Eventide blackhole vs VVV

[Krakatau]

Your fault, Sampleconstruct
But I do love Pro-L and VVV as well

LOL, ok, my fault

indeed..!

[valhallasound]

Blackhole is based on a DSP4000 algorithm, that dates from the early 1990s. Algorithmic reverbs don't necessarily become obsolete with the passage of time.

If you wanted to be pedantic, the topology was proposed by Schroeder in the 70s, but was discarded as unnatural/metallic sounding.

I'm up for pedantic! The cascaded allpass delay topology first showed up in 1962, in an AES paper:

http://valhalladsp.com/2009/05/30/schro ... algorithm/

The Schroeder cascaded allpass reverb had 5 series allpasses, as opposed to the several dozen found in Blackhole and ValhallaShimmer. I'm not sure if Schroeder expanded on this design in later papers - if you know of any, please let me know!

Hal Chamberlin published an allpass reverberator in his 1980 book "Musical Applications of Microprocessors," that featured 3 series allpass delays, running into 2 parallel channels of allpass delays (each channel had 2 allpass delays in series). If you vastly increased the number of allpass delays in this network, and modulated the length of every allpass delay, you would get the Blackhole architecture.

I agree about the series allpass reverbs sounding metallic without modulation. WITH modulation, they become magical.

Sean Costello

[Fleer]

Sean Costello, you are reverb royalty

[Krakatau]

Sean Costello, you are reverb royalty

btw this is clearly the kind of pages i've bookmarked...find a time later to read more carefully ...very interesting informations !

in short :

+1

[Ichad.c]

Blackhole is based on a DSP4000 algorithm, that dates from the early 1990s. Algorithmic reverbs don't necessarily become obsolete with the passage of time.

If you wanted to be pedantic, the topology was proposed by Schroeder in the 70s, but was discarded as unnatural/metallic sounding.

I'm up for pedantic! The cascaded allpass delay topology first showed up in 1962, in an AES paper:

http://valhalladsp.com/2009/05/30/schro ... algorithm/

The Schroeder cascaded allpass reverb had 5 series allpasses, as opposed to the several dozen found in Blackhole and ValhallaShimmer. I'm not sure if Schroeder expanded on this design in later papers - if you know of any, please let me know!

Hal Chamberlin published an allpass reverberator in his 1980 book "Musical Applications of Microprocessors," that featured 3 series allpass delays, running into 2 parallel channels of allpass delays (each channel had 2 allpass delays in series). If you vastly increased the number of allpass delays in this network, and modulated the length of every allpass delay, you would get the Blackhole architecture.

I agree about the series allpass reverbs sounding metallic without modulation. WITH modulation, they become magical.

Sean Costello

Thanks for the correction Sean. Did not know of that Hal Chamberlin version, thanks!

P.S. I've probably read your site-blog post more than 3 times, excellent stuff!

[Ichad.c]

One reverb I would describe as metallic is real spring reverb.

I love springs, and not all of them are uber-metallic sounding. The best springs IMHO are MicMix/MasterRoom springs, the springs are cut and tuned to very specific lengths that smooths out it's harshness a bit, I own one of these and it works great on vox:



Would also dig a Orban 111B (it has double the bandwidth of any other spring), but they are rare and expensive

[valhallasound]

Thanks for the correction Sean. Did not know of that Hal Chamberlin version, thanks!

Here's the Hal Chamberlin algorithm, for reference:



This is a LOT simpler than the Black Hole algorithm, but it has a similar basic topology: sum left and right inputs to mono, run them through a series of allpass delays, then use 2 more series of allpass delays to create decorrelated left and right outputs. Blackhole is basically this, but much much more so, and with modulation.

Sean Costello

[Ichad.c]

Thanks for the pic! Yeah I heard the Blackhole has 30+ allpasses, add to that filtering and feedback + modulation support(linear interpolation?), that is definitely brute force! I do take my hat off for whoever tuned it though, seems they hit the sweet spot.

Regards
Andrew

[SteveWZ]

Is it possible to get close to the sound of the blackhole with Valhalla vintage verb? It's a unique ambienty lush sound. I found an echo-something preset in vvv that was somewhat similar.

Here are some detailed examples of BOTH reverbs.
First, individually, then BOTH together in the same mix.

Blackhole in a mix, automated with the "Extraordinary Spaces" presets:


Vintage Verb Examples with "Pro Expansion" presets:


BOTH reverbs, side by side in the same mix:

Nice, thanks for these tasty examples.

[valhallasound]

Thanks for the pic! Yeah I heard the Blackhole has 30+ allpasses, add to that filtering and feedback + modulation support(linear interpolation?), that is definitely brute force! I do take my hat off for whoever tuned it though, seems they hit the sweet spot.

The linear interpolation makes a big change to the sound. It can make things "duller," to the point where many people prefer the sound of the BlackHole running on the H8000 at 96 kHz. This would push the linear interpolation artifacts into a much higher frequency range, and would make the sound brighter, without being too bright.

Personally, I prefer using linear interpolation for these types of algorithms. It gives a natural, subtle filtering to the decay of the algorithm. The brightness is largely restored when using higher value allpass coefficients, as the high frequencies are in the feedforward signal for each allpass. I like the sound of the Blackhole plugin running at 44.1/48 kHz. I *think* that the Eventide Space is running at 48 kHz, which means that the Blackhole in that pedal will have the lowpass filtering - and it sounds freaking fantastic in that context.

In the Valhalla plugins, when there is a "bright/dark" option, this often controls whether the delay interpolation is linear, versus a brighter type of delay interpolation. VintageVerb combines linear interpolation (for the 70s/80s modes) with downsampling for the 70s mode. This makes a BIG difference, as the artifacts caused by linear interpolation are very dependent on the sampling rate, and running at a 22.05/24 kHz sampling rate internally will put the linear interpolation artifacts into a very audible range.

Sean Costello

[Novalis]

This makes a BIG difference, as the artifacts caused by linear interpolation are very dependent on the sampling rate, and running at a 22.05/24 kHz sampling rate internally will put the linear interpolation artifacts into a very audible range.

Hello Sean,

could you maybe post an audio example in which these interpolation artifacts are very pronounced and clearly audible, please?

This would help my ear to pick up the sound and identify it later... and so that I know what the heck you're all talking about here

[valhallasound]

This makes a BIG difference, as the artifacts caused by linear interpolation are very dependent on the sampling rate, and running at a 22.05/24 kHz sampling rate internally will put the linear interpolation artifacts into a very audible range.

Hello Sean,

could you maybe post an audio example in which these interpolation artifacts are very pronounced and clearly audible, please?

This would help my ear to pick up the sound and identify it later... and so that I know what the heck you're all talking about here

I'm not in front of a DAW right now, but you can hear the differences by using the demo versions of a few Valhalla plugins:

- ValhallaShimmer: The color mode toggles between bright (full-bandwidth delay interpolation) and dark (linear interpolation).
- VintageVerb: Most of the algorithms use linear interpolation in the 80s mode, and full-bandwidth interpolation in the NOW mode.
- ValhallaÜberMod: the EQ Mode switches between bright interpolation and dark interpolation.

[ghettosynth]

So slightly off topic, but related. In an earlier conversation about Blackhole, which I think is linked in this thread somewhere. We were talking about Spacemaster 2 in Reaktor. It was mentioned that it only has some 12 All Pass networks and that Blackhole has some 24. Interestingly, when I first discovered Spacemaster there were two versions and without thinking much about it I assumed that they were the same and that the second version was just newer.

As it turns out, they're not. The original Spacemaster actually has the option to double the length of the early as well as the late networks. You can choose it separately for both the early and the late. So each then has 12 networks per side .Additionally, there is more flexibility in the modulators. I added a pitch shifter to the feedback network so I could get my own DIY shimmer effect, woot!

Anyway, I still like Blackhole, but, Spacemaster is getting more love lately, especially the older one.

[ghettosynth]

Also, while we're a bit off topic, but still close to the topic, Cloudseed has become very stable and sounds awesome. It has a user selectable number of stages for both early and late stages. It's open source if you want to modify it. It's free if you don't. Just download and drop in youg plugins directory. Not my project, I just think that it's cool.

https://github.com/ValdemarOrn/CloudSeed

[Novalis]

This makes a BIG difference, as the artifacts caused by linear interpolation are very dependent on the sampling rate, and running at a 22.05/24 kHz sampling rate internally will put the linear interpolation artifacts into a very audible range.

Hello Sean,

could you maybe post an audio example in which these interpolation artifacts are very pronounced and clearly audible, please?

This would help my ear to pick up the sound and identify it later... and so that I know what the heck you're all talking about here

I'm not in front of a DAW right now, but you can hear the differences by using the demo versions of a few Valhalla plugins:

- ValhallaShimmer: The color mode toggles between bright (full-bandwidth delay interpolation) and dark (linear interpolation).
- VintageVerb: Most of the algorithms use linear interpolation in the 80s mode, and full-bandwidth interpolation in the NOW mode.
- ValhallaÜberMod: the EQ Mode switches between bright interpolation and dark interpolation.

I have VVV, but I would like to know how I can identify what linear interpolation artefacts sounds like.
If somebody could point it out to me once what it is I have to listen for, than I can do it on my own in the future.