@dpcon said:
I'm having trouble making the Brass sound farther back. I have them going to same reverb as Winds I and haven't eq'd for absorbtion (so maybe that's the problem.)
In creating a artificial concert hall reverb, beside the air absorbtion, other important factors to make a instrument more distant than others, i.e. moving them back in the stereo field is to delay the direct sound + the total reverbrance. Everything at larger distance to the listening position arrives later at your ear.
Without going into all the details one can say that the localisation of a sound source between the loudspeakers, respectively a stereo field is obtained by creating 1) a time difference between them, 2) by intensity differences, 3) or by a combination of both intensity, and time difference. Intensity differences can be done in a simplified way with the pan knob for example.
In a concert hall the speed of sound is approx. 342 meter per second at 18 degree celsius, or 1122 feet per second at 64.4 Fahrenheit. (1.13 foot = 1 millisecond).
Example, time difference for distance: Let's say you want to move the the trumpets 15 feet behind the first front row of violas, this would mean you have to delay the trumpet and it’s reverb by 17 milliseconds compared to the violas. Here you don’t have to open a delay for the track, simply delay the trumpet midi track 17 milliseconds.
The human sensory is capable to interpret left/right arrival differences down to 7 microseconds (7/10000/sec) to detect from which direction a sound is coming. Example one, time difference: you want the trumpets be heard coming from the right half of the stereo field, then delay the left channel by 7 microsecond, you will hear the trumpet coming from the right side even thus the left channel has exactly the same level. Example two, time difference: let’s assume the trumpet is nearer to the right wall, then the reflections from the right wall would arrive earlier at your ear drum then the reflections from left walls - you have to program this L/R reflection time differences into the reverb device.
With this time difference parameters you place the instruments exactly where you want them in the stereo field, accurate to one foot with milliseconds, or accurate to 1/10 of a foot with devices with microsecond scaling. The intensity differences you simply make with the pan knob or ultimately with separate faders for each stereo side with two pan knobs. Drawing a little ray study of your imaginary room with it’s direct & reflected sound including the time of travel to you ear drum will help. This may sound all a bit too scientific, but that’s the way it is, at least very simplified said. Be careful, because i think the VSL stereos also have phase differences, which leads sometime to other ways to handle what i just said.
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