KVR :: Effects » What are your favorite non-Valhalla reverbs, and why? [View Original Topic]
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valhallasound - Tue May 01, 2012 7:06 pm

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Hi all,

I spend a lot of time thinking about the "how" of reverbs. Tonight, I am more interested in the "what" and "why." Specifically:

- What are your favorite reverbs?
- And, why are those your favorite reverbs? What is it about the sound of those reverbs, or the experience of those reverbs, that makes them your favorites?

A few suggested ground rules for the discussion:

- The reverb can be ANY reverb possible. Plugin, hardware, physical space, a dream, a memory, a favorite song, a reverb that doesn't exist yet. Think big. You don't have to own it, or have owned it, but you need to have experienced it.

- No Valhalla DSP reverbs, please. I would like this to be a marketing/spin free zone, and am thus removing my plugins from this discussion. I want to keep the discussion about the WHY of reverbs, as opposed to discussions of one brand versus another.

- One anecdote per post. You can post as many reverb experiences as you like, but I would ask that you separate your experiences into different posts. Think of this as "small plates." This is a tapas/izakaya thread, with the goal to make each post easily digestible, leaving room for more.

- No debating. This is about YOUR favorite reverb experiences. No one can take away YOUR reverb experience. It is YOURS.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and comments!

Sean Costello

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valhallasound - Tue May 01, 2012 7:10 pm

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I'm going to start things off:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbWNZkoQHuE

This was my first R-rated movie that I saw in a theater. The Cinerama in Seattle, in 70 mm 6-track Dolby. As awesome as this film is, seeing it on a HUGE screen, with the sounds coming from all directions, and the spinner sounds moving from front to back, blew my 12 yo mind.

Lexicon 224 reverb. Concert Hall setting.

Sean Costello

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valhallasound - Tue May 01, 2012 7:17 pm

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A more recent example:



This is the Graduate Reading Room at the Suzzalo Library, University of Washington. It is a designated quiet study room. Every single rustle of a turned page generated the most beautiful reflection pattern. Every creaking chair filled the space. The books I "accidentally" dropped created perfect hall reverb responses, and earned me some SERIOUS glares from my wife, who knew exactly what I was doing.

This is more a "reverb of the imagination," as opposed to an actual reverb. Making sounds loud enough to hear the real reverb response would have got me kicked out of the library, and I need to be able to go into the library to read nerdy DSP papers. Still, in my mind...what a sound.

Sean Costello

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bmrzycki - Tue May 01, 2012 7:27 pm

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Your posts reminded me of an article I read about 7 months ago about the sound design of Guild Wars 2. http://www.arena.net/blog/video-audio-team-field-recording-trip

I especially liked the impulse recordings of the defunct nuclear steam towers (the real fun starts around 43 seconds in)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcjK_wI0xhw

The slapback on the tunnel is really trippy too. They intrigue me because they sound nothing like spaces I'm used to, but real at the same time.

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Xenobt - Tue May 01, 2012 8:08 pm

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The first time I heard the snare reverb on Paul Simon's The Boxer, (@ 1:03) I HAD to know how it was done. In my giant Koss headphones, HUGE to a nine year old. The contrast was staggering! Twenty years later I found out it was a speaker in the elevator shaft of the CBS building where they recorded "Bridge Over Troubled Water". Engineers are born, not made!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj7ZkkA6O9o&feature=fvsr

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

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@midnight - Tue May 01, 2012 8:20 pm

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edit

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AndrewSimon - Tue May 01, 2012 9:04 pm

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UAD EMT_140 Plate B set at "0" reverb time.
I call it the "no reverb reverb"
There is no tail, makes my guitar sound big, warm, in your face, floating in "free space" (no room is felt just endless openness)

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AndrewSimon - Tue May 01, 2012 9:12 pm

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Softube Tsar-1
Very dark and dense.
Great for relaxed Jazz mixes.
Again with minimal tail, just the right ambiance to put all the instruments "in the room"

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fateamenabletochange - Tue May 01, 2012 9:25 pm

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The Taj Mahal was an awesome experience, even though I was prepared having previously listened to Paul Horn recordings. Reflections going on and on with such clarity. The surfaces are very hard but smooth, some curved and some very angular. There were kind of dividing partitions that were thick stone lattice, designed I guess to let light in.

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valhallasound - Tue May 01, 2012 9:30 pm

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I have the 1st Paul Horn album, but my guess is that this was recorded in mono. Can you describe the spatial characteristics of being in the actual Taj Mahal? Does the reverb end up coming from all directions, or just certain locations?

Sean Costello

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fateamenabletochange - Tue May 01, 2012 9:46 pm

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Was quite a while ago. Within that space there were lots of different areas. People were drawn naturally to the main dome area, where the repeating echoes were most exaggerated. I probably know a bit more about reverb than I did back then, so can't really answer your questions, but I do remember thinking how complex the sound and structure inside was.
We went numbers of different times, trying for the quieter times.
Obviously it was mostly tourists there, and mostly Indian tourists, and not a reverb fanatic among them when we were there I am sure, but, ordinary folk do get really excited about the sound reflections there...whoooa, what the *** is this ?, much laughter and wonder.

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metalifuxx - Tue May 01, 2012 10:05 pm

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The sound you get when you yell/clap through a pine forest of not too densely spaced trees with snow covering everything. There is this eerie haunting calming sound of dampened silence in between the sounds as it bounces around the forest. This is an unforgettable feeling/sound for anyone who has ever gone skiing in a gladed tree run that is on the harder steeper side, sometimes in a bowl/gulley valley on an angled terrain. You can hear every crunch of snow dissipate through the woods and change downwards in pitch as you descend to the bottom of the trail back to the ski lift. Sometime the person you are skiing with gets way ahead of you and you both call for each other. The way the sounds bounce around, it leaves his position ominous and you don't quite know where his location is by sound alone. Anyone else know this feeling?

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cryophonik - Tue May 01, 2012 10:13 pm

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Absolutely! Reminds me of many powder days in the Wasatch. I don't think I've ever heard a reverb capture that sound, but my perception of it is probably skewed by the euphoria of floating through waist-deep powder.

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scintillator - Tue May 01, 2012 10:14 pm

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The last free version of AriesVerb.
Very flexible, capable not only of reverbs. Very CPU friendly.

Blows my head off. Especially on glitch/noise sources.

Would really like to know Sean's opinion on this plugin.

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metalifuxx - Tue May 01, 2012 10:18 pm

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When I was a young kid in big public swimming pools, me and a friend would take a digital watch and make the alarm and beeping sounds come from it. We would be on opposite sides of the pool, and both go under water and make our watches beep. We mostly did this too see how many other swimmers we could freak out or annoy, but we would both go under water at the same time and see each other do operating the watches. It did have this sort of delay but the sound was always kind of "in your ear/face", and we use to just see if we could get reactions out of anyone in the pool, because we knew that sound had this funny warped but present reaction under water. It is after all a sound going through a space, whether it be gas,liquid, or solid? We did as well learn you can make a sound through the use of gas under water as well

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metalifuxx - Tue May 01, 2012 10:23 pm

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mmmm light dry Utah Wasatch pow. Have skied all over that area. The favorite run that sticks out in my mind the most is the aptly named "Windows 1&2" on Breckenridge Mountain in CO if you ever skied there. Me and my friend would always ponder "Where's the 'Windows 3.1' run?" . But any similar gladed pow run will suffice.

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camsr - Wed May 02, 2012 12:28 am

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I love GlaceVerb for it's lush metallic dense echoes. It's also really subtle when it needs to be, adding air and such.

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gavriloP - Wed May 02, 2012 1:35 am

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When I was kid I lived close to Russian border here in Finland. My friend had an abandoned ww2 storage bunker right next to their backyard in a near forest (it wasn't a museum sight, just strangely abandoned), and we used to sneak in and play Indiana Jones there as kids. Older we went there to just spend time. It had two cubic concrete rooms side by side (something like 6x6x6m each). They didn't have a door but an opening between them. The place was completely underground. It had just amazing reverb there. Even though the place wasn't so big, it was so powerful and overwhelming that you had to almost whisper if you didn't want to make the place "sing". And if you indeed sang there it felt like your own voice lifted you up in the air. I've been in cathedrals and such but nowhere else have I felt that kind of force in reverbation. That powerful feeling was really something once I grew up and my voice lowered. When you sang there with loud slavonic baritone, oh man! Flares of your trousers were flapping, at least it felt like it

That place would've made one killer echo chamber!

On the other hand here is one of the finest reverbs I've heard on record:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR-goA8hoSM

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AKJ - Wed May 02, 2012 2:06 am

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SpinAudio Roomverb M1 and M2:

- very large set of room variables to tweak (with M2 being the absolute king in this regard: room dimensions, mic placement, wall material, decay curve etc. etc.) which makes it possible to ghet the sound you are looking for if you know what you do. Downside: you really have to know what you do since the presets are imo rather weak.
- serarate eq for early and late reflextions
- M2: brilliant preset management with search

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AKJ - Wed May 02, 2012 2:09 am

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Meldaproduction MReverb and MMultibandReverb:

- Spatial positioning system (fully automatable)
- advanced modulation features

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olikana - Wed May 02, 2012 5:45 am

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the 224!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyl5DlrsU90

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Mercado_Negro - Wed May 02, 2012 6:07 am

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Lexicon 480L. Jazz Hall and Music Club presets. I used them in pretty much everything.

EMT140 (Nebula has a 140 library which sounds stunning and very close to the real thing I've heard in many songs)

Lexicon MPX. This plug-in makes very natural sounding reverbs in my opinion. It just makes things sound like "part of a common place".

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fateamenabletochange - Wed May 02, 2012 6:25 am

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and with both an input and output knob, very quick to setup.

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cron - Wed May 02, 2012 7:05 am

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Walking down the Harringay Passage in Haringey, London N8/N4. It's a tight little passage that cuts through the long streets on the Harringay Ladder, running about a mile in length. The reverb in there is a gorgeous ring, almost comb filteresque, with a surprisingly long decay. Walking through it at night is weirdly terrifying, as it's a mugger and crackheads' paradise. The feelings of unease are magnified by that reverb. 15 seconds of ringing footsteps, cross the open street, 15 seconds of ringing footsteps, cross the open street, repeat.

Map below. It isn't explicitly marked, but it's the thin grey line that cuts across all the streets that sit between Wightman Road and Green Lanes.

http://amap.to/xbgpcr

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valhallasound - Wed May 02, 2012 8:12 am

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Headley Grange Stairwell. Used for John Bonham's drums on "When the Levee Breaks":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWI9bMe7gHE

Sean Costello

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valhallasound - Wed May 02, 2012 8:13 am

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Sounds like a reverb version of Danny's Big Wheel ride through the Overlook Hotel.

Sean Costello

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Arksun - Wed May 02, 2012 8:38 am

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Any really old church or cathedral building, that sound that just envelopes you all around. I've always wanted to hear something very similar from 2 speakers but, nothings really come close yet.

With headphones it can be done binaurally.

Plugin wise still have a lot of love for ArtsAcoustic Reverb, superb for long darker ambient washes.

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valhallasound - Wed May 02, 2012 8:41 am

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Rented an AMS RMX16 last week w/Don Gunn. Listened to the impulses at his home studio. Metallic, grainy, not that impressive. Listened to the effect on individual instruments and drums. Again, not very impressive.

Listened to the RMX16 on drums in a full mix. TOTALLY 3D. Not just between the speakers, but behind the head. The perceived "flaws" totally disappeared within the context of a mix.

Sean Costello

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vata44 - Wed May 02, 2012 9:00 am

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I SilverSpikes Reverb.it

I like it because it seems to mix very well, low CPU and pretty darn flexible. It has been my go to reverb for years and still has the only sound that I like. I bought the CSR bundle from IK, but it still just does not have the pureness of the Silverspikes.

It is also a very easy GUI... I find the VRoom to have too many parameters now and I hate getting lost in the tweaking session. I am a set it and forget it kind of guy.

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valhallasound - Wed May 02, 2012 9:41 am

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From the first Paul Horn recording inside the Taj Mahal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98-SNlApA-o

I have this on scratchy vinyl.

Sean Costello

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valhallasound - Wed May 02, 2012 9:45 am

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"Creation Du Monde," by Vangelis, 1973:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0QQJfPi3ps

I first heard this watching "Cosmos" as a 10 yo. The music was played during an extended sequence with some glowing dandelion space ship exploring the scale of the universe.

This "reverb" was generated by 3 RE-201 Space Echos. I am presuming they were in series, but I don't know this for sure. What is very clear is that the tapes in the Space Echos were fairly worn and stretched out, as the pitch wobbles are very obvious. 3 wobbly tape echos in series, w/feedback applied to each one and different delay times = modulated reverb before digital reverbs came into being.

Sean Costello

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valhallasound - Wed May 02, 2012 9:47 am

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Fleet Foxes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrQRS40OKNE

EMT-140. The real thing, not a digital simulation.

Sean Costello

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Sampleconstruct - Wed May 02, 2012 9:57 am

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The most beautiful reverb experience I had in the Cologne Cathedral when I was about 18 - at that time I used to carry my soprano sax with me when going to Discos and Clubs, improvising along with the music played by the DJs. So after one of those drunken/stoned nights I went to the cathedral early in the morning together with some homeys and had a long impro session until some guards came to chase us away. Playing in that vast space was just amazing, you could build chords with your own playing as the reverb lingered around for so long.

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antithesist - Wed May 02, 2012 10:50 am

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That's very cool about the RMX-16. What were your impressions of the different algorithms? I've used and played a little with some years ago. In big studios, they seemed to always be set to NONLIN2, but I think often went unused most of the time, at least after the 80's. It could add some life to the typical Simmons set, though. I also seem to remember an ambience algorithm that was nice. I ran across this tidbit in a Ken Bodganowicz interview:

"I also did probably the first ever emulation plug-in, an AMS RMX-16 nonlin reverb simulation for the SP2016. It came on an EPROM chip."

www.audionewsroom.net/2008/09/off-record-soundtoys.html

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valhallasound - Wed May 02, 2012 10:55 am

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The Nonlin2 sounded great on snare drum. The unit we tested didn't have Nonlin1, which is too bad, as apparently that algorithm is eminently reverse-engineerable. The unit we tested did have Reverse, which probably has a similar structure to Nonlin1. It also slewed heavily to the left, as did the Room algorithm.

The Hall, Plate and Ambience algorithms were all very nice. The Hall was fairly sparse, but still generated a big spatial impression. Ambience sounded really metallic to me, and had some strong repetition patterns, but sounded really nice in the mix.

Sean Costello

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antithesist - Wed May 02, 2012 11:22 am

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Edit: Oops, I just now went back and read the rules. Like my next lot neighbor said, "look buddy, I didn't get this here fancy trailer, uh... mobile home, by follerin' no dang rules."

Favorite reverb: Lexicon 224

Favorite experience: scaring drummers with it

Seriously though, a good reverb like that can inspire performance. It can be an invaluable tracking aid and can really allow musicians to hear themselves better.

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ariston - Wed May 02, 2012 11:30 am

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Not a lot of talk about plugins... I like Aether a lot, because it's got an unobtrusiveness that I find very charming. This is such a versatile plugin, though, that it's hard to point to anything in particular. It can stick to your sound without adding that obvious Lexiconesque sheen, which I somehow always equate with bad 80s Top 40 music. It can add queer and wonderful resonances to your material, making it an obvious sound design tool.
It's more ethereal than thick, as the name says. It can sound very far off, or it can sit right inside your ear. And while the nature settings do not at all sound like something recorded in nature, I do love them for their weird repercussions and colours.

It can be made to sound like a synth almost, and that's exactly what I do sometimes - stick any sound through it to get a constantly moving, lugubrious or joyous pad.

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ariston - Wed May 02, 2012 11:39 am

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Copping out of the "real world" part, I'd say that I usually pay close attention to reverberation "out there", and... well, I like 'em all! I like going down the stairs to the subway (underground for ye Brits), I like big cathedrals and small, stuffy chapels. I like wooden rooms, and I like stone rooms. My office has a 4.5 meter high ceiling and an industrial-strength rug, which makes for a queer mix of boom and stifle (I've got a deep voice). I like an anechoic chamber (i.e., the reverb of the inside of your skull, it feels like), and I love running through a tight cement tunnel. The sound of a woman in high heels walking through a parking garage, the squeal of tires and the rumble of starting engines. I like the sound of me talking into my acoustic guitar's body, and I love sounding my barbaric yawp down a hillside in Burgundy and hearing the drawn-out echoes.

So, there's too many favourites to count, I guess.

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vic_france - Wed May 02, 2012 12:43 pm

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I think that's the place they used, to record the announcements of arrivals at my local train station

The first time I remember really noticing the effect of a reverb, was when, as a kid, I had access to the Blüthner grand piano at my local community hall, and remember being fascinated by the return of the sound back from the empty room to the stage. (It was a rather "cubic" shaped room, lots of wood, about a 500-seater).

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cron - Wed May 02, 2012 12:47 pm

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Yes! Such great sonics in that scene. SKREEEEEEEE (silence) SKREEEEE

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Resonator63 - Wed May 02, 2012 1:02 pm

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This probably isn't really a reverb,more of an ambience.
But if you go deep into a forest,real deep in among the trees,how would you get that effect?
Strange I know,but if you live near a forest give it a try.
Ok I admit it i'm mad

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bk - Wed May 02, 2012 1:10 pm

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Not really a reverb, I guess, but similar...
I love the sympathetic vibrations of an acoustic piano with the damper pedal pushed down.

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valhallasound - Wed May 02, 2012 1:11 pm

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There have been a couple of forest reverb posts. A few thoughts:

- A tree is going to have VERY diffuse reflections. In other words, a sound hits it, and it is going to bounce in all directions.

- Odds are good that the high frequencies will be very damped, due to the nature of bark, leaves, needles, etc.

- Unlike a room, which is almost all reflecting surfaces (except for open windows), a forest is mostly empty space. So a sound that bounces off of a tree in a given direction only has a certain % chance of bouncing off another tree before it dies out to inaudibility, and a much lower chance of bouncing towards a listener.

To me, this suggests a feedforward algorithm, as opposed to a feedback algorithm. A feedforward algorithm with sparse diffuse reflections, extending over several seconds, is probably best realized by convolution.

Googling "forest reverberation" yielded a few interesting links:

http://blog.nutaksas.com/2008/07/forest-reverb-model.html - MATLAB script for generating an impulse response of an imaginary forest, where the trees are represented by cylinders.

Kyle Spratt did some work on forest reverberation while getting the MST degree at CCRMA, but I can't find any publicly available links to his work.

Sean Costello

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bk - Wed May 02, 2012 1:14 pm

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Playing by the rules here, so a new post.
Not my favorite reverb, by a long shot, but an interesting one nonetheless: I used to work in a music store that had a small room jampacked with cymbals mounted in playing position. It was like being inside a plate reverb. Obviously, extremely metallic.

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valhallasound - Wed May 02, 2012 1:16 pm

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Bad reverb: Any concert heard at the Kingdome, which was the old multipurpose stadium in Seattle from 1976 to 2000 (I forget the exact dates of building and destruction). That building had about a 20 second reverb time. Hearing Eddie Van Halen doing "Eruption" in that building produced a hilarious smear of undifferentiated note energy, as about 200 Tinkerbell guitar notes at a time would be blended into a single sound.

Sean Costello

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Resonator63 - Wed May 02, 2012 1:18 pm

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Wow!!! Thanks for that Sean, i'll take a look

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Bronto Scorpio - Wed May 02, 2012 1:19 pm

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I love the reverb on the early Autechre records
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4jpy836IJo
Cheers
Dennis

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valhallasound - Wed May 02, 2012 1:20 pm

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ALESIS. Midiverb II, or Quadraverb. Lots of Warp artists heavily relied on the Alesis reverbs, as did other electronic/ambient artists of the 1990's.

Sean Costello

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Kriminal - Wed May 02, 2012 1:24 pm

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a very strange request..or is it....seems like a not so devious plan to find the most popular and make something similar perhaps...

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Resonator63 - Wed May 02, 2012 1:29 pm

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Have you tried PSP Pianoverb? It's free

http://www.kvraudio.com/product/507

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antithesist - Wed May 02, 2012 1:30 pm

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Treeverb!

Who has Matlab or a clone that can bust us out an IR?

I tried getting one of them, maybe Scilab, to do some audio awhile back and fell* flat on my face.

*fell/tree... get it?

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valhallasound - Wed May 02, 2012 1:33 pm

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I've got MATLAB, but I suck at using it. I need to get familiar with it again to design some filters for the next product, but I'm a dreadin' it.

Sean Costello

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Dozius - Wed May 02, 2012 1:44 pm

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You could likely run the script in Octave a GNU clone of matlab.

If I had matlab at home I would turn this into a stand alone executable. Unfortunately I only have access to matlab at work.

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Sequent - Wed May 02, 2012 1:45 pm

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+1

That is a fantastic reverb. It's too bad that Spin Audio went under, but M2 still works wonderfully.

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Sequent - Wed May 02, 2012 1:52 pm

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Yes, but it would have been a great hall for ambient music concerts. Like Steve Roach, Robert, Rich, etc.

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Sequent - Wed May 02, 2012 2:04 pm

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The church that we went to when I was growing up. It was a fairly big space (ten stories tall) with a big dome. The reverb in there was fantastic... almost too much. But I loved it. The pipe organ in there sounded HUGE and I have always been disappointed by the ambience in most other local churches I have been too since.

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Fritze - Wed May 02, 2012 2:42 pm

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QE2 by Mike Oldfield was one of my first concious reverb experiences.

I think that was the first Quantec back then.

Wonderful music btw...

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re_mute - Wed May 02, 2012 3:30 pm

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"Celt" is stunning, the percussion is incredible. Love "Sheba" too, it was the first time I'd heard a vocoder!

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valhallasound - Wed May 02, 2012 3:53 pm

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I can figure out what is popular pretty easily. Any thread that has "vs" in the title is probably a good start. I am more interested in other forms of what and why:

- Why do people like certain plugins or hardware?
- What characteristics of a reverb do people find important?
- What moves people about reverb? Why do we care about this?

I think I am trying to figure out my own "why," as in: why have I spent so much of my time studying and coding reverbs? Granted, it is my job nowadays, but there was a long period of time where it wasn't my job per se, yet I was still reading every reverb paper I could get my hands on, and coding reverbs in my spare time.

Hearing about other people's what/why experiences helps me to step outside of my own little world, and the world of x vs y forum threads. The goal is to put reverbs into a wider context, and why they are important to us for music, and why a sense of space translates into something significant for so many people.

Sean Costello

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antithesist - Wed May 02, 2012 7:25 pm

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Why? You're obsessed. Just accept it. I can think of a lot worse things. As was touched on here or elsewhere, reverberation and echo are primal. They give the sound maker informative and entertaining feedback in addition to direct sound. They can give the non-source listener spacial and temporal cues that can critical for the very survival of an animal. Plus, they're cool.

One of my first strong recollections about the abstract concept of reverb was when I heard an older youth talking about Switched-On Bach. I came up in mid-conversation and this guy was going on and on about some device Carlos used to make sounds stretch out into infinity.

I don't think he really knew what he was talking about, but I and others sure thought he did. The concept stuck in my mind though. I'm guessing maybe he/she used an EMT plate, but I really think the guy might have also been confusing liner notes about the Moog modular's envelope generators and VCA's. It didn't matter, because since then I've obsessed with making sounds stretch out into infinity. I can think of a lot worse things.

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Galbanum - Wed May 02, 2012 7:39 pm

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Thanks. Denis, (half of 2CAudio) was formerly half of Spin Audio, and is the main designer of M2 and all other Spin Audio reverbs. Not sure exactly how widely known that is...

Anyway, we have some exciting stuff for you all quite soon...

Back to work now.

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heffus - Wed May 02, 2012 7:45 pm

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I'm excited about your existing stuff.

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Sampleconstruct - Wed May 02, 2012 7:48 pm

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Aether becoming 64 Bit maybe

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Galbanum - Wed May 02, 2012 7:50 pm

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yes soon. free update.

other things as well...


(for clarity this refers to oSX 64bit. Win versions have been 64bit for roughly two years already.)

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valhallasound - Wed May 02, 2012 8:31 pm

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I love the room sounds that Steve Albini got with Shellac:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbezitUACv8

IT'S ALRIGHT if it makes you feel better and
IT'S ALRIGHT if it makes you feel better and
IT'S ALRIGHT if it makes you feel better and
IT'S ALRIGHT if it makes you feel better

I'm thinking of adopting those lyrics as my KVR signature.

Sean Costello

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metalifuxx - Wed May 02, 2012 9:05 pm

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It must be like our Pontiac Silverdome where the Detroit Lions used to play and they did have concerts there too; for 90,000 fans. I am glad I never paid money to go see a concert there when it was still in use. I have only heard horror stories of the bad acoustics, but if attending Lions games and hearing the announcer/music was any indication, those horror stories were probably correct. It still stands and was recently sold to an independent owner for a meager $500,000 (or maybe it was lower).

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michu - Wed May 02, 2012 11:45 pm

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as far as natural spaces go, that would be one particular dead end in tunnels of Miedzyrzecz Fortified Region. that tunnel ends about 100 m after a right angle turn, and there is a very strong and quite long echo there apart from crazy reverberation.
as far as algo reverbs - Ariesverb, the newer one. i spent some days learning and tweaking it, ended up with a track template using two instances in parallel and some eq and use it ever since on everything

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afreshcupofjoe - Thu May 03, 2012 12:49 am

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This is one of the best threads I have ever read on KVR. What a great discussion!

You can throw in another vote for forest reverb. I always found dense natural reverbs like cathedrals to be rather chaotic and disorienting. My most memorable auditory reverberation experiences have always taken place deep in a forest. It always happens after a long hike. There's a point where you get far enough away from civilization to finally experience real silence. I've never been in an anechoic chamber, but the description seems similar: You gain an extreme heightened sensitivity to every little sound. Except, instead of those sounds being your own heart beat, it's the tiny little reflections of a twig breaking, or leaves rustling, distinctly dancing off of every tree surface around you. It sounds so soft, fragile, beautiful and delicate. There is nothing else I have heard quite like it.

While I'm thinking about it, this scene from Funky Forest somehow taps into something about the experience for me. By far my favorite scene from the film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMMFy-wfOH4&feature=related


Anyway, when working on music, I find that I often have more of an appreciation for short ambiances and room sounds, and I generally use reverb sparingly. When I think of big, epic, open spaces, I usually reach for a delay (or two) rather than a hall reverb. I'm pretty much a delay junkie. Something about the minimalism of hearing the individual repeats really appeals to me.

EDIT: I almost forgot! Someone mentioned earlier the reverb effect of heavy powdered snow. I know exactly what you are talking about, and I once heard an impulse response recorded outside in heavy snow. It actually did an amazing job of reproducing that effect. It was years ago, and I wish I could find it again. It was one of the most unique impulse responses I've ever heard.

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mandolarian - Thu May 03, 2012 1:21 am

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Most impressive spatial encounter recently was with: Thunder Verb (not the cheap hootch)

At 3AM, I was out on the deck and this low, throbbing thunder rolled in from the sea up the shore around our house, up the hills through the canyon and back again. If I wasn't so thunderstruck, I would have grabbed the R09, not that mere digital stereo would have done it justice. It was 270 degree surround sound with big analog balls on its way to have aural sex with any cochlea membrane in a 10 mile radius. I'm still reverberating.

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Fritze - Thu May 03, 2012 2:36 am

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Oh, yes. These are very cool rooms.
The guitarist must be deaf though putting such guitar sounds on a record.
Talking bout rooms like these reminds me of Living colour! They had those cool rooms on the drums and stuff. Very cool. What I like about these rooms is that you can almost touch the things inside it! I think it's the highs in the first reflections that make it so immediate, if that's the right word in english. Any thoughts about that?

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core - Thu May 03, 2012 3:09 am

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What I like most about reverbs is when they bring natural spaces to my mind, something I can recognize from personal experience.

I can +1 afreshcupofjoe's comment. I reckon just being in certain natural environments like a forest contributes hugely to the experience but there's just something special about particular (not too dense, secluded) forest areas to my ear, especially when covered in fresh snow.

As for plugins, I really like AriesVerb. Sometimes reverb gets so musical it's almost like its sound is the instrument rather than the sound source it reverberates. I know that's a huge part of why I love delays like no other effect.

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osiris - Thu May 03, 2012 3:26 am

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I'm really liking Eos from Audio Damage. TBS VRoom is on my list. Eos seems to fit on everything. It also sounds very good. Not too many presets and a nice GUI that you can tweak to get what you want.
I never thought I'd need/want a 'pay' reverb, and there's some nice free ones out there, but the difference in sound is really something.

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afreshcupofjoe - Thu May 03, 2012 3:36 am

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Sean of Valhalla DSP did the superhall algorithm in EOS, so I'm not sure if that qualifies it as a Valhalla DSP verb or not. Either way, it does sound freaking fantastic.

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Bronto Scorpio - Thu May 03, 2012 3:43 am

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Nice!
Why do I like the reverb on these records? I have no idea
They simple sound great imo. They don't really place the sounds in a natural sounding place but they blend really nicely with the tracks

The latest two Monolake records have a good sense of space:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b0YFQLItSU
He used only Ableton Lives reverb! This really surprised me since I really didn't like the Reverb in Live when I tried it! I guess it's a isolated sound vs. full mix thingy again.
The field recordings on Monolakes tracks also contribute nicely to the space

Edit: He also used a Lexicon reverb (PCM-91 iirc) here and there but it's mainly the Ableton reverb.

Cheers
Dennis

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Lotuzia - Thu May 03, 2012 3:44 am

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HW : Several Lexicon, two Sony, one TC and one Yamaha, and some budget boxes ( Alesis, Yamaha, Dynacord, Boss )

SF: AAR, Aether, some IK, eventually EAReckon sooner or later, some impulse ones, and a few precise freeware or budget ones ( like the Korg multithing Mde-X) for their special character.

Why : First ....... The Sound, then the tweakability. I'm mostly looking for natural and unobstrusive verbs, though my feeling is that when I need a SuperFX, unnatural one, I can make one with one of these units as well.

I think the best is to know and learn your reverbs.

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olikana - Thu May 03, 2012 4:05 am

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what i love about the 224 is that it is uplifting and exciting - which i guess i what makes it perfect for pop.
most of the rooms and reverbs mentioned here are defeently clener and maybe more natural but most of them give me a sense of being oppressed and costrained in a small dense room....depressing almost. that super dense feel i don't like much. some sparkling noise and grain make it more alive.
u slap on the 224 and u feel like u r being cheered on and feel larger than life and airy and spacy...not a defined space...u don't even know where u are..apart that it feels good.
i think here u can ear what i mean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE61Bz7IHKg


224 for life!

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Sequent - Thu May 03, 2012 7:44 am

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That's really great! So, in a way... the legacy of Spin Audio is alive and well and I can only imagine that there are any number of directions that you guys might explore in the future!

But, back on topic...

Do you have any personal reverb experiences you would care to share?

This has been a very interesting thread so far.

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Bronto Scorpio - Thu May 03, 2012 7:56 am

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Indeed

Cheers
Dennis

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valhallasound - Thu May 03, 2012 8:48 am

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The 224 algorithms are WEIRD. Lexicon started moving away from them by the time of the 224XL (the "Rich" algorithms in the 224XL were the first versions of the more "modern" Lexicon algorithms). The 224 Room algorithm is fairly close to the 224 Concert Hall, and seems like it would be grainy as all get out. But it sits in the mix nicely.

The RMX16 I tried recently has some very similar characteristics. I would go so far as to say *suspiciously* close characteristics. The RMX16 algorithms are definitely not cloning the 224 algorithms, but there are some similarities that go beyond what I can chalk up to coincidence. Keith Barr has described how he came up with the original ideas for his reverb topologies by playing with the 224 for a little bit and hearing how things worked, and I wouldn't be surprised if a similar thing happened at AMS in the very early 80s.

Anyway, the 224 and RMX16 are both good examples of grainy older verbs that sound a little weird in isolation, but work like magic in a mix. I have a pretty good idea about how they work, but I am still trying to figure out why they work. Is it the spatial impression generated by the widely spaced reflections (which are heard as "grain" in isolation)? Or is it the case that the grain is lost within the depths of a mix, and is masked by other instruments? Someone suggested this earlier, and it is an interesting idea - that a full mix will "mask" discrete reflections, in a similar way as to how signals in a given frequency area will mask neighboring frequencies.

Then again, maybe it is the opposite - that grainy reverbs have reflections that DON'T get masked in the mix, and therefore help the sound being reverbed to stand out more. I don't know if anyone has done research on this sort of "spatial masking."

Sean Costello

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michu - Thu May 03, 2012 9:01 am

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Sean, maybe it's worth taking into equation that grainy reverbs in question not only have low tail density and slow density build-up, but also run quite low samplerates and use noisy, by today's standards at least, interpolators and AD/DA converters

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valhallasound - Thu May 03, 2012 9:08 am

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I could get into my take on this stuff, but I don't want to violate my own non-Valhalla rules for this thread.

Keeping things general: Many of the "classic" reverbs had NO energy above 8 kHz or so (I think that the Quantec QRS had a cutoff at 10 KHz). The interpolation used was almost always linear interpolation, with highly quantized coefficients - this generated lowpass filtering and noise.

The AD/DA convertors probably generated their own noise, but I think that this noise is probably less important, compared to the effects of the anti-aliasing filters and crappy interpolation. Most of the early reverbs used 12-bit convertors, but used floating point tricks to get 15 bits of accuracy.

Sean Costello

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Shy - Thu May 03, 2012 9:11 am

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olikana, I completely agree with your description of the 224. It's just something else. The uplifting feeling it can create is unsurpassed. Listening to Mask, Blade Runner or other things by Vangelis, you can understand that without this fantastic reverb, the music, no matter how good, would never have worked so well. It's amazing.

I use KSP8 for reverbs and it also has that thing that makes you feel "unconfined", it sounds excellent, airy and nice, never too "diffused" in a harsh way, and often works excellently with hardly any diffusion. I believe the Panaural Room algorithm for example has very minimal diffusion, and yet it works perfectly and is super smooth. You just don't feel "confined", it's spacey and nice as well as very "natural". It's no 224 (I wish I had one), it's better in many ways (can give much more dense and less grainy early reflections for example) but it definitely doesn't have that extra "uplifting" factor in the 224. So, when is someone going to properly reverse engineer that beauty?

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michu - Thu May 03, 2012 9:14 am

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damn
at least i tried
i would just like to add, that in my own tinkering with Ariesverb i found out there is such thing as too much density and too fast build-up. with 16x16 FDN matrix maximum scattering Householder style was among first things i tried just to realize quickly that i prefer to wind scattering down quite a bit.

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valhallasound - Thu May 03, 2012 9:24 am

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Trust me, I could talk about my own stuff all day. I just felt that it was a good idea to keep my own plugins out of the mix, in order to keep this becoming an x vs y thread, or to have this becoming another place for developers to hawk their own wares (*cough*).



See, this is interesting to me. WHY does the lowered scattering sound better to you? Is it because of metallic coloration, or is it because you like the texture better with less scattering? Also, what sorts of sounds are you running through there?

I was going to suggest that Vangelis lowered the Diffusion parameter on the 224 for some of the sounds in Blade Runner, but I don't think the Diffusion parameter was introduced to the 224 until a later revision of the OS. The 224 algorithms were just that grainy.

Sean Costello

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xiphiuz - Thu May 03, 2012 9:33 am

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Blueverb 2080 (pcm91 clone?) - great on drums
Yamaha SPX990 - great on drums
Sony DPS V77 and/or 55. - great for big huge spaces
Ensoniq DP4 verbs. - great for al sort of things
Quantum Yardstick - just great

About reverb in tracks - Very nice mood in track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1dDF5xr-Xc maybe not the most natural verb, but the sound is very sweet

I don't know what Jack Johnson uses, but in general those verbs (or "rooms") are great too.

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JJBiener - Thu May 03, 2012 10:06 am

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This is indeed an interesting thread. This is my most profound reverb moment.

I was in London is May of 1994. I was wandering around the streets when I found myself if front of Westminster Abbey. If you've ever been to Westminster, you know what an imposing edifice it is. The door was open so I walked inside. Looking around at the art and architecture, there is no question of care and reverence of the people who built it. Every detail no matter how small or large is there for glory of God, or at least God as they saw him.

I was fortunate that I arrived just as a service was starting. The choir began to sing and sound simply filled the place. Sitting there listening, the voices surrounded me and enfolded me to the point where they seemed to be a physical presence in the room. It was as if not just the choir was singing, but the stones of the Abbey itself were singing. My body resonated with music down to the very core. I have no doubt that to a believer, it would be a transformative if not divine experience. As a non-believer, I found the experience truly moving both physically and spiritually.

If you think about the technical challenges in creating such a structure, it would be a complicated undertaking even today with all of the design tools at our disposal. It is a massive stone and glass building. It has thousands of surfaces reflecting the sound in a variety of was from the stained glass windows to the huge stone columns. Under such conditions, it would be easy for all these reflecting surfaces to turn the sound to an incoherent mush. But they don't. As the choir sings, each note is distinct and clear. The words can be heard and understood throughout the room. It is an amazing engineering feat made even more so by the fact that it was done over 750 years ago.

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antithesist - Thu May 03, 2012 10:10 am

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Regarding masking: there may have been other mentions here, but I wrote the following and then edited the post a little later to be more thread compliant. It's a little pretentious upon rereading, like most of my writing... well, the non-stupid parts anyway:

"I have learned, forgotten and relearned many times that individual track and group treatments in a mix are often counterintuitive. I guess that would be due to masking effects?"

Reverb thought: there's something about the 224 where the sound seems to disintegrate over time. I don't think I've heard that quality in any modern hardware or plug-ins.

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olikana - Thu May 03, 2012 10:35 am

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i have no technical knowledge of how such reverbs are made so can't make any technical comment.
on the 224 my ears tell me that there's some white noise in there...filterd maybe ...and that resonance never builds up in middle bass frequencies (so it never sounds muddy)...and always sounding pleasent...dunno...
the 224 gives me the feeling a nice large room with some open windows .

but there is an album where a very exciting -airy -uplifting reverb was heard and without actually using any reverb....but miccing up a custom built room ( so i read). a kind of cleaned up 224.
in metallica's black album : the reverb in that album is very uplifting and seems to have pretty much the same exciting airy charachteristics of the 224 hall/room. i read that it was actually a rooom micced all over (15 mics) and panelled to please all over for lively reflections (and even with different material panels for variety of flvours mixed together). it was one of the most expensive albums ever made so they didn't have to cut any corners so to speak and they had the cream of the room acoutics enjeneers setting it up.

apparently that room looked something like this:

might help

if u listen to metallica - sad but true , nothing else matters, wherever i may roam, friend of misery you hear almost an improved 224....same airy liveliness...cleaner and denser ...but still exciting and uplifting....retaining that airy exciting but not invasive reflections...ambience.


i also read that the SPX90 from yamaha can achieve similar results to the 224 but never heard a real one...tried a few impulses and they sounded ok-ish. a bit dark.

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olikana - Thu May 03, 2012 12:07 pm

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i think it's n.2
the 224 u slap it on the master and it seems it doesn't conflict with any of the important frequencies in a song. especially the midlle/low frequencies where the kick and bass sit (reverbs should never be muddy or interfere in those frequnecies). and it adds some fizz to snares and high hats (only on high hats must be careful to eq any conflict)....it seems to fill in those gaps between the main instruments frequencies.
many italo dance hit produtions were made with the 224 slapped on the master. they didn't even have time to do things the proper way with 2-3 songs per day to be printed out.

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antithesist - Thu May 03, 2012 12:42 pm

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That's an interesting take about the Metallica room, but to speak of the SPX90 and 224 in the same breath is like... well, something really bad. Seriously though, I worked at a studio with a 224, but my first personally owned reverbs were an Alesis midiverb II and an SPX90. Even upgraded to the MKII, which I seem to recall was in part supposed to make the actual reverb algo better, I'd say the 90 was one of the crappiest reverbs I've ever owned.

It was also the greatest chorus. Mine stayed in Symphonic mode almost constantly until I traded it and a bunch of other stuff, and cash, for an Otari 1" 8 track that is nearly the size of an over/under washer and dryer. I often regret getting rid of the Yamaha. Hmm, I wonder if UberMod can do the Symphonic sound? The MVII on the other hand, was decent, but still no 224. Nothing is, yet anyway.

The midiverb eventually lead me to the quadraverb, which in my opinion, is as close as gets. I did do some cool stuff with the 90 and MVII combined, using the 90 in either Symphonic or one of the ER modes (which are actually pretty good, maybe that's what people are referring to) in series/parallel, both with external feedback paths, etc. The midiverb II is still a unique box. I especially like the reverse/bloom programs.

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Galbanum - Thu May 03, 2012 12:52 pm

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Well my favorite is the one we have just completed... does that count?

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valhallasound - Thu May 03, 2012 1:09 pm

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*cough cough*

There is plenty of room on KVR for developers to talk about their own products, and I understand being excited about your new creations. I would simply ask that we leave our own products at the door (for this thread), and keep this discussion more about the personal, and less about marketing our own wares.

Sean Costello

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Galbanum - Thu May 03, 2012 1:15 pm

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Well, it's not quite marketing speak is it? but ok, sorry... i did not realize that you had started the thread. Sure. No problem...

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valhallasound - Thu May 03, 2012 1:31 pm

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Early 1980's. Rafting down the Sammamish Slough (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammamish_River). Went under a new bridge that crossed into Redmond, and heard the most INSANE flutter echoes I had ever heard. Totally 3D experience.

A reverb that sounded like that would be a pretty crappy reverb, but experiencing the sound in the real world was amazing to my young mind.

Sean Costello

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bduffy - Thu May 03, 2012 2:09 pm

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Arts Acoustic Reverb.

Still the best, to me, for super-long, atmospheric, modulated reverbs (a la Lexicon).

And I find it just has a strong, sweet algorithmic character that cuts through mixes well. I find most VST reverbs tend to disappear quickly, and I had to fight less with AAR. I miss it every day.

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@midnight - Thu May 03, 2012 3:09 pm

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How are you guys embedding youtube videos? All it lets me do is post a link.

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Sendy - Thu May 03, 2012 3:17 pm

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One of my first experiences was walking across a (very ugly looking) metal and concrete footbridge, it was a kind of diffuse slapback echo and it really brought home the connection between space and sound to my young mind. It sounded like nothing I'd ever heard before, and I think I'm revisiting that moment somewhat when I use plate simulators for those "metallic" ambiences.

My favourite "band" when I was a kid was The Orb, they knew how to use reverb

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bitman - Thu May 03, 2012 4:49 pm

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Lexicon reflex

reverse on metal lead - just a touch
dark plate elsewhere.

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valhallasound - Thu May 03, 2012 5:29 pm

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I wish there was a place within 1000 miles of here where I could have a similar experience. There are a few cisterns, but these have a MUCH longer RT60, and tend not to have choirs performing in them on a regular basis. The older European cathedrals have amazingly long RT60s, but (from my research) it looks like the post-Luther cathedrals tend to have much shorter reverb times.

Sean Costello

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TheoM - Thu May 03, 2012 5:35 pm

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SSL X-Verb that i so deeply regret selling i have to resave for it hopefully find one second hand also.

lexicon PCM.

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