Reverb: What you NEED to know
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- Everything you need to know about reverb, how it works and how to use it. Composer Guy Michelmore looks at convolution vs algorithmic reverb, insert vs bussed based, the most important controls and demonstrates some of the leading plugins. Links to the reverbs below.
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A thing which could be mentioned and something I always do is to put a 100% wet reverb or echo on a parallel bus and mix it ever so slightly in. This mimics the dry/wet effect but you are able to EQ and even compress reverb or chain other effects. It' s pretty nice to have reverb without low end frequencies and there is much more free space in room for your original sound source.
Thanks ! Would love a video on how to blend and combine libraries generated from different sound stages or rooms with differing reverb characteristics.
thanks a lot! I learn about convolution reverb from this video! 😅
"That gorgeous, washy sound" -- what Christian Henson calls "a bit of splosh".
Haha oh my. I love Christian's understatements. His humour is as dry as the Gobi desert
Native Instruments also has a nice algorithmic reverb called Raum. Plenty of toys.
I love Raum so much
Raum is great and it was also free when it came out
Yep Raum is amazing - I got it for free as well!
Valhalla Supermassive is also a great free one.
Remember the reverb tail at the end of Pearl & Dean cinema ads? Brilliant!
Oh that dates you!
@@ThinkSpaceEducation but they changed it slightly after revamping the brand. Not as good as the original though. I think there might even be a Pearl & Dean Reverb Tail Fan Club!
@@abagatelle Pearl & Dean Reverb Tail Fan Club!?
Hahahahaha! Brilliant! :D
C'mon Guy??? Not as much of even a honorable mention of the reverbs that comes FREE in Cubase. Revelation and my personal favorite Reverence are algo and convo verbs respectively and they sound just as great as most you have to pay for. In Reverence you can import your own impulses and have all sorts of fun, including making the impulse lonnger and manipulate it in many ways. You are of course planning to make a separate video about the bundled reverbs of Cubase, am I right? Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you! :D Speaking of honorable mentions in Cubase reverbs we can't overlook RoomWorks and setting it to max "efficiency" and turning the whole thing into a lo-fi wonderland no-go zone for proper reverbs and delays. Only in Cubase!
Where else would you get so concentrated (Free) advice like this, seriously. Top guy!! Fantastic channel.
Guy you are such a good teacher thank you again.
I've just got Cinematic Rooms recently, and I am blown away by its sound! A must have !
Da Guy is the most needed topic, the most in demand for our music business. I am looking forward to your advice.
This tutorial was just what I was looking for.... I have a really powerful computer yet on some projects the computer crashed and stuttered and cracked.. I was that person putting fx on each instrument 😳.... watching this and following your guide it’s cured.... my processor is happy 😃 .Very very informative thanks.
Guy’s comments section is one of my favourite on UA-cam
Lockdown is incredibly frustrating, but it DOES give me way more time to watch loads of GM videos, which can only be a good thing.
Glad to see you giving Cinematic Rooms some love. I did not know about it until relatively recently and never was satisfied with the usual entry-point suspects (Valhalla, Spaces, etc.). It looks like CR is going to be my go-to one, at least for some time now, for it seems incredibly clear and quite beautiful in the way it produces reflections etc. I have not yet found any other reverb coming close to it at that price point. I also love MIR, but that is a bit out of my price range for now.
There's a video called "Sounds inside a nuclear power plant cooling tower" where you can hear reverb in action in a pretty cool way. The tower is so big that your brain has enough time to count each early reflection for about a second, then they start to overlap and turn into the reverb tail. You even notice the pre-delay and the bit of phasing due to the position of the camera.
Oh wow that was great. I did some classes on acoustics in uni and we had to record impulse responses and analyze them, it was great. Thank you for the video recommendation, it was awesome, watched it like 30 times already. I always clap when Im in a tunnel or something where there are clear early reflections, it's so satisfying!
@@AlienObserverMusic Glad you liked it. I would love to get an impulse response of that place hahaha
That's the first time, I'm bewildered by one of your videos, because my experiences with convolution and algorithmic reverb is the opposite. I have some algorithmic reverb plugins, a small number of which can overload my CPU with a small buffer size, while I can use as many convolution reverb plugins in any session.
Hmm interesting. It maybe specific to each plugin then more than the tech
Yep. There are light and heavy CPU plugins of both varieties. I think that algorithmic comprise both the very lightest and very heaviest.
Spring reverbs were commonly used as guitar FX in the 60's and 70's and would be useful in replicating period sounds.
And that sound when you dropped them....
@@ThinkSpaceEducation Or when someone walked heavily across the stage and the whole thing went..."BOING!"
And still used now :)
Keep in mind that impulse responses are just regular audio files. That means any audio file can potentially be used as an impulse response.
Exactly - I mentiont that near the end
Indeed, like a piano through a guitar strum, or a rimshot, or an anvil whack, etc...
One more important usage of reverb is spatial placement (front to back) of instruments, and then of course there's the nuclear option for convolution reverb for orchestral music: Vienna MIR.
It does reverb and spatial instrument placement at the same time, so if you have decently dry samples you can set up your orchestra seating however you want with minimal effort. To be fair many people don't need that and will be happy with standard seatings and never try to re-pan their libraries. But if you are like me and really want that German seating then MIR is just so much easier than fiddling with panners and reverbs to get everything sitting correctly left to right and front to back.
A subject that seems to be left behind but is very important. I have learned much today thank you GM.
The one case I can think of where you wouldn't want a bus reverb would be the aforementioned surround case. Imagine a conductor in the middle of an orchestra or large choir - the sound from each instrument or voice follows a very different path to get to each ear (and those paths are what reverb simulates). But that's an extremely niche use case and, if you really need it, you'll probably be looking at doing a bunch of freezing/individual rendering to get it to work. Besides those phasing issues.
As usual thank you for getting this content out to us. I was talking to another fan of yours the other day and we both agreed if you were making these videos in the 80's you would easily have been on PBS in America. In the United States PBS is one of the greatest television stations ever created.
Always a good source of inspiration 👍🏻👍🏻very good
Melda Productions has a wonderful multi-band convolution reverb - a limited free version and a $60 full version. It lets you sculpt the Impulse Response and you can record your own IR in the plugin load an IR file in several audio formats. Like most of Melda's effects, the amount of control you get in the full version is amazing - probably overwhelming for beginners.
Thanks so much for this quick "verb" primer, Guy. Just what I needed right now. I'm in the process of mixing down some home recorded sax music and have been a bit confused on how to do reverb without going over the top. I'm using the built in reverb in Cubase. Basic but does the trick.
Very helpful! Thanks for posting!
Great video, thanks, Guy!
Great video Guy. Thanks for all of your tips and tricks. Reverb is such an in depth subject.
I see. I click. I watch. I like.
Same procedure as everytime when guy uploads a video
Me thinks someone else that has a tradition on Silvester 🤔
Another bonus to using algorithmic reverb is file size, some of the impulse response libraries are very large. Regardless cinematic rooms is my go to just because it sounds so magical.
Another honorable mention would be Virtual Sound Stage in my opinion, especially for orchestral tracks. It gives you a convolution verb which is automatically sidechained on bus for all the instances chosen, and takes care of the positioning of each instrument on a stage. Helped my mixing a lot in many cases.
Putting this here: Do not buy VSS.
It hasn’t had support for a year and is a dead product.
Thanks Guy, really helpful. I do like the very atmospheric sounds that you got with the Cinematic rooms on your lockdown challenge video. Cheers Dave
Exactly the kind of video I was looking for - thank you!
Excellent explanation and demonstrations thanks, Guy.
Oh great tutorial thank you very much😊
ExponentialAudio's Nimbus and R4 reverbs are currently on massive sales. From what I understand, Nimbus is a top-tier plugin for realistic reverb while R4 is famous for experimental character reverbs. Both are algorithmic but have excellent quality. The sale ends tomorrow though.
Thanks for the overview Guy. Btw I built a spring reverb into my PE synthesiser in the 70s, it’s still around here somewhere..
Supermassive is another good one
Hotto Spring Reverb is free, sounds OK
...and it’s free too !
Is supermassive worth it if you own the vintage verb already?
@@Zer0Spinn I think so , yeah. It’s free so you have nothing to loose giving it a try
Supermassive and VintageVerb are completely different.
@@Am6-9Absolutely. In fact , these two are really the only plugins i use reverb wise - i still use mainly hardware
Ah thankyou Guy for gracing my recommendations once again! I am preparing the popcorn 🍿
Poor Guy. I think the lockdown is getting to him.
in all seriousness though, I thoroughly enjoy watching your videos, especially if I am hitting a lull in motivation to continue learning about and creating music. Also, I purchased your Music Theory short course on ThinkSpace Education, and have been enjoying that immensely as well.
Thank you for your constant stream of advice and energetic teaching methods!
I have been following n watching almost all ur video. I noticed u have a pure talent for voice acting. Are u in that line of business. If yes pls n pls take us through a professional voiceover production.
Hey man the quality of your camera at the start is crunchy. My image looks like that if I have my DSLR outputing HDMI but when its in a 'photo mode' (like manual mode) in order to put out the full signal the camera should be in a movie mode. I could be totally wrong on that, but thats exactly how my image looks when I do that on my ones!
I think he just has it so dark in there, his camera is increasing the ISO a ton to compensate. That will introduce plenty of noise.
@@Nightmoore it’s a different kind of noise. Bumping iso wouldnt make those jagged kind of edges in the image, usually using hdmi out when in a photo mode has this exact look. Changing the camera to movie mode changes the hdmi output to a higher resolution.
Although I loved getting NI’s Raum for free, it is Arturia’s REV Intensity I use almost all of the time this days! It has some great modulation options, sounds really good and is CPU efficient! Great video Guy, learned a lot!
Guy you're great!
It's amazing! When I am struggeling or venturinging into new aeria of learning within music, Guy Michaelmore publish a video about it. I should perhaps change my passwords... 🤔
Thanks Guy! Love your videos!
Excellent as Always. Happy New Year Guy!
Interesting and ridiculously informative as always, thank you!
That was really useful Guy - thank you!
I'm in love with this channel
I love your stuff. Listen on my morning commuteand it's brilliant! Might i suggest or, erm request a bit of compassion and catch those peaks and raise the quiet bits on your speaking track? Pretty please with sugar on top?
Sometimes I find it's difficult to hear it all and I have to turn it up and then WHAM it hits my speakers pretty hard
A very good explanation! Bests!
It is over a year ago you made this video, so you may not even look at comments on this any more. However, if you do, I wish to ask your opinion using dry and wet reverb settings to place a group of instruments on the stage, putting dry samples closer and wet samples farther from the audience.
The best digital VST reverb you will ever here to date is still Valhalla Plate. Hands down.
There is no such thing as “the best ... reverb”.
Thanks a lot for this video, Guy. The stuff about busses and diffusion was very illuminating. Although you said that some of these plugins were expensive, I wasn't expecting some of them to cost well over $600... I think I'll probably just stick to my DAW's default reverb plugin, ha ha. (Or whatever reverb effects the VST instruments I'm using have.)
Pro kit like CR and altiverb comes with that price tag. If you do this for a living and use reverb all day its a no brainer but there are great inexpensive alternatives
so helpful, thanks, Guy
Hey great video again but why didn't you talk about Cubase built-in reverb roomworks and its different versions.
Great video, as always. I think it’s time to patch your old Lexicon 300 in Guy 🙂
thank you really struggled with reverb
Hi, Guy. Thanks for this convolution vs algorithmic reverb explanation. Cinematic Rooms looks enticing for reverb. I was also wondering about VSL Mir Pro. Do you have any experience with VSL Mir Pro? I ask about that because I love the idea of arranging instruments in visually-oriented space. Thanks.
Thank you
I'm currently quite happy with EW Spaces 2 and the standard version of Seventh Heaven
Thanks for the tutorial Guy: very helpful!
One quick question: if you’re using a library that was recorded in a space like Spitfire’s Abbey Road One for example, would you skip the convolution reverb because the sample is already placed in the room?
Good vid, but being a Cubase user it might have been a tad handy to have mentioned the built in reverbs, Revelation, Reverence and Roomworks.
Can we have a video about legato please? Having a hard time finding a good legato. (Although I'll admit I'm quite picky.)
Hi Guy, I wonder if you or anyone else who has commented here could guide me with what you mentioned nearer the end of the video - using 2 reverbs in the right way?
Good as usual, but apparently recorded during a power shortage. Ecomisng on lighting, Guy?
I recognised a couple of those words! Still interesting though.
I am a producer first and a musician second so I understood all of this but I get your feeling too. I feel like that when he starts talking about complex theory hahaha
Just a step at a time :)
So for all of you actual pour out of business composers. Just use your software algorithmic reverb that came with your multitrack software package. And just dial it into your liking. So you're going to spend a couple of minutes getting exactly what you want or you use a close enough preset. Set it and forget it. It sets nearly the right mood. And you can find tune that later. You know as in like, digitally, later. Because it's in your computer. And you are allowed to adjust it, later. In case nobody had told you? That's why you want to do that in a computer. And not have to go live on the air with it like I do. Where you've got between 3 million-10 million or more people all tuned in. To listen to your audio abomination. And so that you can blame your equipment, your software, the microphones, the weather. For not providing for a truly professional captured and mixed, world-class sounding, production. And that really only comes down to technique, knowledge, experience, seasoning, talent, technical proficiency, a full understanding of both your equipment and your software. From reading the manuals through. Multiple times over. Experimenting with for, days, weeks, months. Even years. And only because you have the drive. To become the very best at what you do. And well, that can take a lifetime to get there.
This kind of knowledge and seasoned professionalism. Does not come from a 10 minute UA-cam video. The 10 minute UA-cam video exposes you. To what is possible. To do. Today. On an absolutely nothing, budget. You didn't have to invest $200,000 like I have.
And where you might only have, $20,000 to invest. Or $2000 to invest. Or only $200 to invest. Yeah $200. That sounds about right.
So $200, will get you an excellent, 2 channel, computer audio interface device. With actually very usable and beautifully bland, nonabrasive, nonallergenic, combo, Microphone & Line inputs. And included with your newly purchased gizmo box. A beautiful multitrack software package will be included. With everything you need. That's equivalent to my $200,000 control room. And more. As I don't have any synthesizers. I don't hook up black-and-white 88 note keyboard controllers to my computer. Because I am not a Synthesist. As our Professor is here. Nor am I a songwriter or arranger. Though I've had to rearrange songs. I've had to shorten them. Lengthen them. And do it all musically perfectly. So you never hear any edits. Because if you hear and edit. Then it was not a good edit. Unless it's an intentional jump edit. Like in a record that had a bunch of people with A Whole Lotta Love, for. From a very heavy Zeppelin. That made Gold out of Lead. Add what computers, software and plug-ins did they use? None? None. No that actually took some actual talent. And the only plug-ins they had back then were enemas and tampons. Neither of which really complemented any recordings. Though they did make some possible.
I mean how many months does it take to make a rock 'n' roll album? Basically 2 Saturday afternoons. One day to record it. The next day to do some overdubs, fixes and the mix. When you are working with real actual musicians that have talent. And I only work with those. That can deliver such a performance, live.
I Do Not create talent in a computer. With no talents. Playing video games with audio software so I can always prove to people I can win! And that's artificially created, manufactured musical gobbledygook. Generally not worth listening to. Because music is not about the effects. It's about the music. And how the music moves you. When it's actual music. Played by actual musicians along with actual singers. The don't need autotune and beat quantization. Because they have talent and they have practiced and played and sang all their lives long. For more than just 3 months. Before they are ready to bring the world their music and musical art.
This is otherwise a very good video. It's quite instructive. For those actual composers at home. And so in that manner of speaking. This is a wonderful video. And I approve. And he's smart. As he recommended you stick with the algorithmic versions for the lower CPU load on less than the latest greatest multicore state-of-the-art computer box. That cost you thousands of dollars. When all you have is a $350 laptop. Which is basically the norm for most everyone.
Coupled with your laptop and computer audio gizmo. You have a fine pair of control room studio monitors. Costing well in excess of $150 each. No? Okay a pair that cost no more than $150. Plugged into your gigantic amplifier of 1500 W per channel. No? I mean 15 W per channel. Those damned decimal points and zeros always get me.
So you ain't going to want much dynamic range either. You don't need dynamic range for pop music and synthesized music. Unless perhaps you fancy yourself some kind of fairy like, avant-garde esoteric artist? With bleeps and bloops and squeals with a sample and hold sequence in the background gargling all sorts of musical notes in quick succession. And you need actual dynamic range! You're going to have to get yourself a better stereo system. Especially because your little USB powered computer speakers are not going to cut it. Sorry to tell you that. I know they sound great for playing back TV reruns on. But. Just but. It sounds like butt. With an over exaggerated smile curve. Truly stellar for hip-hop playbacks while vacuuming your living room. Otherwise, not stellar.
As a relative novice to reverb - are we now at a point in technology where home computing power is adequate to run reverb algorithms making outboard hardware/rack gear obsolete? I'm looking at buying a Lexicon Mp1 rack unit for my home recording studio.. or should I just buy a nice plug-in bundle?
Well as a 50 year veteran Audio Engineer with multi-major music award nominations and making history doing so. I've come up with a view recording techniques of my own and my own personal feelings.
Convolution reverbs is a bunch of convoluted crap. Oh isn't that lovely. They used a little clicky thing. To sample some rooms. With unknown microphones placed in unknown positions going into unknown preamps. As they try to reproduce a room from samples taken from whom? It's designed for amateurs. Real Audio Engineers know what to do with plates and springs and algorithmic digital reverberate or's. And you use additional EQ's. You use additional compression and/or limiting. You add downward expansion and/or gating.. And you actually Audio Engineer the sound of the recording sounds best with in your opinion as the official Audio Engineer and/or Producer.
Otherwise you might want to rely upon goofball convoluted reverb. Another term for convoluted, imitated. With scrambled ingredients. Convoluted. And oh it sounds just like the room. How the FUCK would you actually know? Unless you've been there. Unless you have recorded, there. They show you a pretty picture. Therefore it must sound like the picture. This is called, marketing and advertising. If it looks like the room. Therefore it must sound like the room you are looking at a picture of. Kind of like having a software 1176 limiter. It'll sort of work like an 1176 limiter. You could use it as an 1176 limiter. You have your choice of different revisions of those 1176 limiter's. But unless you've used one. Unless you have owned numerous ones. How do you know what it's like to have an 1176 limiter of any revision? But if you see a picture of one on your computer. Therefore it must sound like that one.
And so yes. Many of these have been able to be mathematically extrapolated to imitate the concept of design theory. And their operations. What went into the original units. In the digital realm. But it's not going to sound like 1176. Unless the cartoon in front of you looks like an 1176. Therefore it will sound like an 1176 Rev A-B-C-D-D-F-G and well. I've owned all of those originals. They don't sound like software. Software does not sound like them. Software works like them. Software imitates them. Software is not them. And does not give you. What the real units provide for. It's a good imitation. But that's all it is.
Imitations can be great! You can take the body off of a 1970s VW beetle. And replace the body with a very nice, authentic reproductive casting. With a fiberglass Lamborghini body. Now! You've got a Lamborghini! And it's going to definitely get you laid more often. But it's not going to win you any races or Grammy awards. Because it's really a VW beetle that only looks like a Lamborghini. With its very well emulated, fiberglass body. And so it must be a Lamborghini! It sure looks like one. All 58 hp and 4 cylinders of it. But it sure looks like it's going fast all of the time! At 30 mph. Very impressive indeed! An authentic fake. That's truly authentically fake. But it sure looks cool.
This is what convoluted collusion of convolution is all about. It's more fake shit. That puts a bitterly larger load on your CPU. And for what? To be convoluted of course! What else rhymes with convolution? Chaos. It's chaos reverb. It's a sample having numerous well-known, algorithmic equations it's flying through. To make you think the picture you're looking at sounds that way. And so the song sprung forth called WOOLLY BULLY. Because it's all woolly bullshit.
Of course for composer at home such as this fine British gentleman composer/arranger. Needs a convenient, cup of tea. From teabags instead of loose tea. Because they are so much more convenient. More easily and readily accessible. No stems, no seeds that you don't need, Plate Stupendous, is all you need. And it's all in how you tweak it. The plate, the reverb. The limiters. The downward expanders. The digital algorithmic equations. Some with selections. Some just with pushbuttons. And you get what you need fast. To keep those extraordinary creative tunes, rolling.
I can relate to the need of fast access electronically created spatial reproductions. I specialized in live, on location, album recordings, live coast-to-coast broadcasts, world broadcasts live on the MTV satellite, NBC-TV satellite, PBS TV satellite, a few other satellites. Where I need a full rostrum of multiple pieces of redundant equipment. To have everything patched in all at once. Everything is running all at once. 20+ limiters. Nearly 20 expander/gates. Dozens of equalizers cranked to the extremes. A stereo output bus limiter. Originally designed for FM radio. And you have to create a hit sounding mix. For a chart topping group. Within the first 60 seconds of the first song of their set. Until the director gets the thumbs up from you to go live. And you have to imitate the style and sound and mixing technique. Of that of the engineers that created their hit recordings. And you're going to have to do it completely differently. Which you're going to emulate. With your technique. With whatever you have already pre-plugged in. And have to roll with it that way. And you need to punch a button on a digital algorithmic reverb. To get the room you want. Instead of stepping through numerous menus of nuance bullshit adjustments. For all these quasi-pseudo-wannabe, OCD self-professed, audio expert engineers.
Don't get me wrong. That's all great! When somebody hands you a $20,000 contract and gives you months in the studio. To come up with something really good. And you are certainly given more than 60 seconds in all the wrong things patched in with all the wrong microphones in the wrong positions with lots of background noise and bleed that becomes massive hemorrhaging into your microphones all. And that's a much different style and technique required for that sort of engineering. That I've been doing for over 30 years with my latest facility. A great big huge diesel box truck. With the box within the box. Split into 3 separate rooms with central HVAC. And a custom-built for NBC-TV 1972 vintage all transistor, custom Neve audio console. And 16 additional API inputs. Because this was no basement studio on wheels. I had one of the finest trucks of this type, in the USA and still do. But the virus has killed my industry and business and career. And I'm still alive. Virus free. 65 years of age and there ain't no vaccines yet available for me. I'm not sitting in my car for 2 days. That's even more bullshit than convoluted reverbs. And I simply won't put up with such nonsense. On either side. Vaccines or convoluted reverbs. But hey. They are very convenient for you composers. It puts it in the right place in the space in your head. Or should that have been it puts it in the right space, in the place, in your head? I mean it puts it in your head in the right place and space with the right space and place you need it in your head. And you better have a very nice fully loaded very expensive state-of-the-art, computer to handle that load. And well if you are a nice wealthy British composer gentlemen. You might have this type of nice facility. Most won't and most don't.
My understanding is that convolution reverbs are created using a sample of the reflections in an actual space from an impulse sound, e.g. a starter pistol, not a frequency sweep as you described.
they do both
Thank you Guy, really useful content. I've been trying to work out the theory of using two reverbs for a while for my orchestral compositions. So, I'm going to try what you mentioned with the convolution reverb for placing the instrument in the room and then, couple with the algorithmic for the washy wonders. I assume for orchestral compositions, you use the same setup across all instruments so that they all sound like they're in the same place?
Can You please do ESKMO score writing in 13 reasons why please please please
And of course our lovely British composer has a lovely playback system. With the left and right channels definitely in phase. He's never realized though. As fine as his hearing is. As fine as his composing and production skills are. He's never realized. That while his speakers are most definitely both in phase together, yup. They are also 180° both out of Absolute Polarity. But composers do not need to know about norm be concerned about such things as proper monitoring. They are listening to their music they are composing. So they don't notice their monitors are in phase but in 100° of inverted polarity.
Yes that's funny, I know. But that's the way all of your speakers actually are. There is but one manufacturer that realized what a serious monitoring issue this was. They figured this out at least by 1968. It took me 10 years then. To figure out what was going on. Because I was not happy with my monitoring in my control room. And I knew I had built my control room very well, the right way. When I discovered, JBL Speakers, got it right. By indicating the positive and negative terminals backwards. On the back of their speakers. But everybody else does it mathematically accurately for, zero phase inversion. Where it must be done. At the power producing output. That moves the air with the speaker cones. And even Electrical Engineers and Acoustic Engineers, nearly 100% of them get this wrong. Because they believe in phase = good. Out of phase = bad. And the tooth fairy exists. So does Santa Claus and Jesus. But some of us don't believe in that. Some of us come from other belief systems and religions. And they are completely incompatible with all others. That all must be told. What they are listening to. And what they cannot hear. And that when you are listening to something incorrectly. Somebody else is telling you it's right. And they have the college degrees to prove it. That your hearing is wrong. Their math is right!
Unfortunately they are all academic idiots. That could not think anything through properly in the audio chain. And they got everything right. All the way up to the very output into the speakers. Where they get it wrong.
So those of you who are reading this at home. You could hear and understand what I'm talking about very simply. For yourself. This is a game changer. You're not going to believe it when you hear it. And it costs nothing. Absolutely nothing. To correct this stupid error. And here's how it works.
Most folks have a good old-fashioned hi-fi FM stereo receiver and integrated amplifier. Who doesn't? And with that. You get to select and choose. Whatever speakers you wish. To go with your stereo. And you've gotten a couple of good namebrand speakers. Or? You've gotten a couple of bargain-basement speakers. And on the back of the speakers are the 2 connection binding posts. To connect your speaker wires, to. And one is marked plus the other is marked minus or one is colored red and the other is colored black. In the red is the positive and the black is the negative..
And you look at your amplifier instruction manual. You look at the speaker instruction manual. Where it plainly shows you. To connect the output connection from the amplifiers plus terminal. To the plus terminal on your speakers. One for each channel left and right. And the minus terminals from your amplifier to the minus terminals of your speakers left and right. And well that is just flat wrong. It flies in the face of DC theory 101. Which goes like this.
You just got a brand-new flashlight as a Christmas present from your youngster. It requires 2 batteries to install. How do you install those batteries? Do you put the 2 plus terminals together or the 2 minus terminals together? And then what happens? Something's wrong with the flashlight. You return the flashlight. You get a better flashlight. You put the batteries in the flashlight. Yet it still will not work. The batteries must be bad.
So you return the batteries and get fresh batteries to put in your second brand-new flashlight. The better one. And the flashlight still does not work! It's called DC theory 101. You have to connect the positive terminal to the negative terminal in series. When you do that. Then the flashlight magically works! But that's DC. And our speakers and amplifiers produce AC. That's right. That is absolutely correct. But you still have to have the Absolute Polarity going in the right direction of the alternating current. Does the waveform first rise. Or does the waveform first fall? It rises it goes positive usually. Before it goes negative.
When they instruct you to connect your speakers the wrong way. They will still work. The left and right channels will both be in phase together. Because it's easy to tell when they are not. But they are also not both in the proper polarity together.
Notice I'm using the term phase and polarity, differently from one another. Because they are different. They are not the same. When you are dealing with and in the land of, Audio. Where Absolute Polarity determines. What your woofer is basically going to do. On the bass drum downbeat. And which direction it's primarily going to be moving in initially. In which direction should that be? This is a trick question. That you all are going to get absolutely right! Congratulations! I congratulate you before you answer.
You will all say. The woofer should be moving out toward you. And that would be absolutely correct. If only it was. It's not. It's sucking. It's actually sucking into the frame of the woofer metal scaffolding. And you are getting the out of polarity rebound sucking at you.
Meanwhile. As the woofer tries to direct its energy backwards. Into the speaker box. Not out toward you. Because the speaker box has no hole on the back. And it's sitting in front of your wall. Only low frequencies will be coming off the back of your speaker. Slapping against the wall behind it. Reflecting outward you in time delayed reflected proper polarity. When in midair. The sucking action from the front of the speakers. Basically is sucking the sound back in to the speaker. Which is not directing the sound toward you. Except for its out of polarity rebound. And your monitoring in stereo gets all wonky. If you are not rigidly in the center between your speakers, perfectly. You're only going to hear the speaker you are slightly closer to by an inch or so. Because the other one will be canceling out even better before it gets to your ears.
Guy, you have been such a bright light for me during 2020! Inspirational and helping me getting of My butt! Bought Seventh heaven on black friday also! Really good reverb!
Very helpful!
So I just searched for "Air Lyndhurst Reverb" because I wanted to see if there's a way of simulating that room for close mic'd sounds. And there, a Guy Michelmore video. But wait, it's only 6 hours old?!
How did you know?
Take a look to Mechanics hall in Altiverb. It sounds quite close to Air.
@@alexsandroaraujofreitas5145 thanks Alexsandro! Unfortunately, I don't own Altiverb
Have you used fab filter pro R ? Any thoughts on this as a versatile reverb plug in thanks
Thanks for the video Guy!! Did you ever tried the MIR PRO? If not, could you please try it once comparing with Altiverb? Thanks in advance. Cheers Alex
No , convolution reverb does not necessarily mean a sample of a real space. This is just one application of the impulse responses you can capture. Liquidsonics Reverberate for instance is mostly based on hardware impulse responses not real spaces. It has a tiny handful of real spaces and hundreds of hardware reverb impulse responses.
And for the past 38 years I have been reckoning with this early 70s, custom-built for NBC-TV, all discrete transistor, Rupert Neve audio console. And I just love the purity of sound from my fabulous British Neve console. The clarity of which is just like the River Thames. It's all nice and brown and gunky. Filled with fuzzy brown distortion pollution. To give your recordings just that right Air, about them. Like really good stink. From really good Skunk Weed or Baxter. And because I know why Rupert now despises the sound of my console which he designed back in 1970. When he told me. He made a lot of mistakes with his early transistor circuitry design.
Yes it's riddled with inappropriate, incorrect, mathematical equations and transistor specifications. An early whoops moment for the Master of Consoles. Because they are actually not the best nor the cleanest sounding consoles. They just have a lot of the bad wrong stuff in them. To make the bad wrong kind of nonlinear distortions. That we all know and love so well. Beautiful wonderful mistakes. That made for some real cool grungy recordings that could not sound any better. That would not have sounded any better. Had they been recorded and mixed on his latest circuitry. Which he has perfected. And which now sounds like everybody else's same junk. Cold, brittle, metallic, thin, edgy, squeaky, neutral, neutered. As many of us perceive that new stuff to sound like.
So I find much of the state-of-the-art to really be the state of the Fart. Yes we want perfection. No we don't need perfection. Humans are imperfect. Therefore our musical performances and recordings will have included with them human inaccuracies. To let you know. To assure you of. That you are actually listening to actual human beings. And not a computer.
And so what I have spoken about here folks. Is how to separate the Men from the Noise of the Boys. That are all self-professed audio experts. And can waive their college degree at you to prove it! See this dead sheepskin? It means I know something about audio! Really? What does a dead sheepskin sound like? How do you plug it back into the sheep? Oh you can't? Who knew? That you had nothing more than a dead sheepskin. And really have no idea what the FUCK you are listening to who. (In reference to that of self proclaimed and professed audio experts with degrees. If they got a degree? They likely also have Covid-19:-) Because while they might have their hearing and facemasks on. They don't realize you can catch it in your cornea. They couldn't see that far. That they also needed to be walking around with swimming goggles on also. Because they were taught that mucous membrane only met your mouth and inside your ass hole. And they protected those two entry points. Where there is actually only a single entry point. But I hear a lot of the British are gay like Americans. And everyone else all over the world. So some have something of a modified bidirectional port. That was never supposed to be an input. Let me be clear about that. And sometimes their equipment would blow up. When AIDS came to their rescue. It wasn't a rescue. It was AIDS. AIDS aiding AIDS. And two wrongs don't make a baby. But they keep trying. And they are still waiting for Jesus to return after 2000 years. What's the matter with this picture folks?
Welcome to the 21st century everybody! Time to wake up! Time to die! As you all try to outrun the Blade Runner's. With your speakers in reverse polarity. And you're going to get caught with your pants down and your ass up in the air. Because you are 180° out of polarity LOL. And no matter how hard you guys try. No baby comes out. Little babies do. That seemed to fit very conveniently. Into that porcelain port. And those little babies go for a swim and go bye-bye. That's the only babies that boys can produce. And the same is coming out of there speakers. Because your speakers are operating ass up in the air. I find it riotously funny! But it's really not funny at all.
Because I actually consider this simple stupid mindless idiotic error. That 99% of all the EE's and AE's with their college degrees, all make! And the entire Pro Audio Industry all believes in this single backwards religion.
And so I consider this to be the biggest technical Pro Audio FUCK Up. In Pro audio History. Because 99% of you out there. Can't think this through for yourselves. Don't know what you're listening to. Don't know what you are to listen for. You are willing to have other people tell you what you are hearing and what you can't hear. You follow their Bible. Their preaching. Without question. But you question and experiment with everything else in audio. But not that. Not that one thing. Because that would be blasphemous! In your audio religion. In your highly flawed and incorrect, audio religion.
Counterpoint: Using all the CPU is not the biggest problem of inline reverbs, IMO. That's what Threadrippers are for! :-)
Different reverbs on different tracks loses cohesion -- a send reverb sounds more unified IMO.
Melda MConvolutionEZ is another free one that sounds great.
Reverb makes the sound alive for me. I have a rather arcane setup because I write music only occasionally so anything I do is essentially "hobby". But siomne has been performed so maybe I'm a bit further along than I think.
What can I do if I work from a Finale platform with typing input. I just received a midi keyboard but the set up is soooo complicated for me. I will just have to join thinkspace I'm thinking.
hi please do you have a tutorial on how to make an effect mosty scream in horror film or tragic when a loved one dies and someone screams nooooooooo. it has this kind of echo but its not
Hi Guy ! I realize this video is a bit old, but I watch your videos when I can to try and learn something new. Do you personally use the in house reverb provided by Cubase? Like room works ?
Convolution is supposed to be better, but I prefer Lexicon PCM, can't seem to get any convolution to sit in big mixes nowhere near as well.
I own East West's Hollywood Orchestra, and it has a built in reverb for a variety of halls. I'm guessing that Spitfire and other libraries also have reverb options. My question is: If I want to use different libraries for different orchestral sections (CineSamples for percussion, Spitfire for strings, and EWQL for winds, for example) within the same piece, is it best practice to use the "dry" option on everything, and then run them all through a single bus with reverb, or will using the built in reverbs together work?
Hello ag
What's it's the best way to make reverb and all effects generally ?
On each vst instrument or make it on master piste tks
Very interesting and entertaining, as most of Guy's stuff is, but it would have been helpful to understand why reverb and delay are different. It confuses the hell out of me. I've just bought Waves CLA Epic in the hope that I don't have to think about this question.
Reverb is placement in space. Delays are echos. Reverb pushes things back. Delay adds extension to the sound (without moving the source backwards). Reverb makes bigger. Delays can bring focus.
I've never worked out how to use the send/buss reverb when bouncing stems or individual tracks for later mixing. If I bounced each stem or track individually along with the output from the reverb send channel, and then mix them together afterwards, is it the same as bouncing each one dry and then mixing together after with them all going through the reverb channel at the same time? Or does the reverb need to be used only once.
Best results on orchestral instruments is often a blend of convo and algo. Or if you happen to be in a studio with a real plate, try blending that in with an algo for stunning results.
Cheers! What are your thòughts on the cubase stock reverbs? How to they compare to those from the video?
Great stuff, Guy. PS - The sound and clarity on your last two vids seems to have dropped off a little. Not as clear as usual.
hi guy the terms are diffrent will need translations i dont see those words i see ratio and other terms can we have a word terms meanings hi guy you got your work very good my friend cheers from across the pond
Would you not advise putting a reverb on the master track?
Asking for everyone - what are you best/favorite kontakt libraries for making ambient music (that could fit chill game(s))? I got some libraries but looking for more.
Well I've been wanting to know how to route to an FX bus in Cubase 5 since... since I got Cubase 5. Which I still use. And now I know. When you were like 'Let me just start from scratch' I just lost my shit.
I would like to know everything about compressors please :3 .. i cant hear much difference from one to another honestly.