How to emulate acoustics/effect of outdoor places?

[drjohnny79]

I'm wondering. How can one create the effect of something sounding outdoors? I know background sounds and such help achieving it, but I'm thinking maybe you can use some kind of effect on samples recorded in lets say a studio, to make them sound as if they are coming from an outdoor location.



All reverbs simulate rooms right? (4 walls, roof and floor) But outdoors, you may have reflections coming from trees, mountains far away, different things on the ground etc..

Is it possible to use impulse reverbs for this? Isnt it hard to record an impulse with so much background noise outdoors? I found an impulse of a forest, havent seen any others.

I'm looking for something that's freeware. Would really appreciate advice!
/Johnny Strömgren

[Rangtangtang]

drjohnny79 wrote

I'm wondering. How can one create the effect of something sounding outdoors?

Are you making a movie?

You can record the outside ambience of a particular location. Insects and butterfly wings are bit more difficult. There are sound effect CD's about. I got a few cheap ones from a local discount place.

Yes you can create impulses of outside locations, and yes background noise can make it rather difficult - wind and traffic. I havn't realy seen or heard of any commercial outside impulses about. That forrest one thats for mac isn't it? Could always try Voxengo's impulse maker?

Last thought, if it hasn't got any reverb on it maybe it is outside.

[friteuse]

I really would like to see an algorithmic plugin that can do this. The reverbs I know simulate all kind of rooms, but no outdoor.

Maybe this is because outdoor environements are much more complex than a room, where you have a more or less equal situation for damping, decay and so on. On outdoor, you can have a forest with a longer and darker decay on the left, a wall with only one bright reflection on the right, and so on and all simultaniously. Imagine a plugin that would let you do this! It would lead to very numerous and complex parameters...

My suggestion for you would be to work with several instances of delays and reverbs. Take them and build up the desired environement on your own! You can set for each the desired parameters, including level and panorama. You also could i.e. put a delay and reverb in series, or send from multiple delay+reverb combinations to each other. No idea, if this works, just my thoughts of how it would work outdoor...

Hope this helps. Let us know, if and how it suited for you or how else you manged the outdoor sim!

[drjohnny79]

Thanx for the tips, Rangtangtang, and nope it's not a movie. No picture! Audio only... Some kind of audioproduction, dont know the english word for it!

It will include a narrator voice, other voices ("actors"), sfx and an orchestral score (soundtrack).

Yes, I know I can record the ambience, and use sound effects. I think that's also what I intend to do. But what I meant, was how to make my voice-recordings sound as if they were outside, meaning the samples themself, not by adding ambience samples. How do you fool the listeners that what they hear comes from outdoor places? Are there any reverb/fx cabable of that?
/Johnny Strömgren

[drjohnny79]

I will experiment with your techniques, friteuse! You have inspired me. I dont know if it'll work either.. But shouldnt there be someone who has tried similiar things? I mean all the movie makers must have used some method for their stuff.

[cptgone]

most reverbs simulate closed spaces, while you don't need just a big one, but one without walls. maybe you could find an 'open doors' IR at noisevault, or make one yourself. otherwise, try large halls or stage presets/IRs (keep in mind, i'm not an expert by far)

[Rangtangtang]

Im still hear....thinking........

mmmmmmm.............narator....actors doing scenes.........back ground music...........mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


Well, the simplist way is you add reverb to everything, and where you want it too sound more outside you take the reverb off and add a little treble. Whith a variety of VST plugins and settings you can create different size and color rooms. There are quite a few here to choose from.

[drjohnny79]

You may be right, both of you, cptgone and Rangtangtang. I cant find any outdoors impulses I'm afraid.

The question is, are your ears that smart? I mean, maybe it's ok if you use samples that are kind of dry, and maybe eq a little bit, if you want it to sound like outdoors on plain field. Combine delays with reverb when emulating spaces with, say rocks or distand mountains?

[drjohnny79]

I just read about this: Reflector-LCR from TC Electronics Mastering 6000.
You can read about it here: http://www.tcelectronic.com/Default.asp?Id=1557

Will try to find impulses of the outdoor simulations!

[drjohnny79]

Check this out!

http://www.audioease.com/IR/index.html

outdoor impulses...

Argh! It's for altiverb users... It was too good to be true.

[xoxos]

to make the point... outdoors is oc different due to the contrasting lack of heavy reflections..

and oc spend 5 minutes anywhere outside that's quiet, you'll immediately notice that yes, any sizeable object will reflect sound.

soo... you can use strategic reverbs/lpfed delays for objects in field..

and.. you can add ambient noises.. perhaps using some of the binaural '3d' plugins.. there's a few freebies

the factor that hasn't been mentioned is the transmission of sound over distance.. not sure what it does to dynamics, but i high pass and a little lp to emulate distance.

[drjohnny79]

Thanx for the good advice xoxos.

What would be the best freeware reverb or cubase sl3 bundled reverb to use?

And what kind of reverb? Hall, plate etc?

I will continue searching the net more for resources.

/Johnny Strömgren

[xoxos]

i wouldn't use a verb at all unless there's supposed to be something 'in the scene' - try boosting low mids if the signal's supposed to be close?? :p

i'm waay out of the city and if a sound bounces off th house or a hill, it's pretty much like a lpfed delay.. for a valle yor somethnig, maybe try any verb on a 'low density setting' where it's jsut like 1/2 dozen delays, really grainy.. and very low level...

few outdoors fx i've done to my satisfaction ~with eq and a few layers of nord 1 bandpass filtered noise :p

[EJo]

(removed)

[quikquak]

RaySpace would create an outside area for you, just draw lots of small boxes with gaps between and no outside wall.Remove remove a lot of the low end with the EQ to make a more open and 'fresher'sound. Not free though I'm afraid.
DH