Early reflections...

[hermitage59]

After Nick Batzdorf posted a question or two of mine in his excellent VI magazine, i got to thinking about early reflections, and their importance in the overall soundscape, so i thought i'd ask some of the experts here how they put this together.

Recording a single instrument means one set of 'reflections'.
But 'performing', recording, and mixing an ensemble presents a different challenge, that of the 'interaction' of early reflections from more than one instrument playing at the same time. And i don't mean a section, recorded in situ, but as one 'performs.'
How do you chaps mix and 'sculpt' an ensemble 'mutiple early reflection', with all the blending and collisions, within a digital soundscape, as if all the instruments are perfoming in the same 'hall' at the same time?
Can one 'bleed' a little of each track into others and hope to capture, at least partially, the overall reflections that are produced, in addition to, and as a result of, a combination of the more defined single instrument reflections? I can't see how this bleed process can happen digitally, but if there's a way to do this, or some other method that is used, then i'm all ears. (no pun intended.)
I've also studied a little about convolution, and even then with the placement possible, i don't see how the 'reflective ensemble interaction' can take place in a digital format.

Regards,

Alex.

[JWL]

Alex:

I've watched this thread sit here with 40+ views but no responses. I think you raise a most intelligent question.

I have heard virtual orchestra demos that sound amazing-- and others that just do not quite gel the right way, sonically speaking.

I believe that the interactive acoustical element is a big part of the believability of such a track. When one notices it's not there, it's just as bad as noticing something placed in the track which ought not be there.

I thought that Maarten's Altiverb 5 tutorial would address this issue-- setting individual pre-delays with one reverb tail. But I can't say that I've yet been able to get the different pre-delays to dance in the reverb tail the way I'd like to hear them. Some attempts have been more successful than others.

What comes to mind, if you will, are the operators on the old DX series of Yamaha keyboards. They were designed to work in algorithmic configurations so that ratios could be set by the user to control the amount of modulation put into effect.

With this in mind, I should wonder if Altiverb or any convolution reverb on the market today allows for such ratios? If so, I would like to better understand if such numerical ratios among a variety of pre-delay settings can indeed impact on how these pre-delays modulate the larger space of the reverb tail and necessarily interact with one another?

Perhaps this concept is already represented in a way that I've not yet found. Perhaps this is simply asking too much of the virtual musical world.

In any case, you have put my thoughts into words so well, that I must at least thank you even if I cannot provide an answer.

[hermitage59]

JWL,

Thanks for the reply.

Sounds like i'm not on my own wondering about this stuff.....

I'll do a bit of google and see what i can find elsewhere.

Regards,

Alex.

[:)]

[JWL]

You know, there was a trick in the old days of resampling a snare drum or even an entire recorded drum kit in a stairwell through a set of speakers just to capture the way the transients interacted within a non-virtual reverberant space.

Finding a reverberant stairwell that is unused and that sounds good into which speakers and mics can be placed may be more trouble than it's worth.

Duuno-- an old school solution to a new school problem?

Maybe there is some variation on this which could be adapted.