ArtsAcoustic VS Lexicon 960 (or any lexi hardware) :)

[mandolarian]

As the former main algorithm, preset and in several cases - product designer for Eventide Inc. from the 4000 series through the 7000 series Orville and Eclipse

loophead, I have to say the Eclipse is my fav effect unit of all time. Brilliant.

Not to be rude, but have you thought about putting some of your *experience* into a VST plug???

[loophead]

YOU cant crack HARDWARE. It will still be some while untill they make software that will compete with their own UNCRACKABLE products !

But you can capture IR's.

No you can capture some aspects of a static slice of time.

Most effect algorithms MOVE in time . All hardware reverbs move through time even if it is internal, hidden, or very slight modulation. IR's are STATIC. You can not capture what is going on in an Eventide, Lexicon, Quantec etc. You can capture the 'vibe' or general coloration only in very broad strokes.

Folks might say that "rooms dont move" so for reverb of real spaces that does not matter...well its an interesting set of physics that they claim they are living in...EVERYTHING moves.

And do they fill the space with an audience when they take these IR's ??

The IR technology is facinating and very useful. But you are not 'cracking' any hardware.

[loophead]

As the former main algorithm, preset and in several cases - product designer for Eventide Inc. from the 4000 series through the 7000 series Orville and Eclipse

loophead, I have to say the Eclipse is my fav effect unit of all time. Brilliant.

Not to be rude, but have you thought about putting some of your *experience* into a VST plug???

Thanks I am quite proud of the work I did on that, and yes I have wanted to work on VST's know of a proper gig ..?

All I need is some good codewriters. I had some brilliant dsp engineers who wrote the bits I needed (I dont write the code,- my bad )

[jmh]

I stand by my opinion, yours is still simply just that, and I'm talking about the UK top 40 charts with regards to reverb usage, spouting out a couple of names like Britney and Christina doesn't mean all top 40 tracks are made in 'big' studios that only used hardware reverbs in that particular session either. If your source is from magazine reading you're in no position to suggest your 'opinion' is any better than mine, so we'll both stand by our opinions.

Perhaps you missed the point - naming two examples doesn't limit my point of view to those, but work as examples of mainstream pop everybody's forced to hear nowadays... What I was trying to say was, and still is, that if you look at the biggest studios producing mainstream material, it's still mostly hardware. Expensive hardware.

But please, thank you jmh for a) putting words into my mouth with regards to an opinion of 'rich' producers and b) Assuming I've had no experience with hardware reverbs first hand

First of all, that last bit was a generalisation, triggered by the way you approached the subject. Second, if you don't give us some clues to what your experience is, it's normal to make up assumptions based on what - and HOW - discuss the matter. State you have the experience, I'll deal with your opinion based on that.

In my opinion, the best software reverbs today can match what the hardware ones can do in a final recording and that's what counts.

Of course you're entitled to your opinion. I guess I should have stated that most comparison I've done are based on listening to what the reverbs do with isolated sounds. And my opinion is that things should be compared this way - reverb and 'reverb in a mix' are two slightly different things after all. There's a lot of great sounding material done entirely in software, and I'm not embarrassed of what I can achieve entirely in software... but if we're talking reverbs, I'd prefer we talked reverbs instead of the final outcome of a mix

Some of the people in this forum compare the realtime output of a lesser host sequencer going out their not so hot soundcard output to the raw out of the TC or the Lexicon, well of course there's going to be a difference!. What matters is the mixed down sound that gets used in the actual mix. Thats how fair comparisons between reverbs should be made too.

Not really... this is one of those things I disagree with. People generally try to enforce this view on about anything, be it reverbs, compressors, synths, younameit. But it's impossible to compare any particular item or type of processing if you're only comparing finished mixes.

If you feel jmh i'm completely wrong and hardware reverbs really do have this magic dust yet to be reached by software ones (even though ex-Neve guys sonalksis achieved it with regards to software eq in a very short space of time) then you're entitled to it, i'm sticking with my opinion

I don't think you're completely wrong. I just needed more information regarding your experience and background to understand what you're basing your opinion on

I should once again make my stance on these things clear.

First, I'm all software based. There's a few selected pieces of hardware I still have, and will likely get a few more items in the future.

Second, I'm highly impressed with the quality of some software items available today. Sonalksis as you mentioned. Voxengo. ArtsAcoustic Reverb. Just to give a few examples.

Third, I still hear a difference comparing plugins to top-of-the-line hardware. And I will continue comparing reverbs to reverbs, EQs to EQs and so on - after all, we're on the production side of things, not on the listener side. There is a significant difference.

Fourth, I know my writing is sometimes confrontational, but I'll stick to reacting what people write - I enjoy discussing things on forums (that should be obvious ) - but I'll take things at face value... in other words, if someone doesn't feel like being a target of assumptions or generalisations, that someone should make sure he clarifies his background and experience in the matter being discussed... it makes thing a lot easier

Fifth... make more patches I have some stuff you've made in the past, good stuff. Could always use more

Regards,

JMH

[Arksun]

Fifth... make more patches I have some stuff you've made in the past, good stuff. Could always use more

Regards,

JMH

Haha, i know i know i must do that very soon, tied up with a remix right now though which must be done in next week or so.

Great to hear from an actual algorithm eventide programmer in this thread agreeing that he also feels the best software reverbs match hardware too.

Bah who cares right, if you like the sound of it.. just buy it!. And if you can't afford it, buy next best thing and make most of it

Arksun

[loophead]

Bah who cares right, if you like the sound of it.. just buy it!. And if you can't afford it, buy next best thing and make most of it

Arksun

Exactly its not the tool but the tool wielder !

We obviously love playing with and talking about these technologies. But the driving force should not be the technology itself but in how we express ourselves through it.

You do not NEED this stuff to be creative. Dont pander to abject consumerism. Use whats at hand...

That said I think this is a unique time of change and I for one hope to see some very interesting and creativity promoting tools come out.

All it takes are creative folks to come up with the ideas...anyone...

[bmanic]

... (even though ex-Neve guys sonalksis achieved it with regards to software eq in a very short space of time) ..

This bit shows that your demand for sound quality is not as radical as mine. The sonalksis EQ is ok, it's even quite good for being a plugin but it's lightyears off from a good outboard analogue EQ.

Same goes for most reverbs. The arts accoustic reverb is closest to the high-end stuff right now but I still feel it's miles off. There is some tremendous research behind the lexicon reverb algorithms. I was at Mr. Griesinger's seminar in Germany, Leipzig at the Tonemeister conference and it's because of this one man that the lexicon is so musical. He truly is a genious and has probably the best know-how in the industry right now.

The point is, do you really think that a plugin that suddenly appears can compete with another piece of software that has over 20 years of experience/research behind it? EDIT: on second read this sounds rather harsh so let me re-state that I'm talking about rather subtle differences (for other people subtle, for me huge! ). Arts accoustic and princeton are definatly of world class quality but if money was no issue, I'd take the 960 any day over either of them.

btw. I have dyslexia (how's that spelled) so sorry if some of my writing is off.

-bManic

[kritikon]

Yeah, yeah, creativity and all of that...but it still boils down to using the best sound quality you can get access to. If all you can reasonably get access to is M2 or even Ambience, then fine. But if you can afford decent quality, there absolutely IS a difference. Sure I would rather get a quality reverb for $300 rather than $3000, and it does seem like it's getting closer - Princeton, yup, I'd use that happily (and silly or not, any kind of PACE puts me off, so it's unlikely I'll use it).

And there was some nit-picking about reverbs within a mix. To my ears, the sum total of reverb in a mix is far more likely to be heard if it's a poor one - too many native reverbs have horrible metallic tones that make them unusable for me, and if they don't have that, they tend to sound like washes of white noise. It all builds up very quickly - you don't have to have expensive converters to hear it - but with good ones it shows up even more. And someone else mentioned 100% wet - would anyone here really use a 100% wet Ambience verb or an M2 verb? Ugggh - I shudder to hear it. The good reverbs can still sound sweet at 100%.


And the Eventide fella made a good point - there should be some good'uns around the corner. Eventide units are so incredibly flexible (but they wouldn't be so good if they had crap algorithms in the modules to start with.) There are one or two modular FX s/w items that should be able to create incredible reverby sounds - something like QuantumFX would be ideal, if only they had a useable reverb algorithm - something like the Princeton one that could fit into a modular FX suite would be an almost automatic buy from me. But as he mentioned also - h/w companies aren't in the business of having their reverbs cracked, so they don't sell native s/w. So if anyone came up with truly splendid-sounding native reverb algos...I doubt they'd license them out or allow them to be used in other products.

Sure, you can load up heaps of FX into insert slots, but that's not the same thing as being able to internally route your individual FX modules such as Eventide, old Ensoniq units (dp4) and even old Digitech units (TSR24).

I don't entirely disagree that s/w can do what h/w reverb units do - but the plugins are very few and far between and they have nowhere near the level of complexity and tweakability of the good (read expensive) units. And that is also part of what we pay for - not the name. There are very few people that crassly stupid that they pay thousands for a name reverb unit simply because it has a recognised name. If you think that, then you give away your own stupidity. They pay thousands for quality and for sound and only that. If anyone here thinks a good Eventide or good Lexicon is only as good as Ambience or M2, then feel free to live on in your own little muffled world. I'll happily admit to packing away h/w synths when the s/w releases are good enough to either equal them or supercede them - I never use any of my old Rolands nowadays - I wouldn't buy another OSCar because impOSCar is every bit as good and better and I don't begrudge the thousands I spent on those old synths. So when the day comes that native reverb equals my h/w reverb units, I'll gladly also pack those away. But apart from one, none of them come close IMO. Maybe soon, but not yet.

I really don't want a rack of h/w - it's a pain (yet I still love real h/w synths - they are fun to play with) - but native reverb doesn't cut it - I'll still rather have to dick around getting rid of noise, and fancy patching, and latencies rather than use most native reverbs. I don't want a Lexicon or Eventide name on my rack - I'd rather have them inside my PC screen. Aaaaaah one day soon we'll be there.

And there's always the hope that an ex-Eventide designer might become a native s/w designer one day

[Kingston]

There's powercore. They have the best system6000 algoritms already available for it and soundwise they are just as usable as L960.

No whitenoise washes, metallics or combinations of both in either. The ambience density of these units takes care of that. It's more a room (or artificial dense space) than a ripple of algoritmic delay networks that too often, if not always, manifest themselves in native reverbs. Yes, in impulse responses too.

Poco with these plugs is a hell of a lot cheaper than a full blown system6000 as well.

I don't know how well this works as a comparison, but when was the last time you without hesitation used a reverb on a track 100% wet. Me? never with a native plugin.

[kritikon]

Yeah, apparently the Powercore verbs are quite good if you like TC reverb - unfortunately I'm not that keen on their verbs. Just my own taste.

[loophead]

Yeah, yeah, creativity and all of that...but it still boils down to using the best sound quality you can get access to....

And there's always the hope that an ex-Eventide designer might become a native s/w designer one day

Yes and I agree that to date there are only a handful of developers who have software that rivals a piece of TOP hardware.

This is what I have found to be true IMHO.

This thread asked about ArtsAcoustics new verb. I bought it after 10 minutes of demoing it ! This particular verb gives me much (not all) of what I DO with a verb. And to me there is NO question as to its quality compaired to hardware.

This does not mean that I may not need to jump through some hoop to do what I am trying to do...I may need to add 3, 4 ,5 other plugs in the jig to get close to some patch I built on an Orville...but it is quite close now...just a few missing pieces...

I would love to build a set of plugins which do the type of things I do/did with hardware... alot has to do with having the seperate elements exploded into smaller subsets. And (Reactor aside- different kettle of fish) no one has yet for example built a "modular Reverb" plugin

[Kingston]

well powercore=system6000 nowadays when you think about it. At least the most important and defining reverbs are available:

http://messe.harmony-central.com/Musikm ... nLin2.html
http://messe.harmony-central.com/Musikm ... pping.html
http://news.harmony-central.com/Newp/20 ... rCore.html

These three are just about the only reason I would ever consider system6000, no longer locked to outrageously priced hardware..

Granted, system6000 is more a swissarmyknife than the poptastic and more immediately impressive L960.

[jmh]

Bah who cares right, if you like the sound of it.. just buy it!. And if you can't afford it, buy next best thing and make most of it

Arksun

Exactly its not the tool but the tool wielder !

We obviously love playing with and talking about these technologies. But the driving force should not be the technology itself but in how we express ourselves through it.

You do not NEED this stuff to be creative. Dont pander to abject consumerism. Use whats at hand...

While I agree with what you both are saying... it's still necessary to point out that we are discussing about certain technological things, not about how to come up with interesting music, expression etc

Just thought I'd mention this... as too often discussions about technology are watered down and killed when people go this way, when it's not really the topic of discussion

I'd rather see what loophead has to share with us before all this is swept under the carpet while saying 'who gives a toot about how you make it, as long as the outcome sounds good' - as it is a separate issue

Regards,

JMH

[jmh]

poptastic and more immediately impressive

Thanks, new signature found

JMH

[loophead]

I'd rather see what loophead has to share with us before all this is swept under the carpet while saying 'who gives a toot about how you make it, as long as the outcome sounds good' - as it is a separate issue

Regards,

JMH

I'm saying that there are several software companies who make products which are at the level of sonic quality of the top rung of hardware alternatives. This thread was about reverb; specificaly AA's reverb. In my opinion it is as excellent as the top three hardware 'names'. I thought I was quite clear.

Also check out Silverspike whose three reverbs are also astounding pieces of software (for very different reasons).

All of these have specific stengths and weaknesses.

For me the AA's strengh is in the stuff you can do to the onset (attack and spread) and the stuff you can do to the tail (echo and modulation).

Some one else may say "I have need #43 and this reverb is not covering that need but my hardware does". Excellent, congrats - you have the right tool for the job !

However to compare the software agains the hardware, one may need to understand some (possible) deep issues to do a valid comparison.

Tweaking these to compare might not be as simple as it seems. I know this sounds counterintuative. "why cant I just put some signal through and listen ?" - well you can but you might not be listening to apples and apples - so I guess this paragraph is just a cautionary tale. I have no real wish to start a flame war with someone who thinks I'm a dope. Thats cool... this is just my (I feel, informed) opinion.

...that there are some softwares which are at the top level of quality. This is what the first poster asked...