Altiverb vs Briscati?

[supoUSA]

Let the war begin - GO! (Seriously, for Orchestral Recording desiring realistic, three dimensional phenom results, which do I get (I only have so much money). Imaging, realism, dimension is the priority.

Thanks.

WORKING scoring engineer, that hardware reverbs tend to sound a little better than software reverbs. He was comparing the TC6000 to Altiverb at the time. Don't know about the Bricasti. (although it's hyped around here 'til no end....)

[rack gear]

warners bros studios, building 150, stage 9

this summer

transformers
terminator
fame

altiverb

[fifthcircle]

Altiverb is great and certainly has its place. However, that said, the Bricasti absolutely smokes it. I own both and if I'm looking for quality, I use the hardware. If I'm looking for quick and easy, I go with the plugin (which is good enough, but nowhere near the quality),

--Ben

[bcgood]

I'm curious if anyone's used Altiverb at really high sample rates such as 24 bit 192 KHz?

It seems that it would make the emulation that much more realistic.

[vudoo]

Altiverb is great and certainly has its place. However, that said, the Bricasti absolutely smokes it. I own both and if I'm looking for quality, I use the hardware. If I'm looking for quick and easy, I go with the plugin (which is good enough, but nowhere near the quality),

I actually find Altiverb to be just as good or even better for certain applications ( post and orchestral definitely being one of them ).

[bcgood]

Looks like it only supports up to 96.

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Altiverb 6 Regular is the Post and music production industry standard stereo convolution reverb. It comes with the renowned full library of impulse responses. Below you can click through pictures that reveal most of Altiverb's features at a glance. Read on to find out about the features that are not visible in the interface.

Altiverb 6 Regular

* Windows: VST, RTAS and Audio Suite.
* Mac OS X: MAS, Audio Unit, RTAS and Audio Suite, Universal Binaries for both Power PC and Mac-Intel
Power PC VST
* The Full Altiverb Impulse Response library
* Full parameter automation
* an impulse response browser that replaces the impulse response popup menu.
* mono to mono, mono to stereo, and stereo to stereo channel configurations.
* supported sample rates up to and including 96 kHz.
* 40 automation preset memories for total-recall via parameter automation.
* iLok or Challenge-Response authorization.
* Sample your own spaces or gear (Mac only)

Altiverb 6 XL
this version adds to Altiverb 6 Regular:

* All channel configurations up to 5.1 surround.
* TDM support, on Mac OS X for all HD DSP chips, Accel and non-Accel and expansion chassis. TDM sample rates supported: 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, 88.2 kHz and 96 kHz
zero TDM latency at 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz. At 96 kHz sample rate 2 milliseconds latency (0.002 seconds or 200 samples)
* supported sample rates for RTAS, VST, AU, MAS and Audio Suite up to and including 384 kHz.

Typical Altiverb 6 XL TDM system usage examples at 48 kHz:

* mono to stereo Small Concert Hall with a 2.1 second reverb tail takes one HD|Accel chip.
* mono to stereo Large Concert Hall with a 4.2 second reverb tail takes two HD|Accel chips.
* mono to quad Church of 4.2 seconds takes four HD|Accel chips.

In addition work on support for HD (non-Accel) chips is well underway. It is not likely that we will be ready in time for the Altiverb 6 release, so regular HD chip support will be included in Altiverb 6.1 XL. We ask for your patience.

[steveschizoid]

Originally Posted by supoUSA

Let the war begin - GO! (Seriously, for Orchestral Recording desiring realistic, three dimensional phenom results, which do I get (I only have so much money). Imaging, realism, dimension is the priority.

Thanks.

The war is over. Imaging, realism, dimension is exactly what the Bricasti does best. If you acquire one, the first moment when you hear it at your desk, you will be absolutely stunned how realistic it sounds. (Though I am looking to forward to hearing what they come up with in V2 as far as "bigger than life," reverb as an effect type sounds.)

All I have for direct comparison is the UAD plate and Waves IR-1, and neither of those get used at all anymore. Sometimes I'll instantiate the UAD temporarily until I get around to rendering that track through a Bricasti plate - otherwise I usually set the M7 up with a room sound as a send effect.

Tekis, you can call the prevailing attitude concerning the M7 "hype," but I believe "enthusiasm" (well earned) would be more accurate. I will certainly forget the first time I fired it up with one of my mixes. For gits and shiggles I just sent a portion of the entire mix to a hall preset - which, with any software reverb I've ever heard, I'd expect to result in an unnatural, muddy, indistinct mess - and I was floored by what I heard; it sounded just like a well mixed band playing together in a big lively space!!!

If you are even asking this question, you might as well just resign yourself to spending the next $3500 of disposable income you can muster on an M7.

[feck]

I did a good deal of side by side a/b'ing and testing with the Altiverb M7 impulses and the hardware. The hardware is "alive" and dynamic as the tails decay, most notably in the stereo imaging depth and shifting. The impulses are static. In many cases it isn't a big deal or very noticeable. In others it is. Overall, if I do a mix with 7 or 8 different printed hardware verbs as opposed to Altiverb, the stereo imaging and depth is noticeably deeper and more alive. There is no question about it, the only question is whether the difference is worth the cost/time/effort to the individual user.

[Jack Ruston]

The Bricasti sounds quite a lot better than convolution reverb. Whatever the difference is, the result is not subtle.

[TonyBelmont]

Originally Posted by steveschizoid

The war is over. Imaging, realism, dimension is exactly what the Bricasti does best. If you acquire one, the first moment when you hear it at your desk, you will be absolutely stunned how realistic it sounds. (Though I am looking to forward to hearing what they come up with in V2 as far as "bigger than life," reverb as an effect type sounds.)

All I have for direct comparison is the UAD plate and Waves IR-1, and neither of those get used at all anymore. Sometimes I'll instantiate the UAD temporarily until I get around to rendering that track through a Bricasti plate - otherwise I usually set the M7 up with a room sound as a send effect.

Tekis, you can call the prevailing attitude concerning the M7 "hype," but I believe "enthusiasm" (well earned) would be more accurate. I will certainly forget the first time I fired it up with one of my mixes. For gits and shiggles I just sent a portion of the entire mix to a hall preset - which, with any software reverb I've ever heard, I'd expect to result in an unnatural, muddy, indistinct mess - and I was floored by what I heard; it sounded just like well mixed band playing together in a big lively space!!!

If you are even asking this question, you might as well just resign yourself to spending the next $3500 of disposable income you can muster on an M7.

Altiverb is a great plugin... But, the M7 is something that no plugin can compare to.

[Barish]

Originally Posted by Jack Ruston

The Bricasti sounds quite a lot better than convolution reverb. Whatever the difference is, the result is not subtle.

What Jack said. We've been comparing M7 with many of the usual suspects from hardware and software domain for sometime and the verdict so far is that the software reverbs can't even touch it. It's like you are losing one of the dimensions as soon as you switch to plugins from M7, even though you know that you thought the plugin had a pretty good stage literally a few seconds ago.

I'd love to keep comparing until the plugins got better than Bri, but for the moment, I think they are not just as good and I doubt that they ever will.

B.

[jamwerks]

Originally Posted by redvelvetstudios

warners bros studios, building 150, stage 9

this summer

transformers
terminator
fame

TDM Aliverb costs around a 1000$. 7 Briscasti's cost a tad bit more. Come on Warner Bros! Didn't those films make you any money?

[feck]

Originally Posted by jamwerks

TDM Aliverb costs around a 1000$. 7 Briscasti's cost a tad bit more. Come on Warner Bros! Didn't those films make you any money?

Hahaha!

[Hysteria]

The thing that struck me the other day was that the barrier to convolution in the old days was lack of processor power.

Now we have (more than) enough power on our Macs and PCs we can do (sample real spaces) what might have been done first if the computing resource was available.

But the (I'm finally getting to the point) thing with the Bricasti is that it's horsepower is by far and beyond that of a desktop computer (for reverb). So now the situation has changed in that we have processing power in a dedicated 'synthentic' reverb well in excess of that needed for convolution.

What really send my head spinning was that you might be able to get close (some would say very close, others not, I don't know) to the original by using convolution on a less powerful platfom.

I don't really know what point I'm trying to make if any, but I had to share.

[The MPCist]

I don't see how Altiverb could win over any of the hardware reverb boxes out there such as the TC6000/Lex960/BriM7......

[tamasdragon]

Altiverb is very good. So it is getting close to hardware reverbs, so the real question is do the op really have to spend big cash on those hardware boxes?
In post production for example Altiverb gets much love, and with a reason.
TD

[Doc Mixwell]

Originally Posted by supoUSA

Let the war begin - GO! (Seriously, for Orchestral Recording desiring realistic, three dimensional phenom results, which do I get (I only have so much money). Imaging, realism, dimension is the priority.

Thanks.

Please listen to the M7 so this war will end.

[Tube World]

You forget there are Briscati impulses you can use with your convol reverb as well. In a mix, I doubt anyone would care which one you used.

[jamwerks]

Our ears are used to spaces being the most nature sounding reverbs for orchestras (ie non tricks or modulation). Altiverb does that well. And Altiverb also has a stage position implementation which is great for giving a sense of real space (left-right, and front back). I've heard some great orchestral mock ups with Altiverb for the early reflections (as many as 11 different instances for corresponding stage positions), and then 1 M7 for the tail. The sample mock-ups really benfit from the stage positions.

But for real orchestras (and everything else) Bricasti wins out.

Briscasti needs to send a couple of units to Warner so they can hear what they've been missing.

[DarkSky Media]

Originally Posted by supoUSA

Let the war begin - GO!

I'm afraid this is a "war" that was over before it began.

Maybe there will be a time in the future when the best plug verbs (including M7 impulses...) will pose a threat to the hardware M7 - they already have cheapness and convenience on their side - but sonically, the best of the current offerings still aren't in the same class as the M7.

[vernier]

It's Bricasti, not Briscati.

[DarkSky Media]

Originally Posted by vernier

It's Bricasti, not Briscati.

Mmnnn... The Biscotti M7. It's mouth-watering!!

[fifthcircle]

As I said before, having both has its points, but the hardware smokes the software. I know there are Bricasti impulses, but they are a faint comparison to the real thing. Why? There are so many ways that you can "tweak" your reverbs in the box- ways that you just can't in the software. It is those tweaks that make things settle in the mix.

When I first tried the Bricasti, I tried using a hall for an orchestral project that was also in Altiverb (Mechanics Hall in MA). At identical levels, the bricasti sat in the mix wheras the Altiverb called attention to itself as being more of a reverb effect. I could dial in a lot more of the Bricasti before I started to hear "reverb" and even then, it still sounded more natural.

From that point on I was sold. Use of the box has just sold me that much more.

One last example- This summer, I did a solo piano thing (classical) where I had a Lexicon 960 during tracking (a show). When I brought it home, I ran the program through the Bricasti and my mouth dropped open at the realism. I sent samples to a number of friends and it was an almost unanimous choice of the Bricast over the Lexicon.

--Ben

[hernanperez2000]

The hardware smokes the software at least until today.

Frankly there is no contest between a convolution plug-in and high-end hardware like bricasti m7, 480, 300, PCM96, tc6000, etc. Everything has more life. Although Altiverb is very good and perfectly usable in some cases.

[Cabbage]

Originally Posted by bcgood

I'm curious if anyone's used Altiverb at really high sample rates such as 24 bit 192 KHz?

It seems that it would make the emulation that much more realistic.

That would depend on the detail you have in the impulse response.
Petter

[redroom]

Originally Posted by TonyBelmont

Altiverb is a great plugin... But, the M7 is something that no plugin can compare to.

Even Nebula?

[TonyBelmont]

Originally Posted by redroom

Even Nebula?

tutt

You can't replicate the M7 with IR's from the M7... it sounds different (I've tried).

[bakerman]

I'm trying out an M7 at the moment. Today I was playing around with a few sessions and used 3 settings (tweaked them a touch for each track) over the course of about 3 hours! The Bricasti sat in the mix and felt right every time. It sounds pretty amazing I agree.

[redroom]

Originally Posted by TonyBelmont

tutt

You can't replicate the M7 with IR's from the M7... it sounds different (I've tried).

But you have not tried the same using Nebula

Nebula is Dynamic and captures all the modulation Harmonics and space over time and is not a simple snap shot

There are reverbs in Nebula that are simply amazing and when I compare
lets say the PCM Vocal plate II to the same one in Altiverb the Altiverb impulse sounds
flat and lifeless.Ive owned more than one PCM70 and the Nebula presets are scarily
close.