Well .. here's looking forward to MIR [:P] .. Personally I'm looking forward to this as the Reverb holy grail .. though I understand that it probably won't be the fix for eveything ... but hopefully it'll be pretty darned close.

Once again .. I volunteer to Beta test .. or Alpha test MIR. It's an inconvenience on my busy schedule I know .. but it's s sacrifice I'm willing to make [:D] (If only!)

@anton said:

...it's not question of cynematic sound or not it's just :
Which it is the best solution in order to approach itself the better sound.
Since the impulse used it supplies also a discreete timbrical change.
I have noticed that the different impulses are drastic changing the sound in terms of
harmonic result.

It was pointed out earlier that part of the *character* of the sound comes from the fact that the orchestras were recorded on sound stages rather than in concert halls. The perception of reality that convolution reverbs can be misapplied, which seems to factor into part of the current discussion.

If one solution was to use the same reverb that is often used on scoring stages, it remains worth asking if the sound stage's pre-delays using Altiverb's sound stage IRs would render a "better", more convincing result.

It may not, but I wasn't sure if anyone had tried it. Timbrel change to some degree is what is being sought here. The question is whether that timbrel change is desirable.

One of the things that Audio Impressions is working on is a reverb that simulates the leakage in spot mics. That's kind of intriguing, and I don't think it would be very difficult to do with some filtering and possibly delays.

Digidesign Strike, their drum program, lets you dial in some leakage too. It's actually pretty effective with drums, but I haven't heard the effect on orchestra.

Lets face it, when it comes to VSL, MIR is going to be the solution - the other half of the puzzle that for me at least, is what is missing. I hope they get to finishing it soon - certainly in the next six months, machines will probably be fast enough to do the offline rendering or close to it. Personally I can't wait THAT long..... but we must. Once it is here, I think anyone who has it will soon comment on how they could never live without it and wondered how they ever did.

Lexicon reverbs? Ahem, does anyone have $25,000? They might be nice but at that price I'd rather wait for MIR when it comes to VSL! The sampled reverbs in Altiverb are *alright* but yes, there is a lot missing there that convolution can't capture off a synth reverb like that... unfortunately. however if you use the direct and sf IR from real world IR's, and then mix with the tail and some SF of the synth sounds as is suggested - yes you can get a very good result and it does sound more "film" like, although I've never done that on a mix yet I've tried it out breifly.

Regarding mixing and matching IR's in altiverb. I've used some such techniques on recent mixes, such as the telex studio which gives a good studio sound. Another technique is to dial down the length and size of the studio to give almost a re-recorded effect on the VSL samples at those very short early reflections stages, really shorten the length so it's very tight (big edit: forgot to say: and reduce the short reflections - treat the short reflections like a wet/dry mix not like a db mix at this initial stage if this is how you want to do your mix, you don't want full mix of SF there since you require a reasonable direct signal for the subsequent reverb mixing so imagine that -60db is 5% wet or so, and 0db is 100% wet you want to mix in the amount you would imagine you would want at the recording stage so if this is the close mic portion of the process then you would say ok I want between 10 - 30% short reflections at this stage of the mix (this is like placing your mics closer or further from the instruments) depending on the IR and how it sounds/works but say start with 25% - 25% of -60db is -45db there's your wet/dry mix on that - now you still have freedom to mix in some early reflections from the second reverb and even I've found you can mix some direct signal but remember, this is the direct signal of the now processed sound - the direct signal of which is 100% wet on the first reverb, this is why you must lower the early reflections or else it's just going to be a mess. Treat everything as you would relative to a real situation - mic distance for your close mics, delays for your far mics on the SR and tails of subsequent instances of the reverb realtive to real world specs relative to the previous IR/instance that you have - you wouldn't close mic your recording with 100% short reflections, the reason you close mic is to cut that out, so imagine we're not going the whole way as VSL does with a dry sound and we're recording with 25% SF, then you go to your reverb for the room sound after that. You can even mix in some tail of a larger IR of the same room almost like ambient room mic's bled into the mix at very low level and mix that with your bigger master reverb anything can work) Basically it works fairly well (not as good as MIR) and then use your ears to do the last stages. You have to use your ears and get the right accoustical result at that level, then you bus that out to a larger reverb of choice, and yes, the synth verbs can sound very good even though they're sampled. However for me the quality of altiverb doesn't shine through those IR's as much as it does on the real spaces. It is harder to make it work on the real spaces and you have to do your eq right for each one, which makes it hard to swap and change your reverbs - because they do affect timbre so much, however you can find some good combinations. Direct sound must be off for the subsequent IR's, and tail should be off for the initial IR's (edit: although these are general rules and can be broken if it works). Even the placement feature can drastically change the timbre and harmonic properties with the smallest move. Frankly I'm not a fan for the fact that it seems very unpredictable in that sense but I do use it reluctantly because it's useful for creating depth not just horizontal placement and also doubles as a stereo width tool when you drag speakers closer together so you don't need to use the logic helper or waves S1 (saves a stage of processing). Altiverb looks fairly simple but when you start mixing and matching, man it can become a rabbits hole of possibilities that you are already at the bottom of before you know what you did, especially when you have a full orchestral mix, and that is to speak nothing of your eq and other parameters going on.

Factors that you have to artistically play with to get the mix right:
direct signal
short reflections
tail reverb
wet/dry mixes
colour wheel
reverb time
size

If using 100% placement busses, the built in eq is quite efficient and is quite good quality straight forward and reasonably clean on stereo signals, and actually many times is really very nice sounding (removing the need for a separate plug in if you prefer)

All these things are in fact mix tools and you are mixing the volumes of these elements, not just the wet and dry of a preset. This is what makes it so potentially complex. An IR that seems muddy at first might be passed over because you can't get the right wet/dry mix, might be perfect if you adjust the other parameters especially the direct/SF and tail parameters.

MIR is definitely what is required here. To mix in the box without a tool of that calibre is going to be looked back upon as madness in the years to come - if by no one else than me! ha ha. Personally I very much look forward to it's completion. The quicktime sounds GREAT.

[8-)]

Miklos.

Many thanks Guys for the impressions. But i have another question.
Since my main G5 is completely CPU busy for Vienna instruments, i want
(if possible) using my 2nd G5 just for "running" Altiverb.
It's possible ?
I have another Logic running on my 2nd G5.
Appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks
PS
Obviously no chance for running Altiverb in node mode .......?

Check the Altiverb forum to an answer to just this question.

DG

I haven't done this but basically yet. However not if you mean to use your other machine as a node - I don't think Altiverb works like that - but you can send via network over to your second G5 and mix through logic on that I don't know how though. Another helpful forum would be the apple support forum logic pro section.

Miklos.

...it's very funny .......they readress me ....here....

Sorry to hear that! Well they're not that helpful then are they. I will look into it for you if I get a minute I know it's possible over a network - maybe you'll get 8 stereo 24bit channels sending and one stereo coming back for your output without too much trouble. AS I said I've never done it but if I get a minute and you still haven't found anything over the next week I will take a look as I'm curious for myself also just to know. But in the mean time try searching on the apple forums for netsend and netreceive or applenetsend applenetreceive something like that - and see what comes up. You may need a free software the name of which I don't know (sorry) that will enable you to port the audio out of logic, send it over the network, and receive it into logic on the other end and of course on those tracks you can insert your altiverb, then send the audio back as a stereo mix.

Miklos.

Thanks

Of course if you have hardware on both machines that would be easiest on the surface - to use ADAT light pipe between two interfaces for example, but I think the network thing is apparently more reliable because you don't have sync issues between interfaces, so probably better technically (potentially) from a sound quality point of view.

Miklos.

...many thanks...again

I guess you could call a friend of mine a "big guy." (Short, actually, but he mixed Superman Returns and X-Men.) He tells me he's using less of the TC reverbs and more Altiverb these days, sometimes exclusively. He just sold one of his TCs. FWIW.

@synthetic said:

I guess you could call a friend of mine a "big guy." (Short, actually, but he mixed Superman Returns and X-Men.) He tells me he's using less of the TC reverbs and more Altiverb these days, sometimes exclusively. He just sold one of his TCs. FWIW.

People rubbish altiverb and "plug ins"..... Technically a hardware box is just a piece of software... a plug in, only you can only use it once. What about the Lexicon reverbs though they're pretty nice... still for $25,000 you can download the IR's off the internet and use them in altiverb... a bit cheaper. Anyway, that's a really interesting piece of information - thanks for sharing.

Miklos.

I have to agree with Dietz, generally the sound of impulsed digital reverbs is not as good as the real thing. You might be better finding a digital reverb plug-in like Ambience or Audio Damage's Reverence. I have an Alesis Wedge that I like for some things, and would love to get a TC Reverb 4000 someday.

"I'd like to suggest to experiment also with IR's from digital reverb units, like the Lex 960 and the TC 6000. These are still used for ochestral film scores - the "big" guys just don't use "real space" IRs..."

Can someone tell me, where to find these gears in Altiverb 6?

I also cannot find the "Teldex Studio".

@Felix Bartelt said:

"I'd like to suggest to experiment also with IR's from digital reverb units, like the Lex 960 and the TC 6000. These are still used for ochestral film scores - the "big" guys just don't use "real space" IRs..."

Can someone tell me, where to find these gears in Altiverb 6?

I also cannot find the "Teldex Studio".

www.Samplicity.com

- sorry for the commercial reply [;)]

A number of Samplicity users are in this discussion and I recently started receiving orders from a number of Hollywood/LA composers and post-pro studios. I thus also believe that a trend has started in moving away from the hardware boxes to IR-plugins. A friend of mine in Germany made the same move, selling this TC Sys6000 in favor of using IRs (also from the same unit).

Cheers,

@Peter Roos said:

[...] I thus also believe that a trend has started in moving away from the hardware boxes to IR-plugins. A friend of mine in Germany made the same move, selling this TC Sys6000 in favor of using IRs (also from the same unit).

Cheers,

Hmmmm ... [H] ... but what will you sample from once all hardware has bitten the dust ...?

But joking aside, Peter - I think you know my point of view in the meantime: As much as I believe in sampling real rooms (read: linear systems), as much I am sceptical when it comes to IRs from synthetic reverb (read: non-linear systems). The beauty of a System 6000 or an L960 is the flexibility in sculpturing the acoustic environment of your needs - with the big trade off of less realism. (I work with both machines regulary, BTW.) By "sampling" these reverbs, you lose the flexibilty, but you don't gain realism, quite on the contrary: You lose the typical modulations of the synthetic reverb-trails, too, as convolution (as we use it) is a _linear_ process.

... don't let us get into another (albeit friendly) argument on this. I know that you work hard and with lots of effort to achieve good results for your IR-sets. You may have noticed that I avoid to make comments like this on other forums. But as long as you are here on _my_ playground ... [;)]

All the best,

Since I still could not find the IR´s "Lex 960" and "TC 6000" in my altiverb 6 (regular).
Are these gears part of altiverb 6 regular?
If yes, where do I find them?
If no, can I download them somewhere for free?

@Dietz said:

Hmmmm ... [H] ... but what will you sample from once all hardware has bitten the dust ...?

But joking aside, Peter - I think you know my point of view in the meantime: As much as I believe in sampling real rooms (read: linear systems), as much I am sceptical when it comes to IRs from synthetic reverb (read: non-linear systems). The beauty of a System 6000 or an L960 is the flexibility in sculpturing the acoustic environment of your needs - with the big trade off of less realism. (I work with both machines regulary, BTW.) By "sampling" these reverbs, you lose the flexibilty, but you don't gain realism, quite on the contrary: You lose the typical modulations of the synthetic reverb-trails, too, as convolution (as we use it) is a _linear_ process.

... don't let us get into another (albeit friendly) argument on this. I know that you work hard and with lots of effort to achieve good results for your IR-sets. You may have noticed that I avoid to make comments like this on other forums. But as long as you are here on _my_ playground ... [;)]

All the best,

Hey Dietz,

I actually agree 100 % with you! No intention at all to start a discussion which would be apples vs oranges!

I just see it from this perspective:

For a lot of composers and smaller project studios there are a lot of tools required and of course they would like to have the very best, but they have to make compromises and smart choices to optimize their sound whilst keeping costs low. Reverb is just one of the many applications that need to be covered.

I think that any composer playing the piano would prefer a real Boesendorfer grand piano, but when it comes to being realistic a very good sample library will just do very finely, given the entire range of tools that they to be invested in.
The same applies to the orchestra, just a really happy few can afford to hire orchestras for commercial productions and the others will have to do with a carefully selected collection of orchestral sample libraries, like from VSL.

Of course the "real things" are always more "real", better playable, more intimate and controllable, etc. but given budgettary restrictions one has to make smart decisions. When you can have the "sound" (or an approximation) of an epensive reverb, a grand piano, or an orchestra for far andfar less then the real thing, I think it is not wrong at all to work with the virtual replacements.

given this background I am making my remarks and sometimes the "wink-wink-see-my-website" remarks, but I certainly do not want to suggest that IR's are as good and/or controlable as their real counterparts. It's just within the entire context of requiring many many tools to get something done within a limited budgets that they CAN be very usable (if they're created well and with attention to the utmost detail - just like VSL's mission is).

Cheers!

Peter