Hi Rob,
Ok I am still very much a newbie here, but I'm starting to develop some of my own opinions on the best way to use Altiverb...for better or for worse. [:)] I too at first followed Maarten's method on the AudioEase website. When you follow along Maarten's demo, reading and playing each audio example sequentially it all makes logical and aural sense. The problem is that you're hearing something that doesn't sound that realistic at first get closer and closer to tonal realism, until you've hit the final mix which you can only compare to the other "not that realistic" audio examples. In this context the final mix is very deceiving because it will always sound 100% better than the steps it took to get there. I was totally fooled by this, until I did a mock-up of a real orchestra piece (with recording and score) using Maarten's method on my own template.
It sounded all wrong, totally muddy, distant, and the instruments were not realistically placed across the stereo image! I was horrified with the results and at first thought I was doing something wrong, but I could not get it to work (and like you also noticed...reducing the reverb tail makes the sounds less muddy, but then I felt that makes the instruments lose some of their tonal realism). Now don't get me wrong, I love Altiverb and think AudioEase is a great company, but they are a company like any other, and I was simply a victim of a marketing scheme by AudioEase used to sell a particular feature in Altiverb. Hire a famous sample artist (Marteen), pay him to write a short piece with dry samples (VSL), and tell him to use Altiverb this specific way for the purposes of the demo. I don't know for sure, but I bet Marteen probably doesn't use Altiverb this way in is own orchestral sample work.
From the context of hearing a real orchestral recording fresh in my ears, Marteen's demo all of a sudden didn't sound that good to me, not nearly as good as it sounded when I first played each little audio example on the website sequential leading up to the final mix. I now believe that dry sound is the key to distance and left to right stereo imaging when using sampled/virtual reverbs. See http://community.vsl.co.at/forums/t/17895.aspx also Christian's demos here on the VSL site.
I basically use Christian's setup on the individual tracks, dry sound comes from them not from Altiverb (by the way AudioEase says not to adjust the wet to dry mix on Altiverb, stating that it should always be 100% wet). Each instrument's distance is determined by its wet to dry mix and each instrument is "power panned" to the apporiate position (of course doing this "power pans" both the wet and dry signals). This really helps with the stereo spread. Instruments are then bused to 2 Altiverb instances. Strings (Vln. I very dry, Vln. II less dry than Vln. I, Vla. about equal to Vln. II, Vcl. about equal to Vln. I; Basses wetter than all the rest of the strings) and Woodwinds (second most dry section) to 11m Mechanics Hall. Brass (almost but not as dry as the woodwinds) and Perc. (almost totally wet) to 15m Mechanics Hall. Both Altiverb instances of Mechanics Hall use basically the default settings, no positioning, keep direct signal, and full tail (though I reduce the big reverb knob to 93% on both instances). This in combination with correct dry to wet mixes and "power panning" on the individual instrument tracks seems to give a very clear, crisp orchestral sound that is tonally very realistic for VSL samples. My final step is to add a LITTLE bit of EQ in the high range to the final output track. I feel this give some brightness/liveliness to the sound across the orchestra that to my ears really puts the icing on the cake.
Maybe this will give you some ideas! [:)] I'm still very new to all this myself, but I'm really liking the results I'm getting so far. I may change my mind/method in the future as I become more experienced, but I'm happy so far with what I've got.
Cheers! Brian
