Jay, thanks for bringing up the topic... I've never toyed with those options in Altiverb, and now I'm off to do some experimenting. I'm half excited and half afraid -- new tricks are great, but not when they mean you have to go back and re-do everything you've ever done!

Kerry

In the late hours, I'd like to ammend some of my earlier observations. I now think that the mixing of the dry and direct can create a warmth in strings that is appealing. Too much clarity can become almost clinical. A little dirt can be a good thing.

Confusing myself,
Jay

PS-- I reserve the right to change my mind about this several more times! [:D]

Jay, I have always used the wet/dry at 100%. What I do, is think of Altiverb as the room mikes an then introduce a little direct signal, panned appropriately, for clarity. I also then use a send from this direct signal to a LEX PCM70, so in a way all I'm doing is replacing room mikes with Altiverb.

DG

Hi Jay,

Thanks for the sharing, I've had my confusing moments with Altiverb too,
but at the same time it became my most trusty pal in no time-[:)]
Being relatively new to Altiverb myself, I got rather confused by this "direct signal"-things as well.

A lot of similar questions have been posted on Audio Ease's forum, and some very interesting answers came up lately in the post "Direct vs Dry Sound." (Audio Ease>forum>Altiverb)
I haven't got the time yet to read through it thoroughly, but I will, as it appears many questions on this topic are getting answered very clearly.

Forgive me if you read them already!

cheers,

Alex

PS: I always use Altiverb as an insert (in Nuendo), never as a send.
If I understood it correctly, when you use Altiverb as a send (aux), then you definitely need to mute the direct signal in order to avoid phasing.

As an insert, there seems to be no problem. I usually only play with "speaker positioning", the "direct knob" and sometimes the" reverb time" and" reverb size."
And no problems so far.


Alex

I have the same feeling as Jay concerning the experimental tinkering with Altiverb. However, isn't using dry signal contradicting the whole idea of the convolution? At least that is what I've been thinking since using gigapulse. Almost like introducing dry into the mix is "cheating." Because you are trying to capture the sound of the environment and apply it to your signal. And in that environment, originally, there is no such thing as "dry signal." If you use dry signal, you might as well be using hardware reverb. Though that's only an idea. I'm not passionately committed to it. [:)]

Cheating, stealing, double-crossing, pillaging and looting... all's fine with me as long as the right sound comes out [H]

And often with Altiverb and other IR's I find the sound not being what I need without any dry signal. Too wet, too drowned, too boomy, lots of fine details all muffled out.

Basically the same as with traditional reverbs, where I also seldomly put the wet/dry ratio to 100/0%.

By playing with the wet/dry knob or the speaker position you also in a way have control over how much definition and detail of the original sound you wish to preserve. And how "close" or "far" your instrument sounds.

But that's just how it works for me of course.
And I have to add that I'm still learning how to use Altiverb in an optimal way as we speak.

Cheers,

Alex

I definitely agree with that idea of using anything to get the sound, by hook or by crook.

By altering the speaker placement - for example bringing it closer - I have assumed that is intended to adjust for greater or lesser clarity instead of using dry added to wet. So it allows you to maintain the change made by the environment on all of the sound instead of just the wet. At least that is the principle I've been using... until another one comes along. [[;)]]

@William said:

I definitely agree with that idea of using anything to get the sound, by hook or by crook.

Aye Captain, I hear ya [:D]

Seriously, the speaker placement is a great tool. I use it very often, not only is it easy and fast to place your instruments the way you want your listener to perceive them (either close and clear, or far in the distance, and everything in between), you can also write/automate them (fixed in the last update).

Not so interesting for music perhaps, but great to have an army of Roman soldiers marching from the distance, until they stand right in front of you-[[:)]]
But okay, that's the sound fx-maniac speaking now[:)]
And then again, for experimental music it offers a lot of possibilities too.

An example of using the speaker positioning (not an official one, just one of my experiments) : you have an orchestral piece, with a solo violin playing an important passage.

You can send (for ex) the Violins/Violas/Celli & Basses (their individual audio tracks panned according to their orchestral seating) thru the Mechanics Hall, selecting the 8m distance stereo omnis. That's the "closest" impulse recorded in that hall, and therefore great for the strings which are usually in the front section of the orchestra anyways. Okay, with the speaker position you can either leave them as is (the original 8m), or even set them a bit wider for a bigger stereo image.

Then you take the track with your soloist, and send it through a different
Altiverb instance, same hall, same distance (8m), but... you drag the speakers halfway (or more, depending need and taste) to the front, making the violin still a bit more "up close & personal".
If the solo violin passage suffers from "dancing from left to right" artifacts, convert the audio track to mono and use the mono version of this IR.

Brass & Woodwinds can be sent through other AV instances with the 11m or 15 m impulses (where again you can play a bit with the range and stereo width according to the effect you want to achieve).

Percussion finally goes to the 20m IR (yet another AV instance).
And if they still don't sound "far" enough, you can push the speakers more backwards.

Oh, and if you have a choir, or an organ... yes: send it toyet another AV with the omni-wide balcony IR selected-[[:)]]

That's just 1 way of course. But I just love to have these possibilities!

Cheers,

Alex

That is really good to hear those specifics Alex, thanks for the info.

BTW, I heard that you should not drag the sources (speaker icons) apart wider than the default footprints on the stage, as it creates an artificial distortion in the sound. I don't understand exactly what distortion, and why it would be possible to drag them at all, if it is bad to do. Do you find this to be true?

I just realized this sounds almost like a whispered fireside rumor or an urban folktale. Which brings up what Jay said - why is all this so mysterious anyway? Oh well, it is all part of The Hermetic Mysteries of Altiverb...

@William said:

BTW, I heard that you should not drag the sources (speaker icons) apart wider than the default footprints on the stage, as it creates an artificial distortion in the sound. I don't understand exactly what distortion, and why it would be possible to drag them at all, if it is bad to do. Do you find this to be true?

You're very welcome, it's a good check for myself to write this down, to see if this little method still looks logical in words.
As for the artificial distortion... well, every impulse has its own specific nature and sometimes strange artifacts. But they're part of the imperfections of the respective place that was recorded, making it all the more realistic.

I use the speaker-wide position a lot, can't say I ever heard anything really strange... But I'll pay extra attention next time, now that I'm warned by the fireside tales-[:)]

I understand what you mean with the hermetic nature of Altiverb.
I too found some details theoretically rather hard to grasp at first. Read the manual completely, and found myself reading several sentences two three times... and still my mind went : uhh??

At Audio Ease they do try to explain a lot on the forums, but reading that sometimes makes my head spin, as I'm not a tech-head.

But then I just started playing with it, was overwhelmed with all these great IR's and the possibilities, and figured: bwoa, it works, it sounds great, I knowwhich button does what, sonever mind if I don't really_really get it.

Probably one day I will!

Cheers William,

Alex

@William said:

That is really good to hear those specifics Alex, thanks for the info.

BTW, I heard that you should not drag the sources (speaker icons) apart wider than the default footprints on the stage, as it creates an artificial distortion in the sound. I don't understand exactly what distortion, and why it would be possible to drag them at all, if it is bad to do. Do you find this to be true?

I just realized this sounds almost like a whispered fireside rumor or an urban folktale. Which brings up what Jay said - why is all this so mysterious anyway? Oh well, it is all part of The Hermetic Mysteries of Altiverb...

The audioease site shows examples of the speakers at wide settings and I've never heard any thing strange (and I'm a freak about phasing issues ) But I've found that what you put in can sometimes make it sound wrong. Panning within stereo tracks is something that I've found to be tricky.

As for the phase on the wet/dry mix I never use altiverb to blend. I always use full wet on the ER's and sub/aux the tail verbs on full wet using the faders to blend.

On a further note concerning the "phasing" effect.......


I've discovered that when using the classic old-school system of "sending" signal from the dry sources to the Altiverb...one needs to not only turn mix to 100%wet, and mute direct sound BUT also:
TURN OFF ER (early reflections)

........all the phasing will cease.


SvK

See think about it....

Most sections of the Vienna library were recorded at about 3 to 4 feet away (more for the Appassionata stuff)

So those samples already have early reflections in them to start with (i know it's a silent stage but it's not completely dead......that's good)

So by enabling the early reflections in Altiverb.......it's adding ER's to samples that already have them....causing this phazzy stuff...

So my opinion is that in order to obtain the best result from Altiverb + Vienna.....

is to do what I outlined above,

just my 2 cents.

SvK

Last point:

IMPORTANT!


set your instrument stems to "Pre-Fader".

EXAMPLE:

Violin Stem has send knob set to -3db (going to Altiverb....with above settings)....now when you pull down the volume fader of that stem the reverb will remain and the fader will act as a level for your direct signal.

SvK