ValhallaRoom 1.5.1 Released. New Electric Blue GUI

[Fritze]

I could hire this out, but this would cut into my margins enough that the $50 price point no longer makes sense.

Sean Costello

Ah, good man! Stay true to that concept, please.

[valhallasound]

It would be cool if you added a user section to your web site so we could log in and download the latest version of the software. I've been meaning to say this for a while. Not too fond of the e-mail implementation..

I'm not fond of it either, but it allows me to sell plugins with minimal web development overhead. PayPal buttons are quick and easy. A full-on website with user accounts would require a lot of MySQL/PHP skills I don't currently have, and a lot of programming time that I currently need to devote to making things that sound cool. I could hire this out, but this would cut into my margins enough that the $50 price point no longer makes sense.

Sean Costello

No problem. I understand. At your prices, you are right, not a big inconvenience.

I know that I want to have a full-on automated website at some point, so your idea is a good one. Right now, I just can't afford the time to dedicate towards implementing this, and time is my most precious commodity.

I look forward to a point at which I can step back from the DSP compiler, and work on more of the "corporate infrastructure." Which is a laughable term for a guy that can fit all the gear that is truly necessary for the job into his backpack, but you know what I mean.

Sean Costello

[bmanic]

I think you should change the name to ValhallaSpace.
I'll vote slower denser Narcissus btw.

For me, ValhallaSpace would have needed to be REALLY spacey to earn the name. At this point, having the room emulators (physical spaces) and the more digital algorithms (outer space) would certainly qualify for the Space label. But it is too late to change the name.

The original goal of VRoom was to be a room emulator, a la Quantec. The Medium Room algorithm was most influenced by my understanding of the Quantec algorithm, but with some modifications to make my version sound better. Honestly, the Medium Room algorithm is by far my least favorite of all the VRoom algorithms, so I don't think that I succeeded in getting very Quantecish with that reverb mode. But the Large Room and Large Chamber do a nice job in getting more realistic room emulations.

Sean Costello

I know the quantec is considered a classic and is used in a lot of music but personally I find it really boring. Especially for modern pop production, "realistic" room simulators are the least used, at least in my experience. Well, perhaps not the least used, surely they are used to place stuff in the Z axis of the image but still, a good impulse response is enough for these tasks.

What I would love to hear is an "unrealistic", extremely dense, out-of-the-speakers kind of stereo enveloping crazy reverb which can do excellent Ambience type stuff. Well yeah, basically the lexicon sound. 480ish, but on steroids. These kinds of reverb kind of envelope the sound source, enhancing all the good qualities of it. They are the ones making vocals upfront and feel like the mono signal is bigger than life, wider than the world. They make the sound source feel "longer" and "denser", without having even the slightest hint of being a "room". Kind of like dialing in some more decay to a sound. Original sound is enveloped and lengthened but it'll still sound pretty much untouched.

Then again.. Relab is already creating one of those so perhaps something different?

Sean, have you had the chance to try Ariesverb yet? I imagine you could use it for quickly prototyping and testing feedback delay networks there and at the same time check out some of the presets to get an inspiration. One of my absolute fav presets there is in the Echo/delay folder called "Heavenly Echo II". It works extremely well as a dense reverb when you don't use it as a delay. Very pleasant in the way the frequencies are balanced. It's almost impossible to get it to sound bad and ringy.

Cheers!
bManic

[bill45]

Hey bmanic, Didn't the roland srv3000 have a 3d effect?

[Echoes in the Attic]

...extremely dense, out-of-the-speakers kind of stereo enveloping crazy reverb which can do excellent Ambience type stuff... They are the ones making vocals upfront and feel like the mono signal is bigger than life, wider than the world. They make the sound source feel "longer" and "denser", without having even the slightest hint of being a "room". Kind of like dialing in some more decay to a sound. Original sound is enveloped and lengthened but it'll still sound pretty much untouched.

I sort of feel like this is what ValhallaRoom is good at already.

Sean, have you had the chance to try Ariesverb yet? I imagine you could use it for quickly prototyping and testing feedback delay networks there and at the same time check out some of the presets to get an inspiration. One of my absolute fav presets there is in the Echo/delay folder called "Heavenly Echo II". It works extremely well as a dense reverb when you don't use it as a delay. Very pleasant in the way the frequencies are balanced. It's almost impossible to get it to sound bad and ringy.

Such a cool reverb. But it's been in beta for 3 or 4 years and is under such light development. And he's charging almost 200 dollars for it without hardly any progress. I'm too scared to buy that one as I don't have faith in it's future.

[bmanic]

...extremely dense, out-of-the-speakers kind of stereo enveloping crazy reverb which can do excellent Ambience type stuff... They are the ones making vocals upfront and feel like the mono signal is bigger than life, wider than the world. They make the sound source feel "longer" and "denser", without having even the slightest hint of being a "room". Kind of like dialing in some more decay to a sound. Original sound is enveloped and lengthened but it'll still sound pretty much untouched.

I sort of feel like this is what ValhallaRoom is good at already.

Not really. Perhaps I describe it wrong but with the room algorithms you always hear or get the illusion of a sound being in a room (of course, as it was designed that way! ). Even with the 'dark' and narcissus algorithms you still get that feeling of an enclosed space. Then again, perhaps it is because of the early reflections part being separate? I don't know. I have to experiment with keeping it turned off.

Anyhow, ValhallaRooom is perhaps a bit too precise/good which gives the ear/brain too many realistic cues thus shaping the illusion. An ultra dense "grain" reverb rather shapes the signal envelope and stereo width instead of it's position. I don't know.. it's just very hard to explain what I mean.

Basically what I'm trying to say is ValhallaRoom does not have the lexiconish "unrealistic" sound stage and grain. Which is a GOOD thing in many cases but sometimes it would be desired. ValhallaRoom reminds me more of the TC Electronics type of character and illusion.

Cheers!
bManic

[bmanic]

Hey bmanic, Didn't the roland srv3000 have a 3d effect?

I've never tried that unit actually. I have no idea how it sounds/works.

Cheers!
bManic

[valhallasound]

Not really. Perhaps I describe it wrong but with the room algorithms you always hear or get the illusion of a sound being in a room (of course, as it was designed that way! ). Even with the 'dark' and narcissus algorithms you still get that feeling of an enclosed space. Then again, perhaps it is because of the early reflections part being separate? I don't know. I have to experiment with keeping it turned off.

Keep DEPTH at 100%, and Early Send at 1.0. This will ensure that you don't hear discrete early reflections.

The Lexicon 480L and 224XL both had discrete early reflections, but most of the "classic" presets had the gain of these reflections turned all the way down. The 480L presets with the reflection gain set higher were often called "somethingStage" or the like.

Basically what I'm trying to say is ValhallaRoom does not have the lexiconish "unrealistic" sound stage and grain. Which is a GOOD thing in many cases but sometimes it would be desired. ValhallaRoom reminds me more of the TC Electronics type of character and illusion.

ValhallaRoom doesn't use the Lexicon topology. Well, there are a few Lexicon topologies, but it doesn't really use anything close to any of those. Nostromo and Narcissus take a few hints from the original 224 algorithms (which are different from the Rich algorithms in the 224XL), but the Early reverb, and how it interacts with the Late reverb, is totally different.

As far as I know, ValhallaRoom doesn't have much in common under the hood with the TC stuff, but I haven't studied their algorithms extensively. TC Electronics has published a few papers, about how they precisely model a room for their early reflections, adding diffusion as necessary, and this is a completely separate process from the late reverberation. ValhallaRoom doesn't model a room, but instead generates early "energy" that has a certain duration, which can interact with the Late reverb if desired.

I've mentioned this before, but at some point I want to explore the older reverb topologies in more depth. ValhallaRoom isn't the right plugin to do this in, as it has a fairly specific control set and underlying concept. The modes I have added to VRoom (hopefully) sound quite different from each other, but they share certain characteristics that are unique to this plugin.

Sean Costello

[valhallasound]

Then again.. Relab is already creating one of those so perhaps something different?

Well, I definitely wouldn't tackle a full-on 480L emulation, as Relab has been doing. The closer you try to get with an emulation, the more the "uncanny valley" emerges as a factor, where people that own the original hardware will try to match the sliders exactly and will loudly proclaim that the emulation is not accurate.

Plus, I'm sure Warp69 has done a great job with the LX480. I haven't heard an original 480L, but his plugin sounds great. It has this noise that comes up when the modulation is turned up, that I find really beautiful. Casey (of Bricasti) has talked about the 480L modulation sounding like the engine room of an ocean liner, and there is a touch of that in the plugin.

I'd rather work in the "inspired by" range, where I can leverage the cool parts of the older algorithms, and then tweak things to my tastes. I'm interested in how Barry Blesser did things in 1975, and David Griesinger did things in 1979 and 1986, and how Tony Agnello and Chris Moore and others created their algorithms, but it is 2011. I like to take a postmodern approach to reverb design.

Sean, have you had the chance to try Ariesverb yet? I imagine you could use it for quickly prototyping and testing feedback delay networks there and at the same time check out some of the presets to get an inspiration. One of my absolute fav presets there is in the Echo/delay folder called "Heavenly Echo II". It works extremely well as a dense reverb when you don't use it as a delay. Very pleasant in the way the frequencies are balanced. It's almost impossible to get it to sound bad and ringy.

Ariesverb is pretty cool. As far as prototyping feedback delay networks, I can work much faster in Xcode. I've prototyped a few hundred FDNs over the last 12 years - no joke. I haven't looked at Ariesverb too closely, as, well, the algorithms are available in Ariesverb. In addition, the author published his work in one of the Game Developer Gems books. It was an earlier version of Ariesverb (4 delay lines, no additional taps/scatter points), but it is still nice to read how other people do their work.

Sean Costello

[opus_diaboli]

Hm, I think I can't resist any longer to buy it.

[Liero]

... but it is 2011. I like to take a postmodern approach to reverb design.

[valhallasound]

Hi folks,

I've spent the last few weeks getting ÜberMod in a state where beta testing can happen. So far it seems to be going well. A few recent examples:

http://soundcloud.com/seancostello/uberacoustic
http://soundcloud.com/wgparham/ubermod-test

ValhallaÜberMod is kinda complicated, so I figure that beta testing will continue for a few weeks. In the meantime, I will be working on the ValhallaRoom updates early next week. I'll be implementing the slower/denser Narcissus variant, and conducting some small room experiments, and see what sounds better. Any remaining bug reports I should look at for this VRoom update?

Thanks,

Sean Costello

[solidtrax]

Thanks for this great plugin and the more than awesome additions after v1.03.

Maybe you like to hear some work with ValhallaRoom in action: check it out if you like: http://soundcloud.com/solidtrax/solidtrax-charlatan-21

[ryandfl]

Vroom mode suggestion for you Sean - a light and airy mode, sort of wispy. Sometimes I just want a hint of reverb on a track/bus and that can be kind of hard to achieve with ValhallaRoom even at very low mix levels, as the algorithms are on the dense side.

[valhallasound]

Vroom mode suggestion for you Sean - a light and airy mode, sort of wispy. Sometimes I just want a hint of reverb on a track/bus and that can be kind of hard to achieve with ValhallaRoom even at very low mix levels, as the algorithms are on the dense side.

Honestly, I don't know if the VRoom architecture can DO super light and airy. A low cut / highpass filter would help, but that would be a significant change for the next update, and break all the presets.

The Narcissus variant I am thinking of could be brighter, within a "Dark" context, but not really light and airy. But heck, I'll give it a try! It might be interesting to have something that is lighter/airier up to 11 kHz or so, then goes 100% dark.

The "small room" algorithm I am thinking of might result in a lighter sound, or it might sound horrible. This is one of those areas where theory can't really predict things - I need to program the beast, see how it behaves, and then come up with theories that explain the behavior. There are 9 algorithms in ValhallaRoom, but there are a bunch more algorithms that are in the "sounds bad, don't work" bin, that I'm leaving in my source code tree in order to remind myself that I tried that particular idea and it sounds bad.

When I think light and airy, I think of things along the lines of the Rich Plate / Rich Chamber algorithms from my PCM70, and the related Hall algorithm in my LXP-15. ValhallaRoom doesn't use this sort of architecture - I would need a new plugin to incorporate these algorithms. The Early section in VRoom is designed to avoid the metallic artifacts of the older Lexicon algorithms, but this same artifact also results in a much brighter decay.

For now, try Bright Room.

Sean Costello