MIR + Hybrid Reverb - Early & Tail

[Zelorkq]

Hi all,

 

I have been setting up my template in Cubase with VEP. I've purchase the Software Package, so I have MIR and Vienna Suite included. I've read a few posts with similar question, however none has answered my question to this, hopefully this post will help me out. My concern is using MIR with an additional Reverb.

I will pin down my setup to one section, strings, taking Dimension Violins into consideration. For simplicity let's presume I only have one instrument, either Vln 1, or all 8 Violins bundled into one group. I'll name this "DS_Out". I have inserted MIR, making DS_Out sit nicely in the Teldex Studio. I have often read that adding MIRacle is a good way for adding an extra reverb after MIR. But seeing that I've purchased Vienna Suite, which includes Hybrid Reverb, I'd like to use this as it includes more options (especially Early & Tail settings). I don't have FORTI/SERTI.

My idea for my setup was ('biggest' first):

- 1 master output, the usual "MASTER"

- 1 stem output for every section (strings, brass, etc.) that includes EVERYTHING of that type of section: "STRINGS", which has output assigned to MASTER

- ???

- 1 DS_Out

The ??? is my concern, having to place a reverb after MIR and before the section end. I have reduced the MIR reverb time to about half its original length, as described in the MIR manual (which I've been looking through quite a lot recently). I have been on Beat Kaufmann's website and have found out that it is good practice to have the separate sections with an Early reverb on them, and the final master output with the Tail reverb. MIR complicates this matter a bit, because it already has these two included. I would still however like to add the extra reverb at the ??? section, because MIR alone is not as lush and detailed as I'd like it to be.

For DS_Out I was thinking: I would add MIR as an effect, send the MIR wet signal via its fader to an extra bus "STRINGS_MIR+reverb" and add a hybrid reverb there (Early only, no tail). Below MIR I would add a pre fader that sends (the dry positioned signal of MIR) to a different bus "STRINGS_DRY+reverb", which also has an additional hybrid reverb (Early only, no tail, dry muted). The main output of DS_Out would be assigned to the section STRINGS. STRINGS itself has no effects loaded, simply going into MASTER. MASTER has a hybrid reverb with tail only.

Thus my setup would look like the following:

- 1 master output, the usual "MASTER"

- 1 stem output for every section (strings, brass, etc.) "STRINGS", which has output assigned to MASTER

- 1 "STRINGS_MIR+reverb", output to STRINGS

- 1 "STRINGS_DRY+reverb", output to STRINGS

- 1 DS_Out, MIR signal to STRINGS_MIR+reverb, dry positioned to STRINGS_DRY+reverb, normal output to STRINGS

 

Does this setup make sense? Is it redundant to add an extra early reflection to the dry and the MIR wet signal individually? Did I understand the pre-faders of MIR and the extra send correctly? Should I rather only have one extra bus inbetween? Should I rather have a tail and no early reflection inbetween? What would be an efficient way of setting this reverb? Many questions, but I'd like to fix my template somewhat and hopefully others can reflect to this as well.

Thanks a lot in advance!

Cheers

[Dietz]

Hi Zelorkq,

I think you're complicating things unnecessarily. :-)

There are countless "proved an tested" ways of achieving the sense of depth and distance within a mix of musical instruments. Many of them are quite demanding, and some of them will indeed give you useful results.

Personally, I was tired of all of these workarounds, and that's why I've come up with MIR's basic concept about a decade ago. In reality, you wouldn't think in terms of "early reflections" or "reverb tails" either, but you would simply try to find a nice-sounding spot for a nice sounding instrument in a nice hall. :-) Early reflections, space,  width, depth, distance between individual instruments, character - all of that happens in room just by itself. Due to it's underlying technologies, much of that is true for MIR, too.

... which means: I dont think that messing around with additional early reflections will get you anywhere when you have MIR Pro already. Actually I'm convinced that you will achieve quite the opposite effect. :-) Instead, try different positions, different rotations, select different Main Microphone positions and/or output formats - or just another Venue! If this basic decisions are made, then some "sweetening" with a modulating algorithmic reverb _might_ make sense, be it MIR's own MIRacle add-on, or any another plug-in (or hardware reverb), or even some discrete echoes from a digital delay - rather than yet another cluster of "room information" on top of the one you've already created.

Routing-wise, this might be as simple as adding some hybrid reverb's color by means of one instance of MIRacle (which is a derived directly form Vienna Suite's Hybrid Reverb) strapped accross MIR's master bus, or a bit more sophisticated like in case of the scenarios I tried to lay out in the Tutorial-sections of MIR Pro's manual.

... I hope this sheds some light on your issues.

Sidenote: I can't quite follow your quest for "lush and detailed" sound, though. It might be a language thing (English isn't my mother tongue), but for me these two words describe quite antithetic acoustic conditions.

Kind regards,

[Zelorkq]

Hi Dietz,

thanks a lot for your thorough post! I had feared that I was complicating things too much, but I wasn't sure. A thing that I've noticed is that for example the Teldex Studio in Hybrid Reverb sounds different to the MIR Teldex Studio, even tho it's the same room.. But this could be because the actual placing of the instrument is completely different in MIR and thus a direct comparison between the two makes little sense.

So it seems a simpler approach is not only more practical, but most probably better. I had sketched all different types of routing setups (quite a few) and I've been trying to figure out which would be best. So in essence, for those instruments that can be placed in MIR (ie. actual instruments), this means that the extra reverb options of Vienna Suite aren't of much use? Am I right in assuming that MIRacle is like Hybrid Reverb without the early reflections, so basically only the algorithmic part? Then I'm guessing the 'enhance' presets for MIRacle make the most sense for such a scenario.

Maybe "lush and detailed" was a wrong word combination, I cannot exactly describe what I'm looking for. I'll have a look at changing the MIR venue & microphones more, maybe that's exactly it.

Thanks a lot for your time!