ValhallaRoom 1.5.1 Released. New Electric Blue GUI

[valhallasound]

I have a beta installer for the Windows RTAS/VST32/VST64 versions of ValhallaRoom (v1.0.4) available:

http://www.valhalladsp.com/room/demos/V ... V1_0_4.zip

New features:

- RTAS! Tested in PT9 on Win7, and PT8 on WinXP
- Different compiler used for 32-bit VST (may fix some issues with Pentium IV machines)
- The preset prev/next and mix lock buttons I have been discussing

If any existing VRoom customers want to try out the Windows RTAS, send me an email or PM - I have the full installer ready for 1.0.4.

Sean Costello

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

been testing against the demo of 'eareverb'...i seem to be getting similar enough results to be happy to stick with my copy of 'valhallaroom'..

one thing i do like about 'eareverb' is how it seemingly trims the initial highs from the sound, making for a more muted/dark sound (which i like)..playing through them, alternately, with a persian santoor instrument sounded more pleasant in 'eareckon' because of this slight taming of the initial attack...i couldn't seem to replicate this in 'vroom', depite being able to tame the resulting tail to my satisfaction

maybe it is this quality that makes such a difference for the 'ear ' users

High frequencies aren't necessarily helpful for reverbs. I think that a big part of the sound of "classic" digital reverbs like the Lexicon 224 and EMT250 is that they have no high frequency energy above 8 kHz. The next generation of digital reverbs made a big deal about having higher sampling rates, but they still would have a sharp cutoff above 15 kHz.

...i've never been a big reverb user, but am exploring it now...what am i missing (besides a full manual) in 'vroom' to accomplish this effect ??

Some suggestions (and I'll get back to work on the manual once I get 1.0.4 officially released):

- Turn the High Cut slider down to a lower value than you would think. This is a -12dB/oct filter, so it can go a long ways towards taming the high end.
- Set the Late High Mult to 0.1, and adjust the High Xover to taste. This will allow you to have a much shorter high frequency decay, as well as less highs in the initial decay.
- Set Depth to 100%. The Early section doesn't have as much filtering as the Late section.
- Set Early Size to a value around 70 or more msec, and Early Send to 100%. This will "soften" any transients, in a different manner than cutting out all the high frequencies.

Sean Costello

thanks

busy day, today, but i'll have a go over the weekend

it is definitely something that seems to make the attack and tail part of the same space, in 'ear'

i have every faith of being abole to recreate it close enough...if all else fails, there's nothing to stop me eq'ing on the way in

[valhallasound]

I'm making it official:

ValhallaRoom has been updated to version 1.0.4. New features in this release:

- Windows RTAS! ValhallaRoom now runs in Windows (VST32/VST64/RTAS) and OSX (VST/AU/AU64/RTAS).
- Mix lock functionality for the Mix slider. By clicking on the MIX label above the slider, the user can lock and unlock the mix level when browsing through presets.
- Preset previous/next arrows, for quickly scrolling through presets.
- New Cathedral presets.

An email has been sent out to all ValhallaRoom customers, beta testers, and other users. Send me an email or PM if you haven't received your email with the download links.

Demo versions of the 1.0.4 release of ValhallaRoom can be downloaded from

http://www.valhalladsp.com/valhallaroom

Sean Costello

[Sampleconstruct]

I'm making it official:

ValhallaRoom has been updated to version 1.0.4. New features in this release:

- Windows RTAS! ValhallaRoom now runs in Windows (VST32/VST64/RTAS) and OSX (VST/AU/AU64/RTAS).
- Mix lock functionality for the Mix slider. By clicking on the MIX label above the slider, the user can lock and unlock the mix level when browsing through presets.
- Preset previous/next arrows, for quickly scrolling through presets.
- New Cathedral presets.

An email has been sent out to all ValhallaRoom customers, beta testers, and other users. Send me an email or PM if you haven't received your email with the download links.

Demo versions of the 1.0.4 release of ValhallaRoom can be downloaded from

http://www.valhalladsp.com/valhallaroom

Sean Costello

Great, Sean!

[valhallasound]

Now that all the plugin formats are out for ValhallaRoom (I finally figured out the Windows RTAS compilation issues), I've gone back to work on finishing up the manual. As is my usual custom, I'm putting it up as blog posts.

The latest one describes the Early section:

http://valhalladsp.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... -controls/

I'll describe the Late reverb controls, then put up some tips and tricks.

Sean Costello

[valhallasound]

I just put up a description of the Late Reverb controls:

http://valhalladsp.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... -controls/

I also wrote a post about cave paintings, wabi-sabi, and plugins:

http://valhalladsp.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... d-plugins/

The latter post is essentially a meditation on the impermanence of software and digital art.

Sean Costello

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[TitusRaindrops]

I just put up a description of the Late Reverb controls:

http://valhalladsp.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... -controls/

I also wrote a post about cave paintings, wabi-sabi, and plugins:

http://valhalladsp.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... d-plugins/

The latter post is essentially a meditation on the impermanence of software and digital art.

Sean Costello

As a fellow musician, software developer, and human being, I found your wabi-sabi post quite moving. A bit of a departure from what I'm used to reading on gear boards ;-P

I'm proud to be supporting Valhalla.

P.S. New track posted. ValhallaRoom is all over this one

http://soundcloud.com/titusandtheraindrops/arc

[xtrax]

There is some great presets here:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/6640089-post725.html

[krankyone]

One of the things that's been interesting for me and my music is to be able to buy plugins or presents directly from the individual developer. It seems "personal" for a lack of a better word.

Your wabi-sabi blog entry makes this even more real.

Thanks for your work and creativity.

-John

[t3toooo]

interesting read sean.

myself i'm happy to got rid of "hardware" and that was one of my greatest targets.
with using hardware as a live musician you always rely on a car and need some help to carry loads of heavy luggage,who can effort this?

it's not 100% there to have everything in the box and to really replace a whole stage equipment for the "mainstream" but it's close (it's there for me at least ).

main problem and/or mistake in this regard in the audio world,imo,is that many developers are thinking that 1% cpu isn't much but when you want to use the computer as a musician you need a low audio buffer for real time performance and samples are not really the way to the future for me,i mean why using them anyway?

so, what i bought the last years i'll use in 5 to 10 years also and hopefully much longer,even if my running system isn't developed anymore.
still i can use window 98 applications on windows 7 ,but i won't.

much better then, in 5-6 years i can use much more instances of valhalla room than i can use now (because of a much better computer) and it also doesn't matter if the vst 2 protocol isn't maybe supported anymore in the "new daw's" in some years because the "sound" won't be "better".

still i'm very happy and astonished about the performance of the redline reverb and i'm using always a couple of instances and i think i'll also do so in some years,disregarding that valhalla room is better.

what matters are the skills of the developer and this is the same than 40 years ago.

[valhallasound]

main problem and/or mistake in this regard in the audio world,imo,is that many developers are thinking that 1% cpu isn't much but when you want to use the computer as a musician you need a low audio buffer for real time performance and samples are not really the way to the future for me,i mean why using them anyway?

I have found that there are limits to what optimization can do. When it gets right down to it, some operations just take more cycles. ValhallaRoom takes more cycles than ValhallaShimmer, which makes sense, as it is doing more under the hood. I had hoped to make some optimization breakthroughs with ValhallaRoom, and in some senses I did, as I was able to get the CPU much lower than earlier versions of the code while cleaning up the sound. Still, I'm doing a lot of multiplies and pushing a lot of samples around, and there is no way to optimize that away to nothingness.

much better then, in 5-6 years i can use much more instances of valhalla room than i can use now (because of a much better computer) and it also doesn't matter if the vst 2 protocol isn't maybe supported anymore in the "new daw's" in some years because the "sound" won't be "better".

I would like to think that in 5 to 6 years we will have some new methods of creating music on the computer, that move beyond the DAW format, just as Live went beyond the standard "piano roll" sequencers that preceded it.

If your programs are working 5-6 years from now, I will be happy for you. I do most of my work on the Mac, and Apple has taken a much more "scorched earth" approach towards improving their OS. So the current iteration of OSX has far less cruft than the current Windows iteration, but at the cost of dropping support for a huge amount of useful apps from the OS9 and PPC days.

still i'm very happy and astonished about the performance of the redline reverb and i'm using always a couple of instances and i think i'll also do so in some years,disregarding that valhalla room is better.

Music isn't teleological. It is more a matter of "if it works for you, it works." The Redline Reverb uses a very efficient topology (assuming that it is similar to Reaktor's Spacemaster/Rev6 ensembles), and gets a lot of sound out of very few cycles. It is very similar to the Lexicon reverbs with regards to this - the allpass loops give you a lot of "bang for your buck." ValhallaRoom is an attempt to get a sound that is more "refined" than the allpass loops - higher echo density, higher resonance density, less metallic coloration. So in that sense, one could argue that ValhallaRoom is "better" - but it really comes down to what you want things to sound like.

One could argue that a modern digital delay is better than the old tape echos, as it has precise control over the delay time, and isn't plagued by the distortion, wow and flutter, noise, and oscillations of the old tape echos. Obviously, there will be people that argue the exact opposite. Different strokes for different folks.

My long term goal is to provide a variety of tools for different tastes. I have huge respect for the past, as well as a desire to create innovative new work. ValhallaRoom is my current "state of the art" reverb - it's clean (well, clean enough ), relatively colorless, works with all sorts of material, and can get small sounds as well as big. ValhallaShimmer is big, colored, and psychedelic, and also has a low CPU hit. Future Valhalla DSP algorithms will explore different sonic dimensions - noisy versus clean, old versus new, grainy versus smooth. Although my present inclination is to step back from having perfection as a goal, and aiming towards sounds that are noisy, furry, big, and natural. Somewhere between wabi-sabi and Wagnerian.

Sean Costello

[mandolarian]

Like that last bit, Sean. Wabinerian sounds deliciously huge and unstable. Impermanence forever!

[valhallasound]

Like that last bit, Sean. Wabinerian sounds deliciously huge and unstable. Impermanence forever!

Plugins that bring about the destruction of the world, and then reflect on how the world is impermanent. That's what I'm shooting for.

*maniacal laughter as he fires up Xcode*

[krankyone]

Destroy! Destroy!