Re: OT: final mixing and mastering !Reverb

[andy butler <akbutler@tiscali.co.uk>]

Rick Walker wrote:

> Think about any natural acoustic space:

I try, but the chaps at Lexicon thought harder and better.

I certainly agree with you that far too often there's
too much reverb used, but I'd have reservations about
using convolution based reverbs as a panacea.

The problem with convolution based reverbs is that while they're
almost perfect to simulate a single instrument playing
a certain location within
a venue they're not optimal for, say, a string section.

In a string section because each instrument is situated at 
a different place then you ideally want to close mic each one,
and feed each through it's own dedicated convolution specicially
recorded with an impulse generated at it's exact location within the
ensemble.
Practically, that ain't gonna happen and you're going to run the 
whole ensemble through a single impulse. That produces comb filtering
related to the fact that you are simulating an acoustic space where
the whole string section is crammed into a singularity.

This is why, even with the easy availability of impulses from the
world's finest acoustic environments people are still prepared to pay
big money for an algorithmic reverb.

A cheaper hardware/plugin reverb device will have the same 'fault'
just described, in that it produces an effect that could be
duplicated by taking an impulse. That's why using convolution
with an impulse can usually sound better, indeed it's the 
best "value for money".

Those "big expensive jobs" have more going on in them, for 
instance using a
certain amount of randomisation of the delays in order to
avoid comb filtering.
As Matthias Grob would put it, "the Lexicon doesn't sound like
reverb, it sounds like space."

With all that in mind, one way to get something of the feel
of a real space without the enormous expense of a high end
reverb device would be to put a small reverb onto the individual
instruments then feed everything into the larger reverb
for acoustic space. That at least would mitigate the problem
of having everything being reverbed as if it was coming from
exactly the same space.

Obviously, this is all a slight simplification, as a reverb
effect can treat the two channels of a stereo mix slightly
differently...but the principle outlined still applies.

andy