Early Select -- the Bricasti M7 setting to know about!!

[MichaelPatrick]

I've been enjoying my M7 fand found out something today I wish I had known earlier, because it would have made it easier to find perfect settings for blending spot mics in live acoustic/orchestral recordings. The setting is Early Select.

According to Brian at Bricasti, the 20 Early Select settings provide a variety of early reflection characteristics, but the manual doesn't make this clear:

Early Select
Control Range: 0 – 19
Controls the build up and decay characteristics of the early part of the reverberant field.

Decay characteristics and buildup is one thing; In reality it lets you select what kind of stage you want -- i.e. what the near stage sounds like: Wide, narrow, deep, high, reflective, dead, etc. And it is mostly independent of late verb.

I think this a useful control for spot mic blending and it may even be more useful for creating a stage for very dry sources. Combined with VLF, Early Select can create a whole bunch of different sound stages. Yea!

I want more time to play!

[Larry Elliott]

Thanks for this Michael. I am sure the Bricasti has a lot of useful “tweaks” that are not described in the manual.

Larry

[Remoteness]

Very cool - thanks for sharing!

[David Rick]

I recently recorded a piano concerto and (of necessity) my piano spot sounded like one had one's head right inside the piano. Not having a Bricasti, I had to make do with Room Simulator, the convolutional reverb in Samplitude. Fortunately, Room Simulator allows one to draw an envelope over the impulse response, so I just "painted out" the reverb tail, leaving me with only early reflections. The ones in the "piano hall" program turned out to be just what I needed.

My Lexicon PCM-90 also has some early reflections programs, and my t.c. M3000 allows one to turn down the reverb tail. In this case, neither sounded as convincing as what I could do in Samplitude.

I'm curious about the Early Select control on the Bricasti. I gather there are 21 different reflection patterns, but do they also scale with the room size?

David L. Rick
Seventh String Recording

[MichaelPatrick]

Originally Posted by David Rick

I'm curious about the Early Select control on the Bricasti. I gather there are 21 different reflection patterns, but do they also scale with the room size?

Bob Katz says an algorithm available for the TC6000 has a very good, highly configurable EF engine. I believe it's also available for the TC4000, or I should say the TC literature seems to say as much. I don't have either, though, so I can't confirm a thing.

The Bricasti has 3 verbs: Early, Late, and VLF.

VLF deserves some explanation. It controls the level of LFs directly arriving from the Early stage, like the proximity effect you'd get sitting in a front row seat at a jazz concert -- you'd hear the upright bass differently than if you were 5 rows back. As I recall the only parameters for VLF are level and LP freq.

There are 21 Early Select presets and an amplitude control in the form of a ratio control for Early/Late. I call this the teter-totter.

Now, getting back to your question: The Late verb has all kinds of parameters but I don't know if of those alter how the Early verb sounds. If someone knows, please chime in!

P.S. I think the M7 is just amazing. I recently recorded a world class soprano very dryly, with piano, just to put the M7 to the test. I didn't disappoint me or my customers.

[butterfly]

P.S. I think the M7 is just amazing. I recently recorded a world class soprano very dryly, with piano, just to put the M7 to the test. I didn't disappoint me or my customers

Any chance of posting the before m7 and after?

[MichaelPatrick]

Originally Posted by butterfly

Any chance of posting the before m7 and after?

Here you go... Clip one is the dry vocal and clip two is the final, mixed with piano and Bricasti M7. I was going for a near seat sound in a small bright hall. I forget the M7 settings.

You'll hear piano bleed in the vocal -- that's how we tracked it. The piano was also tracked close up, at full stick with AB omnis under the hood.

Please note that the clips contain music that is owned and protected by copyright law. They are provided here for educational purposes under the fair use doctrine. U.S. Copyright Office - Fair Use

[Remoteness]

I love the subtle wetness used for this clip.

[bove]

Originally Posted by MichaelPatrick

Here you go... Clip one is the dry vocal and clip two is the final, mixed with piano and Bricasti M7. I was going for a near seat sound in a small bright hall. I forget the M7 settings.[/URL][/I]

What kind of room did you record this in?

[MichaelPatrick]

Originally Posted by bove

What kind of room did you record this in?

A small recital hall.

The reason I opened this thread is because I learned about Early Select after mixing the soprano. I tracked her dry in a decent room just to make an excuse to use the M7. I could have done better but, hey, I'm learning and loving the M7.

[mathieujm]

Originally Posted by MichaelPatrick

Here you go... Clip one is the dry vocal and clip two is the final, mixed with piano and Bricasti M7. I was going for a near seat sound in a small bright hall. I forget the M7 settings.

You'll hear piano bleed in the vocal -- that's how we tracked it. The piano was also tracked close up, at full stick with AB omnis under the hood.

Great !

But in the dry sample there is less piano than in the wet one. The mix is not the same ?

JMM

[MichaelPatrick]

Originally Posted by mathieujm

Great !

But in the dry sample there is less piano than in the wet one. The mix is not the same ?

JMM

The dry vocal clip is pre-mix. The piano was mic'd separately (also close-up) and you can hear it bleeding into the vocal mic.

[bove]

Originally Posted by MichaelPatrick

A small recital hall.

The reason I opened this thread is because I learned about Early Select after mixing the soprano. I tracked her dry in a decent room just to make an excuse to use the M7. I could have done better, but hey, I'm learning and loving the M7.

Sounds nice... and thanks for the info!

[Dave Ferris]

Originally Posted by MichaelPatrick

Here you go... Clip one is the dry vocal and clip two is the final, mixed with piano and Bricasti M7. I was going for a near seat sound in a small bright hall. I forget the M7 settings.

You'll hear piano bleed in the vocal -- that's how we tracked it. The piano was also tracked close up, at full stick with AB omnis under the hood.

Please note that the clips contain music that is owned and protected by copyright law. They are provided here for educational purposes under the fair use doctrine. U.S. Copyright Office - Fair Use

Very nice!

[aracu]

Originally Posted by MichaelPatrick

clip two is the final, mixed with piano and Bricasti M7. U.S. Copyright Office - Fair Use[/I]

Lovely use of reverb... listening through phones, gives a subtle touch of fantasy.

[mahasandi]

Originally Posted by MichaelPatrick

Control Range: 0 – 19
Controls the build up and decay characteristics of the early part of the reverberant field.
[/INDENT]Decay characteristics and buildup is one thing; In reality it lets you select what kind of stage you want -- i.e. what the near stage sounds like: Wide, narrow, deep, high, reflective, dead, etc. And it is mostly independent of late verb.

Thanks for brining this up, yet I'm not getting how wide deep narrow high etc. correlate
with 0-19 is it a linear narrow to wide?? i dont think so in use but just trying to understand...

the m7 is amazing, i adore the near/far mix parameter. with it you can seem to move the source closer or further from the 'mics'

[The MPCist]

Originally Posted by MichaelPatrick

Bob Katz says an algorithm available for the TC6000 has a very good, highly configurable EF engine.

Do you happen to know which one?

[MichaelPatrick]

Originally Posted by The MPCist

Do you happen to know which one?

I think this is the post: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/1052797-post27.html