As Dietz says, both have their uses. If you're looking for a guide as to which one to choose out of the two, then MIR offers a lot more besides just reverb but comes at a higher price.

One thing I would say about MIR that's almost counter-intuitive is how easy it makes making decisions. I use MIR on almost everything, and only occasionally reach for Vienna Suite. When I do use Hybrid Reverb, however (does anyone just use the Suite Convolution Reverb on its own anymore?), I find I am spoiled for choice. I go through every preset in the type I am looking for, and then try others just to be sure. I try tweaking most of the edit paramaters, and see if I can hear the effect on the sound, and then decide how I like it best (probably how it was to begin with).

Whereas with MIR, I drag the icon to the position I want on the stage (usually just touching its neighbours), point it at the microphone, reduce the dry/wet offset to -30, and I'm done. If I don't then like the sound, I'll of course change it, whether by rotating the instrument, moving it, switching the profile or character preset etc. But otherwise that's how I leave it. For a default setting, I like the solidarity of MIR, of knowing that that's how that actual instrument would sound in that position in that room, and so I have the confidence to use that 'reality' as a starting point.

You can still choose between MIR venues, mic positions and reverb times, but even then there are only 20ish venue options to choose from, and the audition feature on the load screen is really helpful. I think because you are constantly looking at the venue, too, when working on the project, its identity is more built up in your head. So I can think 'Teldex would be right for this' when starting a new project, because I am familiar with it from memory, or 'Maria Strassengel is too small, let's try the monastery' etc.

I rarely use MIRacle myself, as I have to keep the reverb firmly under control to work in my mixes, and I tend to treat any more ambient track needing more reverb presence as an excuse to break out the Mystic Spaces roompack (which I would recommend along with the Studios & Soundstages roompack as the two I use most). But it can be really useful for adding more reverb towards the end of working on a piece rather than redoing all the venue stuff, or for adjusting with automation as the piece changes.

MIR is very expensive for a simple reverb engine. For what the product actually is, however; a virtual recreation of real venues and visual mixing environment, it's an investment I've never regretted. If nothing else, for its authenticity: My recording is the sound of my music is being played by an orchestra largely made up of players from the Vienna Philharmonic, in the foyer of the Vienna Konzerthaus next to the bust of Beethoven, and while it doesn't happen in quite the manner people might expect when you describe it to them like that, not a word of it is untrue.

Great posting, Pyre - thanks a lot! 👍

@Pyre said:

(does anyone just use the Suite Convolution Reverb on its own anymore?),

I use the VS converbs on individual instruments and instrument groups mixed within VEP.  Then usually, not always, I use the Hybrid Reverb as an overall mix reverb kind of like a mastering reverb.

For my purposes, I think MIR is a little overkill.  However I am looking at the MIRx products and I might demo one or two or all of them in the near future.

@Pyre said:

[...] does anyone just use the Suite Convolution Reverb on its own anymore?

Yes - me! 😊 ... It uses considerably less CPU power than Hybrid Reverb, and it gives me more options to pre-process the IRs.

Hi Dietz and Pyre,

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. I tried the MIR PRO demo a couple of months ago and I do agree with you how flexible and easy-to-use it is. I felt like I was rather recording than mixing as I could quickly pick up the differences after tweaking, dragging, and rotating in MIR PRO.

Unlike in Vienna Suite, I often find myself sliding a parameter to an absolute value, trying to find out what the difference is. Things get more complicated when I hear something wrong in the mix but can hardly adjust the correct parameter to fix it. It seems that there are endless possibilities to make my music sound better with Vienna Suite.

Recently, I tried to imitate one of my original production, which uses MIRx, by bypassing it and using Hybrid Reverb instead. I couldn't manage to achieve that result even though the Hybrid Reverb sounded great in its way. Would it be precise if I say that the MIR PRO's stunning realistic cannot be achieved by the conventional way of mixing using Vienna Suite?

Hi Jasensmith,

I find your approach interesting. As you said you used ConVerbs plugins on individual tracks, I'd like to know if you mute the convolution reverb part inside your hybrid reverb in your master track or not. Or do you prefer having two early reflections blended?

I'm using MIRx as well and I'm quite happy with it. Though, I'm hesitate to expand my MIRx since I read it somewhere in this forum that the upgrade path from MIRx to MIR PRO / MIR PRO 24 and Room Packs is not available anymore. Moreover, MIRx is only limited to VSL instruments, which makes it rather difficult to mix other libraries or live recording with your VSL. 

Anyway, thank you for your opinion. :)

"does anyone just use the Suite Convolution Reverb on its own anymore?"

Yes, I made a piece for satb choir, organ and 2 trumpets and don't possess a church venue from MIR. So I used for the organ the Maria Strassengel convolution reverb, sounds in incredibly good. For the choir and the 2 trumpets I was a little naughty, I used from MIR the Vienna Konzerthaus Grossersaal in combination with MIRacle the Strassengel factory preset. In my ears it sounds as if the organ (freeware), trumpets (vsl) and choir (combination of Kontakt, Soundiron Micro Choir and solo voices of VSL) are all in the same church. And the people of the choirs were so patient to repeat every time again my notes, when I asked them do so😉. And me: "sitting in the church", composing my notes, with a cup of coffee... 😊

@P.Posayanonth said:

I'd like to know if you mute the convolution reverb part inside your hybrid reverb in your master track or not. Or do you prefer having two early reflections blended?

None of the above. 

I mix everything with Vienna Suite converbs within VEP while recording.  When everything is mixed and the way I like it sonically I then add a hybrid reverb to the Master bus for final mixdown.  In other words I add it in post production for my workflow. 

What is the functionally equivalent of something like FabFilter Pro-R or a Bricasti M7, in VSL's catalogue?

I wonder if MIRacle can be used stand-alone, when not coupling it with MIR, or if MIR is the essential early reflections part that is missing from MIRacle. If it is this latter, would MIR + MIRacle make a viable general use hybrid reverb, but with the added power of MIR?

Paolo

I don't see any reason why MIR with or without Miracle can't be used for ANY reverb scenario, but of course we are only limited to the early reflection characteristics of the rooms we have purchased, compared to a purely algorithmic reverb that allows you to program the early reflections in some ways.

The two reverbs you mentioned are highly programmable which makes them useful that way if you know what you're doing.  The main advantage of Mir, IMHO, is that it captures the complex interactions of early reflections of actual rooms...and being able to move the sound source easily to different places on the stage.  Without having to know a single thing about programming a complex algorithmic reverb to do it.

Miracle I think was just meant by VSL to provide a little algorithmic modulation glue to fill in the cracks.

Bamboo, my limited understanding of MIR is that Dietz has done a really great job in providing VI users with excellent ready-made yet flexible reverb solutions. And I don't doubt that the VS verbs are fine and versatile plugins. But those intrepid and curious users who wish to venture beyond the fine, safe and versatile domain of MIR & VS would do well at the outset, I believe, to give themselves plenty of time to experiment extensively for themselves with various types of makes of reverbs.

It can be a huge adventure and there's masses to learn. Dietz of course always gives good advice - he's a well experienced pro - but try not to be misled or daunted by others here who may make it seem just a matter of knowing a few simple rules. It's not. It's a matter of developing an ear for the various types and makes of reverb plugins, and there's no quick way around that. It can take years - which is probably why many VSL customers are obviously so happy to stick with MIR and VS verbs.

Yes some theory of natural acoustic reverb and the various approaches for modelling it digitally can come in handy. But for that stuff I'd strongly recommend you go to textbooks or widely approved and respected technical articles in specialist technical magazines and journals.

@Another User said:

The two reverbs you mentioned are highly programmable

MIRacle is highly programmable, so the tail part of any other reverb should be there. The fact that it is intended to work together with MIR makes the early reflection part particularly powerful, in a way the other reverbs aren't. One should be able to get the same results, but with different parameters.

I have other reverbs, but find MIRacle to be of a very attractive transparency. I might sometimes miss a Lexicony density, but I'll try to experiment more with the Density parameter, and see what happens.

Paolo

@Another User said:

In the end, and this is what I would like to understand, they should be equivalent to other reverbs, but with different ways of accessing the various parts of the reverb. Summing up, I wonder if MIR + MIRacle can be considered a very transparent reverb, with a particularly realistic early reflection part.

early reflection as well as tails...realistic!  but more static than algorithmic ones typically are.

Miracle is very transparent on purpose, I think its meant as merely a little extra glue to fill in the cracks, used subtly, with MIR without losing the character of each room too much.

@PaoloT said:

MIR, when used alone, is limited to the early reflection part of the reverb. MIRacle has been added to give the modulation of an algorithmic reverb for this reason. So, they should always work together. [...]

That's a misunderstanding. MIR works beautifully on its own. The whole idea of adding algorithmic reverb to a "real" room is just a consequence of typical production processes and the aesthetic expectations of both the artists and the listeners.

The main reason to develop MIRacle was the idea of having a dedicated tool for this workflow (as well as for presets and example settings) without the need for 3rd-party plug-ins.

@Dietz said:

That's a misunderstanding. MIR works beautifully on its own.

I see. What I mean is that in an analogy with the aforementioned reverbs (that is, Bricasti class), it seems to me that MIR and MIRacle are specialized in two different tasks (emulating the early reflections in MIR, the tail in MIRacle). Just thinking to the Hybrid Reverb, where the convolution part is accessible from the same UI, and seems to replace the traditional ER part.

But I’m probably wrong right from the moment in which I try to compare different things, like the VSL reverbs and the traditional ones.

Paolo

Quoting the manual:

@Another User said:

Strictly spoken, MIR Pro / MIR Pro 24 is meant to be used as an integrated spatial mixing front end, with the goal to achieve the complete and credible virtual image of a real room. But even in the Real World, orchestral recordings made in perfectly suitable rooms are sweetened with additional algorithmic (synthetic) reverb. So although it seems to be against the standards of purity, there's nothing wrong with doing the same to mixes derived from MIR Pro / MIR Pro 24. The main question is if you really want to put additional reverb on top of the one that's already there, or if you want to feed the additional reverb form the dry source-signals. – This will depend a lot on the characteristics of the chosen Venue, of course.

In any case: MIRacle – the algorithmic reverb add-on that comes with MIR Pro / MIR Pro 24 – is the perfect "first call" for these tasks, as it integrates perfectly with MIR Pro / MIR Pro 24 and comes with tailor-made presets. But there's nothing wrong if you prefer to use one of those trusty old machines you got used to, during the years. 😊