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Using Altiverb 7 to replicate Teldex Scoring Stage

tim727

Senior Member
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So I noticed that Teldex is one of the spaces included in Altiverb 7. I own MArk1 and have just purchased MArk3 and really love the sound of Teldex. I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with the following kind of setup for a project that has a mix of OT and non-OT instruments:

- Use any and all mics on any of the OT instruments
- Use only close mics + Altiverb Teldex reverb on any of the non-OT instruments

Has anyone done this? Is this effective at creating the sense that ALL of the instruments in the project were recorded in the same place? (specifically, Teldex)



Thanks for any input!
 
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If you're using libraries recorded there then it doesn't make sense to put it on the entire mix unless you were only using close mics from those libraries.
 
The whole "room sound" thing is vastly overrated.
When samples are being sampled, the musicians sit in the room without the rest of the orchestra being present. That drastically changes how the sound behaves. Then there are steps which have to be undertaken to compensate the different behaviour of different frequencies inside the room, to address phasing concerns etc.. The bottom line is, libraries with a "room sound" are an obstruction to workflow. Christian Henson made a point in one of his videos that "an instrument sampled with room sound just sounds better than a dry one with reverb on" and he made an example with a tuba by putting reverb on it. The issue is that there is MUCH more going on than what a reverb can simulate. If Christian had put a delay on top of the reverb, managed the delay and reverb times properly, managed the width of the stereo field and the phase alignment of the reverberations, he would find the difference to be significantly less pronounced.
AIR Lyndhurst, Teldex, all of them might be great rooms, but they are great rooms for a REAL, full orchestra to be in. We go there with our wimpy samples and the companies lull us into buying the "room sound". What we are buying is the trouble of having to deal with unrealistic reverb and making it work for our combinations.
We're letting it happen cause 90% of us have no clue about the physics of sound and we hear the earcandy on Youtube and think that's the be all/end all.
The directors we work with who wouldn't know a tuba if you stuck their head in one, just want everything drowned in reverb anyway cause they are not interested in proper music anymore (cause 90% of us aren't proper musicians anymore- hell most can't even read music (!!!) so who is to blame them).

Use the driest/closest mikes your libraries have. Learn to use reverb, delay, and a stereo field widener. Then submix your instrument groups so that you have bleed from one mike to the other (like a real orchestra would) and add reverb/delay/width to those individually so they are spatially placed. Then you will have your glue.
You can do that with 2 stock plugins and Valhalla by the way; no need for Altiverb.
 
The whole "room sound" thing is vastly overrated.
When samples are being sampled, the musicians sit in the room without the rest of the orchestra being present. That drastically changes how the sound behaves.

I always wondered - if this is such a big issue, why cannot the developers just place some dummies with instruments in the room to simulate the whole orchestra sitting there? This would also simulate other effects like sound waves from one instrument resonating in the bodies of others etc. Cannot make much difference to the cost of production.

On the other hand, perhaps understanding the physics of sound would help us not only to mix dry instruments properly, but also to compensate the absence of the full orchestra in the room properly? As I understand it, some characteristics of the sound do not change because of this (e. g. room resonances, early reflections from room surfaces), while other characteristics change in a very specific way (e. g. sound decay time at certain frequencies).
 
A sampled orchestra will be still a sampled orchestra with dummies sitting around, or even the full real orchestra waiting. Samples are a different beast and it's good to know how to deal with them instead of waiting for developers to do everything righter than right to bring the real thing into the computer. It will never happen. It's fun to get new toys. But knowing how to use the stuff we have is the important thing.
 
I'm with you. Developers have to make money and selling stuff that sounds good is important to make money.
That said, I think the most interesting announcement Spitfire made this year is the "big, dry library"
 
I've used Altiverb a lot over the years in most of my mixes. Personally, I'm more interested in what sounds good to me than in replicating audio authentically; so I can't address the specific question about how well the Teldex preset blends with OT. Nonetheless, I think you may find the video below to be useful.

Spitfire's Chief Engineer, Jake Jackson, likes to mix Altiverb with algorithmic reverbs. This video with Jackson and Christian Hensen addresses the question of what the best reverb is for orchestral samples. (You can cut to the chase at 18:26, but you may find that the whole video is worth a look.)



Best,

Geoff
 
Unsurprisingly they omitted QL Spaces in this video, one of the best value for money and quality IRRs ever made. What this means for the rest of the video is up to you to decide.
 
Yes Spaces was a notable omission, as were the Bricasti M7 and a number of newer algorithmic reverbs, such as Blackhole and Adaptiverb. Nonetheless, they covered some worthy contenders.

(Of course, neither Blackhole nor Adaptiverb are known for their realism; but what they do is pretty spectacular.)

The bottom line is that you can do it their way and get a great sound, or you could pick another pair of high-quality reverbs and get a great sound. Either way, I heartily endorse mixing convolution and algorithmic reverbs.

Best,

Geoff
 
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I always wondered - if this is such a big issue, why cannot the developers just place some dummies with instruments in the room to simulate the whole orchestra sitting there? This would also simulate other effects like sound waves from one instrument resonating in the bodies of others etc. Cannot make much difference to the cost of production.

On the other hand, perhaps understanding the physics of sound would help us not only to mix dry instruments properly, but also to compensate the absence of the full orchestra in the room properly? As I understand it, some characteristics of the sound do not change because of this (e. g. room resonances, early reflections from room surfaces), while other characteristics change in a very specific way (e. g. sound decay time at certain frequencies).
Mmh, watching a 70 piece orchestra listening to a snare session for several hours without any noise would be a unforgetable experience I guess;)
 
A sampled orchestra will be still a sampled orchestra with dummies sitting around, or even the full real orchestra waiting. Samples are a different beast and it's good to know how to deal with them instead of waiting for developers to do everything righter than right to bring the real thing into the computer. It will never happen. It's fun to get new toys. But knowing how to use the stuff we have is the important thing.

Bingo.
 
I just recently took Mike Verta's class on "Template Balancing".
It was a real eye/ear opener for me.
Mike goes into great detail on how he sets up each section using different EQ, Altiverb, delay and widener settings to create a 3 dimensional space for each section of the orchestra. Best $30 I ever spent. Check it out.
https://mikeverta.com/product-category/masterclasses/
And during the holidays you can purchase any of his classes for 40% off... a no brainer.
 
noise would be wonderful, I hate the sterile sound of many libraries nowadays

Agree. Would be so cool to have someone record orchestra not playing, sitting in their chairs, occasionally chair rustle, shifting in their seats, breathing, music stand getting hit every once in a while, things that happen in real recordings
 
Agree. Would be so cool to have someone record orchestra not playing, sitting in their chairs, occasionally chair rustle, shifting in their seats, breathing, music stand getting hit every once in a while, things that happen in real recordings
The occasional page turn, trumpet mute falling... :grin:
 
The whole "room sound" thing is vastly overrated.
When samples are being sampled, the musicians sit in the room without the rest of the orchestra being present. That drastically changes how the sound behaves. Then there are steps which have to be undertaken to compensate the different behaviour of different frequencies inside the room, to address phasing concerns etc.. The bottom line is, libraries with a "room sound" are an obstruction to workflow. Christian Henson made a point in one of his videos that "an instrument sampled with room sound just sounds better than a dry one with reverb on" and he made an example with a tuba by putting reverb on it. The issue is that there is MUCH more going on than what a reverb can simulate. If Christian had put a delay on top of the reverb, managed the delay and reverb times properly, managed the width of the stereo field and the phase alignment of the reverberations, he would find the difference to be significantly less pronounced.
AIR Lyndhurst, Teldex, all of them might be great rooms, but they are great rooms for a REAL, full orchestra to be in. We go there with our wimpy samples and the companies lull us into buying the "room sound". What we are buying is the trouble of having to deal with unrealistic reverb and making it work for our combinations.
We're letting it happen cause 90% of us have no clue about the physics of sound and we hear the earcandy on Youtube and think that's the be all/end all.
The directors we work with who wouldn't know a tuba if you stuck their head in one, just want everything drowned in reverb anyway cause they are not interested in proper music anymore (cause 90% of us aren't proper musicians anymore- hell most can't even read music (!!!) so who is to blame them).

Use the driest/closest mikes your libraries have. Learn to use reverb, delay, and a stereo field widener. Then submix your instrument groups so that you have bleed from one mike to the other (like a real orchestra would) and add reverb/delay/width to those individually so they are spatially placed. Then you will have your glue.
You can do that with 2 stock plugins and Valhalla by the way; no need for Altiverb.

Holy crap! You are absolutely correct on all counts.
 
If you're using libraries recorded there then it doesn't make sense to put it on the entire mix unless you were only using close mics from those libraries.

My thinking is that in a given project where I wanted to create that sound, for the libs that were already recorded there I would just use a normal mix of the mics. Then, for the libs that were not recorded there, I would use only close mics in conjunction with the Teldex reverb. Would this not be a logical approach?
 
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