epicVerb 1.5 released

[Dandruff]

the reverb doesn't seem to be able to work with true stereo signals; whether i send a (hard)-panned signal or a centered signal to it, the wet signal coming out of it is always centered.

Indeed. This doesn't work right. Makes it almost completely unusable for me

[Hitchcock Bell]

hello bootsy,

thanks for the wonderful reverb, the quality is amazing, up there with the best convolution reverbs, but different and more flexible.

there's one slight issue that i feel would really improve the experience if solved - the reverb doesn't seem to be able to work with true stereo signals; whether i send a (hard)-panned signal or a centered signal to it, the wet signal coming out of it is always centered.

Yes, I noticed this too, and it's really the only thing preventing Epicverb from being a truly world-class reverb, IMO. The new Aether reverb can boast of stereo in/out, and I think it makes a big difference to the sensation of depth and space.

Bootsie, could you do it, or would that be one piece of coding (and hard work) too far?

Either way, Epicverb remains a wonderful plug-in. Thanks again.

[bootsie]

Be aware: achieving a "stereo sensation" reverb tail is not that difficult but that was not the design goal here. A reverb which just sits right in a (modern) mix is much more complicated and I've spend my efforts on this. If that doesn't fit your needs just don't use it.

Btw., there is some information available on the AMD Athlon issues on my BLOG

nice weekend,
bootsy

[jobromedia]

The best free reverb. Ever! I've so far used FL Reverb 2, and that is not a freeware reverb. And this little sod kicks tiny pieces of shit out of it! I gotta give it to you: I'm overwhelmed with impression!

[Hitchcock Bell]

Be aware: achieving a "stereo sensation" reverb tail is not that difficult but that was not the design goal here. A reverb which just sits right in a (modern) mix is much more complicated and I've spend my efforts on this. If that doesn't fit your needs just don't use it.

Btw., there is some information available on the AMD Athlon issues on my BLOG

nice weekend,
bootsy

I wouldn't argue with such a creative developer as yourself, except to say that a user could always sum a true stereo reverb to mono, if that's what he/she wished, and still have the option of using it in stereo mode.

Try the Aether demo (if you haven't already). Perhaps you'll hear the potential advantages in true stereo.

BTW, don't take any of this as ungrateful kvetching (as my grandma used to say "Give 'em an inch and they want a mile"). Epicverb will probably become one of my main reverbs. But I always like to push a little to see how far the quality threshold will go.

[Lee702]

Can anyone give me some tips on using the mod (chorus) control? Also is it normal to get a clicking buzzing from the mod? Thanks. My new go to reverb!

[Acrobat]

the reverb doesn't seem to be able to work with true stereo signals; whether i send a (hard)-panned signal or a centered signal to it, the wet signal coming out of it is always centered.

Indeed. This doesn't work right. Makes it almost completely unusable for me

..you guys can always open 2 instances and drive the LEFT and RIGHT channels separately to a same patch, that's not so complicated to arm up, right?

A.

[susiwong]

Out of curiosity, where would you guys use a true stereo algorithmic verb ?
Personally that's the only application I use convolution for, to place things in a real acoustic environment, using "natural" impulses.
For all conventional (algorithmic) reverb applications I'm completely fine with putting it on a send or insert, mono in, stereo out like on a hardware mixer.
But I'm oldfashioned, admitted.
Cheers,
susiwong

[RunBeerRun]

This thing is totally awesome, my amp uses a mono input so I don't care about that fiddle-faddle.

Obviously I record, too, but that's another story for another time.

[eduardo_b]

Out of curiosity, where would you guys use a true stereo algorithmic verb ?
Personally that's the only application I use convolution for, to place things in a real acoustic environment, using "natural" impulses.
For all conventional (algorithmic) reverb applications I'm completely fine with putting it on a send or insert, mono in, stereo out like on a hardware mixer.
But I'm oldfashioned, admitted.
Cheers,
susiwong

The convolution thing, while interesting, is sort of like shopping for "natural" foods. It seems like they should be better, but there's simply no compelling evidence that it's anything more than a psychological feeling of "better." Used with restraint, algorithmic verbs work well, and I would be greatly surprised if someone could pick out algorithmic versus convolution reverb in a mix.

Stereo versus mono? Are your mixes that precise in terms of sound field -- left to right and front to back -- that it actually matters? Nothing wrong with being old-fashioned. Why not add a room to the house and put in a plate verb?

[susiwong]

The convolution thing, while interesting, is sort of like shopping for "natural" foods. It seems like they should be better, but there's simply no compelling evidence that it's anything more than a psychological feeling of "better." Used with restraint, algorithmic verbs work well, and I would be greatly surprised if someone could pick out algorithmic versus convolution reverb in a mix.

Stereo versus mono? Are your mixes that precise in terms of sound field -- left to right and front to back -- that it actually matters? Nothing wrong with being old-fashioned. Why not add a room to the house and put in a plate verb?

eduardo,
my point was meant a bit different.
Say I only have a few acoustic instruments and/or voices in a mix and want to add realism, that's when I might use a tiny little bit of stereo convolution with a "real space" impulse on the stereo bus.
In the remaining 95% of situations I see reverb as a "synthetic" effect, it has to sound good, not necessarily realistic.
As an analogy, nowadays nobody would judge a Rhodes / DX piano sound by how close it is to an acoustic piano, unlike in the '70s.
I still have fond memories of the hours we spent failing to get a useable acoustic piano out of my keyboard player's brand new Prophet 5.
Ymmv,
susiwong

Oh yeah, a real plate would find a good home here.
I love the UAD plate, and it was my first great epicVerb impression when I managed to closely approximate one of my favourite plate presets with epicVerb.
It went downhill from there ... , love that thing !

[Nokenoku]

The convolution thing, while interesting, is sort of like shopping for "natural" foods. It seems like they should be better, but there's simply no compelling evidence that it's anything more than a psychological feeling of "better." Used with restraint, algorithmic verbs work well, and I would be greatly surprised if someone could pick out algorithmic versus convolution reverb in a mix.

At least if you're looking at native algo-reverbs there are not much with proper ERs. When I think about it, I know not a single one.

Convolution Reverbs with real room impulses have a much higher resolution (especially important for the ERs) than any algo-reverb I've ever tried (and I've tried really everything on PC with a name), and this leads to a much better perception of depth.
You can easily compare it with small/medium rooms.

For the tail I think there are some very decent plugins available (for example the EpicVerb).

To pick reverb out of a done mix is nearly impossible, because you never know how much ambience was already in the recorded sound.

About the word "better". No, those high resolution depth-giving ERs are not always better. In fact today you want to mix nearly everything in-da-face anyways, so you are often better off with not so dense ERs.



To the TS-ER-discussion:
I think true stereo ERs can only be good, but are maybe not that easy to program? Besides that I think the ERs of the EpicVerb are quite good. For a lot of things they work surprisingly well. I had not expected that from a freeware-reverb (in my opinion it beats even a lot of the pay-reverbs).

[bootsie]

@bootsie:
I think I found a bug though it might not be very easy to hear:
There seems to be some kind of alias or zipper noise on the modulation circuit going on. It seems to be sample rate dependent. I can clearly hear it at 44.1 kHz and it's less perceivable at 96 kHz (but I don't ever use 96kHz, so...). The noise that adds to the reverbed sound can be heard running along the slow modulation LFO and sounds like a slightly distorted edgy saw wave or zipper noise. It's maybe not that obvious, use of headphones and a complete wet reverbed signal is necessary. The noise does not appear without modulation.

I've fixed this one today and now I'm on to the AMD / SSE weirdness and need some testers (since I don't have an AMD Athlon in my lab).

So, if you are one of those AMD Athlon owners (AMD 1800 XP, AMD 2000 XP or so) and epicVerb crashed your host then please drop me a PM with your email address and I will sent you a version for further testing.

Btw., 7500 downloads as of today

peace,
bootsy

[pattonfreak1]

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ and EpicVerb is doing fine
thanks again bootsy!

[shanecgriffo]

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ and EpicVerb is doing fine
thanks again bootsy!

were you having any problems previously with it? did bootsie send you a new version to try? I'm on AMD to but its an older one and having problems.