Eventide BLACKHOLE Plug-in Officially Released

[valhallasound]

Has somebody compared it a bit deeper with ValhallaShimmer?
The time Blackhole was released and I've tested it, for me there was not such a big difference with the "dark" mode in Shimmer.

Hi
Simon did:
https://soundcloud.com/sampleconstruct/ ... t-eventide

Yes, I heard this and Blackhole sounds for me smoother and more defined. But Sean stated that it needs some different settings (dark mode and other things) so my idea is that Shimmer sounds very similar/close but it needs different settings.

Btw... I found this preferred settings from Sean:

Start with ValhallaShimmer, select the BlackHole preset, and set the color mode to Dark. This is pretty close, both sonically and structurally, to the Eventide Blackhole plugin. A few more hints:

- Set the pitch mode to bypass. This will result in similar feedback behavior in both Shimmer and Blackhole. I'm not sure where the Blackhole algorithm routes its feedback, but it may be similar to how it is done in the mono reverb mode in Shimmer.

- The Gravity knob in Blackhole corresponds to a few preset values of Diffusion in ValhallaShimmer, with negative values of Gravity roughly corresponding to values around 0.5 to 0.618 in Shimmer, and positive Gravity values covering Diffusion in the 0.9 to 0.99 range in Shimmer.

- Bring the high cut down a little bit in Shimmer, to approximate the filtering in Blackhole.

- Play with the mod depth in Shimmer to approximate the Blackhole sound.

Something I didn't figure out until I bought an Eventide DSP7000, and tried the Black Hole algorithm in there: the hardware Black Hole has a different way of setting diffusion than what I use in ValhallaShimmer. In order to get closer to the Eventide hardware, I would set the Shimmer Diffusion parameter to 0.91 times the Eventide diffusion setting.

I would still recommend using the Dark color mode in Shimmer to get closer to Black Hole, as I am pretty sure that Eventide is using linear interpolation for this block. So take the existing Black Hole preset in Shimmer, set the Diffusion coefficient to 0.827, Color to Dark, and turn down the mod rate a bit, and you can get closer to the Eventide hardware sound.

I haven't tried the Blackhole plugin in a few years, so I don't have anything to add beyond what I wrote earlier.

Sean Costello

[Klinke1]

Bidule with pitchshifter + Blackhole + feedback ...
--------------
Alright, alright, alright:
(The stomp-fx with LEDs around his neck.. with cables as neck-lace..)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxhrvO1imJs

[AstralExistence]

ive been demoing both black hole and shimmer and i have to say that after using both neither really sound that good. black hole is old code released in very winter 2012 although it has received an update to 64 bit the actual code remains the same. shimmer was released in fall of 2010 and although there have been a few improvements to its original features, not much has really changed. shimmer does not even have a built in preset system.

now: stw reflex pro which was released winter 2011 as a synth maker based gui and an original code base seen 4 updates version 1.0_2.2 from 2011-2012 the developer had to cancel the project through no fault of his own when synthmaker stopped development on there product. the developer took all the original code and or may have even gone so far as a complete rewrite and in summer 2014 released reflex+ version 1.0 since then he has released 4 updates and reflex+ is now at the current version 3.1

this is just my opinion but the sounds i get out reflex+ are really awesome and insanely huge. i never had the same excitement from black hole and far less with shimmer.

reflex+ and omnisphere will take through an ocean of stars!

[valhallasound]

ive been demoing both black hole and shimmer and i have to say that after using both neither really sound that good. black hole is old code released in very winter 2012 although it has received an update to 64 bit the actual code remains the same. shimmer was released in fall of 2010 and although there have been a few improvements to its original features, not much has really changed.

Black Hole was first released on the Eventide DSP4000 hardware, which came out in 1992. The particular details for the Blackhole plugin were based on the Eventide Space, which was released in 2011, but the algorithm itself probably dates to the early 1990s. The basic topology could be found in Alesis reverbs from the late 1980s, but the modulation and "brute force" used by Eventide adds a LOT to this sound. For that matter, the Black Hole algorithm can be viewed as an expanded version of the Manfred Schroeder reverb algorithm from his 1961 JAES paper.

I spent a lot of the last decade diving into the internals of digital boxes from the 1970s and 1980s, if you want to talk about "old code." There is a reverb published by John Stautner and Miller Puckette in the Computer Music Journal in 1982 that still sounds good, even though the language it was designed in no longer exists (Csound is the closest thing today). The random modulation in the Stautner/Puckette reverb dates back to the 1960s, and was described in a 1969 book by Max Mathews that I pulled off the shelf the other day. Michael Gerzon published a few papers in 1971 and 1972 that most of the modern algorithmic reverb topologies can be derived from.

A good algorithm is a good algorithm, no matter how old it is.

Sean Costello

[ghettosynth]

ive been demoing both black hole and shimmer and i have to say that after using both neither really sound that good. black hole is old code released in very winter 2012 although it has received an update to 64 bit the actual code remains the same. shimmer was released in fall of 2010 and although there have been a few improvements to its original features, not much has really changed.

Black Hole was first released on the Eventide DSP4000 hardware, which came out in 1992. The particular details for the Blackhole plugin were based on the Eventide Space, which was released in 2011, but the algorithm itself probably dates to the early 1990s. The basic topology could be found in Alesis reverbs from the late 1980s, but the modulation and "brute force" used by Eventide adds a LOT to this sound. For that matter, the Black Hole algorithm can be viewed as an expanded version of the Manfred Schroeder reverb algorithm from his 1961 JAES paper.

I spent a lot of the last decade diving into the internals of digital boxes from the 1970s and 1980s, if you want to talk about "old code." There is a reverb published by John Stautner and Miller Puckette in the Computer Music Journal in 1982 that still sounds good, even though the language it was designed in no longer exists (Csound is the closest thing today). The random modulation in the Stautner/Puckette reverb dates back to the 1960s, and was described in a 1969 book by Max Mathews that I pulled off the shelf the other day. Michael Gerzon published a few papers in 1971 and 1972 that most of the modern algorithmic reverb topologies can be derived from.

A good algorithm is a good algorithm, no matter how old it is.

Sean Costello

Sean, that's great info thanks. I posted in a another thread but this one seems to be where the action is now. I'm not concerned about the age of the reverb algorithm, but I have to say that I wasn't blown away by BlackHole when I A/B'd it with SpaceMaster 2. I felt that the feature differences didn't seem to be anything that couldn't easily be adapted to SM2, which has a bit more flexibility than BlackHole. It took all of a few minute to increase the pre-delay time, for example.

I'm afraid that I might be missing something though. Can you discuss how these reverbs compare with SpaceMaster with respect to algorithms. I have only a casual glancing knowledge of reverb algorithms so it's mostly about which one sounds good.

Are there some kinds of sounds that Spacemaster can't hope to compete because of algorithmic differences? Are there particular sounds/presets that stand out on BlackHole and why?

[valhallasound]

Sean, that's great info thanks. I posted in a another thread but this one seems to be where the action is now. I'm not concerned about the age of the reverb algorithm, but I have to say that I wasn't blown away by BlackHole when I A/B'd it with SpaceMaster 2. I felt that the feature differences didn't seem to be anything that couldn't easily be adapted to SM2, which has a bit more flexibility than BlackHole. It took all of a few minute to increase the pre-delay time, for example.

I'm afraid that I might be missing something though. Can you discuss how these reverbs compare with SpaceMaster with respect to algorithms. I have only a casual glancing knowledge of reverb algorithms so it's mostly about which one sounds good.

Are there some kinds of sounds that Spacemaster can't hope to compete because of algorithmic differences? Are there particular sounds/presets that stand out on BlackHole and why?

A quick overview of the differences between the Blackhole and Spacemaster architectures:

Blackhole is based on cascading a BUNCH of modulated allpass delays. Like 32 or so. The input is summed to mono, a bunch of allpasses process the input in series, and then the output of these allpasses is fed into 2 parallel allpass chains (one per output channel).

- A given output channel will go through 24 allpasses (due to the series->parallel structure).
- This produces a HUGE amount of echo density.
- Think about an allpass producing N echoes, where N depends on the allpass feedforward/feedback coefficient. Now raise N to the 24th power.
- Due to the laws of convolution, the attack and decay times of each allpass are also raised to the 24th power. So, if a given "average" allpass has an attack of A milliseconds and a decay of B milliseconds, the total reverb attack will be A*24 milliseconds, and the decay will be B*24 milliseconds.
- This brings up the tricky aspect of these massively cascaded allpass structures: The attack time and decay time are both intimately tied in with the allpass coefficients. And they are interrelated.
- For example, an allpass coefficient of 0.5 will have a slow fade in time, and will fade out at about the same time.
- To get a longer decay, the allpass coefficient needs to be at 0.7 or above. But this might still have a slow attack, due to the attack time of one allpass being raised to the 24th power.
- Coefficients of 0.827 to 0.91 and above will have a sharper attack. But the decay will be MASSIVE in this case.
- The chorusing of each allpass is essentially raised to the 24th power, which results in a very complex and rich modulation sound.

Spacemaster is a simpler algorithm. It has 2 parallel chains of 3 shorter allpasses at the input, one for the left channel, one for the right. This feeds a "tank" that has 2 parallel chains of 3 longer allpasses + a "straight delay," for 6 allpasses and 2 delays in the tank total. There is "figure-8" feedback around the tank, so that the output of the left branch feeds into the input of the right branch, and vice versa.

- This will have a lower initial echo density. The input for a given channel (left or right) will initially go through 6 allpasses before reaching the outputs, versus the 24 allpasses per channel in Blackhole.
- The attack time just can't get as long as Blackhole, without having a fair amount of grain in there. Having 6 allpasses with a feedback coefficient of 0.618 (the magic number for slow attacks) just can't get as long as 24 allpasses.
- The flip side of this: You can get MUCH SHORTER attacks with Spacemaster. The input diffusors can be set to a fairly short size. I think you can mix the output of these with the output of the tank, so you don't have to have the initial reverb sound delayed by the whole tank + input diffusor delay times.
- More importantly, the reverb time in Spacemaster largely depends on the Lout-Rin and Rout->Lin feedback gains of the late reverb "figure 8" tank. This is largely decoupled from the decay time of the individual allpasses in the tank. You can have fairly short decays of the allpasses, and if the feedback gain is close to 1.0, you can have REALLY LONG reverbs.
- The modulation just won't be as rich as Blackhole, as you have 6 modulated allpasses and 2 modulated delays, versus 32 modulated allpasses.

In general, Spacemaster is more versatile, while Blackhole is a 1 or 2 trick pony, However, the Blackhole tricks are pretty awesome, especially for ambient and electronic music. Spacemaster will be grainier than Blackhole at many settings, but can get sharper attacks, and can decouple the attack time from the decay to a much greater extent than Blackhole. Blackhole has ridiculously high echo density, super lush modulation, and can get longer, smoother attacks than Spacemaster, but it isn't as versatile as Spacemaster.

ValhallaShimmer kind of mixes both strategies up, by having different modes that have different base sizes (and different numbers of cascaded allpasses before the output is heard). The mono mode can get very Blackhole-esque, but the smaller modes can have a much sharper attack, while relying on feedback for longer decays.

Sean Costello

[Sampleconstruct]

I just love how things get demystified, when Sean nails it down to scientific facts, thank´s for that post!

[valhallasound]

I just love how things get demystified, when Sean nails it down to scientific facts, thank´s for that post!

What blows me away is how this stuff can be expressed in scientific terms, and yet it is STILL mystical to me.

I have a few old Eventides now, a few Lexicons, and some good pedals. I have a pretty solid understanding of how modulated reverbs work. I've been programming reverbs on the job since 2000, and have made a living solely from modulated reverbs and related algorithms for many years now. When I code up a reverb, I know what I'm putting in there, and why it goes in there.

And yet...there are still discoveries to be made, and mystery in there. I have played with ValhallaShimmer / Blackhole / Bloom algorithms since 2006, when I stumbled across these structures in Supercollider. I had thought "well, if 4 series allpasses sound dense, then 16 will sound even denser!" And they DID sound denser, but they also sounded far weirder than I would have thought. Slow attack, strange decays, and modulating the allpasses turned things into an orchestral wash.

Flash forward to 2015, and I figured out that 0.827 was another "magic" coefficient for these allpass cascades. Put a guitar or synth through a bunch of modulated allpasses with a coefficient of 0.827, and the sound just hangs in space. No matter how analytical I get, the sound of these things can get you into alternate realities.

Sean Costello

[teacue]

I just love how things get demystified, when Sean nails it down to scientific facts, thank´s for that post!

Demystified?
A quite relative term depending on who is reading
On my side after reading Seans words I feel like THE HIGH PRIESTESS has spoken
and I have no clue about what she told but I find it great.
Well I am just a humble craftsman (Handwerker)

BTW thanks you Sean for your fascinating explanations.
I use Space Master, Shimmer and Blackhole and I am glad to be able to use such mystic (to me) tools

[teacue]

What blows me away is how this stuff can be expressed in scientific terms, and yet it is STILL mystical to me.

Oh! I am glad THE HIGH PRIESTESS kind of agree with me
My previous post was posted in the same time as your's!
Vive la mystique

[SLiC]

I love valhala shimmer, but I bought blackhole as well at this new low price (under 50 bucks) and have enjoyed playing with it. I think they both found good, but if I could only have one it would be shimmer as it can do the 'blackhole' type large ambient verbs and a lot more. It's all about the base sound you put the reverb on, from a big poly synth patch to a simple accoustic guitar, I can get great results with shimmer (but I do like blackhole as well, not sure I realy need both, but I have enjoyed playing with it and there are some cool presets included)

[ghettosynth]

In general, Spacemaster is more versatile, while Blackhole is a 1 or 2 trick pony, However, the Blackhole tricks are pretty awesome, especially for ambient and electronic music. Spacemaster will be grainier than Blackhole at many settings, but can get sharper attacks, and can decouple the attack time from the decay to a much greater extent than Blackhole. Blackhole has ridiculously high echo density, super lush modulation, and can get longer, smoother attacks than Spacemaster, but it isn't as versatile as Spacemaster.

ValhallaShimmer kind of mixes both strategies up, by having different modes that have different base sizes (and different numbers of cascaded allpasses before the output is heard). The mono mode can get very Blackhole-esque, but the smaller modes can have a much sharper attack, while relying on feedback for longer decays.

Sean Costello

Thank you, that gives me something very specific to listen for. I'll spend a bit more time with these during the demo period.

It's only fair that I include Shimmer in the comparison. Can you recommend two or three presets that in Shimmer that I should really focus on while demoing?

[ghettosynth]

I just love how things get demystified, when Sean nails it down to scientific facts, thank´s for that post!

Demystified?

I think so, the specifics were super helpful in understanding how the algorithms are different and how this will impact the sound. Since I have no access to the Blackhole internals and insufficient experience with reverb algorithms to formulate a good guess, Sean's post really took the magic out of it for me.

[valhallasound]

In general, Spacemaster is more versatile, while Blackhole is a 1 or 2 trick pony, However, the Blackhole tricks are pretty awesome, especially for ambient and electronic music. Spacemaster will be grainier than Blackhole at many settings, but can get sharper attacks, and can decouple the attack time from the decay to a much greater extent than Blackhole. Blackhole has ridiculously high echo density, super lush modulation, and can get longer, smoother attacks than Spacemaster, but it isn't as versatile as Spacemaster.

ValhallaShimmer kind of mixes both strategies up, by having different modes that have different base sizes (and different numbers of cascaded allpasses before the output is heard). The mono mode can get very Blackhole-esque, but the smaller modes can have a much sharper attack, while relying on feedback for longer decays.

Sean Costello

Thank you, that gives me something very specific to listen for. I'll spend a bit more time with these during the demo period.

It's only fair that I include Shimmer in the comparison. Can you recommend two or three presets that in Shimmer that I should really focus on while demoing?

Try the following:

- Select the BlackHole preset in Shimmer.
- Switch the color mode to dark.
- Turn the pitch mode to bypass.
- Now, play around with the Diffusion parameter. Try 0.618, 0.827, 0.707, 0.91.
- Next, switch the reverb mode to Medium Stereo.
- Turn up the feedback.
- Switch the reverb mode to Big Stereo.

This will give you a good feel for the basic, reverby-aspects of ValhallaShimmer.

[Sampleconstruct]

As I was just cutting/editing Glockenspiel samples this morning and after following this thread I had to make a video where Glockenspiel meets Blackhole meets Shimmer, not as a comparison but more as a musical space impro. I also tried integrating Space Master which I hadn't used for years, but the sound was just not up to par with the other 2 so I skipped that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTQ4c93apuI