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anonymous 11 November 2001

Re mixing totally within Pro Tools.Although I've seen lots of posts re plugin compressors, EQ's etc. I was wondering how you consider the state of play re reverb- plugins. I'm only familiar with VST stuff,and I was dissapointed in the quality of the reverb plugins (sigh..I know I should'nt have gone there).
From what I can gather however, reverb is also a bit of a dissapointment in the Pro Tools Plug -in format.
Nothing I've read says "Wow! Is this a great plugin Reverb!"
Reverb is an important tool for me, and I was wondering what your thoughts are on this.I'm more inclined to go with outboard verb, although I've not had as much hands on experience with any of the Tools plugins..Is there a plugin that's as good as the quality verbs on the outside? Are you
able to keep within Pro Tools or do you patch outside? Or are we waiting for the Sony EQ Reverb
equivalent.Be great to hear what you think.

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Comments

Guest Sun, 11/11/2001 - 17:54

Amongst the high end DAW folks I know of, most folks prefer hardware reverb boxes to any plug ins, although, by the end of next year plug in reverb should have seriously caught up with the hardware stuff. I patch digitaly to outside units at the moment.

It is fun to have something to tweak by hand and to 'cheat on the computer' with.

Many units now are 'dual input' so that means that you could set up 2 reverb engines one fed by the left input one by the right.. both outputs share the same stereo output.

You could record different FX settings so one hardware FX box could give up unlimited reverbs or FX on a mix..

Most DAW interfaces have an SPDIF i/o that is the best place to start.

There are many low budget reverb/FX units from Lexicon and TC Electronics and this looks to be the new mid budget king:
http://www.kurzweilmusicsystems.com/html/ksp8.html
Also the Eventide Eclipse deserves a 'versatile all rounder' mention albeit a bit spendy.
http://
the suggested Quantec above should also be excellent!

Hardware FX & Reverb units run digitally with a DAW can aid stunning sound without CPU power drain.

try to aim for digital in AND out.

:)

Jules

P.S. on the PC look up a program / plug in called "Acoustic Modeller" it is stunning sounding!

Greg Malcangi Mon, 11/12/2001 - 01:10

This thread is one that should probably have been posted in the ProTools forum but I'll add my 2 cents worth.

All is not quite doom and gloom. It's true that virtually all the reverb plugs across all the platforms suck, even the big name plugs like Lexicon and TC! I guess they didn't want to give away their best algorithms. However, last year I tested out the Reverb One plug from Digi. "Wow! Is this a great plug in Reverb!!!" :) Although it has it's own character it's right up there with the mid-high end outboard gear like the Lex PCM91 or the TC3000. It's not as good IMHO as the real top end stuff like a 480 but as a plug it sets a whole new standard for reverb. It certainly deserves a place in any highly spec'ed PT setup. By plug in standards it's very pricy but then again, comparing it to equivalent outboard gear it's very cheap. Having said all this I never actually purchased the Reverb One after about a week of playing with it, but that's because not long before I'd just bought a PCM91. If I were starting again though it would be at the top of my plug in list with the Sony EQ.

Greg

anonymous Mon, 11/12/2001 - 12:33

Hi folks. Thanks for all the replies.From what everybody says, it seems I was fairly correct in my own assessment. Yes there are "servicable" plug-in reverbs, but as yet nothing "stunning" (don't you just love descriptive terminolgy).
Of course high-end, mid-end, is all relative, but
my bottome line for a reverb would be something like the Eclipse (as Julian posted).

I checked out the Quantec site as Mike Tholen
suggested, and I'm dowloading some stuff from their site.Interesting they state that their "legendary QRS algorithm" is available in MP3 quality. Hmmm. Now there's an interesting word to associate with MP3's.
Re Greg's comment, yeah, I didn't know which forum would be the best one to post this. I didn't mean to focus on Pro-Tools specifically.Just to see what people thought about plug-in verbs in general. Eg. there is an interesting new verb plug in for people who use MOTU stuff (not me).
My own thinking is that the plug ins may be OK for
some "duh obvious" effects (DO's), but for the really subtle quality stuff, it's still outboard. this was my experience on other DAW platforms, I thought the Tools may be a bit more advanced. No problem.

anonymous Mon, 11/12/2001 - 14:24

Hi Julian. Well now I know. What an interesting unit the Kurtzweil seems to be. Definately on my list to check out.
BTW out here we have an old folk song called "The Poor Colonial Boy". One of your other forum members, davemc, also pointed out, as I have elsewhere, some of the problems about being in Australia for info re "stuff" and/or hands on test driving.
The Kurtzweil site doesn't send info to Australia directly for instance. After moving through four mouse clicks and different pages, you get an Australian distributer (if yer lucky). You then send them a seperate email request for info, which they may or may not answer.
Also, you keep a watch (the best you can) on new developments and equipment.If they eventually get over here, then you have to see who's bringing them in.Sounds easy? Well I was wanting to check out some of the new TL Audio gear. When an ad eventually appeared in a local music mag announcing it (months after you folks would have heard, saw, tested it etc. in the UK) I contacted the distributers. Often the person you get on the phone doesn't know much about the equipment itself. In the case of the TL stuff, after a couple of days tracking them down, they told me that they were'nt going to be importing the piece of gear I was interested in. This is despite a full colour ad in the magazine saying it was available.Yep, it's frustrating.
Sorry about the length of some of my posts,(like this one?) but you can imagine how brilliant it is to come across forums such as this one, and getting tangible, relevant info. that actually helps you.I'm not crawling up anybody's anatomy here. That's just the way it is.By the way, some people over here are still sorry about the Seekers domination of the UK hitparade in the sixties. Me, I'm just an imigrant boy from Glasgow.

regisfunk Tue, 11/13/2001 - 22:37

Originally posted by stedel:
Hi Julian. Well now I know. What an interesting unit the Kurtzweil seems to be. Definately on my list to check out.

I think this is the standalone unit which is based on the KDFX hardware upgrade that became available to K-2500/K2600 sampler owners a couple of years ago. If it is, then it truly is a cool piece. There are some terrific reverb algorhythms in the KDFX chip, and many flangers, choruses, etc, which are very musical sounding. I did some demo sequences for it, actually. It completely transforms the sound of the K2500 to 'world class' (whatever the hell that means ;-). Do check it out. You'll be impressed.

As far as the other issue is concerned, I too go AES out to a hardware reverb unit (tc 3000) and love that setup. Just send my patch change at the beginning of the tune, an aux fader, and done. Save the DSP for eq and compression.

CS

anonymous Wed, 11/14/2001 - 20:23

Damn. This is my own fault I know. I started this post on Julian's forum. Greg suggested it should maybe have been a topic for the Pro Tools forum he oversees over in DAWworld. Now I've got two posts happening about the same thing.I'm getting dizzy.
I've actually got a question re the Kurtzweil, reverb algorithms, and plug ins. But first, as all you people in the UK and Australia would understand, I have to address Littledogs comments
about Kylie. This might take some time. Do any of you folk know him? It's probably time he knew,but
it might upset him, even scare him. What if he's all alone and it's at night? Damn this is also my fault. I feel so reponsible.Speak to you after I've broken it to Littledog.
Regards

anonymous Wed, 11/14/2001 - 21:24

Hi Littledog. How are you doin'. Had a good day?
Do you think you could maybe stop practicing that new warm up vocal technique Renie told you about with your friend there for a while? Good. Now tell them they can go home for a little while.....Are they gone? Good.
Listen there's something I need to talk to you about.I need you to sit still for a couple of minutes and pay attention.
OK. Look, this is never easy, but understand little dog, sometimes in life all little dogs have to grow into big dogs. Not physically, but emotionally and even spiritually.They do this, the same as everyone else - by facing fears,not being too scared by scary monsters or frightening things.Even things that are OK can sometimes appear to be scary. Know what I mean? Good.
Because you've reached that stage in your life when it's time you found out about Kylie.
I live in Australia Littledog. Far away from my house there is what people call the "Outback".
The outback is very big, and if you don't know it well, very, very, dangerous.Anyway in the outback are these quite small, brightly coloured birds called "budgerigars". Where I grew up as a boy in England, people like my Granny (God rest her soul), would buy these birds, imported all the way from Australia,and keep one, maybe two, in a birdcage in the television room.They'd talk to them, even sing along with each other.But you had to be careful, because if they got out of the cage
budgerigars (they called them "budgies")would fly wildly around the room, singing and flapping their wings.
OK.Now a long time ago in Australia,some wicked person created a soap opera called "Neighbours".
It was really bad. Even as bad as some of the ones America produces. Now some Australians, not all of course, but some Australians have a bit of...well a dislike for England. They call English people "pommie bastards" and laugh hysterically whenever English cricket is mentioned.Anyway another wicked person sold this TV soap opera to the English.The English must have had their guard down, because the wicked Australian tricked them.Now lots and lots of English people watch Neighbours.They love it.
Anyway one of the...how do I say this....quite spunky young Aussie girls on the show was named Kylie.She became a big star, and lots of people love her.Some unkind people say she can't really sing. Some people even called her "The Singing Budgie".Some English people may now even dislike Australians for letting Kylie out of her cage (ie. Australia - England used to think Australia was a cage...er which is another reason some people get upset at the English over here, but that's another story.)
She's really popular. She's had lots of top ten hits.Now the scary thing about life, littledog, is that once you know something, suddenly, one day, you come across it.So if somebody one day says
"Lookout Littledog, here comes the singing budgie. She's really huge in Europe, she could be a monster in the States." don't be too frightened.
She's actually done some pretty cool stuff.

anonymous Wed, 11/14/2001 - 22:51

Hi Folks.Hope littledogs OK.Just keep an eye on him for a while will you?
This is partly speculative, but it arose from a comment Greg Malcangi made about reverb algorithms.I also briefly raised this on my post on Greg's Pro Tools Forum.Greg's comment came after talking about the difference between Lexicon and TC reverb plug ins and their hardware units. I've seen comments about this difference in quality before, but the Greg said he thought maybe they didn't want to give away their best algorithms" - (for plug ins). Is
that an issue for Reverb algorithms? Is it somehow easier to pirate or replicate them? Other efects don't seem to have this problem. I mentioned Antares who, don't seem to have a problem with their Autotune stuff. Both
plugins and outboard units seem to be on par.People seem pretty happy with the quality of the plug in in particular.I thought it didn't seem to be a problem for the various EQ's available to Pro Tools, particularly one that comes with such praise as the new Sony EQ.
The speculative bit I raised using the Kurtzweil as an example. After Julian suggested I check the
Kurtzweil out, I did this.
In other discussions I've used words such as "gorgeous" and "stunning" to describe the quality of a good reverb.These are terms commonly used by people where good reverb is concerned. So I was interested when I read Kurtzweils blurb re the KSP8.
"The sonic quality of the KSP8 is STUNNING (my emphasis)....Exquisite effects presets ranging from spacious to GORGEOUS (my emphasis)."

Now is this next bit true, or is the following hyperbole? Whadya reckon?
From the Kurtzweil site:
"The world's most powerful effects processor....it has the best audio analog specification in the industry"
Hmm.So let's take this at face value. How much is this thing? (still waiting on info from the Aussie distributor). If it is this good, how much
could you market a software equivalent for The New Pro Tools do you think? Even the current one. The KSP8 weighs in at 24bits up to 48kHz.Probably sound nice with the Sony EQ - also 48kHz from memory.And if Sony are succesful with the high end quality of their new EQ plug in, maybe they'll have a go at doing the same with their rather
tasty sampling reverb unit - can't recall the model designation. Imagine something like that
running within Pro Tools What's the problem with reverb algorithms? Any ideas?
As always, kind regards

AudioGaff Thu, 11/15/2001 - 00:12

The Kurzweil KSP8 has a U.S. list price of $2995.00. Even if you believe the marketing claims, and even if they were true, lots of products can have great specs and still sound like crap. The Lexicon PCM70 has fairly poor specs by todays standard, is only 16-bit and still has reverb that sounds much better than most of the current 24-bit reverb boxes.

Kurzweil has a zero history of making high quality studio effects. It is VERY hard to believe that there first product attempt is going to stand up to other companies that have a proven history and wide acceptance of high quality reverb as well as other time based effects. It seems obvious to me that the KSP8 is designed as a poor mans copy of an Eventide Orville. It may be great effects for samplers and small low budget studios, but I doubt TC, Lexicon and Eventide have much to worry about.

High quality outboard reverb is a combination of custom software and high powered custom DSP silicon. It can not just be ported over to work on a general purpose microprocessor such as those used on a PC. This custom approach helps assure that the reverb can not be copied or duplicated.

The Antares Auto-Tune is not reverb, it is a form of pitch-shifting and can not be directly compared. Also, the Antares was developed as a plug-in first then developed as a hardware product. This is much easier to do than the other way around.

As for the Sony 777 reverb, don't hold your breath on a pulg-in. Again, there is a lot of very high powered DSP hardware and custom software for this to sound as great as it does.

- Bruce -

anonymous Thu, 11/15/2001 - 20:04

Hi Bruce.Well this morning a lot of my ignorance about reverb algorithms were answered. I now know a few reasons why good (as in gorgeous etc. etc.) reverb is likely to remain outboard for a while.Actually there's between 1000 & 3000 reasons every second.And that's just the beginning.see Paul White: Advanced Reverbration
Sound on Sound last October. Just got it over here.By the way folks Stedel likes SOS a lot.

Usually visit a few times a month.
[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.sospubs…"]Sound On Sound[/]="http://www.sospubs…"]Sound On Sound[/]

Er Bruce..yes I know Autotune isn't a reverb. How
do you figure I ever said it was?

anonymous Fri, 11/16/2001 - 16:31

I think also autotune was a plugin first before the hardware.
The top Reverbs in hardware form are not cheap, also the time for R&D costs as well. If they could fit something like this into 1-2 mix chips.
1) How much could they sell it compared to the hardware unit. If you could run only 2 on a whole Mix card they would loose money.
2) It would be cracked before it was even released. I am hoping and praying that no one can crack the Sony EQ plug. Sick to death of people haveing plugs I brought for free.

Just my 2 cents

anonymous Sun, 11/18/2001 - 14:27

Originally posted by Bruce McIntyre:
Stedel, you had metioned that Antares could see to easily makeplug-insand hardware so why can't others and I was trying to point out that doing this with high quality reverb is far more complicated and can not be directly compared.

- Bruce -
Hi Bruce.Yes reverb is far more complicated, but it IS being compared.Not only by me but by plug in and hardware manufactures.
I use reverb a lot.More than I use compression for instance.My concerns are getting quality reverb using Pro Tools as part of my mixing system.
I still want to know how you thought I had mistaken Autotune for a reverb.(?)

Note to Greg Malcangi. This is a ProTools issue, but it's also about current developments in and about the use of Reverb itself.Maybe you and Julian can figure out which forum is more appropriate. The Pro Tools one or Julians.I'm getting too much random, short delay feedback to deal with, caused by a two channel input stage I tried:
Channel One: Wottabout Reverb.
Channel Two: Pro Tools and Reverb/Stedel Bounces Back.
I'd like to try and keep this discussion going for a little while longer.Get a bit more "depth" to it.Know wot I mean?
"Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom," John Lee Hooker.

anonymous Mon, 11/19/2001 - 11:44

Is there somebody who can help me to decide if I want to get good quality reverb for reasonable price if I should go for Lexicon 91 or 81? I know 91 is described as "reverb", but Lexicon say at their web that 81 has all algorithms from PCM 70, which is considered to be very desirable...

Just note regarding plug ins - I use Pro Tools very long time and I've mixed quite a few movies with plug ins, but for realy high quality reverb you have to go out. I think manufacturers simply does not give away their best algorithms to cheap plugs. Why would they do it? Even Lexiverb sounds like MPX 1 at best...

e-cue Mon, 11/19/2001 - 12:11

I love the renaissance reverb. I use it even when working off analog. The Studio A, Vocal Plate, and Rave Warehouse settings are awesome. I think digidesign still has room for improvement, and I'm sure revisions will yield reverbs that outperform today's outboard verbs. Something I've also noticed, most of the protools verbs sound better when I add more predelay. Anyone else notice this?

anonymous Wed, 11/21/2001 - 13:55

Hi folks. I'm sorry I haven't had time to reply to
some of the replies up here as yet. I do have some things I'd like to follow up. There is much valuable and interesting stuff here. But what a week!!! Apart from anything else, as some of you know, my folks live in an area that got hit by a Tornado this week. It's been declared a national disaster area. Things are pretty serious when this happens. (my folks are OK, but pretty shaken up - they're getting old now, y'know?) I'll do the rounds and send out some personal posts to let you know when I can give this the appropriate amount of time and consideration I would like to give it.Hope you can make it back then. Much thanks. Kind regards

anonymous Thu, 11/29/2001 - 18:46

Hi folks. Thank's for all the help. Got some pretty good information here.

Thanks to Greg, davemc. etc. who recommended Reverb One. This generally gets good reviews, so when the new Pro Tools comes out (...$ on when anybody?)I'll be giving this a try as a plug in verb.

And thanks to Mike Thornhill (hi Mike!) for pointing me in the direction of the Quantec stuff. This may be the way I'll go for for outboard verb. Hadn't come across it over here, so I'm gonna track it down. Nice informative stuff on their site on reverb in general.

BTW it's reverb I'm particularly interested in. Most units like the TC3000 stuff are really fine for things like multiple delays etc., as I'm sure so will the Eventide Eclipse.

So outboard and inboard - that's the way I'll stay.
Thanks to everybody else, much appreciated.

BTW Kurtzweil still haven't responded to requests for prices etc. I've stopped holding my breath on this, maybe later when people have actually heard this thing I'll see what the go is.

Kind regards :w:

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