Dirty Room in VVV?

[Agility]

Will there ever be a Dirty Room algorithm? I'm attemptingto emulate the Room from the 224 or the Native Instruments RC24 but I can't get the 'punch' of it, on snare.. The Dirty Plate alg sounds punchier and more 'roomy' to me than the Plate alg so I assume the same transposed to the 'Room' alg would perhaps sound even dirtier like the 224? I don't know though I'm not the expert.

Any specific tips on getting more punch appreciated, I know smaller Room sizes seem to help and actually setting the Room/Attack and Predelay just right.. i've noticed that on snare sounds even just a touch completely changes the phase relationship(?) and thus the punch.. is there any magical method(or theory) to getting 'it' right(if there is such a thing) or just fiddling till you find something you like?

On the algorithim list on the website it mentions late 70's and early 80's, I assume by late 70s you're referring to the 224 and early 80s the 224 variants and AMS?

Any info appreciated

PS: Will there ever be a Quantec mode? (And do you respond to your PM'/Emails or just not mine )

[valhallasound]

DirtyRoom: run DirtyHall, with a SIZE setting of 50%. This will give you an algorithm that is VERY close to the 224 Small Room.

Punch: set Attack at 0%, little to no predelay, maybe somewhat less Late Diffusion.

1970s and 1980s: essentially based on the hardware revisions available during those eras. Different sampling rates, amount of noise, filtering, that sort of thing. Mostly based on Lexicons, although an RMX16 was used to dial in some coloration (just the convertor stuff - none of the algorithms from the RMX16).

Quantec: Not in VintageVerb. I don't have any Quantec hardware to listen to as a reference, and I don't know of any available to rent/borrow in this area. Plus, the Quantec algorithm (or at least my understanding of it) doesn't follow the same "simple & clever" design rules that the other VintageVerb algorithms use. It is more of a brute force algorithm, and the VintageVerb architecture wasn't designed to work well with brute force. Some of the other Valhalla reverbs (like Plate and Room) are better equipped to deal with brute force computation.

Sean Costello

[Agility]

Ok, I'll try that out.. Is the original 'Room' Algorithim modelled on any particular unit then or just an all rounder?

What do you consider little predelay, the 224 only starts at 224 and the punch is there at higher pre-delays, it's like it's inherent to the sound, I think one thing it has to do with is the high end cut off, on the 224 atleast it filters like a brickwall around 8k while valhalla just seems to roll off. I guess I could try a 96db/oct slope filter as a 'work around' but is there more to it?

Otherwise, hat I kind of take from that is to not necessarily stick to certain algorithims for certain sounds and just play around?

Thanks.

Also, related to what I PM'd you about, with Valhalla Plate you say it's more accurate to get a mono sound from it through solo'ing one side as opposed to collapsing the stereo signal into mono, is this true for algorithmic verbs(Disregarding actual Mono revevrb units)? Did the classics have mono presets or would they have just been collapsing stereo to mono...

[valhallasound]

Ok, I'll try that out.. Is the original 'Room' Algorithim modelled on any particular unit then or just an all rounder?

PCM60, IIRC.

What do you consider little predelay, the 224 only starts at 224 and the punch is there at higher pre-delays, it's like it's inherent to the sound, I think one thing it has to do with is the high end cut off, on the 224 atleast it filters like a brickwall around 8k while valhalla just seems to roll off. I guess I could try a 96db/oct slope filter as a 'work around' but is there more to it?

The Dirty Hall brickwalls at 8 kHz in the 70s mode. Or close enough to brickwall.

Otherwise, hat I kind of take from that is to not necessarily stick to certain algorithims for certain sounds and just play around?

Yup! All of these algorithms have a loose attachment to their name. I heard from one of the Lex folks that the original 224 Hall algorithm was based on a plate. To my eyes, it looks like Griesinger might have mapped the first outputs of the 224 Hall to the first reflections in Boston Symphony Hall, but I might be totally wrong about that.

Also, related to what I PM'd you about, with Valhalla Plate you say it's more accurate to get a mono sound from it through solo'ing one side as opposed to collapsing the stereo signal into mono, is this true for algorithmic verbs(Disregarding actual Mono revevrb units)? Did the classics have mono presets or would they have just been collapsing stereo to mono...

The best way of getting a mono reverb from ValhallaPlate is to run it as a mono-in, mono-out instance. If your DAW doesn't support this (I know that Reaper and Live are both stereo tracks only), just take one of the output channels.

For other reverbs, it is probably best to take a single output channel. Some of the Lexicon algorithms were designed to work fine with the stereo outputs summed to mono, but other reverbs might have detrimental effects when summing two or more outputs to mono.

As far as the original classics, a "mono" reverb would have been obtained by only plugging one of the outputs into something.

Sean Costello

[nineofkings]

Yeah, at least in REAPER, it's very easy to make a "mono track" by taking a plugin (reverb in this case) and making the L channel go to both output channels using the in-out matrix.

[Agility]

Ok, I'll try that out.. Is the original 'Room' Algorithim modelled on any particular unit then or just an all rounder?

PCM60, IIRC.

What do you consider little predelay, the 224 only starts at 224 and the punch is there at higher pre-delays, it's like it's inherent to the sound, I think one thing it has to do with is the high end cut off, on the 224 atleast it filters like a brickwall around 8k while valhalla just seems to roll off. I guess I could try a 96db/oct slope filter as a 'work around' but is there more to it?

The Dirty Hall brickwalls at 8 kHz in the 70s mode. Or close enough to brickwall.



I see, I musn't have analyzed it with that, now I see(Just spent an hour attempting to replicate the NI punch with Ditry hall and your tips).. though it's not quite as sharp as the 224, I think they're just using a sharper filter with some resonance at the cut off, I added a filter and added the resonance with Valhalla and then checked the RC24 again and I could hear the same thing.

Pics if you care, you probably don't but I know you're passionate about reverb, so you might.





I have PM'd sound clips if you want to listen and hear what I'm talking about.. maybe inspiration if there is to be another VVV update with maybe.. and even more 'aggressive' mode. (Though I've never used a real 224 and no idea how accurate the NI224 is though it sounds pretty amazing, though I like the idea of getting that sound from VVV.

VVV and ITB verbs will have to do until I can afford the actual 224.

Otherwise, hat I kind of take from that is to not necessarily stick to certain algorithims for certain sounds and just play around?

Yup! All of these algorithms have a loose attachment to their name. I heard from one of the Lex folks that the original 224 Hall algorithm was based on a plate. To my eyes, it looks like Griesinger might have mapped the first outputs of the 224 Hall to the first reflections in Boston Symphony Hall, but I might be totally wrong about that.

Also, related to what I PM'd you about, with Valhalla Plate you say it's more accurate to get a mono sound from it through solo'ing one side as opposed to collapsing the stereo signal into mono, is this true for algorithmic verbs(Disregarding actual Mono revevrb units)? Did the classics have mono presets or would they have just been collapsing stereo to mono...

The best way of getting a mono reverb from ValhallaPlate is to run it as a mono-in, mono-out instance. If your DAW doesn't support this (I know that Reaper and Live are both stereo tracks only), just take one of the output channels.

For other reverbs, it is probably best to take a single output channel. Some of the Lexicon algorithms were designed to work fine with the stereo outputs summed to mono, but other reverbs might have detrimental effects when summing two or more outputs to mono.

As far as the original classics, a "mono" reverb would have been obtained by only plugging one of the outputs into something.

Sean Costello

Very interesting, I love Mono verb so I'm interested in getting it right, I will experiment with running cutting out the L or R side and mono'ing.

And anyway just to clarify, If I'm going for an early 80s reverb sound(pre 84), stick to 70s mode and the Dirty Modes, what about for ambience, the original 224 didn't have an ambience algorithim did it? Would the Chamber have been used for an ambience program? I do get confused about this and consider the Non Lin(short length), Chamber(not a real chamber) and Ambience programs as being quite similar in use.. but they're not are they? What would you go to when you just want to create a larger sound but want the reverb to be transparent, is one better than the other?

Cheers.

[Agility]

Yeah, at least in REAPER, it's very easy to make a "mono track" by taking a plugin (reverb in this case) and making the L channel go to both output channels using the in-out matrix.

Yeah in Cubase there are routing options but I couldn't get them to work with Valhalla plugs, only seems to work with certain plugs that use certain reverb modes(true stereo etc)

I was attempting to use this to allow me to pan any reverb via the send but no worky.

I just use Sleepytime Stereo Channel and kill the L or R channel and the side.

[valhallasound]

I see, I musn't have analyzed it with that, now I see(Just spent an hour attempting to replicate the NI punch with Ditry hall and your tips).. though it's not quite as sharp as the 224, I think they're just using a sharper filter with some resonance at the cut off, I added a filter and added the resonance with Valhalla and then checked the RC24 again and I could hear the same thing.

I think this isn't resonance: it is a shelving boost near the cutoff of the brickwall filter. In the 224 service notes, they discuss an "aperture" filter, to compensate for the lowpass filtering of the A/D process. This results in a boost of the high frequencies right before things brickwall, which makes the reverb sound a LOT brighter than the sampling rate would suggest. When I spent time with the 224XL, it sounded much brighter than 15 kHz.

I have PM'd sound clips if you want to listen and hear what I'm talking about.. maybe inspiration if there is to be another VVV update with maybe.. and even more 'aggressive' mode. (Though I've never used a real 224 and no idea how accurate the NI224 is though it sounds pretty amazing, though I like the idea of getting that sound from VVV.

The other difference I should point out is that Dirty Hall maps to the 224XL Concert Hall, which is closest to the 224 Concert Hall B. The Concert Hall A is considerably brighter. Basically the same difference as between the Concert Hall and Bright Hall modes in VVV, except dirtier.

And anyway just to clarify, If I'm going for an early 80s reverb sound(pre 84), stick to 70s mode and the Dirty Modes, what about for ambience, the original 224 didn't have an ambience algorithim did it? Would the Chamber have been used for an ambience program? I do get confused about this and consider the Non Lin(short length), Chamber(not a real chamber) and Ambience programs as being quite similar in use.. but they're not are they? What would you go to when you just want to create a larger sound but want the reverb to be transparent, is one better than the other?

It all depends when you hit the 80s. I'm not sure when the 224XL was released, but my guess is that it had pretty much immediate adoption. The Nonlin in VVV is pretty close to the gated/nonlin stuff in the 224XL.

The Ambience in VVV is closest to the Lexicon 300 Ambience (it was dialed in from my 300M). This sort of sound wasn't really used in the 1980s, as far as subtle early reflections. If you were using early reflections in a gated reverb, YOU HEARD THE EARLY REFLECTIONS. This is also very different than the Ambience algorithm in the RMX16, which is a really washy and wet reverb, that can get infinite decay. Same name, totally different functions.

If you are going for short and transparent, I would suggest VVV Ambience, Nonlin, or Smooth Plate. I like Smooth Plate for pretty much any sound.

Sean Costello

[Agility]

Yes, the shelving boost was what I was referring to, don't know why I called it resonance.. my hands are up.

Thanks for the tips, I'll check out Smooth plate for ambience.

One last thing if you have the time, I've been attempting to achieve these 'splashy' bright/clear reverbs for a while now but not sure I'm using the right method, I'm not sure if it's all in the Bass Mult/Freq knobs(in valhalla) or more to do with just filtering the verb, any thoughts? I've mainly used the Plate alg for this, do you think there would be a particular one more suited?

On the snares

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKFS3wBQpqk 1983
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZA-aYejY6o 1983
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvhCtZikXTI 1984

Any pointers would be much appreciated, thanks.