dry/wet ratios in MIR

[William]

I am wondering if anyone has a philosophy on this - I know you can do whatever sounds good, but I was thinking that the whole idea of convolution is a little bit contradicted by adjusting dry/wet.  Though I know it is necessary as a practicality in order to make basses less muddy, or percussion clearer, etc.,   I have had the feeling that you should keep dry/wet constant, so that the many subtle and complex effects on the placement and reverberation of the sound result from the convolution, and not somebody monkeying with dry/wet ratios.  In the past it was simple - you use more wet to make something farther away.  But this is far more complicated...  does anyone have any thoughts on this?  I know it is probably subjective.

[Dietz]

 Dear William,

the whole idea of MIR is based around the concept of a typical orchestral recording session with a main microphone array (i.e. MIR's "Main Microphone") and spot microphones in the near vicinity of the single instruments and/or ensembles (i.e. the sound coming directly from the VIs).

In this scenario, you would adjust the volume of the spot mics according to taste to achieve the kind of clarity definition you're after for a certain piece. In addition, you would have to delay them to avoid phasing and/or flaming with the signals picked up by the main microphone array (because the sound would have to travel for a longer distance).

To overcome this issue, we have decided to cut any direct signals from the IRs, because it can be replaced perfectly (and without any processing artifacts) by the dry VI signal. So it's really up to you and the sound you have in mind _how_ much of the dry part you want to hear in your mix. The only rule is that it is you shouldn't use "wet only", except you're aiming for a special effect that hardly would occur in Real Life. :-)

In general, the more you increase the wet part (read: the room created by MIR), the more the instrument will blend with the rest of the orchestra and the reverb created by it.

The global Dry/Wet-Ratio-fader allows for overall adjustments whenever you get the feeling that your mix is too wet or dry, while keeping the balance of the individual ratios intact.

HTH,

[William]

 thanks Dietz. That information does help in feeling free to do whatever sounds best without conflicting with the effect of the reverb.  I notice that is different from Altiverb which had the "direct" signal that was redundant and caused phasing if you mixed in dry. I like how this is done in MIR better because I never ended up using that "direct" signal in altiverb and always turned it off in order to use the dry mixed in.     

[Dietz]

You're welcome!

More in-depth information and practical hints are available in MIR's manual, e.g. in the "Complete User Guide" (esp. from p. 44 ff), or in Section D "Integration". The keyword "dry" will bring up most of the interesting parts when using a PDF-reader's search function.

Kind regards,

[William]

 Thanks again Dietz, I will check that section. The manual is very good.

[Agostino]

Dietz said "we have decided to cut any direct signals from the IRs, because it can be replaced perfectly (and without any processing artifacts) by the dry VI signal".
Does this by any chance mean that in my VST host (in my case Sonar) I still have to mind about panning? Or is this a thing to forget when working with Mir?

Thanks a lot in advance for any answer.

[Dietz]

Agostino,

like pointed out in the manual, _all_ signals within MIR are handled as Ambisonics stream. This means that the dry signal can be put in _exactly_ the same place as the original direct component in the impulse responses. You can easily test this yourself: Select the Direct Only-mode in the Output Channel and move an Icon on a Venue`s stage. You will be able to follow its position almost pixel-by-pixel ;-). This is even more exciting in surround, BTW.

In other words: Yes, you can forget about anything panning-related when working with MIR (with the one exception of panning inherent to any true stereo-components in an original signal, like the bass-treble spreading of a close-miked Grand Piano).

HTH,

[doubleattack]

@Dietz said:

 You will be able to follow its position almost pixel-by-pixel 😉. This is even more exciting in surround, BTW.

 

 It's a pity, that we can't do this by using of a auto-move-positioning (without any crunch and crackers, self-evident.)

 The foibles of today's computer. What a shame. I love orchestra movings so much... [:'(]

 In black dispair

Frank

[Dietz]

Moving the dry signal alone works glitch-free! :-)

[Agostino]

Thanks Dietz, I especially liked your "In other words" part, the first paragraph was kind of Chinese to me :)

[Dietz]

[:S] .... but that was the good part!!

;-)

[Stephen W. Beatty]

When mixing if an instrument is too present, I have used several remedies. 1. Decrease the volume. 2. Decrease the key velocity. The Dry-wet ratio seems to present another solution. Moving the slider to the left seems to cause a too prominent instrument to "lay back down into the mix" this seems to be a much subtler way to control voume instead of using the "meat axe volume" control. Of course check and make sure the instrument is not in a group with the wet/dry control enabled or you will defeat your purpose. In addition, moving the slider to the left seems to control the ringing artifacts that you get with high pitched intruments Vln, Fl etc.

Am I really hearing this effect or am I hearing cuckoos.

Regrads,

Stephen W. Beatty

http://www.youtube.com/user/Bachbeatty 

[Dietz]

@Stephen W. Beatty said:

[...] In addition, moving the slider to the left seems to control the ringing artifacts that you get with high pitched intruments Vln, Fl etc.

Am I really hearing this effect or am I hearing cuckoos.

Interesting. Would you mind posting an obvious example?

*****

If an instrument is too present, MIR offers quite a few options:

1. Move the instrument to another position on the stage (further to the back, most of the time, but just a few meters to the left or the right might do wonders in certain Venues, too)

2. Turn the instrument away from the main microphone.

3. To increase the effect of 2., enable the option "Use Directivity Profile for Dry Signal" in the Add/Edit instrument Window.

4. Use the "Distant" Character Preset.

5. Increase the Wet signal component.

6. Use an inserted EQ to further reduce the high mids and the treble of the sound.

7. Like pointed out by Stephen, try lower MIDI velocities.

HTH,

[Dietz]

PS: There are more hints like that available in the MIR manual, Section D 5 "Collected Hints for Your Daily Work with Vienna MIR", p. 87 ff. :-)

[William]

 Thanks for those hints - that is great to get those. 

[Stephen W. Beatty]

On closer examination I discovered that I had inadvertently changed the DRY-WET ratios of some of the instruments.I reloaded the Venue and

1. Did not change the individual volume or wet-dry ratios of the individual instruments. 2. Increased the volume using the Faders in the output window. 3. Checked the Directivity Profile for Dry Signal for each instrument. Improvised a compositon using the instruments. The out of the box sound is much better and the high note of flutes and violins do not exhibit any artifacts. Using this base I will try some of your suggestions. I think I was fooling around with the individual volumes and wet-dry ratios and and ended up distorting some of the instruments. Once you are in this loop, it is hard to recover the "native MIR mix" from the mess you have created.

Regards,

Stephen W. Beatty  

http://www.youtube.com/user/Bachbeatty