VST to aid in setting reverb - I bought it !

[Rathead]

I was reading my June 2012 copy of Audio Technology magazine and an interesting article by Michael 'Stav' Stavrou about setting up reverb.

I was especially interested because I always have trouble fitting reverb into a mix, and my stuff always ends up drier than I would like. I can nail reverb on individual tracks but can't seem to get it to 'click' in the mix.

Anyway, I went to his website to look at a VST he has made to aid reverb setup. It is not anything magical, just a pink noise sample with certain attack and decay characteristics. I am sure you could easily set up a chain to do it yourself.

But I was feeling lazy and I r-e-a-l-l-y wanted to try this out, so I sprang the twelve bills (AU$12) and bought it. Downloaded on my PC about 1 minute later.

Well, it worked for me. I know sometimes that it only takes a new way of looking at things to get you over a hurdle and this did. For me.

It took me ages to really 'get' compression and now I finally 'get' reverb.

Link is here:

http://studiostav.com/products-page/

Most people already have a way to setup their reverb, This is just another way. But I like it.

I have no connection to either Audio Technology magazine, or Mike Stavrou.

I just like good, simple ideas when I see them.

Rgds
Rattus norvegicus

[Uncle E]

That guy's a freaking genius. "Mixing With Your Mind" did more for my mixes than any single engineering course I've taken.

Personally, my reverbs are good when I mix on my monitors but I'm curious to find out if this helps when mixing over headphones.

[Krakatau]

Looks interesting...

i just bookmarked the page waiting for a mac version of the plugin to check it out !

[Rathead]

>< snip

Personally, my reverbs are good when I mix on my monitors but I'm curious to find out if this helps when mixing over headphones.

Good question. Later in the article he talks about another reverb tip that specifically does not work very well on cans.

I will try out the pink noise process on my headphones tonight and report back.


Rgds
Lord Ratzenburg

[xoxos]

i was just wondering yesterday why it's not common practice to routinely record test files, eg. short clips that cover the dynamic and timbral extremities a musician uses to provide some median reference for processing.

[Compyfox]

This is an interesting concept where I need to dive further. But it's definitely not a secret that you can use your reverb as "beat supporting device". Just mess with the pre-delay of the reverb.


This is a trick I love using in electronic music, especially the clap or the snare. Seen it in an old video tutorial (dunno the source anymore), but if you have a snare/clap on the off beat and add a by 1/8th to 1/4th delayed reverb, you get some additional groove to your track.

And for this, I can recommend a very handy tool (windows only, but you can find suitable "online" tools for that as well) for doing the math in terms of delay times:

Liqube Audio Delay Time Calculator
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/delay-t ... -by-liqube

He recently switched to Facebook rather than having a blog. But the link on KVR leads to a page with suitable downloads.

Alternatively I can recommend this:
http://web.forret.com/tools/bpm_tempo.asp

[skitchy]

@OP - Could you shed some light on the technique described in the article (without the plugin). I'd like to try it out the 'hard' way - if it works, I'll buy the plugin to simplify the process, but you don't learn anything that way

[Uncle E]

@OP - Could you shed some light on the technique described in the article (without the plugin). I'd like to try it out the 'hard' way - if it works, I'll buy the plugin to simplify the process, but you don't learn anything that way

I'd like to know, too, given there's no Mac plug-in yet.

[Rathead]

The article itself is copyright, but I will attempt to paraphrase / summarise.

The test signal described is pink noise gated at tempo speed, with a gate attack of >10mS and release of 50mS. I assume this is the signal that the VST plugin also produces.

This signal is put through the reverb chain in place of the signal you are working on. The plugin generates a short noise pulse to use when setting up for transient type sounds (eg: drums) and a longer pulse for sounds with a bit more 'sustain', eg. vocals and guitars.

All this does is remove any instrument decay, or any signal between beats, and exposes the reverb signal to the light of day.

It then becomes very easy to adjust the reverb and listen to how it works at the required tempo, and it becomes blindingly obvious when the reverb is supporting the sound and when it is fighting it.

Of course, there is much more to it than that - I am not yet experienced enough with it to offer advice to others.

In my own case, I could see that the reverb setups I had previously done by ear were in sympathy with the instruments sound (and thus sounded good on their own) but were chaotic / random WRT the song tempo and therefore would never fit together in a mix. This was an important learning process for me.

Stav himself seems very open to discussion, so maybe you could eMail him if you need further info.

Hope this helps.

Rgds,
Noradzere

[dusted william]

sounds neat.

dw

[PeterL]

I bought this plugin yesterday.
It's an easy concept, but as promised by the developer you can hear clearly what every subtle parameter in a reverb does for easy understanding (maybe you could dump the manual of every complicate reverb now ).
It also works quite well on headphones.
I tested it so far just on EAReverb, but it is really a useful helper to set up predelay, BNCrate, BNCdepth according to the rhythm of the track without using a BPM calculator.

BTW in addition to Compyfox suggestions:
Although expdigital is out of business here is another free music calculator called SCal, which I find quite useful:
http://www.expdigital.co.uk/

[Compyfox]

So my (somewhat) guess was right with "beat supported reverb".

This tool only makess it simpler, since it adapts the "length" of the pink noise impulses according to the BPM value of your host. You don't have to slice anything yourself.


Still an interesting concept, but no "magic" hidden.
12 AUD seems to be 12,20 USD and 10 EUR according to Yahoo Currency Exchange calc. Dunno if that funds is worth it to you.

[Rathead]

So my (somewhat) guess was right with "beat supported reverb".

This tool only makess it simpler, since it adapts the "length" of the pink noise impulses according to the BPM value of your host. You don't have to slice anything yourself.


Still an interesting concept, but no "magic" hidden.
12 AUD seems to be 12,20 USD and 10 EUR according to Yahoo Currency Exchange calc. Dunno if that funds is worth it to you.

>< snip
It is not anything magical, just a pink noise sample with certain attack and decay characteristics. I am sure you could easily set up a chain to do it yourself.
><snip

No, no magic, hidden or claimed.

Just a way to do things that might help some people.

AUD$12 ? I have spent much more on 'no brainers' I have never used.
This is a plugin I will use on every mix. Worth it to me.

Rgds,
The Brushed Aluminium Rat

[PeterL]

AUD$12 ? I have spent much more on 'no brainers' I have never used.
This is a plugin I will use on every mix. Worth it to me.

Same here.
Also useable for delays I think.

[dasdeck]

this "design reverb around rhythmic noise" tip is awesome!

thanks for sharing

cheers!

jm