Replacing reverb early reflections with a delay plugin

[rj0]

Some delay plugins seem to provide more flexibility in generating early reflections than many reverbs.

When, and perhaps why, would it make sense (or not) to use a delay plugin to generate those early reflections, and leave the following reverb to just generate the tail?

Anybody approaching things this way?

[Tj Shredder]

You would need a lot of delays unless you want the space of a narrow tube… But there are reverbs that can separate early reflections from the tail. You could use one of those…

[jamcat]

This is exactly what Virtual Sound Stage does.

I use it on physically modeled string quartets and such.

[imrae]

SIR3 is a nice tool for this problem. It's a convolution reverb that extracts the early reflections and lets you manipulate the envelope of the taps. The catch is that there is no dedicated way to disable the reverb tail - but this can be done by moving the IR endpoint.

That said, while ValhallaRoom and Nimbus each have a small selection of patterns I find a reasonable range is available with the other controls.

Really the only time I can see that it would be worth crafting the delay tap spacing by hand is to create an "unreal" space; reverb designers already did the hard work of realistic spaces.

An interesting tool for making spaces that are somewhat realistic but maybe with strange dimensions is Hornet Spaces. If you crank "damping" up to 100% and choose "custom" you basically have a reflection simulator with height/width/length controls.

[Ploki]

https://www.voxengo.com/product/imodeler/

then there was this:
https://www.quikquak.com/Prod_RaySpace.html
not for sale anymore

and this:
https://reuk.github.io/wayverb/
it's open source, someone with enough grunt could make a plugin out of it.

[gaggle of hermits]

i'm not sure it's worth using a delay for earlies if you're feeding into a reverb for a tail. i think it makes more sense to use a delay for this kind of thing if you want something like a slapback delay but a bit more 'real', so you can get some sense of space but don't want to muddy up the mix with too much stuff going into a reverb. also, it's good if you want to try to make one wall seem a lot closer than the other to the instrument - just pan the delay taps and adjust to taste.

for complicated earlies, you might as well use a regular reverb that has control over them and maybe just shut off the tail section. Valhalla ubermod with the modulation more or less turned does a good job for complicated slapbacks where you're not bothered about placing each delay tap by hand. i've found waves supertap to be easy to set up if you know where the little slapbacks and position them. there are delays with more taps but you quickly get into a law of diminishing returns – using ubermod with diffusion will probably get you to the destination quicker.

[k2006]

Dragonfly early reflection reverb.
https://plugins4free.com/plugin/3016/

[Held]

MTurboReverb gives a lot of control over the early reflection. Although it might be a bit expensive if you're only using it for that.

[rj0]

Lots of great replies here. Need time to investigate and digest. Will follow up soon.

[rj0]

You would need a lot of delays unless you want the space of a narrow tube… But there are reverbs that can separate early reflections from the tail. You could use one of those…

Agreed.

Most reverbs allow separate control of early reflections versus the tail, but few seem to provide much detailed control of those early reflections. EAReverb (from EAReckon) lets one move the early reflections in time graphically (left/right bounces, plus several freely moveable reflections in each channel), but that's still only about 15-20 reflections total, nice, but maybe not enough control?

[rj0]

This is exactly what Virtual Sound Stage does.

I use it on physically modeled string quartets and such.

VSS looks pretty awesome, with loads of control for positioning of instruments. Will look at it further. Positioning seems to be the main control of early reflections, but still, wow!

I have a few basic convolution-based reverbs, but my frustration with them is that the IRs define the space, and that space is what it is, which leads me back to wanting to have the space flexibility of algorithmic reverbs.

[rj0]

https://www.voxengo.com/product/imodeler/

then there was this:
https://www.quikquak.com/Prod_RaySpace.html
not for sale anymore

and this:
https://reuk.github.io/wayverb/
it's open source, someone with enough grunt could make a plugin out of it.

You've got me looking back into my archives. I definitely have RaySpace somewhere on an older system and might also have IModeler as well. Man, that's a long time ago, but I need to dig them out. Might be the general idea of what I'm looking for (front-end ER-wise, anyway).

Wayverb? Investigating.

Any more modern equivalents?

[rj0]

In any case, these ideas are kind of what I've been wondering, mainly whether there are additional delay-type tools that are more flexible for ERs than most reverbs (and, alternately, whether there are some reverbs that are exceptionally more flexible than most in this area, that I'm unfamiliar with), and whether people are actually using such delay tools that way (and whether that's a good idea or not).

[Debutante]

Why not use AN ENTIRE REVERB for early reflections?

[jamcat]

Why not use AN ENTIRE REVERB for early reflections?

Well, where in this reverberant space is your sound source originating? Is it in the exact center, or closer to one side? What about other sound sources in the room? Are they sitting on top of each other, or spread out?

All of this information is encoded in the early reflections. There is no "one size fits all" early reflection model, which is what standard reverbs provide.