Lexicon vs. Valhalla Reverbs

[jens]

I never seen any engineer making changes to reverb on live concert EVER in my life.

Then maybe watch more carefully next time?

[Fritze]

Unfortunately I'll have to disappoint you ...

No prob, you dind't. You only twisted my words. I didn't know that the word "shootout" is a scientific correct term these days. All that I wanted to have expressed in the part of the sencence you quoted was that...

To me this shootout is sufficient to hear some general characters of the reverbs.

What's impressive about this is beyond me. So I read between the lines and responded it a rather heated way. I want to apologize for that. Cool?

[asksol]

@Warp69,

I think you're being a tad pessimistic about this demographic, maybe price is a bigger factor than lack of interest?
For one you haven't even added the product to the KVR database yet?

LX480 is also on sale at plugindiscounts now, could help to announce that

[Warp69]

I want to apologize for that. Cool?

We're totally cool. Please don't be affraid of provoking/criticising us developers (this obviosly goes for every one including developers) I hope we, developers, all thrive on feedback in order to make our products, the best products they can be. If we keep the discussions professional and preferable with claims that can be backed up then we all get wiser in the process.

I would appreciate if you were able to list some of the general characteristics of the mentioned plugins (please keep in mind some of the plugins have 20+ parameters per algorithm, which might equal over 100 parameters in total). Maybe the presets from the other plugins can be posted?

[kmonkey]

I never seen any engineer making changes to reverb on live concert EVER in my life.

Then maybe watch more carefully next time?

I don't need to. No one ever do that. And they won't. You guys clearly don't have a clue about it. I mean at this point it's obvious you never did a live gig mix with real hardware and you are arguing just for the sake of it.

There is a tone session before each concert or live gig. Live engineer need to tune his gear to adapt everything (if needed) to acoustic space. At this point he will make a decision should he change reverb and whatever again if there are corrections needed to process. That is why there is tone session and why this exist at all..solely for that reason. If there are particular sounds which need particular reverb preset then that is already being made in advance in process pipeline and preset is called before song. Like with everything else. These thing are made in advance and rarely there are things being made at realtime. I never seen not a single fool toying with reverb preset just before your next boy bend start their next song. If you are doing live mix like that i wouldn't want to hire you.

Belive me they are not toying with decay or whatever the heck you guys think of it. Live session is not being made of reverb tail being automated inside your clip inside your DAW.

Gimme a break hahaha...

[toothnclaw]

If we keep the discussions professional and preferable with claims that can be backed up then we all get wiser in the process.

+1

Mr. Warp69, may I ask you a question: in your opinion, which reverb plugin in the known universe blends best with the source material? And why is it better in this than others?

I'm sure that you know on this topic more than all of us together

[IIRs]

I never seen any engineer making changes to reverb on live concert EVER in my life.

Then maybe watch more carefully next time?

I don't need to. No one ever do that. And they won't. You guys clearly don't have a clue about it. I mean at this point it's obvious you never did a live gig mix with real hardware and you are arguing just for the sake of it.

There is a tone session before each concert or live gig. Live engineer need to tune his gear to adapt everything (if needed) to acoustic space. At this point he will make a decision should he change reverb and whatever again if there are corrections needed to process. That is why there is tone session and why this exist at all..solely for that reason. If there are particular sounds which need particular reverb preset then that is already being made in advance in process pipeline and preset is called before song. Like with everything else. These thing are made in advance and rarely there are things being made at realtime. I never seen not a single fool toying with reverb preset just before your next boy bend start their next song. If you are doing live mix like that i wouldn't want to hire you.

Belive me they are not toying with decay or whatever the heck you guys think of it. Live session is not being made of reverb tail being automated inside your clip inside your DAW.

Gimme a break hahaha...

It's called a soundcheck, and you remain wrong no matter how many times you type it.

[Winstontaneous]

I never seen any engineer making changes to reverb on live concert EVER in my life.

Then maybe watch more carefully next time?

I don't need to. No one ever do that. And they won't. You guys clearly don't have a clue about it. I mean at this point it's obvious you never did a live gig mix with real hardware and you are arguing just for the sake of it.

I'm not really sure what your point is here. I did live FOH/monitors for a couple years...It's the mixer's responsibility to make the people onstage sound as good as possible, and if that--God forbid--means turning knobs on a hardware reverb, that's what the job entails.

Especially at multi-act festivals, a sound check is just a line check to make sure all the signals are behaving. Then you use your ears, hands, fingers, and other necessary body parts to dial in the best sound. There are rules of thumb to follow, but every venue sounds different when it's filled with people--so your empty-venue "tone session" settings are subject to change.

[Fritze]

I want to apologize for that. Cool?

We're totally cool. Please don't be affraid of provoking/criticising us developers (this obviosly goes for every one including developers) I hope we, developers, all thrive on feedback in order to make our products, the best products they can be. If we keep the discussions professional and preferable with claims that can be backed up then we all get wiser in the process.

Well, not all developers are as cool as you about citicism. But that's OK. Devs are normal humans. And we all have our strengths and weaknesses.

I would appreciate if you were able to list some of the general characteristics of the mentioned plugins (please keep in mind some of the plugins have 20+ parameters per algorithm, which might equal over 100 parameters in total). Maybe the presets from the other plugins can be posted?

For reverbs I seldom tried to bring the characteristics into lotsa words. But you asked for it, so OK. My descriptions are based on these audios. This means that I don't take into account any number of parameters but only what I hear in these examples. Besides of me knowing VintageVerb quite well as I own and love it a lot. And yes, this was supported by the price and the no ilok condition. But it easily stood the test of time. I still like it a lot. Just for the record: I don't simply like things because they are free or cheap. There are a lot of things that are free/cheap that I absolutely don't like. And there are quite a few expensive things I definitely WANT.
Empty250: Relatively unspectacular. I mean that in a rather neutral sense. It just doesn't touch me emotionally. This I would actually call vintage sounding. I know this sound from records from seventies/eighties jazz-rock records.
B2: The voice sounds poor with it. The e-piano sounds just artificially blown up in a not good way. It's more unpleasant to listen to. I had to turn the volume down to decrease that discomfort this version of the song brings me.
VVV: Voice sounds most pleasant with it. Piano sounds just in a nice space. The e-piano sounds hyped but in a nice way. Sidestick sounds naturally roomed. The reverbs/rooms all have a rather enhancing/exciting nature to me. Kind of real but present in a good way without producing mud.
LX480: What stands out for me here is that it sounds rather "not there" as an added effect. It's probably more natural than VVV here but not as exciting to me at the same time. My guess is that the reverb on the sidestick could have been as diffuse as I would have liked it. I don't like such strong transients with such echoey reverbs.

I honestly hope this helps you.

[Warp69]

in your opinion, which reverb plugin in the known universe blends best with the source material? And why is it better in this than others?

I would very much like to answer this question, but I can't. I general dislike plugins for various reasons and I haven't tested every plugin in the known universe - I have a limit experience regarding reverb plugins.

I assume you equal 'blend' with 'become a part of the original sound'. Normally high-end reverb algorithms are designed in such a way that they keep the clarity of the original sound unaffected - minimize the colorization of the reverberation - and therefor doesn't really 'blend' as other approaches. To achieve the effect of 'be a part of the original sound' and have directional cues you need colorization of the original sound - you either use an algorithm that is specialized in this (normally called 'Ambience') or an Early Reflection engine. It's very difficult to design a system that can give the impression of directions, minimum of colorization and 'blend' because there're some drawbacks for the various approaches :

#1 The amount of colorization
#2 The static behaviour of the colorization
#3 Early Reflection already embedded in the original sound
#4 Mono compatibility
#5 Ect.

There have been various different solutions in the hardware world :

Bricasti have a special ER engine to tackle #1-3. Lexicon 480L (Ambience (based on Boston Hall) and HD/Surround) use modulation in the ER engine to tackle #1-2 (the HD/Surround is very special). TC Electronic (VSS series) simply started a 8 year project of fine tuning the Early Reflection engine with help from experts from Aalborg and Fraunhofer IIS to minimize the colorization. Very very few plugins that I know of tackles these issues with success, but it might not be important for you.

Not much of a help, I know. But you should be looking for 'Ambience' algorithms and/or Early Reflections.

[kmonkey]

I never seen any engineer making changes to reverb on live concert EVER in my life.

Then maybe watch more carefully next time?

I don't need to. No one ever do that. And they won't. You guys clearly don't have a clue about it. I mean at this point it's obvious you never did a live gig mix with real hardware and you are arguing just for the sake of it.

I'm not really sure what your point is here. I did live FOH/monitors for a couple years...It's the mixer's responsibility to make the people onstage sound as good as possible, and if that--God forbid--means turning knobs on a hardware reverb, that's what the job entails.

Especially at multi-act festivals, a sound check is just a line check to make sure all the signals are behaving. Then you use your ears, hands, fingers, and other necessary body parts to dial in the best sound. There are rules of thumb to follow, but every venue sounds different when it's filled with people--so your empty-venue "tone session" settings are subject to change.

Ummm...Wasn't it enough clear that i wasn't quoting you ?? And what you said really doesn't have anything with what i said. I did not said that it is a sin to tweak a reverb. Sure if that's need to be done then done it (that's exactly what i said). I can assure you i know what is a sound check and why do we need it. As much as you can say that it's all relative and depend on show to be played. Anyway that wasn't my point.

If you re-read why i said that you'll see then that my post was referring to continual arguing about two software reverbs. OP asked is there are difference i said yes there is a difference and posted my opinion and factual arguments why there is a difference and why is it important. Then that guy jumped in telling me that actually this isn't important (usually these people own less equipped product and defend it to death for no rational reason) and by his assumptions live engineers are tweaking hardware reverbs on live gig in the sense (he did not said it exactly but we can all see what is his point) like we are all doing with plugins in our daily DAW workflow, and by some of these people here in this thread Lexcion hardware reverbs are kinda hated among live engineers because they are too complex (read what they said in this thread) - which simply isn't true. Out of 10 live show and 10 individual hardware chain anyone will visit - i am playing a bet that at least 8 of them will have Lexicon reverb there. Yes i am that sure. So much about being hated and too complex.

It simply does not work like that in real life - i mean whole debate on reverb being too complex because it have a lot of paramaters and because of that it is hated especially among engineers - that can say only a person which never worked on somethnig as live gig IMHO .

Which is something i am sure you can confirm as well.

[Warp69]

My guess is that the reverb on the sidestick could have been as diffuse as I would have liked it. I don't like such strong transients with such echoey reverbs.

Neither do I - it's obviously possible to get way more diffusion than what is demonstarted - I have no idea why such setting was chosen compared to the other reverbs. Maybe Beatworld can answer that.

What I really like about the 480L is the spaciosness it can create - when I close the eyes and try to visualize the simulated space - I feel I'm inside a room where the sound can propagate naturally around the environment. On the other tests I feel a very narrowed space (most of the reverberation energy is in middle - monaural).

[zerocrossing]

Neither. Virsyn's REFLECT. (Dongle)

[IIRs]

but every venue sounds different when it's filled with people

Indeed, and not every song needs the same reverb setting...

My basic point however, was that more controls does not necessarily mean more control. Imagine a reverb unit that allowed every single delay and allpass filter to be individually tweaked with their own settings for example: it would be all but unusable.

They way the internal parameters are mapped to the controls is a big part of reverb design. Even in the studio, I would rather use a reverb with a smaller number of controls, but a greater proportion of good sounding setting combinations. Time constraints are not the same as for a gig granted, but I still charge by the hour, and I try to give value for money!

[jens]

I mean at this point it's obvious you never did a live gig mix with real hardware and you are arguing just for the sake of it.

The irony is killing me right now!

There is a tone session before each concert or live gig. Live engineer need to tune his gear to adapt everything (if needed) to acoustic space. At this point he will make a decision should he change reverb and whatever again if there are corrections needed to process. That is why there is tone session and why this exist at all..solely for that reason. If there are particular sounds which need particular reverb preset then that is already being made in advance in process pipeline and preset is called before song. Like with everything else. These thing are made in advance and rarely there are things being made at realtime. I never seen not a single fool toying with reverb preset just before your next boy bend start their next song. If you are doing live mix like that i wouldn't want to hire you.

Belive me they are not toying with decay or whatever the heck you guys think of it. Live session is not being made of reverb tail being automated inside your clip inside your DAW.

Gimme a break hahaha...

A "tone session", huh? Is that when they let all the audience in to have the authentic acoustics and play every song, so that the "live engineer" can make all his settings?

Yes, you are right - I really never heard of that - I only know soundchecks - if the band is lucky they will have enough time to get the drums more or less right and a workable monitoring mix.

I'm starting to wonder what planet you are texting from... can't be earth - that's for sure.