Mono or Stereo with Convo Reverb

[Joesson]

Hello! I recently got VE pro up and running with a slave computer and I've been trying to create my first template for a while but I find it really difficult to blend together instruments from different libraries that were recorded in different locations, but it's also an interesting puzzle to try to solve, albeit a bit infuriating sometimes. 

For the old VSL special edition instruments I'm trying to use a stage positioner with altiverb set to teldex studio. What I do is that I push the mix knob up to get what seems to be the correct distance for any given instrument and then I reduce the early reflections and reverb tail settings to preserve clarity. Does this seem like a good way to go about it?

Here's the question I started the thread for: Should I set instruments to mono before applying convolution reverb to them? I'm not sure how this works on a technical level but I googled and came across some threads about preserving/polluting stereo information and whatnot. 

Any other tips regarding blending different libraries and things to keep in mind when setting up your template would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: My desired result is something like this: https://soundcloud.com/you/likes

Edit 2: Assuming you keep your instruments in stereo: generally how much should you narrow down the stereo field via panning for each instrument?

Thank you!

[Dewdman42]

since you’re not currently using mir this is a complicated topic. What you may have read about center panning things first only applies to when using mirpro with previously panned material

[jasensmith]

I don't understand why you would feed stereo signals as mono into a convolution reverb but, then again, there's quite a lot I don't fully understand about virtual orchestra and I've been doing this over ten years now.

No. I would leave them stereo unless you're trying to create some effect.

As for clarity try EQ'ing the reverbs.  I always put a high pass filter on mine and then adjust it according to the instrument.  So I EQ more of the low end out of bass instruments and less out of treble instruments.

[Joesson]

Thank you for the replies Dewdman42 and jasensmith,

 

Say what's the difference between MIR pro and stage positioners in convolution reverbs?

Altiverb has a stage positioner. Is there any benefit to using MIR before altiverb for putting your instruments on a virtual stage?

[Dewdman42]

altiverb is not a stage positioner.   It is nothing other then convolution reverb.  You can isolate some convolution settings from various distances to the source..so in theory its possible to set the front to back depth of instruments on the stage by using various different IR's, but left to right position is non-existent in Altiverb.

MirPro is much more sophisticated and you can move players to any position on the stage, front to back, left to right, etc.  So you center-pan each instrument source before letting MirPro do its thing.

There are some other stage positioners that can do similar things, but IMHO, not nearly as well as MirPro and the engineering behind it.  

EarReverb, VirtualSoundStage, possibly Precedence, not 100% sure if that does LR positioning.

Most convolution reverbs do not deal with L-R positioning at all, they simply provide IR's that were sampled from various distances, capturing various Early Reflections, so you can theoretically use your pan in the mixer to get the L-R positioning and then use IR's from different distances to get the depth.  Some people do work that way for sure.  But that is still quite simplistic compared to MirPro, which can change the width of each player, the direction they are facing, simulate air absorption per distance and other things.  But in order to use a tool like MirPro you want to feed it instrument sources that are center panned.

[Joesson]

I see, thank you for the clarification Dewdman42! =)