# Early reflections and room



## Joël Dollié (Oct 19, 2021)

I realize this is a big topic here and I've made videos about this in the past, but here's a new tutorial explaining my few on sample libraries and rooms. I hope you find it useful.


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## A.Heppelmann (Oct 19, 2021)

Hey thanks Joël, great video! So do you use any of the Orchestral Tools mic options other than the Tree?


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 19, 2021)

A.Heppelmann said:


> Hey thanks Joël, great video! So do you use any of the Orchestral Tools mic options other than the Tree?


Hey! Tree and surround, depending on the sounds I usually have more or less surround. Sometimes I use some other mics on the perc, depends on the sounds. I would't remember which exactly though, but I did a couple OT templates for composers.


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## A.Heppelmann (Oct 19, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> Tree and surround, depending on the sounds I usually have more or less surround.


Ok awesome, thanks! I love the OT Berlin Series, but I've always thought that their additional mic options weren't great


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## BassClef (Oct 19, 2021)

Great and thanks. This is similar to a video I watched from "Cinema Sound". He approaches those drier libraries (recorded in smaller studios) with two basic tools. One is to reduce or remove the close mics and bringing up more of the room mics. Of course this depends on the mic options in the library. Then if that is not enough, he will often insert a reverb on that track which is a convolution reverb of a larger recording room, with no pre-delay. So he basically tries to get his instruments from various libraries sounding similar this way, then all of them go to the stem (strings, brass, etc) to share the BIG reverb!


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## Bluemount Score (Oct 19, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> Hey! Tree and surround, depending on the sounds I usually have more or less surround. Sometimes I use some other mics on the perc, depends on the sounds. I would't remember which exactly though, but I did a couple OT templates for composers.


Especially on the brass I like to turn down the close mic too..


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 19, 2021)

A.Heppelmann said:


> Ok awesome, thanks! I love the OT Berlin Series, but I've always thought that their additional mic options weren't great


I don't understand the choice of having a straight up mono close mic mixed so loud by default in most patches. You can really hear it and it doesn't help. The tree is quite sharp so you don't need the close. With the right settings it can really sound pretty good though


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 19, 2021)

BassClef said:


> Great and thanks. This is similar to a video I watched from "Cinema Sound". He approaches those drier libraries (recorded in smaller studios) with two basic tools. One is to reduce or remove the close mics and bringing up more of the room mics. Of course this depends on the mic options in the library. Then if that is not enough, he will often insert a reverb on that track which is a convolution reverb of a larger recording room, with no pre-delay. So he basically tries to get his instruments from various libraries sounding similar this way, then all of them go to the stem (strings, brass, etc) to share the BIG reverb!


Yeah, It's a key technique. Room reverbs make up for the lack of depth. Then the hall in series afterwards.


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## PeterN (Oct 23, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> I realize this is a big topic here and I've made videos about this in the past, but here's a new tutorial explaining my few on sample libraries and rooms. I hope you find it useful.



Hi Joel,

Thanks for your vids, Ive checked quite a few.

Curious. Do you think you can (or anyone) - with todays plugin tools - reach the level of famous mastering-mixing engineers (as a terminology), or do they still have something that the ordinary guy cant get his/her hands on?

You can buy a pair of good speakers, a set of headphones, treat the room, have plugins, right. Basically we are on same level, or do you think they have a joker up the sleeve?

Whats your opinion.


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## Henu (Oct 23, 2021)

PeterN said:


> Basically we are on same level, or do you think they have a joker up the sleeve?


Only possible tens of years of experience, tons of awesome analog gear which have a drastic effect on the outcome and expertise on certain things we couldn't even dream of. It's like saying that "now when I have bought this great car, nothing stops me to compete in F1 races!" 
I do mastering as a freelancer and have all sorts of hard- and software, but there is a reason why I usually want my high priority stuff mastered by even more capable peeps with more experience, gear and better room than I am able to use.

PS: This video proves exactly my point the same way. I'm rather experienced mixing engineer myself but holy shit I felt stupid not having tried out Joël's trick earlier. I mean, of course it goes like that on paper when you stop to think of it but for some reason I've never realized it could be done this dead-easy, no matter how much stuff I've mixed during the years, haha! Especially the "It's CSS but CSS with a long reverb tail" was so painfully correct I felt almost embarrassed.


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## PeterN (Oct 23, 2021)

Henu said:


> Only possible tens of years of experience, tons of awesome analog gear which have a drastic effect on the outcome and expertise on certain things we couldn't even dream of. It's like saying that "now when I have bought this great car, nothing stops me to compete in F1 races!"
> I do mastering as a freelancer and have all sorts of hard- and software, but there is a reason why I usually want my high priority stuff mastered by even more capable peeps with more experience, gear and better room than I am able to use.
> 
> PS: This video proves exactly my point the same way. I'm rather experienced mixing engineer myself but holy shit I felt stupid not having tried out Joël's trick earlier. I mean, of course it goes like that on paper when you stop to think of it but for some reason I've never realized it could be done this dead-easy, no matter how much stuff I've mixed during the years, haha! Especially the "It's CSS but CSS with a long reverb tail" was so painfully correct I felt almost embarrassed.



One of the big names said he doesnt use analog gear anymore.Cant remember who. Which means we should be closer.

A guy who mastered a track to me in 2018, in a real studio full of analog gear, was doing most of the basic stuff on Ozone 7. Maybe not a star engineer, but engineer with 20 years studio experience.

Im curious about Joels opinion though. If hes ok to give one, of course.


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## vitocorleone123 (Oct 23, 2021)

PeterN said:


> One of the big names said he doesnt use analog gear anymore.Cant remember who. Which means we should be closer.
> 
> A guy who mastered a track to me in 2018, in a real studio full of analog gear, was doing most of the basic stuff on Ozone 7. Maybe not a star engineer, but engineer with 20 years studio experience.
> 
> Im curious about Joels opinion though. If hes ok to give one, of course.


Scheps. But he also DOES use analog gear and lots of careful attention to tracking and recording so that the sound is of the highest quality to his ears prior to mixing ITB.


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 23, 2021)

Henu said:


> Only possible tens of years of experience, tons of awesome analog gear which have a drastic effect on the outcome and expertise on certain things we couldn't even dream of. It's like saying that "now when I have bought this great car, nothing stops me to compete in F1 races!"
> I do mastering as a freelancer and have all sorts of hard- and software, but there is a reason why I usually want my high priority stuff mastered by even more capable peeps with more experience, gear and better room than I am able to use.
> 
> PS: This video proves exactly my point the same way. I'm rather experienced mixing engineer myself but holy shit I felt stupid not having tried out Joël's trick earlier. I mean, of course it goes like that on paper when you stop to think of it but for some reason I've never realized it could be done this dead-easy, no matter how much stuff I've mixed during the years, haha! Especially the "It's CSS but CSS with a long reverb tail" was so painfully correct I felt almost embarrassed.


@PeterN I agree with everything Henu said except the analog gear part. I find that today's plugins are just fantastic, sure analog color is nice but certain plugins like kramer tape or true iron get very close and are very clean. In the end the impact of analog gear is small compared to fine tuning your tonal balance with EQ properly. and at least for orchestral that's what matters most by far.

What truly matters in terms of pure sound quality is how a library is recorded (good luck making jaeger sound like spitfire halls), and your skills as an engineer. Your monitoring too. Monitors in a bad room make mixing very difficult, and screwed up headphones as well. I recommend having HD600s at minimum.

I mix 95% of the time on sennheiser HD800S with a small bass boost. I have some monitors on the side but I find that HD800S give me the best perspective and I get extremely accurate and predictable results which allows me to reference things accurately.

The cool thing about analog gear is that if you know what it does you can use it, but the value comes from using the right piece of gear in the right situation. Example, if you have a fast vocal with words you're probably doing a good thing by grabbing an 1176. If you're trying to add punch to a drum bus, grabbing that 1176 is probably a stupid idea, unless you are using it in parallel but not as a bus compressor. So it's all about the right tool for the situation.

But I don't feel like nowdays you are limited by expensive gear. (talking several dozens of thousands studio). Sure you might have to spend a couple grand, get amazing headphones, or some room treatment if your room is salvageable, and good monitors, get a top of the line reverb for a few hundred, but once you have that it's pretty much all skills. You don't even technically need to buy any other EQ plugin than your DAW's EQ. There's technically free dynamic EQ's out there too. Now do they suck a little compared to proQ3 in terms of workflow and interface, yes. Not so much sound. They're all pretty much the same. Other than that the only jokers engineers have up their sleeve is the ability to recognize what the right tonal balance, stereo width, etc is for each composition, and the ears and knowledge of techniques to get there confidently. These people are able to put a room plugin on a dry sound and then they could be like ''hmm this is great but I think I need a 1db cut in the low mids but only on the side signal''. Once you train your ears for enough years to be able to hear that kind of thing that's when you can take all these little decisions that add up and make a great mix.


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 23, 2021)

vitocorleone123 said:


> Scheps. But he also DOES use analog gear and lots of careful attention to tracking and recording so that the sound is of the highest quality to his ears prior to mixing ITB.


And yeah the equivalent of good tracking for libraries would be how well they are recorded. If it sounds like a casio keyboard out of the box you'll be able to make it a bit nicer with mixing but it's never gonna be fantastic.


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## Henu (Oct 23, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> except the analog gear part


Mastering! I've worked with different mastering engineers ranging from world-class to small budget guys for many times and I am yet to find a single one who does stuff solely in the box, especially given the analog equipment they usually have. I used to think vice versa earlier, but the more I got interested in mastering myself and the years practicing it and watching the great people do it I realized how important role quality hardware can have for the sound. But I don't naturally mean driving stuff" through six EQ's, two tube compressors and three hardware limiters in serial", but more about 1 or 2 good workhorse devices.

And you can easily master completely ITB. Mixing ITB has been possible already for at least ten years, and mastering is almost getting there. Having analog stuff is definitely not mandatory by any means, but the fact is that with quality hardware your masters usually don't only sound that last 10% better but take that 90% less time to do with good hardware. I know it personally, as I've gone that through myself.


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 23, 2021)

Henu said:


> Mastering! I've worked with different mastering engineers ranging from world-class to small budget guys for many times and I am yet to find a single one who does stuff solely in the box, especially given the analog equipment they usually have. I used to think vice versa earlier, but the more I got interested in mastering myself and the years practicing it and watching the great people do it I realized how important role quality hardware can have for the sound. But I don't naturally mean driving stuff" through six EQ's, two tube compressors and three hardware limiters in serial", but more about 1 or 2 good workhorse devices.
> 
> And you can easily master completely ITB. Mixing ITB has been possible already for at least ten years, and mastering is almost getting there. Having analog stuff is definitely not mandatory by any means, but the fact is that with quality hardware your masters usually don't only sound that last 10% better but take that 90% less time to do with good hardware. I know it personally, as I've gone that through myself.


I agree that it makes more sense for mastering, especially since it's less of a big deal regarding recalls. Analog gear during mixing can be a pain to manage.

Well this might be a bit of an unpopular opinion but for me mastering is generally so subtle that I don't feel I would ever get any significant effect out of analog gear. And when we got plug-ins like the elysia alpha that are just that good, if makes it difficult to justify getting any piece of gear. And then you got gullfoss which is a game changer for mastering and its purely digital..

Also, hearing straight up side by side comparisons of a hardware SSL compressor and emulation I couldn't tell the difference. Maybe that's because they are fairly clean compressors but you get where I'm coming from.

I would say give 6 mastering engineers a track to master, 3 with plug-ins only and 3 with hybrid (maybe plug-in just for limiting). Would you be able to tell which ones had hardware gear used on them? If not then I would say that the benefits could be considered insignificant in comparison to the ears of the engineers themselves. 

Edit: didn't see the time argument. Ah it's possible that it saves time. I can't really comment on that, but that would indeed make hardware gear a lot more justifyable.


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## Joseph JP (Oct 23, 2021)

Hey Joël, love your videos on these topics and thank you for making these informative and educational videos. I would like to ask how do the balance the harshness of the violins around 2.5k to 3k if they are from close mic's with these techniques. Isn't it going to exaggerate the other frequencies. Should you compress first then do this or is there any way to keep the intimate feeling with the close mic's and still retain the lushness via this method. There is always a ear piercing frequency which moves around especially with sample libraries for example like on the trumpets, violins etc. Even with Dynamic eq in some cases it doesn't work. Any tips on these would help greatly while mixing.


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## NoamL (Oct 23, 2021)

what do you think of Cinematic Rooms versus SP2016 for creating those early reflections? I've been using CR lately and pretty satisfied with it...


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 23, 2021)

Joseph JP said:


> Hey Joël, love your videos on these topics and thank you for making these informative and educational videos. I would like to ask how do the balance the harshness of the violins around 2.5k to 3k if they are from close mic's with these techniques. Isn't it going to exaggerate the other frequencies. Should you compress first then do this or is there any way to keep the intimate feeling with the close mic's and still retain the lushness via this method. There is always a ear piercing frequency which moves around especially with sample libraries for example like on the trumpets, violins etc. Even with Dynamic eq in some cases it doesn't work. Any tips on these would help greatly while mixing.


You're welcome! And yeah if it's a close mic they will jump more that's why dynamic EQ is usually necessary. Tools like gullfoss or soothe can help too, compressing before doing any reverb. Soothe will probably give you the best results. Now SP2016 100% wet and position around 10 or 15 really changes things a lot and adds more consistency to the tone so that helps too.


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 23, 2021)

NoamL said:


> what do you think of Cinematic Rooms versus SP2016 for creating those early reflections? I've been using CR lately and pretty satisfied with it...


I use both but for me CR is more like a tail reverb. 2016 is the ultimate depth adder especially 100% wet.


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## Trash Panda (Oct 23, 2021)

What are some other good options for adding depth besides SP2016? Been waiting to catch it on sale, but no dice yet. 

Don’t really like the results I get with pure convolution reverbs like Spaces or Reverberate as they tend to have a metallic ring or boxiness that’s hard to get rid of if the source material has any baked in ERs.


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 23, 2021)

Trash Panda said:


> What are some other good options for adding depth besides SP2016? Been waiting to catch it on sale, but no dice yet.
> 
> Don’t really like the results I get with pure convolution reverbs like Spaces or Reverberate as they tend to have a metallic ring or boxiness that’s hard to get rid of if the source material has any baked in ERs.


Sadly not many reverbs do it well.. Besides this well.. A doubler works well. Most ER are too effecty


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## jcrosby (Oct 23, 2021)

Valhalla Room actually adds depth really well, and more or less in the same way... In the SP2016 it's called position, in VH Room it's called depth. 0% depth is only ER's, 100% depth is only tail. sliding between the two can help you perceptually move things backward of forward... Try each algorithm in the lower left menu and see which one seems to do the best job...

You can also use VH Room to send something to the back of the mix, or create the illusion that it's sitting on a layer behind everything. I do this using a really short time between 150-400 ms, setting the depth between 0-15%, and setting the mix to completely wet, or mostly wet, (75 and up). I only pick one or two elements to do this to, or one, possibly two elements at the same time like anything else, less = more... Fully wet will create the impression that it's layered behind the mix... Again, try each algorithm in the lower left as these can yield different results... Short times are important as well as these create the illusion that it's layered behind other things, once the times get too long your start to move into typical reverb territory, and you start to lose the impression it's behind everything else...

You can basically do this with any reverb, VH Room I just happen to know best, especially in terms of using it to position things on the z axis... (I personally don't find SP2016 to be any 'better'. It sounds different for sure, and it sounds great... but neither's _better_ than the other so much as they just sound different... VH Room's nice in that the different algorithms give you different results...)

I also use a plugin called Expanse 3D which is designed to separate things and place things on all three axes. I often insert it on a bus with reverbs inserted on them to further increase the perception of depth... At the core are the same tricks you'd use with delay and width, but it has different modes that allow you to create separation between elements as well... It's not clear what these different modes do per se, but the result is elements separate in addition to appearing deeper/more upfront, wider, higher/lower, etc... (FYI Expanse is not binaural. It's using the same tried and true, time tested ways you fill out all 3 dimensions... It's supposed to hold up in mono but that's not totally true. Too much and things do collapse for sure...)

This can also be achieved with delays that can create an ER like-effect as well. This is basically part of what Expanse does for depth as mentioned above... But again, it has some kind of separation algorithm that seems to be doing something else unique... (I'm guessing it may be using an all-pass filter or something similar, but I haven't been able to find any documentation about it...)

Basically lots of ways to do this, lots of tools out there... And the most important thing is obviously contrast of depth... The more elements in a mix that have different depths, the more the perception of depth becomes apparent through contrast...


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 23, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> Valhalla Room actually adds depth really well, and more or less in the same way... In the SP2016 it's called position, in VH Room it's called depth. 0% depth is only ER's, 100% depth is only tail. sliding between the two can help you perceptually move things backward of forward... Try each algorithm in the lower left menu and see which one seems to do the best job...
> 
> You can also use VH Room to send something to the back of the mix, or create the illusion that it's sitting on a layer behind everything. I do this using a really short time between 150-400 ms, setting the depth between 0-15%, and setting the mix to completely wet, or mostly wet, (75 and up). I only pick one or two elements to do this to, or one, possibly two elements at the same time like anything else, less = more... Fully wet will create the impression that it's layered behind the mix... Again, try each algorithm in the lower left as these can yield different results... Short times are important as well as these create the illusion that it's layered behind other things, once the times get too long your start to move into typical reverb territory, and you start to lose the impression it's behind everything else...
> 
> ...


Valhalla room is quite good at this it's true, but imho it's not nearly the same thing as SP2016. The position slider is gold because it morphs the shape of the ER gradually, so you can have a more diffuse sound but still with a very short tail. I don't know any other reverb that has that exactly and that sounds so transparent. That's why I think it's special. But I have heard people get pretty good results with Valhalla room.

I think it's trickier when the source isn't completely dry, then valhalla can be too much wheras sp2016 on the vintage setting and at 0% position can still be very subtle.


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## Henu (Oct 24, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> And then you got gullfoss which is a game changer for mastering and its purely digital..


Yeah, lots of stuff which I agree on on your post. However, this ^ one actually I have a bit divided opinion. 
Just like an SSL comp on mix bus rather than on the master, I tend to see Gullfoss more like a mix bus tool most of the time. Soothe on the other hand is extremely good on masters (just like de-essers have been for decades) when needed, but Gullfoss tends to mess with the dynamics too much for my taste in the mastering phase. However, that doesn't mean that it's useless- on the contrary! But not just _that_ useful tool as one could automatically think.

Btw, do you have the Lexicon reverbs in your arsenal? I've been thinking to get CR Pro, but already having the Lex bundle (which I adore, but is a bit buggy and cumbersome to use at times) is holding my wallet a bit back. Especially now if you think CR is more about tails than ER's in general.


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 24, 2021)

Henu said:


> Yeah, lots of stuff which I agree on on your post. However, this ^ one actually I have a bit divided opinion.
> Just like an SSL comp on mix bus rather than on the master, I tend to see Gullfoss more like a mix bus tool most of the time. Soothe on the other hand is extremely good on masters (just like de-essers have been for decades) when needed, but Gullfoss tends to mess with the dynamics too much for my taste in the mastering phase. However, that doesn't mean that it's useless- on the contrary! But not just _that_ useful tool as one could automatically think.
> 
> Btw, do you have the Lexicon reverbs in your arsenal? I've been thinking to get CR Pro, but already having the Lex bundle (which I adore, but is a bit buggy and cumbersome to use at times) is holding my wallet a bit back. Especially now if you think CR is more about tails than ER's in general.


Yeah I love lexicon. I have the LXP native bundle. PCM is great but a bit expensive for the uses I have for it, i mostly use the plates anyway which sound amazing on LXP. For Halls I prefer VSS3 and CR but lexicon random hall isn't too far behind.

I agree that gullfoss can mess up dynamics a little bit so i usually use very subtle settings, 6% or so, and I don't use it on the low end during mastering.

I find soothe to be kind of drastic actually but I guess you can set it to not be too narrow and pretty gentle


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## Henu (Oct 24, 2021)

Yeah, Soothe is one of those "Spiderman- plugins": with great power comes great responsibility.  
It's a godsend when doing game music masters, though!


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## Kent (Oct 24, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> Valhalla room is quite good at this it's true, but imho it's not nearly the same thing as SP2016. The position slider is gold because it morphs the shape of the ER gradually, so you can have a more diffuse sound but still with a very short tail. I don't know any other reverb that has that exactly and that sounds so transparent. That's why I think it's special. But I have heard people get pretty good results with Valhalla room.
> 
> I think it's trickier when the source isn't completely dry, then valhalla can be too much wheras sp2016 on the vintage setting and at 0% position can still be very subtle.


Valhalla Room also tends to have a metallic crustiness that can’t easily (IME) be worked around or mitigated.


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## synergy543 (Oct 24, 2021)

HD Cart by Reverb Foundry (made by Matt Hill of Liquid Sonics) is also a great reverb to add early reflections (try the Large Woodroom). Strange name, but it has a unique sound.








Reverb Foundry HD Cart - User review - Gearspace.com


Product: HD Cart Developer: Reverb Foundry Formats: AAX, AU and VST for Mac (10.7+) or Windows (7+) DRM: iLok with two concurrent activations Demo: Ful



gearspace.com


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 24, 2021)

kmaster said:


> Valhalla Room also tends to have a metallic crustiness that can’t easily (IME) be worked around or mitigated.


I hate valhalla room tails. Sounds like hitting a wire rack with a baseball bat. Better than fruity reeverb but I find that pretty much all decent paid reverb sound more realistic. Would recommend entry level seventh heaven over it.

The ER are not bad at all in valhalla though imo.

On the other hand valhalla supermassive is actually dope, and valhalla plate has some great colors for percussion.


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 24, 2021)

synergy543 said:


> HD Cart by Reverb Foundry (made by Matt Hill of Liquid Sonics) is also a great reverb to add early reflections (try the Large Woodroom). Strange name, but it has a unique sound.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Woah that sounds really interesting, I never heard of it. Sounds pretty good in the demos will check it out


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## PeterN (Oct 24, 2021)

@Joël Dollié 

Great you dont charge for your opinions. 
You should at least have a link to your services under the avatar or as signature.

Next question.  *Adaptiverb*. More an effect reverb or all around? I love it on piano, very clean.


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 24, 2021)

PeterN said:


> @Joël Dollié
> 
> Great you dont charge for your opinions.
> You should at least have a link to your services under the avatar or as signature.
> ...


Haha good tip! I'll add that.

I tried adaptiverb a while ago. It destroyed my cpu. I thought the effects you could get out of it were very special, more of a sound design thing which isn't what I do a lot of, so I kinda forgot about it. Pretty expensive too

Definitely didn't work better than my usual hall reverbs as an allaround but there are certain sounds it can do that you can't do with other plugins.


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## marclawsonmusic (Oct 24, 2021)

Great video (and channel, by the way)! Thanks for sharing, Joël


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## Sarah Mancuso (Oct 24, 2021)

Thanks for this video! I wonder if Seventh Heaven's early reflections would be workable for this...


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 24, 2021)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> Thanks for this video! I wonder if Seventh Heaven's early reflections would be workable for this...


No problem! Well I tried them and not really. too effecty.. HDcart as well I just tried. That's the issue with many ER, they can't achieve the same level of transparency as 2016. I think if you're trying to add subtle depth the doubler works better than those ER.

Well I'm talking to add depth to a really dry source, I think you could probably blend 10% of any ER with a string ensemble and it would sound fine. Talking more when it comes to simulating a decca tree on a cello dry mic


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## vitocorleone123 (Oct 24, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> Valhalla room is quite good at this it's true, but imho it's not nearly the same thing as SP2016. The position slider is gold because it morphs the shape of the ER gradually, so you can have a more diffuse sound but still with a very short tail. I don't know any other reverb that has that exactly and that sounds so transparent. That's why I think it's special. But I have heard people get pretty good results with Valhalla room.
> 
> I think it's trickier when the source isn't completely dry, then valhalla can be too much wheras sp2016 on the vintage setting and at 0% position can still be very subtle.


R4 gives a fair bit of control over early reflections, but it's not a simple slider.


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## Kent (Oct 24, 2021)

For depth I do really like the Expanse3D as indicated by @jcrosby.

It apparently achieves this by a series of frequency-dependent microdelays which psychoacoustically send sounds backward without making them more reverberant or colored.


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 24, 2021)

kmaster said:


> For depth I do really like the Expanse3D as indicated by @jcrosby.
> 
> It apparently achieves this by a series of frequency-dependent microdelays which psychoacoustically send sounds backward without making them more reverberant or colored.


I need to try this one, also there's leapwing audio stageone that is pretty good


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## Kent (Oct 24, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> I need to try this one, also there's leapwing audio stageone that is pretty good


Yeah, I've looked into that as well. 

I could be wrong/misunderstanding the copy, but StageOne seems to be more of a mid-side mixer that adds depthing by lowering the mid in relation to the sides, perhaps proportionally via a freq tilt? Similar to Goodhertz's Midside (which also sounds stellar).


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## jcrosby (Oct 24, 2021)

kmaster said:


> For depth I do really like the Expanse3D as indicated by @jcrosby.
> 
> It apparently achieves this by a series of frequency-dependent microdelays which psychoacoustically send sounds backward without making them more reverberant or colored.


Nice. It's great to see others here using it. It's a really great tool and the different width modes create some nice separation..

@Joël Dollié I actually wasn't sure if that's what the position slider did on the SP20016. The manual simply says (paraphrasing)... _you can think of it as an early late slider, but it does more than that behind the scenes_. Good to know, thanks for posting that...


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 24, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> Nice. It's great to see others here using it. It's a really great tool and the different width modes create some nice separation..
> 
> @Joël Dollié I actually wasn't sure if that's what the position slider did on the SP20016. The manual simply says (paraphrasing)... _you can think of it as an early late slider, but it does more than that behind the scenes_. Good to know, thanks for posting that...


Yeah the way I can describe it is that it's an algorithmic ER morphing slider, the type of ER changes drastically based on where you set it so it's kinda like having a ton of ER choices


----------



## Kyle Preston (Oct 24, 2021)

kmaster said:


> Valhalla Room also tends to have a metallic crustiness that can’t easily (IME) be worked around or mitigated.


Had the exact same experience testing Valhalla a few years ago as my _virtual room_. I experimented, exhaustively, with Valhalla, 2016 Stereo Room and SP 2016. Honestly was no contest, 2016 SR was far and away the best (for me anyway). It also seems to play very-well with buss compression, which is a biggy.


----------



## jcrosby (Oct 24, 2021)

*Algorithmic Reverb Depth of Field Test*​
Here's an algorithmic reverb depth of field test. One reverb is the SP2016, the other two are undisclosed algorithmic reverbs. See if you can pick out the SP2016, or just chime in about which of the reverbs (A,B, or C) you feel has the greatest depth of field...

There's a real acoustic ER impulse that's part of the 'testing pattern'. This is used as a way to compare the depth of field achieved by the algorithmic reverb being tested in each segment. The pattern alternates between the real ER and the algorithmic reverb two times in each 'testing section'.

I.E. _Acoustic ER -> Algorithmic Reverb -> Acoustic ER -> Algorithmic Reverb -> Silence_


All reverbs are set to be the same depth of field.
All reverbs have been normalized to -20 LUFS using a loudness meter so perceived level doesn't influence the results.

** This should be pretty self-explanatory once you listen to the file **


..............................................................................................................................................

*Section 1* = *Control Group*: *Dry Samples* / *Real Acoustic ER Impulse*. ( :00 to :12 )

This section isn't important other than to give you a point of reference of what the original samples sound like, what the real acoustic ER sounds like, and the depth of field achieved by the reverb in the tests that will follow.


*Section 2 = Algorithmic Reverb A *( :13 to :26 )


*Section 3 = Algorithmic Reverb B


Section 4 = Algorithmic Reverb C*

..............................................................................................................................................


*1.* Which reverb achieves the greatest depth of field?

*2.* Can you spot the SP2016 - Is it *reverb A, B, or C*?
(Skip this if you don't own the plugin...)

*3.* Any guesses for the other two reverbs?
(You don't have to order them by A/B/C unless you're confident you have an idea which witch is which...)


Most importantly, this is intended as good natured fun for reverb junkies...



If you prefer uncompressed wav you can download here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8lc9j5lei71dbno/VI-C%20Reverb%20Depth%20of%20Field%20Test.wav?dl=0


----------



## Joël Dollié (Oct 25, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> *Algorithmic Reverb Depth of Field Test*​
> Here's an algorithmic reverb depth of field test. One reverb is the SP2016, the other two are undisclosed algorithmic reverbs. See if you can pick out the SP2016, or just chime in about which of the reverbs (A,B, or C) you feel has the greatest depth of field...
> 
> There's a real acoustic ER impulse that's part of the 'testing pattern'. This is used as a way to compare the depth of field achieved by the algorithmic reverb being tested in each segment. The pattern alternates between the real ER and the algorithmic reverb two times in each 'testing section'.
> ...


I think it's a little hard to tell like that as there's a ton of tail in all the ''wet'' examples. Also on percussion elements the shape of the ER matters a lot, for example where you put the position slider on the SP2016. Might be too blurry at the max but retain more definition on the closest position settings compared to pretty much any other ER.

I think SP2016 might be B as it retains most of the transient definition. A is really good too but kind of messy and the sound loses a lot of integrity. Must be some bigger ''hall'' ER? C is messy too.

I would love a comparison on a dry violin sample though with ER only, (or 400ms tail) and then maybe the same reverb for tail afterwards as that's really what it's best for imho (or on a dry vocal). SP is less special on the far position settings but really unique on the 0-20% position setting which gives really clean ER.


----------



## Joseph JP (Oct 25, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> You're welcome! And yeah if it's a close mic they will jump more that's why dynamic EQ is usually necessary. Tools like gullfoss or soothe can help too, compressing before doing any reverb. Soothe will probably give you the best results. Now SP2016 100% wet and position around 10 or 15 really changes things a lot and adds more consistency to the tone so that helps too.


Thank you so much Joël, what settings would you recommend for soothe. Cause it can easily choke the sound. And I'm not sure how to get a good sound out of it without making it sound like a vintage Rompler and I haven't bought gullfoss yet. It's on my to buy list, So trying to mange with soothe right now. Thank you for all your help. BTW have you tried the Vienna Suite/MIR Pro to stimulate ER and Room?. I know it is geared towards orchestral stuff and I would love to know what you think of it.


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 25, 2021)

Joseph JP said:


> Thank you so much Joël, what settings would you recommend for soothe. Cause it can easily choke the sound. And I'm not sure how to get a good sound out of it without making it sound like a vintage Rompler and I haven't bought gullfoss yet. It's on my to buy list, So trying to mange with soothe right now. Thank you for all your help. BTW have you tried the Vienna Suite/MIR Pro to stimulate ER and Room?. I know it is geared towards orchestral stuff and I would love to know what you think of it.


Default settings and just a little bit of amount seem to give pretty good results honestly, just don't have too much gain reduction.

I tried MIR a while ago, I don't think it's that great for tail on most ''wet'' samples and the whole concept of putting everything in a room doesn't work when blending different libraries from different manufacturers which is what I do a lot of, so I haven't looked that much deeper into it, but I think it has some really good ER. I should go back to it, but the thing is that for dry stuff, SP2016 really gives me the ER sound I like in combination with a hall in series, so I haven't really felt the need to hunt for more things. I know that MIR is good and many mixers use it though.


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## Trash Panda (Oct 25, 2021)

@Joël Dollié when using SP2016, if you’re using it across multiple dry/dry-ish libraries from the same dev/same space are you keeping the position slider consistent for all sections (strings, woodwinds, brass all at 10%, 100% wet) or varying the mix and position amounts to create more separation?

Additionally, are you increasing the gain to offset the volume loss in any manner?

Trying to get a handle on if this plugin is just to make the “room” sound bigger or also managing depth perception with it.


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 25, 2021)

Trash Panda said:


> @Joël Dollié when using SP2016, if you’re using it across multiple dry/dry-ish libraries from the same dev/same space are you keeping the position slider consistent for all sections (strings, woodwinds, brass all at 10%, 100% wet) or varying the mix and position amounts to create more separation?
> 
> Additionally, are you increasing the gain to offset the volume loss in any manner?
> 
> Trying to get a handle on if this plugin is just to make the “room” sound bigger or also managing depth perception with it.


Yes gain should be 4db or so to compensate in most situations.

For wet ish libraries I tend to use position to the max and just blend in a bit of mix and also rely more on the doubler trick. 

The 100% wet and position 0-20 is more for straight up close mics. I tend to not use it on brass, but that's because most brass libraries have decent depth, at least the ones I get to mix, and again if I want a bit more room the doubler often sounds cleaner.


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## Joseph JP (Oct 25, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> Default settings and just a little bit of amount seem to give pretty good results honestly, just don't have too much gain reduction.
> 
> I tried MIR a while ago, I don't think it's that great for tail on most ''wet'' samples and the whole concept of putting everything in a room doesn't work when blending different libraries from different manufacturers which is what I do a lot of, so I haven't looked that much deeper into it, but I think it has some really good ER. I should go back to it, but the thing is that for dry stuff, SP2016 really gives me the ER sound I like in combination with a hall in series, so I haven't really felt the need to hunt for more things. I know that MIR is good and many mixers use it though.


Thank you Joël, I will try this it out.

I vaguely remember that hybrid reverb from VSL had some good tails because of its combination of ER with Impulse Responses. I don't know / I'm not sure, if it can achieve the same thing as to what can be done with SP2016 / Valhalla room. But I think its worth looking into.
Yeah I absolutely agree with you on that, sample libraries do clash a lot and sometimes balancing them is a headache. Getting a cohesive sound is a challenge with different libraries with or without a dry signal. You struck Gold here alright, the SP2016 is the way to go. Thank you for sharing this Treasure Tip with us folks.


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## blaggins (Oct 27, 2021)

Interesting comparison @jcrosby. I'm probably not hearing the right stuff though (untrained ears, generally don't know what I'm talking about) because I didn't care for any of the algorithmic ER variants. The first section (real acoustic ER) is the only bit that sounded good to me, the rest sounded like soup. What am I supposed to be listening for?


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## jcrosby (Oct 27, 2021)

tpoots said:


> Interesting comparison @jcrosby. I'm probably not hearing the right stuff though (untrained ears, generally don't know what I'm talking about) because I didn't care for any of the algorithmic ER variants. The first section (real acoustic ER) is the only bit that sounded good to me, the rest sounded like soup. What am I supposed to be listening for?


It definitely isn't intended to sound realistic, (or good necessarily). Percussion is something you'd rarely if ever use with a reverb inserted at 100% wet, although it is the easiest to localize spatially.

Since you're not sure what to listen for... Basically how far the sound appears to move behind your speakers. There are three depths You should be able to hear in the file. A front (dry), middle (impulsed), and back (algorithmic). Basically any of the samples that aren't dry should appear as if they sit behind your speakers, with the algorithmic ones appearing to sit furthest back.

The impulse will be the clearest for sure since it's only a very short ER impulse about 150 milliseconds long, and was pink noised to remove any weird acoustic resonance... It's there as a contrast in the depth of field to the dry and 100% wet versions. The impulsed version should sound like it's sitting behind the dry samples. And, if the algorithmic reverb is doing it's job well (even if it sounds unnatural and muddy - which they do for sure) it should create the impression that it's even further behind the speakers.

So basically this wasn't intended to test for the quality of the tone, it's testing for how far back each of the algorithms can move the audio. (Although tone/transparency are a nice thing for sure)... And in terms of tone actually.. Some of the most iconic reverbs are popular partly because of their colored sound, the original SP2016 being one of them. The highs were capped at 16k, and the plugin's default setting out of the box emulates the original hardware's rolled off top end. (This can be turned off, _vintage_, vs _modern_..)



Joël Dollié said:


> I think it's a little hard to tell like that as there's a ton of tail in all the ''wet'' examples. Also on percussion elements the shape of the ER matters a lot, for example where you put the position slider on the SP2016. Might be too blurry at the max but retain more definition on the closest position settings compared to pretty much any other ER.
> 
> I think SP2016 might be B as it retains most of the transient definition. A is really good too but kind of messy and the sound loses a lot of integrity. Must be some bigger ''hall'' ER? C is messy too.
> 
> I would love a comparison on a dry violin sample though with ER only, (or 400ms tail) and then maybe the same reverb for tail afterwards as that's really what it's best for imho (or on a dry vocal). SP is less special on the far position settings but really unique on the 0-20% position setting which gives really clean ER.


I'd be open to doing one with strings... I think using a _known_ 'position' and decay time isn't ideal though because anyone can reproduce some of the more critical settings in order to confirm any bias (It's a forum after all...)

But I do agree that a shorter time is the better way to go... I'll play around, maybe add one or two more algorithms so it could also be used to compare the reverbs used...


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## Consona (Oct 28, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> I hate valhalla room tails. Sounds like hitting a wire rack with a baseball bat. Better than fruity reeverb but I find that pretty much all decent paid reverb sound more realistic. Would recommend entry level seventh heaven over it.
> 
> The ER are not bad at all in valhalla though imo.


100% agreed. I demoed VRoom yesterday and tails are not to my taste, but ER are surprisingly way better, and way less metallic, than a lot of more expensive reverbs I own.

I'm still planning to get SP2016. Shame my demo has expired so I can't compare it to the other stuff. :/


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## Saxer (Oct 28, 2021)

I use Virtual Sound Stage 2 often for early reflections. Nice interface and room positioning, especially with a lot of signals.






parallax-audio







www.parallax-audio.com


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## Consona (Oct 28, 2021)

Saxer said:


> I use Virtual Sound Stage 2 often for early reflections. Nice interface and room positioning, especially with a lot of signals.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Does it do the 100% wet trick as well as SP2016?

@Joël Dollié Do you think SP2016 does the 100% wet trick the best? My demo time is up.  I still need some great reverb to put my Sample Modeling stuff into 100% wet, that would not smear the sound or make it sound metallic. Thx!


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## Trash Panda (Oct 28, 2021)

Consona said:


> Does it do the 100% wet trick as well as SP2016?
> 
> @Joël Dollié Do you think SP2016 does the 100% wet trick the best? My demo time is up.  I still need some great reverb to put my Sample Modeling stuff into 100% wet, that would not smear the sound or make it sound metallic. Thx!


I just started a demo for SP2016 and VSS2 and can plug some audio into both if you want to share.


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 28, 2021)

Consona said:


> Does it do the 100% wet trick as well as SP2016?
> 
> @Joël Dollié Do you think SP2016 does the 100% wet trick the best? My demo time is up.  I still need some great reverb to put my Sample Modeling stuff into 100% wet, that would not smear the sound or make it sound metallic. Thx!


Yeah I just mixed some SM brass with it today. It's the best by far, destroys seventh heaven or cinematic rooms for this particular use, stereo room vintage around 30-60% position 100% wet. It needs some tail afterwards from any normal reverb. But yeah no ugly smear


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## Consona (Oct 29, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> Yeah I just mixed some SM brass with it today. It's the best by far, destroys seventh heaven or cinematic rooms for this particular use, stereo room vintage around 30-60% position 100% wet. It needs some tail afterwards from any normal reverb. But yeah no ugly smear


Thx!

By the way, have you tried Eventide's UltraReverb?


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## Joël Dollié (Oct 29, 2021)

Consona said:


> Thx!
> 
> By the way, have you tried Eventide's UltraReverb?


I haven't actually, looks like it's trying to be a more standard allaround reverb. Nobody really talks about it?


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## Consona (Oct 29, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> I haven't actually, looks like it's trying to be a more standard allaround reverb. Nobody really talks about it?


Yea, not many discussions about it. From the demos I liked its tail more than SP2016's, but for the ERs it seems SP2016 is still the best. That's what I want. @Cory Pelizzari is doing some videos on placing instruments into the room via various reverbs, but it seems SP2016 is still the best bet for the Sample Modeling 100% wet trick.


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## fakemaxwell (Oct 29, 2021)

Messing around with this, I love the playability of the AM instruments but like everybody else have struggled to get them to always play nicely with depth. Have a few reverbs and did some demoing, here's a quick and dirty test:

Dry:
View attachment Dry.mp3



Fabfilter Pro-R:
View attachment ProR.mp3



SP2016:
View attachment SP2016.mp3



Exponential Audio Stratus:
View attachment Stratus.mp3



Valhalla Room:
View attachment ValhallaRoom.mp3



All were sent into Exponential Audio Symphony, default preset at 50% wet. Pro-R and SP2016 are set to max depth, Stratus and Valhalla Room let you set the ER size by ms so tried to match by ear. 

Initial impressions- I think they're all doing a pretty good job, all are giving better results than a single plugin instance. Pro-R and SP2016 don't allow for only outputting ERs, but anything room size under 1s usually sounds mostly like ERs anyway. The "position" knobs on both are very quick to get results. If I had to pick, Stratus sounds the most natural, as well as giving the most options. It's not the fastest to work with on account of all of the tweaking you can do, so if you're unfamiliar with how it operates you're going to be clicking around a bunch. Valhalla sounds the least pleasing to me but I don't know that anybody would be able to pick that out in an actual mix. 

I mostly did this to see if there was any magic juice to SP2016, and while it's speedy to work with you're probably going to get 95% identical results with any comparable reverb that allows you to work with the same parameters. I actually might like Pro-R better in that regard, as it allows you to play with the stereo width very easily, the SP2016 seems to have that baked in. It would be nice if EA had multiple mix knobs, for ER and Reverb, to do this all quickly in one plugin. 100% wet ERs is definitely the move for placing the dry AM instruments.


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## Trash Panda (Nov 2, 2021)

synergy543 said:


> HD Cart by Reverb Foundry (made by Matt Hill of Liquid Sonics) is also a great reverb to add early reflections (try the Large Woodroom). Strange name, but it has a unique sound.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


After playing around with various presets, I’ve found HD Cart does a really nice job of mimicking the SP2016 room enlarging effect with its own flair with the following settings:
Large preset
0.90 second decay
100% wet
-25.5 dB Reverb
0 dB Reflections
22 kHz ER low pass

Tweak the character, reflections, advanced tabs along with reverb settings to taste. 

The Bigger preset also does pretty well if you bring down the mix percentage a bit.


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## Jofamusic (Nov 3, 2021)

Hi all, I use Reverberate 3 as the ER on every Bus instrument section. It allows me to place the instrument sections at the right distance from the concert hall. Strings position 1. Woodwindws higth, piccolo, flute, oboe. C.ingl.) Position 2. Woodwinds bass (clarinets, bassoons, c.Basson) position 3.
Horns to left position 4, Trumpets to center / right position 4, Tromboni, Tuba to right position 4.
Percussion position 5.
The positions are the distances obtained through the Dry / Wet of Reverberate.
Position 1 = 25 Wet.
Position 2 = 35 wet
Position 3 = 45 wet
Position 4 = 55/60 wet
Position 5 = 70 Wet.
I don't have much experience on how to get the best result, I'm working on it. What I can say is to retrieve as much information as possible to test after test.
I would be delighted to have your opinion on how I set up the first reflections (ER).
For the Reverb tail I use Space or Lexicon 240L as send of each Bus of the instrumental sections.
Thank you all.


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## Consona (Nov 3, 2021)

Trash Panda said:


> After playing around with various presets, I’ve found HD Cart does a really nice job of mimicking the SP2016 room enlarging effect with its own flair with the following settings:
> Large preset
> 0.90 second decay
> 100% wet
> ...


It makes the sound all over the place, very unfocused. Is this what SP2016 does?

But I've noticed one interesting thing. Even on 100% wet, HD Cart does not make the signal so out of phase as say ValhallaRoom or Nimbus.


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## Joël Dollié (Nov 3, 2021)

fakemaxwell said:


> Messing around with this, I love the playability of the AM instruments but like everybody else have struggled to get them to always play nicely with depth. Have a few reverbs and did some demoing, here's a quick and dirty test:
> 
> Dry:
> View attachment Dry.mp3
> ...


For kind of dry sources like SM stuff, the main purpose of SP2016 imo is not using it position to the max, because in that case it sounds more similar to other hall ER you might find in any reverb. The more unique thing that it does and that you won't be able to get with other reverbs is preserving tightness and tonal balance integrity while adding depth, and that's generally achieved with the vintage stereo room preset, 100% wet and 0-20% position (I think I use 60 ish for sample modelling though). 0% being a great transparent depth adder.

This allows you to get enough depth and break the ''mono'' feel of a dry recording, or straight up turn mono into stereo and as a result you don't need to add too much tail reverb afterwards, so you can get the necessary room ''decca tree'' feel without having to drown the instrument.

The max position setting is cool too and sounds very good but I would rarely use that one. (it can add transparent blur on smaller ensemble recordings though).

You can get somewhat close to the 0% position with smaller room early reflections from other reverbs, but often these early reflections will dramatically affect the tonal balance, and will have some kind of ''rattle'' or really transformative effect, which you don't always want. That's why SP2016 is cool because it's not too transformative on 100% wet and 0% depth. You can really hear the effect when you don't drown the sound in tail reverb afterwards. It's great for mono cello recordings as you can simulate a room stereo recording without having to blur the vibrato and other subtleties with too much tail/hall reverb.


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## Trash Panda (Nov 3, 2021)

Consona said:


> It makes the sound all over the place, very unfocused. Is this what SP2016 does?
> 
> But I've noticed one interesting thing. Even on 100% wet, HD Cart does not make the signal so out of phase as say ValhallaRoom or Nimbus.


I think you can mitigate that by reducing the spread in the reverb tab and the delay in the reflections tab (maybe try toggling the mono/stereo reflections button too).


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## Consona (Nov 22, 2021)

Guys, totally check this one out:









Tai Chi ensemble reverb plugin - AAX, VST, AU - LiquidSonics


From tight rooms to chorused ethereal spaces, Tai Chi is the next generation ensemble character reverb specialising in luscious chorused reverbs that are perfect for synth, guitar, electric piano and vocals. AAX, AU, VST




www.reverbfoundry.com





I'm demoing the Lite version and I think it's _really_ good for early reflections.

@Joël Dollié any thoughts on comparing it to SP216? I really like this one and the current sale price is just $49.


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## blaggins (Nov 22, 2021)

Consona said:


> Guys, totally check this one out:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm very curious about this as well. I demo'd the SP2016 a while back and although I liked what it could do to enhance early reflections, I can't really justify the price.


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## Junolab (Nov 22, 2021)

I find it a bit funny that everyone says that CRP is more about the tails than the ER. In 90% of my cases I use it mostly for ER as it's the only reverb I have that can be tailored 100% to my liking without any artifacts. Often I like a more coloured tails which CRP don't give.


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## Trash Panda (Nov 22, 2021)

Consona said:


> Guys, totally check this one out:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm really liking the results so far just using the default Golden Room preset at 0.70 seconds, treble roll-off to 18k and lowering its slope to 6 dB per octave.


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## Consona (Nov 22, 2021)

Trash Panda said:


> I'm really liking the results so far just using the default Golden Room preset at 0.70 seconds, treble roll-off to 18k and lowering its slope to 6 dB per octave.


I just set the reverb to be ERs only and the reflections sound really good! (Way better than the HD Cart IMO, for the 100% wet trick that is.)


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## blaggins (Nov 22, 2021)

tpoots said:


> I'm very curious about this as well. I demo'd the SP2016 a while back and although I liked what it could do to enhance early reflections, I can't really justify the price.


Small addendum to this. I hadn't realized that the SP2016 was part of Eventides BF sales. It's $79 USD right now which sort of brings it back into the playing field for something I'd mainly use as an ER tool.


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## Consona (Nov 22, 2021)

We need someone who can demo both.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Nov 22, 2021)

tpoots said:


> Small addendum to this. I hadn't realized that the SP2016 was part of Eventides BF sales. It's $79 USD right now which sort of brings it back into the playing field for something I'd mainly use as an ER tool.


Thanks for the heads up - purchased!


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## blaggins (Nov 22, 2021)

Consona said:


> We need someone who can demo both.


Won't be me, although I'm here for it. (1) I'm traveling this week and away from my studio stuff and (2) I have no idea what I'm doing. #2 is of course more important from everyone's perspective (except my own of course!).


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## Trash Panda (Nov 22, 2021)

tpoots said:


> Small addendum to this. I hadn't realized that the SP2016 was part of Eventides BF sales. It's $79 USD right now


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## re-peat (Nov 22, 2021)

Consona said:


> (...) and the reflections sound really good (...)



Yes, they’re good — just about everything about this reverb is really good, outstanding even — except that, to my ears anyway, they don’t really suggest a room. Demoed the Tai Chi for some time and I always hear reverb, glorious reverb, but never a space that I can visualize. Given the kind of reverb this was developed to be and the gear it was (partly) inspired by, this is wholly understandable, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, but if you’re looking for more of a room-sculpting sort of reverberator, I think I’d rather go with the SP2016 or the Sonsig (or one or two others).

But again: Tai Chi is nothing if not a triumph. Excellent piece of software. I’m not buying, but only because I have no urgent need for this kind of reverb at the moment. If I had, I wouldn’t hesitate.

_


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## Pier-V (Nov 24, 2021)

I own all Samplemodeling Brass and I've recently preordered Tokyo Scoring Strings. The only good reverb I own at the moment is Spaces I and from what I'm reading it would be only good to add the final tail.
I don't have experience at all with mixing but even I can hear that for example Spaces alone with Samplemodeling stuff straight up doesn't work. I suspect something similiar would happen with TSS.
SP2016 is discounted at 70% right now (79$), and on the Eventide Audio home page it is stated that the offer will last until January 3rd.
If I understand correctly, all of you are suggesting this should be a no-brainer, right?


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## Nando Florestan (Nov 24, 2021)

Pier-V said:


> Spaces alone with Samplemodeling stuff straight up doesn't work


I have tried a lot of things over the years for Sample Modeling. Currently my preference is EAReverb 2 adding early reflections only (leave the tails to another reverb on a send). EAReverb does positioning on an XY diagram and it sounds great. Depending on the instrument I make it go through a distance-adding EQ first -- Panagement 2 works well for this, that free Proximity plugin is also awesome. And the Sample Modeling instrument itself has a Distance fader, you gotta raise the volume if you use it, but it works. You can try these!

By the way, all the audios at the top of this page are dreeenched in reverb, I don't like that. He probably did it on purpose in order for us to hear the reverb itself... But in general people need to dial down their reverb sends in orchestral mockups, and I trust they would if only they compared their mix to a classical music CD of their preference. Should never be more than this:


----------



## Sarah Mancuso (Nov 24, 2021)

Pier-V said:


> I own all Samplemodeling Brass and I've recently preordered Tokyo Scoring Strings. The only good reverb I own at the moment is Spaces I and from what I'm reading it would be only good to add the final tail.
> I don't have experience at all with mixing but even I can hear that for example Spaces alone with Samplemodeling stuff straight up doesn't work. I suspect something similiar would happen with TSS.
> SP2016 is discounted at 70% right now (79$), and on the Eventide Audio home page it is stated that the offer will last until January 3rd.
> If I understand correctly, all of you are suggesting this should be a no-brainer, right?


For what it's worth, TSS is completely different from working with a modeled library. It's not anechoic: being recorded in a smaller space doesn't mean that there's no room information in it. It's just a smaller room.


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## Consona (Nov 24, 2021)

re-peat said:


> Yes, they’re good — just about everything about this reverb is really good, outstanding even — except that, to my ears anyway, they don’t really suggest a room. Demoed the Tai Chi for some time and I always hear reverb, glorious reverb, but never a space that I can visualize. Given the kind of reverb this was developed to be and the gear it was (partly) inspired by, this is wholly understandable, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, but if you’re looking for more of a room-sculpting sort of reverberator, I think I’d rather go with the SP2016 or the Sonsig (or one or two others).
> 
> But again: Tai Chi is nothing if not a triumph. Excellent piece of software. I’m not buying, but only because I have no urgent need for this kind of reverb at the moment. If I had, I wouldn’t hesitate.
> 
> _


Thx for the reply, your observation is quite interesting!
I think once you put some tail to those Tai Chi ERs, it can sound like a nice room. What kind of reverb you consider Tai Chi to be?


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## re-peat (Nov 24, 2021)

An old-fashioned reverb. And I use the word ‘old-fashioned’ in the most positive sense. A reverb from the days when reverbs were reverbs and not semi-spatializers, which is what most people, certainly here on VI-C, seem to expect from a reverb today. (The distinction between spatializing a sound and adding reverb to it, is one, I often notice, that hardly anyone here seems to make any more. Odd, I find, given the huge difference between the two.)

In other words: a reverb from the days when these things weren’t so much used to simulate some space to put instruments in, but when they were predominantly used to create non-spatial-specific relief in a recording. (‘Relief’ not in the meaning of abatement, obviously, but in the meaning of differences in surface depth.)

_


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## Consona (Nov 27, 2021)

re-peat said:


> An old-fashioned reverb. And I use the word ‘old-fashioned’ in the most positive sense. A reverb from the days when reverbs were reverbs and not semi-spatializers, which is what most people, certainly here on VI-C, seem to expect from a reverb today. (The distinction between spatializing a sound and adding reverb to it, is one, I often notice, that hardly anyone here seems to make any more. Odd, I find, given the huge difference between the two.)
> 
> In other words: a reverb from the days when these things weren’t so much used to simulate some space to put instruments in, but when they were predominantly used to create non-spatial-specific relief in a recording. (‘Relief’ not in the meaning of abatement, obviously, but in the meaning of differences in surface depth.)
> 
> _


Thx!

Btw, what are the 2 other reverbs besides SP2016 and Sonsig you consider good for room-sculpting?
Do you think SP2016 is the best option?


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## vitocorleone123 (Nov 27, 2021)

Cinematic Rooms Pro can push things forward and back pretty well. As well? Don't know. But it sounds glorious overall. Different price level (~$140 for me on sale with some loyalty codes). I'm also loving Tai Chi, but it's not focused on being realistic. Since I don't do orchestral music, CRP+TC are plenty good for the majority of my needs.


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## re-peat (Nov 27, 2021)

Consona said:


> other reverbs (...) good for room-sculpting?



Flux’s Ircam Verb springs to mind. We had a long talk about that one *here*. The older but still very-worthy-of-consideration Oxford Reverb is very good at ‘room suggestion’ as well, I find. (And you get tons of parameters to help you make that work.) Some people are put off by its somewhat sterile sound, and I can understand why up to a point, but that ‘problem’ is also why the Oxford often works so well in a mix, I find. Only to say: not to be discarded as a has-been. In my opinion anyway.

I have to add though that I never choose reverbs based on their ability to suggest rooms because, if I need to sculpt a believable space around a sound, I use Ircam SPAT (which eclipses everything else when it comes to spatialization).

_


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## Zoot_Rollo (Nov 27, 2021)

VSS2 still a good choice these days?


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## Consona (Nov 28, 2021)

Just testing this one, has an unlimited demo version:








Audio Plug-ins


Klevgrand is a creative studio and software company in Stockholm run by film makers, musicians, software developers, producers and sound designers.




klevgrand.se


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## Living Fossil (Nov 28, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> I haven't actually, looks like it's trying to be a more standard allaround reverb. Nobody really talks about it?


Joël, I guess I'm one of the few users of UltraReverb here. 
In my opinion it's a totally different reverb than SP2016, which i use mainly for its features that still sets it apart from most reverbs. Which are: a routable dual delay inside of the reverb as well as a compressor and 4 EQs.
The delays are really helpful e.g. on brass (but i'm talking rather about a non orchestral aesthetic here).
And the compressor can create massively dense tails.

So, for me it's often a "special fx" reverb that can do wonders on effect sounds and also add a vintage charm with the right settings. I liked the reverb of the hardware h3000 (around 20years ago) and UR has some similarities.
But, as mentioned, it doesn't have the positioning control of the SP2016.


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## Tralen (Nov 28, 2021)

Zoot_Rollo said:


> VSS2 still a good choice these days?


I would like to know this as well. I thought it was abandoned and there would be no VSS3 (not confusing it with TC Electronic's VSS3).


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## Zoot_Rollo (Nov 28, 2021)

Tralen said:


> I would like to know this as well. I thought it was abandoned and there would be no VSS3 (not confusing it with TC Electronic's VSS3).


i've been reading it's been difficult to get a license after purchase, as the developer doesn't respond right away.

i've been comparing the VSS 2 demo with Panagement (full) and EAReveb 2 - i can get close, so probably not worth the $$$ and the headache.

for me, at least.


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## Consona (Nov 29, 2021)

kmaster said:


> Valhalla Room also tends to have a metallic crustiness that can’t easily (IME) be worked around or mitigated.


I bought SP2016 and testing it with SampleModeling Brass against ValhallaRoom and VH has WAY LESS metallic artifacts in ERs than SP. 

SP creates way better sounding room sound but the metallic tones are horrible. You basically have to put some tail there so the very short decay does not produce too much of the ringing.


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## Kent (Nov 29, 2021)

Consona said:


> I bought SP2016 and testing it with SampleModeling Brass against ValhallaRoom and VH has WAY LESS metallic artifacts in ERs than SP.
> 
> SP creates way better sounding room sound but the metallic tones are horrible. You basically have to put some tail there so the very short decay does not produce too much of the ringing.


I've never used SP2016, but you may very well be right. 

I can't compare the two subjectively or relatively. All I was saying is that, objectively, VR has the proclivity to be noticeably metallic...which I hope isn't confusing enough to warrant a ""


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## Consona (Nov 29, 2021)

kmaster said:


> I've never used SP2016, but you may very well be right.
> 
> I can't compare the two subjectively or relatively. All I was saying is that, objectively, VR has the proclivity to be noticeably metallic...which I hope isn't confusing enough to warrant a ""


I get your post. I was just commenting on the matter of metallic ringing, telling people VH's metallic crustiness far from the worst. :D

Playing short brass notes in SP2016 is quite an ordeal. :/


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## Zoot_Rollo (Nov 29, 2021)

Consona said:


> I bought SP2016 and testing it with SampleModeling Brass against ValhallaRoom and VH has WAY LESS metallic artifacts in ERs than SP.
> 
> SP creates way better sounding room sound but the metallic tones are horrible. You basically have to put some tail there so the very short decay does not produce too much of the ringing.


i tried the CR Pro demo yesterday.

compared it with a few of my current reverbs.

ALL of them had a metallic ringing sound with various string sample libraries.

killed my reverb frenzy - so that's a good thing.


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## Consona (Nov 29, 2021)

Zoot_Rollo said:


> i tried the CR Pro demo yesterday.
> 
> compared it with a few of my current reverbs.
> 
> ...


I demoed CR. SP2016 has a way better "room sound" but the tail is way more smooth on CR.


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## NoamL (Nov 29, 2021)

I also demoed CRP vs SP2016 and ended up upgrading to Cinematic Rooms Pro.

SP2016 sounds really pleasant, but I couldn't get it to transcend an "Effect added to the recording" sound. I'm no @Joël Dollié though!

CRP may or may not be good at creating an "entire" room for a VI like Sample Modeling or Infinite Brass.

However as a "room biggifier" for libraries recorded in a smaller studio - it's really good. Just feels like the back of the larger stage was always there. The audio feels glued to the sample. I like this plugin more than EW SpacesII or tc VSS3, although those are pro quality plugins too.

Here's a tip for those of you who, like me, don't really know anything about what "Undulation" or "Mod Type" etc are supposed to mean... I went through the plugin and looked at each Hall, Studio or Stage preset that seemed intended for us composers, instead of audio-post people. For each preset I wrote down what ALL the dial and knob settings were. That tells you what variables are the same to make two presets sound similar.... and even more important, what variables are held the same across all orchestral-hall type presets.


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## Joël Dollié (Nov 30, 2021)

Consona said:


> I bought SP2016 and testing it with SampleModeling Brass against ValhallaRoom and VH has WAY LESS metallic artifacts in ERs than SP.
> 
> SP creates way better sounding room sound but the metallic tones are horrible. You basically have to put some tail there so the very short decay does not produce too much of the ringing.


If you turn down the EQ (rightmost slider) and stick to the vintage algorithm it sounds a lot less metallic. Keeping the tail short also helps.

But you always want to send another tail reverb after SP, it's just an in between reverb.


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## Zoot_Rollo (Nov 30, 2021)

Consona said:


> I demoed CR. SP2016 has a way better "room sound" but the tail is way more smooth on CR.


I recently upgraded to Reverberate 3 - i spent some time comparing R3 to CR Pro using VSS2 to set ER.

i couldn't pick one over the other in a blind test to save my gerbil's life.

the same with a few of my other "boutique" 'verbs.

makes me wonder if we're just buying UIs.


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## Consona (Nov 30, 2021)

Joël Dollié said:


> Keeping the tail short also helps.


This makes the metallic ringing way worse.


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## vitocorleone123 (Nov 30, 2021)

Zoot_Rollo said:


> i tried the CR Pro demo yesterday.
> 
> compared it with a few of my current reverbs.
> 
> ...


What are you doing in CRP that makes it metallic?


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## Zoot_Rollo (Nov 30, 2021)

vitocorleone123 said:


> What are you doing in CRP that makes it metallic?


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## Trash Panda (Nov 30, 2021)

NoamL said:


> I also demoed CRP vs SP2016 and ended up upgrading to Cinematic Rooms Pro.
> 
> SP2016 sounds really pleasant, but I couldn't get it to transcend an "Effect added to the recording" sound. I'm no @Joël Dollié though!
> 
> ...


What was your approach for “room biggifying”?


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## Multipdf (Dec 1, 2021)

Jofamusic said:


> Hi all, I use Reverberate 3 as the ER on every Bus instrument section. It allows me to place the instrument sections at the right distance from the concert hall. Strings position 1. Woodwindws higth, piccolo, flute, oboe. C.ingl.) Position 2. Woodwinds bass (clarinets, bassoons, c.Basson) position 3.
> Horns to left position 4, Trumpets to center / right position 4, Tromboni, Tuba to right position 4.
> Percussion position 5.
> The positions are the distances obtained through the Dry / Wet of Reverberate.
> ...


Hi. I am so interested in how you are are using Rev 3 as I have just bought it. I wonder if I could pick your brains on a couple of things I can't seem to resolve? 1) If using Rev 3 for ERs and and an Algo for Tails, do you crop the tail completely form ER and the ER completely from the Algo so they 'butt up against each other exactly. Or do you let them overlap? How critical is this? 2). If the IRs are so good in Rev 3, why can't the whole Impulse be used including the tail, if it's a convincing Hall IR, for example? Hope you have a moment to shed some light as I have watched and read so much but still not sure the best way to approach this mixing, especially Orchestral music. Is it because Algo reverbs are more 'flattering' to the sound? Best wishes. Peter


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## Consona (Dec 9, 2021)

Consona said:


> This makes the metallic ringing way worse.


I should clear this up. On a lot of sources, it's ok, more so when I put some thick reverb after SP2016 as a tail, which eats up a lot of the metallic ringing. The problem is using it with things like brass, which make the ringing really obvious. Which irks me because I bought SP2016 mainly to place my SampleModeling Brass into some space...


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## Jofamusic (Dec 10, 2021)

Multipdf said:


> Ciao. Sono così interessato a come stai usando Rev 3 dato che l'ho appena acquistato. Mi chiedo se potrei prenderti in giro su un paio di cose che non riesco a risolvere. 1) Se si utilizza Rev 3 per ER e un Algo per Tails, si ritaglia la coda completamente da ER e ER completamente da Algo in modo che si "scontrino esattamente l'uno contro l'altro". O li lasci sovrapporre? Quanto è critico questo? 2). Se gli IR sono così buoni in Rev 3, perché non si può usare l'intero Impulse inclusa la coda, se è un Hall IR convincente, per esempio? Spero che tu abbia un momento per gettare un po' di luce dato che ho visto e letto così tanto, ma non sono ancora sicuro del modo migliore per avvicinarti a questo mixaggio, in particolare alla musica orchestrale. È perché i riverberi Algo sono più lusinghieri per il suono? Auguri. Peter


Ciao Peter, sinceramente trovo tutto questo lavoro sul riverbero e le prime riflessioni abbastanza soggettivo. Chi usa un riverbero per impostare le prime riflessioni e poi un'altro Riverbero per la coda. Chi invece usa un solo Riverbero impostato solo il Pre Delay ed il gioco è fatto. Altri ancora mettono un Riverbero per ogni strumento ..... Devo dire che la cosa è molto soggettiva ed ognuno cerca di trovare il giusto modo per fare risaltare e posizionare le intere sezioni dell'orchestra. Io ci sto lavorando e spero di trovare il giusto compromesso. Grazie per gli auguri. Giuseppe Sbernini


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## vitocorleone123 (Jun 12, 2022)

I just posted info from Sean Costello (ValhallaDSP) in another thread on how he recommends using 2 reverbs in parallel rather than in serial, when separating ERs from LRs.






Best Way to increase Lushness using Seventh Heaven Reverb


I have the baby version of Seventh Heaven, which to my ears sounds better than any other reverb I've tried. However, I'm working on a project with the Boston Hall (default values) across all instruments. But it doesn't sound lush enough for the particular song. I have it on a send at 100%...




vi-control.net


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