What's the Best Reverb Plug-In you can get for Classical/Acoustic Music

[Gaston69]

What's the Best Reverb Plug-In you can get for Classical/Acoustic Music?

A lot of times I record orchestra's in a theater which have a lot of curtains behind the musicians, comfortable chairs for the audience etc etc which results in a very very dry acoustic. I use at the moment Space Designer within Logic/Waveburner to add a little bit reverb however I don't think it sounds bad but I would like to investigate if there are better options and I am not talking about hardware but software plug-in reverbs. What can you recommend?

Gaston

[Empiria]

I don't know which one is the best, but I'm satisfied using Altiverb. For sure, it's not like high end hardware, but very good in my opinion, specially for classical.

[summer_room]

I'm using Waves IR1, and i'm very happy with the venues and how I can shape the reverbs.

Haven't tried Altiverb.

-jon

[mathieujm]

I use Magix Variverb pro for this sort of work.

The difficulty here is to match the natural reverb and the artificial one. I do that very easily with Variverb HQ algos and tunings.

As most of the reverbs are studied as effect for dry sound, I was not very lucky with them for classical distant recordings.

I never was able to use a sampled acoustics Reverb for this. I think because the samples are too coloured to match with the colour of the original sound.

JMM

[loranoyd]

+1 for Altiverb. I tried it and Sonnox reverb. The end results were similar, but I find Altiverb more in tune with the way I work and hear things. It uses a highly visual interface, and I am a visual person. The reverbs and eVerbs that came with my DAW, Digital Performer, I found extremely disappointing. I purchased Altiverb before I upgraded to the new DP, so I have not bothered to try out their new convolution reverb. I, too, record classical music exclusively, and I generally prefer an untinkered-with sound. But, when recording in a bad venue (which is, unfortunately, where I end up most of the time), it's nice to know I can go in fairly close with the mics, eliminate most of the hall in the process, then put my orchestra into Esterhazy palace!

Regards,

Lloyd

[hanuman]

Altiverb is great for acoustical and classical music.
And that is an understatement.

[thenewyear]

I've used Sonnox a lot. I tend to start with the "Large Dead Chamber" preset because it doesn't fight with a pre-recorded acoustic and tweak from there.

Lots of props here for Altiverb so I may look at that in future.

[goldendye]

it's the best. Sometimes also Spacedesigner. Waves IR1 forget it. Or on the pC Side give a look to SIR2

[fifthcircle]

You can never have enough reverbs for doing classical work. Every room and for that matter, every piece needs something different.

I use a Lexicon 300 a lot here as well as Altiverb. I also have the IR1 plug and all the Magix stuff from Sequoia. For other gigs, I'll rent a Lex960 (usually when I need multiple engines). The best, hands down, though is the Bricasti. As somebody said to me when they heard it... "It sounds just like the way you want a room to sound." This was in comparison to an A-B of the "same" room in Altiverb.

--Ben

Edit- Oops! gotta read plugin. Altiverb and Sequoia's room sim are the ones I use the most, but IMO hardware still rules for quality.

[nas]

+1 Altiverb

[mljung]

I think it's a pity that so many use artificial reverbs for recordings made in real acoustics - capturing the room on location is just as much what we are here for; a room with music


Artificial reverb in classical location recordings is only for recordings with shortcomings in my view; a final resort. To me it kills a good recording but can of course, in some situations, and to some extent, help out a bad one.
Personally I almost always have dedicated room mics with me so I can ad extra room if I need to. If the room is lacking I prefer to tweak the sound of my room mikes long before considering artificial reverb.
If nothing else works or some client insists that she/he wants artificial it's good to have a few to chose from and sometimes blend two or three in small amounts.

Since it's free and nice for some uses I would recommend having Bootsie's epicVerb in your plugin folder. In some situations it may be what you need, check this link:
Variety Of Sound

[Brian Middleton]

Originally Posted by mljung

Artificial reverb in classical location recordings is only for recordings with shortcomings in my view; a final resort. To me it kills a good recording but can of course, in some situations, and to some extent, help out a bad one.
Personally I almost always have dedicated room mics with me so I can ad extra room if I need to. If the room is lacking I prefer to tweak the sound of my room mikes long before considering artificial reverb.

I think there are a couple of reasons why this approach won't work for everyone. The first and most obvious is that some rooms don't sound very good. In those situations adding room mics to the mix may be a step in the wrong direction.

Also, it sounds like you're assuming a recording without an audience. What about concert recordings, where any attempt to capture the room sound is likely to yield unacceptable levels of audience noise? In that situation you may have no choice but to add reverb after the fact--even if the reverb is an IR of the same room you recorded in.

[bongo]

I love the Dome Chapel Renswoude in Altiverb

[mljung]

Originally Posted by Brian Middleton

I think there are a couple of reasons why this approach won't work for everyone. The first and most obvious is that some rooms don't sound very good. In those situations adding room mics to the mix may be a step in the wrong direction.

Also, it sounds like you're assuming a recording without an audience. What about concert recordings, where any attempt to capture the room sound is likely to yield unacceptable levels of audience noise? In that situation you may have no choice but to add reverb after the fact--even if the reverb is an IR of the same room you recorded in.

Yes an IR would be a possibility - but a relatively well-disciplined audience won't destroy a live recording [room-mic's or not]

Anyhow I prefer a relatively dry acoustic over an artificial one; if it's a bad room it's a bad recording, and you can add artificial reverb to try to cover that, but in the end it won't be a good recording in my view.

I want to emphasize that I'm expressing my opinion - an ideal if you will; I don't like perfume to hide an ugly body-smell, but in some situations it's the best solution anyhow.

[Brian Middleton]

Originally Posted by mljung

but a relatively well-disciplined audience won't destroy a live recording [room-mic's or not]

True, and it would be wonderful if more audiences were well-disciplined. At some concerts I have been to recently, I have felt a strong desire to be personally responsible for disciplining the audience.

Anyway, I certainly agree that an authentic ambient recording is the best choice when the room and the circumstances allow it.

[brle]

Originally Posted by Brian Middleton

At some concerts I have been to recently, I have felt a strong desire to be personally responsible for disciplining the audience.

I just hope you´re not going to use your gun against
them.

[fifthcircle]

Originally Posted by mljung

I think it's a pity that so many use artificial reverbs for recordings made in real acoustics - capturing the room on location is just as much what we are here for; a room with music


Artificial reverb in classical location recordings is only for recordings with shortcomings in my view; a final resort. To me it kills a good recording but can of course, in some situations, and to some extent, help out a bad one.
Personally I almost always have dedicated room mics with me so I can ad extra room if I need to. If the room is lacking I prefer to tweak the sound of my room mikes long before considering artificial reverb.
If nothing else works or some client insists that she/he wants artificial it's good to have a few to chose from and sometimes blend two or three in small amounts.

I completely disagree

I think that digital reverb is absolutely a necessity in modern recording. It is nice to wax poetic about how the room is king and so on... For better or worse, the truth is that there are precious few rooms that are worth recording. I work in just about every big room here in Los Angeles with some degree of regularity (some only a couple times per year), but I can say that there is not a room in all of LA that doesn't benefit from some sort of digital reverb.

There are a couple really boomy churches that don't need much, but even on some of those, I may verb a spot mic or two to make the sound work. Some of those churches also really dry up when you get a big audience in them and that nice wet acoustic isn't so wet anymore.

IMO, there are also very few really good sounding plugin reverbs. There are several that are pretty good and will work in a good number of situations. All of them have been mentioned here. I do my best work, however, with hardware. The Bricasti is nothing short of amazing- better at creating the room and sense of ambience than anything else out there that I ahve used. As I mentioned in my earlier post, it sounds the way you want your rooms to sound, but they don't. Medium quality hardware doesn't cut it for me either... The tail just doesn't sound real enough. Many of the better plugs out there would fit IMO with the "medium quality" hardware in terms of the resolution.

Oh well, my two cents. Feel free to flame away.

--Ben

[videoteque]

Originally Posted by mljung

I think it's a pity that so many use artificial reverbs for recordings made in real acoustics - capturing the room on location is just as much what we are here for; a room with music

+1

For me remote-recording is about capturing an event. The event take place in an environment and I want to hear that environment.

A recording of a concert where you just hear close-miked instruments panned with a reverb is not what we are after, IMHO.

Of course, you must try to capture more the good things than the bad, to make it bigger than life!

So Gaston, you should put your mics further and no need for reverbs!!!

Now a good question is: how to judge direct/reverb ratio on location???

[mljung]

Originally Posted by fifthcircle

Oh well, my two cents. Feel free to flame away.

--Ben

I don't want to flame anyone - What I think I can say is that we respectfully disagree. I simply prefer [..and very much so] classical recordings without reverb, that's all..!

[Ozpeter]

I've always been troubled by the concept of convolution reverb from real spaces being applied to a recording made in another space. Fine if the original space is a dry studio, but if it's a natural performance space, then you end up with your head in two spaces, one real and the other artificially constructed. I'm even more troubled by the thought of recording over-close and multi-miked in a natural space in order to achieve a dryer sound, then adding reverb from somewhere else to that.

Personally I tend to use reverbs which seem to me to have little character of their own, and I bring the early reflections control to the minimum - again, two lots of early reflections (real and artificial) seems all wrong to me.

But it's all a matter of personal taste. At London's legendary Wigmore Hall, up in the BBC control room the hardware reverb unit could always be seen, and it wasn't often seen switched off!

[e-cue]

+4080 for Altiverb. Perfect for this application and new IR's updated on Audio Ease's website make it a very good value.

[BrianHanke]

Yep, Altiverb is great. It's an excellent value, sounds wonderful and gives you a ton of flexibility.

[Ozpeter]

Since it's free and nice for some uses I would recommend having Bootsie's epicVerb in your plugin folder.

Hey thanks for that suggestion - that's definitely one for the toolbox - I don't know how that one slipped under my radar.

[videoteque]

Originally Posted by fifthcircle

Oh well, my two cents. Feel free to flame away.

--Ben

No need to flame anybody, I have found people who make good products which I love, and where made exactly with the opposite mind-setting of me!!!

[mathieujm]

Originally Posted by Ozpeter

I've always been troubled by the concept of convolution reverb from real spaces being applied to a recording made in another space. Fine if the original space is a dry studio, but if it's a natural performance space, then you end up with your head in two spaces, one real and the other artificially constructed. I'm even more troubled by the thought of recording over-close and multi-miked in a natural space in order to achieve a dryer sound, then adding reverb from somewhere else to that.

Personally I tend to use reverbs which seem to me to have little character of their own, and I bring the early reflections control to the minimum - again, two lots of early reflections (real and artificial) seems all wrong to me.

I agree with you Ozpeter.

JMM

[boojum]

I can agree completely that a superb hall is the best of all possible worlds. I suspect that I will not be doing the Concertgebouw or any like it now, in the near future or any time at all. I was recently asked to record a chamber quartet performing in a small local rep theater. I had no time beforehand to set up in an appreciable manner. I was also restrained in mic placement by the usual "don't get in the way" request.

To be as unobotrusive as possible I ran a Schoeps MS (MK4 + MK8) with a set of active cables so that just the caps were on the mic stand. For the piano which was in two of the quartets I put a pair of DPA 4006 TL's as unobotrusively as possible in front of the half sticked lid. It had to be very close because of the demands of the situation. Not ideal at all. And the hall has poor acoustics.

A small touch of reverb is what is needed here to make it sound a little warmer. First choice solution? No. But the only tool I have to make the place and the recording sound a tad "better."

I am pretty sure that I am not the only person here who has often been presented with less than ideal situations. I just have to make the best of them. There is one pretty good venue I get into, and I am just hoping that someone approaches the Masons here in town about using their hall: shoebox shaped, high ceiling, wood floors and ornamented vertical surfaces. I would very much like to get my mics in front of a group in that place. Out here in the bush leagues we dream a lot.


Cheers