ValhallaPlate Updated to Version 1.5.0

[Omkar]

For those who think reverb pretty much sounds the same, try running just a click or some tight dry drums through different reverbs with different settings.

I use a nifty little vst tool for this (if of interest),
"Stavs Pulsed Pink Noise Generator"

Concept by Michael Stavrou, developed by Flux,
http://studiostav.com/downloads/pulsed- ... generator/

Really not a "boingy boingy hey you must have this", but it helps me a lot since then.

Having UAD EMT 140, EMT 250 I thought I`m covered on plates for a while
and now comes Sean challenging this and my wallet (again).

The good thing is, his prices are 365/24/7 sales
and I hope to be able to join around Christmas/New Year.

Cheers to Sean for another strike,
cheers from my wallet saying "man, gimme a break".

[Krakatau]

Except maybe for pads with slow attack and release times.

By experience, you won't need much density in reverbs for such kind of envelopes, even early reflexions in themselves or some complex delay lines can do a good job in the case instead

Right, I usually prefer something like Ubermod or Echobode for that anyway, if they need anything at all.

Even a freebie like KR-reverb would do a wonderful job, once adjusted with a wide variety of variations, let say..!

http://www.kresearch.com/index.php?p=KRFree

[valhallasound]

My current view is that female vocals are the toughest test for a reverb:

- The basic waveform of vocals (i.e. the asymmetrical glottal pulse) will bring out any metallic resonances within the reverb.

- Sibilance (especially t's and ch sounds) will excite any flutter echoes and grain in the early part of the decay.

- The higher sibilants will also cause a noisy decay in the high frequencies, if the high frequency decay is unnaturally long. People are kinda used to hearing this in big ballads nowadays, since huge digital reverbs have been used for vocal ballads for the past 30+ years. Still, an artificially long treble decay ain't found in nature.

A good recording of a full drum set is also useful. You want to make sure that the snare decay sounds natural, with no coloration and no flutter echoes or grain (unless you are going for a grainier reverb). The bass drum helps to dial in the very low frequency decay time. I hate the sound of a close miked bass drum beater, but that click can bring out artifacts in a reverb, so it is useful.

The tricky thing with drums is that a reverb can sound great on drums, yet totally crappy on pitched material. For drums, echo density is key. It is easy to design a reverb with lots of echo density, as long as you don't mind it sounding metallic. This works for drums, but doesn't on vocals. This is one of the reasons you will see reverb presets and algorithms labeled "vocal plate" versus "percussive plate" or "drum plate." Tuning an algorithm for one particular sound is easier than creating an algorithm that works for a wide variety of inputs.

Synths tend to be easier to create reverbs for:

- Reasonably dense, but you don't have to go overboard on echo density.

- Make sure that things sound good on long decays, as that will be the main use.

- Keep the modulation from getting too much random detuning, but some audible chorusing is fine.

I love making synth verbs. They don't need to sound particularly "realistic," as the input signal is totally unrealistic. String together a bunch of modulated allpass delays, put some feedback around there, bam, you've got a synth reverb. Most electronic music has been designed around "unrealistic" digital reverbs, where the artifacts become part of the sound.

Vocals, drums, stringed instruments, all that "real" stuff...it's harder to design reverbs that work with these signals. Our ears are used to how the "real" world behaves, so an unreal reverb on a real signal sounds weird. It's a cool weird, but the point is that acoustic signals tend to be more of an acid test for reverbs than analog synths and softsynths.

ValhallaPlate was designed around these "real" inputs. The testing sessions were full of drums, vocals, acoustic guitar, all that stuff. I originally capped the decay time at 10 seconds, as I wanted the DECAY knob to have almost all of its action in the "real" range of a plate. It wasn't until fairly late in the design process (the first week of September IIRC) that I figured out how to warp the parameter range of the DECAY knob, so that the majority of the knob travel was still in the plate range, but the last 30% moved into huge decays that worked with synths.

Sean Costello

[Krakatau]

The tricky thing with drums is that a reverb can sound great on drums, yet totally crappy on pitched material

Sean Costello

This one is a great tips and, among the others, very easy to assimilate

Thanks Sean !



P.S. by experience, often modulations are a critical point with reverbs, that will make big difference under tuned or untuned signal

[vic_france]

My current view is that female vocals are the toughest test for a reverb:

I don't consider I have really checked out a reverb until I have also tested it on a bright grand piano (it's quite frightening how many (over-modulated) reverb presets I have heard (not specifically for any one particular reverb plugin) that make the piano sound like it also has a chorus on it.)

[valhallasound]

My current view is that female vocals are the toughest test for a reverb:

I don't consider I have really checked out a reverb until I have also tested it on a bright grand piano (it's quite frightening how many (over-modulated) reverb presets I have heard (not specifically for any one particular reverb plugin) that make the piano sound like it also has a chorus on it.)

Piano is useful for testing the "pitch-correctness" of any modulation scheme. It is a little bit harder to judge the overall reverb quality of a non-modulated algorithm with piano. The static pitches, with beating, of the piano notes can mesh well with the static resonances, with beating, found in a lot of non-modulated reverbs.

In general, pianos are one of the best reasons to have a mod depth control in a reverb. A modulated reverb that sounds perfect for a large orchestra might sound way too watery for piano. Then again, overmodulated piano reverb is its own thing (Budd/Eno, ambient in general, big ballads), so it is best left as an option for the end user.

Sean Costello

[valhallasound]

P.S. by experience, often modulations are a critical point with reverbs, that will make big difference under tuned or untuned signal

One of the things I worked on with ValhallaPlate was getting the modulation to do its job (i.e. reduce metallic resonances and static beating patterns in the decay) without sounding super chorused. I ended up using a different modulation scheme than I have used in any of my prior plugins.

ValhallaPlate is still using chorusing-type modulation, as I prefer this to the Random Hall type modulation (as heard in Random Space and Smooth Random in VintageVerb). However, I am using some different techniques to balance out any pitch change caused by the modulation, as well as figuring out how to avoid directly chorused signals in the initial reverb output.

Here's a few presets that showcase how the modulation works. The first one is Unobtanium, set to a large size and longish decay:

<ValhallaPlate pluginVersion="1.5.0b15" presetName="XL-UnobtaniumNoMod" Mix="1" PreDelay="0" Decay="0.76399999856948852539" Size="1" Width="0.5" ModRate="0.29199999570846557617" ModDepth="0" LowEQFreq="0.14100000262260437012" LowEQGain="0.5" HighEQFreq="0.24799999594688415527" HighEQGain="0.5" Type="0.2916666567325592041"/>

The second preset is identical, but with the Mod Depth turned up:

<ValhallaPlate pluginVersion="1.5.0b15" presetName="XL-UnobtaniumMod" Mix="1" PreDelay="0" Decay="0.76399999856948852539" Size="1" Width="0.5" ModRate="0.29199999570846557617" ModDepth="0.75199997425079345703" LowEQFreq="0.14100000262260437012" LowEQGain="0.5" HighEQFreq="0.24799999594688415527" HighEQGain="0.5" Type="0.2916666567325592041"/>

The goal for ValhallaPlate was to create a set of algorithms that didn't require modulation in order to sound good. The modulation that is in place was optimized for making things sound smoother, as opposed to huge orchestral modulated things. Still, turn up the decay time and the modulation depth, and things can sound nice.

Sean Costello

[Ivan_C]

Hello Sean !

Even if I already own VVV, I have to say I like a lot the new Valhalla Plate, and I consider buying it too

Otherwise, I have some UI artefacts on both, with Reaper 64bits + Windows 8.1. Sometimes, some parts of the text in the bottom of the UI are not cleared correctly, it happens a few times and I have a screen capture there :

[Jax Pok]

Fantastic reverb got to make my mind up now keep saving for Amplitube 4 or make my synths sound even more lush. Plate sounds better on supersaw phaser pads than the other Valhalla Verbs or maybe it just happens Plate's presets are more suited. Might even have to sacrifice buying anyone a Christmas card this year. Maybe I can make Christmas cards in Blender and ask all relatives to download them from my drop box. Downloading and virtual thingies is all the rage now.

Thanks for your work Sean and thanks for keeping your plugins on sale every day.

[Sampleconstruct]

As I was just updating some of my VSL software, I came across the solo viola from the extended solo string library Vol. 1 and had to play a little impro, then automating Plate's decay time in Logic in a second pass.

https://soundcloud.com/sampleconstruct/ ... alla-plate

[valhallasound]

As I was just updating some of my VSL software, I came across the solo viola from the extended solo string library Vol. 1 and had to play a little impro, then automating Plate's decay time in Logic in a second pass.

https://soundcloud.com/sampleconstruct/ ... alla-plate

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

I'm not as versed in orchestral instruments as I should be, so this may be a stupid question: Does the viola have the reputation of being more of a noise-based signal than the violin? The example you posted sounds almost flute-like at times.

This track (with viola and harpsichord by John Cale) has a similar flute-y sound quality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRzOoa3JO7A

Reverb is most likely EMT140, BTW.

Sean Costello

[Sampleconstruct]

As I was just updating some of my VSL software, I came across the solo viola from the extended solo string library Vol. 1 and had to play a little impro, then automating Plate's decay time in Logic in a second pass.

https://soundcloud.com/sampleconstruct/ ... alla-plate

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

I'm not as versed in orchestral instruments as I should be, so this may be a stupid question: Does the viola have the reputation of being more of a noise-based signal than the violin? The example you posted sounds almost flute-like at times.

This track (with viola and harpsichord by John Cale) has a similar flute-y sound quality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRzOoa3JO7A

Reverb is most likely EMT140, BTW.

Sean Costello

It can be more noisy than a violin because more of the wooden body resonates and the scraping sound of the bow on the strings is definitely louder (I already filtered out some in the posted example), but it's also a certain articulation called “sul tasto“ or “flautato“ where you bow the instrument close to the neck - away from the bridge - which produces that certain almost flute-like sound.

[valhallasound]

I'm not as versed in orchestral instruments as I should be, so this may be a stupid question: Does the viola have the reputation of being more of a noise-based signal than the violin? The example you posted sounds almost flute-like at times.

This track (with viola and harpsichord by John Cale) has a similar flute-y sound quality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRzOoa3JO7A

Reverb is most likely EMT140, BTW.

Sean Costello

It can be more noisy than a violin because more of the wooden body resonates and the scraping sound of the bow on the strings is definitely louder (I already filtered out some in the posted example), but it's also a certain articulation called “sul tasto“ or “flautato“ where you bow the instrument close to the neck - away from the bridge - which produces that certain almost flute-like sound.

I'll try this at home. My 12yo is playing double bass now, so we have a beginner bass sitting in our living room (3/4 size - she's tall).

[foosnark]

I'm not as versed in orchestral instruments as I should be, so this may be a stupid question: Does the viola have the reputation of being more of a noise-based signal than the violin? The example you posted sounds almost flute-like at times.

Honestly, the reputation violas tend to have is that they suck compared to violins. At least that's what violinists say

Violas are probably the least user-friendly of the family. They are saddled with that weird alto clef and transposition compared to the more common treble and bass clefs used by other string instruments. They're bigger and even more awkward to hold than a violin, and require steadier and more sure bowing technique. Their parts tend to be a support role, simpler and almost redundant. Viola students are outnumbered 10 to 1 or so by violin students. A string orchestra with poor violists can limp along but they are utterly screwed if the violins are bad. School orchestra teachers are much more frequently violinists than anything else, and adjusting to viola is difficult -- so the students get neglected by comparison.

With bowed instruments, weak technique tends to sound quieter and less smooth, and there is more bow noise. Honestly, the attack of the very first note in "Viola Meets Valhalla Plate" (before any note changes reveal it to be a sampled instrument) sounds a bit hesitant to me. I don't know; it's possible that quiet playing on a viola is always like that simply due to the mechanics of the thing.

[jens]

I'm not as versed in orchestral instruments as I should be, so this may be a stupid question: Does the viola have the reputation of being more of a noise-based signal than the violin? The example you posted sounds almost flute-like at times.

I think it's just an ugly instrument they recorded...

All joking aside, you have that with bowed instruments - some sound really sharp, raspy - it is a mere matter of taste of course - personally I don't like it - whenever I hear one of those, I constantly want to clear my throat, yet others like it for the exact same sharpness. The lead cellist of Apokalyptika has such an instrument for instance - I think more of a shawm than a flute though...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXEpP21soXY