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Here are three versions of Danse Macabre, by Saint Saëns. The only difference between these recordings is the reverb.
Any comments, suggestions, questions? I'm still on the fence about Spaces and whether it's worth getting (seems to be a CPU hog). Or would a Bricasti M7 or Lexicon be worth the (considerably larger amount of) dough instead?
Good idea, Andy. Feel free to post the version you make to this forum if you do go ahead with it. (I don't have Vienna Suite!)
OK, here is the processed dry mix version with Vienna Suite Convolution reverb set to Vienna Konzerthaus - 01 GrosserSaal, all default settings.
As this has processed the whole mix, the instruments don't have the right depths (percussion specifically), but should be a good comparison on the strings.
Vienna Suite version http://www.synclub.co.uk/DM_Vienna_GrosserSaal.mp3
Paul,
That sounds very good! The violin sounds great and perfect for the expression, and the overall feel of the piece is really good. One criticism is I thought the mordants or grace notes were a little rushed or not prominent enough, or somehow not quite right. I started to notice it more, in fact, as I listened to the different versions.
However on the audio question the Quantum Leap spaces version is not good. The solo woodwinds sound dry and dead and isolated from the rest of the mix. The Logic and Vienna sound very good though, much more natural. The violins and cellos seem a little bright to me but that is debatable and I always worry about that. Those are minor criticisms though - excellent performance!
btw why is andyjh posting the same thing? Are you in cahoots?
@William said:
btw why is andyjh posting the same thing? Are you in cahoots?
No, no connection, I just thought that on a VSL forum that a reverb comparison ought to have a VSL product in there somewhere, it's just the dry mix (as posted) version processed with Vienna Suite....
Andy
Andy, thanks for posting your version. Very interesting (to me). So, I've concluded that Spaces is not worth getting for me now. I'm sure it could be made to sound great, but the number of available good IRs is not great, and I can't seem to get more than 6 or 8 instances without running into limits.
William - good point about the mordants. Tough little bastards. They're on my list of things to refine when I do the final version. BTW, I used the VI Pro "fall to tune" functions on the solo violin to simulate the affect of a lot of bow pressure on intonation. I might do a bit more with that if I can get it to work as I would like.
Incidentally, I had mentioned the Bricasti reverb in my prior post, and I have since found a bunch of free Bricasti M7 IRs online. They work beautifully in Space Designer (you may have to combine L and R on some of them). So, I think I'm going to stay with Space Designer for the time being.
Here is where you can get the Bricasti M7 impulse responses (.zip) and their Space Designer presets (.zip). And you can get all 130+ Bricasti M7 preset IRs here (web page).
- Paul
It has to be pointed that algorithmic reverbs can't be sampled properly (except with dynamic convolution, but that's a different topic). Most (if not all) of the good algorithmic reverbs a lot rely on modulations that won't translate into convolution which relies on the concept of _linearity_ ( ... modulation obviously isn't linear).
That doesn't mean that sampled reverb machines will sound bad; they just can't sound like the original by definition.
But as we all know: If it sounds right, it is right. The best IRs from the Bricasti M7 are available here:
-> [URL]http://www.samplicity.com/bricasti-m7-impulse-responses/[/URL]
... they are much better than the ones offered at Acousticas.net, especially because Peter E. Roos offers true-stereo IRs, too (i.e. quad-WAVs). These quad-WAVs will work nicely with Vienna Suite Convolution Reverb.
The question arose how to access 3rd-party IRs in Vienna Suite Convolution Reverb.
Actually it's very easy: First of all, copy the IRs to any location that's convenient.
As soon as you have opened the GUI of the Convolution Reverb, click on the pulldown-bar below the label IMPULSE (1):
A file dialog window will open. Browse to the disk location where you have saved the IRs to and open any of the valid files.
After you have loaded the first IR, you will be able to scroll through _all_ valid IRs from this folder, simply by using the up/down arrows on the right of the pulldown bar (2). - Allow for a few seconds of loading time.
It's a good idea to save one (most likely the first) entry of a folder containg IRs as a User Preset (3). This way you will be able to access this folder directly (4) when you want to use Vienna Suite Convolution Reverb again later. - Look at it as some kind of bookmark :-)
... when you plan to use the plugin in an AUX-channel, it might be advisable to make this "bookmark preset" full wet before saving it (see screenshot). This will make the handling even faster.
HTH,
