IR-1 and IR-360 are great, TL-Space from TL-Audio too (for ProT**ls only, though), but I think AltiVerb is still leading the pack. For PC, there are cheaper competitors like PristineSpace, or even free ones like SIR (which isn't multi-channel compatible). Hosts like Logic or Sequoia/Samplitude come with their built-in convoluters, as well as the new Kontakt2 or GigaStudio3.

But in the end, it is the quality of impulse-responses that makes or breaks the quality of a sampling reverb. AudioEase has done a lot of first-class IRs for AltiVerb, as well as Angelo Farina for Waves' IR-1/IR-360. There are a few third-party manufacturers, namley Ernest Cholakis from Numerical Sound, and Peter Roos (who isn't recording real rooms, but sampling famous reverb-boxes). - The freeware-IRs on the 'net are low- to medium-quality, with some exceptions.

HTH,

/Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library

Voxengo Pristine Space is on sale right now for their new lite version. It's faster than SIR, and the cost is really low for the stereo version now.

it really eats up processing power

@Dietz said:

but I think AltiVerb is still leading the pack.

for those of you with macs [:'(] [:'(]

There may be light at the end of the tunnel for those of you willing to wait for the MIR, as AudioEase (the makers of AltiVerb) programmed the convolution-core for us.

/Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library

Is MIR going to work with Kontakt? Is it going to be a universal reverb tool?

-BW

MIR will be an highly integrated frontend for virtual orchestral mixing and reverberation, so the question is - will Kontakt work with MIR? ;-D

... there will be more light shed on all related questions in the not too distant future.

All the best,

/Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library

When you're done with MIR maybe you could work on a notation interface -- you know: draw a staccato symbol and get a staccato sample, draw a slur and generate legato phrases. Imagine a VSL-specific sequencer designed for classical, orchestral music, not for techno-pop like everything else on the market.

A company called Notion has developed something like this, but their demos don't sound nearly as good as VSL demos. I assume this would be an extremely complicated project, right?

Everything is complicated!

@Dietz said:

but I think AltiVerb is still leading the pack.

for those of you with macs [:'(] [:'(]

From listening to user demos and reading forums topics, I way prefer the sound of gigapulse for PC than altiverb for mac. Maybe it is that the gigapulse users I listened to just used *more* reverb than the alti users, I don't know their settings. But I do know they sounded much more real. So.. For some of us, it's for those of you with PCs [:'(] [:'(]

That said, I actually have a 2 PCs, but after using gigastudio for some time I feel I have no choice but to use the Mac- I have no idea what tascam thinks they're playing at, but really, they expect people to *use* something efficiently which keeps on crashing, not only itself but the entire system?

Shame they don't make gigapulse for Logic 7 AU.

Personally I prefer Altiverb... have you heard/tried version 5? My understanding is that it was a big step from 4.

Here's why I'm prefering it, other than that it runs on my Mac [:P] :

1. LOTS more halls, reverbs to choose from.
2. Control over amount of reverb, as if it was a regular hardware reverb. Gigapulse has dry/wet but it's supposed to be always set to 100% wet for rooms, at least, so that doesn't really give you anything. Altiverb has separate settings for reverb levels and wet/dry mix.
3. Control over the levels of direct sound, early reflections, and tail. See Maarten's demo on the altiverb site of how to take advantage of this for orchestral placement.
4. Automatable from within my sequencer. Sure, this is largely because I'm on a mac, I'll admit.

@tcovem said:

Personally I prefer Altiverb... have you heard/tried version 5? My understanding is that it was a big step from 4.

Here's why I'm prefering it, other than that it runs on my Mac [:P] :

1. LOTS more halls, reverbs to choose from.
2. Control over amount of reverb, as if it was a regular hardware reverb. Gigapulse has dry/wet but it's supposed to be always set to 100% wet for rooms, at least, so that doesn't really give you anything. Altiverb has separate settings for reverb levels and wet/dry mix.
3. Control over the levels of direct sound, early reflections, and tail. See Christian Marcussen's demo on the altiverb site of how to take advantage of this for orchestral placement.
4. Automatable from within my sequencer. Sure, this is largely because I'm on a mac, I'll admit.

Luckily Altiverb will be available for PC soon, so we will be able to test it out for ourselves and make a choice.

DG

To digress slightly... Can the Impulse Responses from Altiverb be used with Space Designer? Audioease sell a cd of the IR's for $40...