3 and Cinematic rooms nowdays. Lex PCM also works good on spitfire stuff. I feel like with wet libraries you want something that just extends the tail and space but doesn't really cause a ton of blur. Lexicon MPX is also very good as it can be quite transparent yet still provide good extra depth.


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## synthetic (Nov 7, 2020)

I just replaced my Exponential reverbs with Cinematic Rooms, I'm really liking that. Finally a software verb with the density and depth of my old PCM96 Surround (RIP.) I still have a Bricasti too for piano or live instruments.


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## merty (Nov 7, 2020)

This reverb may look like something stock from a DAW, but check out the video;


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