KVR Audio

miedex · Post by **miedex** » Fri Feb 10, 2012 5:33 am

This audio effect device is for those who are into careful placement of sonic events in the stereo field. Its main parameter is the 'distance' control. It affects volume, filtering, pan and stereo width of the incoming audio signal. With the right choice of settings it provides a very nice simulation of a source disappearing in the distance: The further away, the less high frequencies, the more the stereo image is reduced to a mono source and the lower the signal level. New in Version 2: bipolar mode for advanced panning, adjustable lag for the distance knob, nicer GUI, transfer curves for all parameters.

That is monolake's description of his m4l distance plugin, which works really well. Is there something like this in the VST world? Not a reverb based thing or a studio monitor thing but a real *holy crap* distance effect?

croak · Post by **croak** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 12:41 pm

Maybe this: http://wavearts.com/products/plugins/panorama/

miedex · Post by **miedex** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 1:16 pm

The wavearts one is probably more subtle than I am looking for, the graphic shows the placement of the individual around some speakers but It would be cooler to move a knob and make it sound like its moving a baseball field's distance away. I don't think reflections or other fancy controls need to be a part of that architecture.

For all the thousands of EQ's and Reverbs you would think there would be a few distance plugins floating around. The monolake m4l one is free and does a stunning one knob job on distance simulation. Its a shame that dude isn't making vst plugins.

valhallasound · Post by **valhallasound** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 4:46 pm

miedex wrote:The monolake m4l one is free and does a stunning one knob job on distance simulation. Its a shame that dude isn't making vst plugins.

Well, the dude made Ableton Live:

http://www.monolake.de/interviews/history.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ableton

The founder of Ableton was in monolake with Robert Henke, and Henke was one of the co-developers of Live. IIRC, the origins of Live trace their way back to a Max/MSP patch used by Monolake. So it makes sense that the new monolake software is M4L, and not VST.

Sean Costello

cron · Post by **cron** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 8:15 pm

It's not as convenient I know, but I've had great results for distance effects just sticking a low pass filter before a reverb with a nice long decay and using automation to simultaneously lower the filter cutoff and increase the wet:dry ratio on the verb. I personally prefer to keep the channel volume constant rather than slowly turn it down as I do this. Turning the volume down would sound more realistic I guess, but if you're after an "OMG DISTANCE!" effect I think it's best to keep it unreal. The gradual disappearance of the highs and increase in the ratio of direct to reflected sound are enough spatial cues to say "distance" without the volume reduction, and I think that keeping the volume constant is what makes it an ear-cathcing distance effect that people will notice. I haven't tried any of the spatialisation plugs available, but I imagine they're more realistic and erm, polite.

miedex · Post by **miedex** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 9:54 pm

cron wrote:It's not as convenient I know, but I've had great results for distance effects just sticking a low pass filter before a reverb with a nice long decay and using automation to simultaneously lower the filter cutoff and increase the wet:dry ratio on the verb. I personally prefer to keep the channel volume constant rather than slowly turn it down as I do this. Turning the volume down would sound more realistic I guess, but if you're after an "OMG DISTANCE!" effect I think it's best to keep it unreal. The gradual disappearance of the highs and increase in the ratio of direct to reflected sound are enough spatial cues to say "distance" without the volume reduction, and I think that keeping the volume constant is what makes it an ear-cathcing distance effect that people will notice. I haven't tried any of the spatialisation plugs available, but I imagine they're more realistic and erm, polite.

I spent some time trying to make something like that in Reaktor but to actually trick the brain that something is going off into the distance you need some research and knowledge on physics, it would be quite a project. Things don't start giving off reverb as they get farther away but they diffuse or get fuzzy or something. I tried quite a few different combinations which sound like cool effects but don't come close to tricking the brain.

It's an interesting subject which I think is vastly ignored.

miedex · Post by **miedex** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 9:56 pm

valhallasound wrote:
miedex wrote:The monolake m4l one is free and does a stunning one knob job on distance simulation. Its a shame that dude isn't making vst plugins.
Well, the dude made Ableton Live:

http://www.monolake.de/interviews/history.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ableton

The founder of Ableton was in monolake with Robert Henke, and Henke was one of the co-developers of Live. IIRC, the origins of Live trace their way back to a Max/MSP patch used by Monolake. So it makes sense that the new monolake software is M4L, and not VST.

Sean Costello

Yeah I know all that but his style is flawless, its just a shame that the world outside of ableton doesn't get to sample any of his genius.

xh3rv · Post by **xh3rv** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 11:03 pm

I think very similar things are found in a lot of VSTs but it's a bit quirky to see just the stereo and frequency stuff without the reverb or delay or whatever. The combination of M/S and panning is also a bit quirky, but well done.

The components aren't exceptionally complicated. It's panning, M/S control, very simple filtering, and amplitude - all of which can be done without anything technically exceptional. Live's native plugs could do it all, I think.

It's sort of in a weird spot between something that is possible with simple tools but needs just a bit of interface glue to be presented intuitively. So, what is interesting IMHO is the way the distance knob relates to all the components; you can alter the balances of the components against each other individually, but tweak the overall depth of effect very simply. It's a very pure abstraction!

Mushy Mushy · Post by **Mushy Mushy** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 11:13 pm

I set something like this up on Live using the Crossfader.
Duplicate the track and leave A raw. On B drop the volume and EQ the lows and highs.
Insert a reverb on a send and set this to B.
Map the same controller to the Crossfader and send level.

A is nearby and as you fade to B is gets further away.

Many many hours were lost playing with this.

The final sound has both channels grouped with a random panner on the group.

cron · Post by **cron** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 12:58 am

miedex wrote:It's an interesting subject which I think is vastly ignored.

It's tempting to think that stereo sound killed the art of mixing with distance. Some old mono recordings by creative producers (I'm thinking Phil Spector as the obvious example) have an amazingly deep soundstage. I guess thinking distance was the only technique available for putting elements in their own space and/or creating spatial movement back in those mono days. Most tracks nowadays seem more about the left to right soundstage than the front to back.

miedex · Post by **miedex** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 3:03 am

cron wrote:
miedex wrote:It's an interesting subject which I think is vastly ignored.
It's tempting to think that stereo sound killed the art of mixing with distance. Some old mono recordings by creative producers (I'm thinking Phil Spector as the obvious example) have an amazingly deep soundstage. I guess thinking distance was the only technique available for putting elements in their own space and/or creating spatial movement back in those mono days. Most tracks nowadays seem more about the left to right soundstage than the front to back.

That's an excellent point and is big part of what draws me into the idea. Someone should make the "Spector" plugin.

Fritze · Post by **Fritze** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 10:45 am

For years I have this idea of making distance vs. sound difference measurements. Does someone know of results of such measurements? Some frequency graphs at various distances would be great.

Distorque · Post by **Distorque** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 2:33 pm

It wouldn't be too hard for someone with the right equipment to just go out in a large open area and record some stereo IRs. That would get the frequency response, the reverb, and the stereo sound.

xh3rv · Post by **xh3rv** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 2:10 am

chacka wrote:For years I have this idea of making distance vs. sound difference measurements. Does someone know of results of such measurements? Some frequency graphs at various distances would be great.

Hmm, found this - http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-air.htm

The inclusion of atmospheric moisture is cool. In terms of FX processing, I'd guess just some shelf EQ could probably capture a whole lot of this sort of effect /shrug. I'd guess environmental reverberation effects, even just spectrally, probably are more important to the overall image.

I tend to believe overall we're always submersed in awareness of space and depth, but the difference these days is just that the tools and practices have evolved a great capability to depict non-real or highly exaggerated spaces.

75ips · Post by **75ips** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 10:40 pm

Can you guys help me figure out what's going on with these zaps?

http://home.no/reddvinylene/delay_reverb_thingie.mp3

Sounds like some crazy delay+reverb combo going off into the distance. I've spent years trying to recreate this effect. Not gotten anywhere close.

The zaps themselves were easy enough to recreate though:

http://home.no/reddvinylene/zap_zap_zap.mp3