Creating depth without reverb

Hi Tom. As good as that UAD reverb may be, there are plenty of other ones that are very good at placing dry mic'ed samples in a room.

Also, there are now native versions of all UAD plugins so no need to buy the hardware anymore. Or isn't there yet for this one?

Check out this reverb:

There are cheaper options as well, such as Liquidsonics Seventh Heaven Core.

TomDabrowski said:

Hey,

I always struggle getting dry samples or samples that have been recorded in small studios in a big room. I don't mean reverb, I just mean depth.
For instance I use Tokyo Scoring Strings and the Cinematic Studio Series (CSS, CSB, etc.) quite a lot but since they have been recorded in a relatively small space, all the instruments sound pretty narrow. (especially TSS)

For reference what kind of depth I would like to create:

I recently learned about Ocean Way Studios from UAD and from what I've heard, it's the ultimate plugin for placing/re-placing close mic samples in a large room without them being washed out by additional reverb.
What puts me off at the moment is the price. I don't mean the price of the plugin, but the fact that I have to get an Apollo to use it. And they are anything but cheap.
And honestly, Ocean Way would (probably) be the only plugin I would actively use.

Now I'm wondering what you guys think. Does it make sense to get an Apollo Solo or Twin from UAD even though I will only be running one plugin with it? Or is that completely overkill?
Are there any alternatives that work nearly as well as Ocean Way Studios?
u
Cheers
Tom

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If you're talking about adding width and depth to instruments, you can use this plug-in:


I tried the demo of the first version and as long as you don't overdo it, it seems fine.
But I'm just a hobbyist so keep that in mind.

There’s also this, by our fellow forum friend @Joël Dollié

Henrik B. Jensen said:

If you're talking about adding width and depth to instruments, you can use this plug-in:

StageOne 2 - Leapwing Audio

Enhance the soundstage of your stereo mix, and even bring mono recordings to life

www.leapwingaudio.com

I tried the demo of the first version and as long as you don't overdo it, it seems fine.
But I'm just a hobbyist so keep that in mind.

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Mike just made this his plugin of the week.



Interesting one, thanks for making me aware of it Henrik!

doctoremmet said:

Mike just made this his plugin of the week.



Interesting one, thanks for making me aware of it Henrik!

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Hey that's great, I didn't see that. Thank you too!

doctoremmet said:

Hi Tom. As good as that UAD reverb may be, there are plenty of other ones that are very good at placing dry mic'ed samples in a room.

Also, there are now native versions of all UAD plugins so no need to buy the hardware anymore. Or isn't there yet for this one?

Check out this reverb:

Click to expand...

No unfortunately you still need an Apollo for Ocean Way.

But this plugin looks very promising! And it seems to be straight forward to use. I'll give the demo a try.
Thank you! (also for your other suggestions)

TomDabrowski said:

No unfortunately you still need an Apollo for Ocean Way.

But this plugin looks very promising! And it seems to be straight forward to use. I'll give the demo a try.
Thank you! (also for your other suggestions)

Click to expand...

There is an active thread about it on here and the developer @Peter Roos is also here to address any questions. I think it may suit your needs very well, without having to purchase into a hardware ecosystem.

Other options by the way would be VSL’s MIR 3D and IRCAM’s SPAT, to just mention two good ones.

I'm super happy with my Apollo USB, but I wouldn't buy one just for 1 plugin tbh. Especially when there's alternatives around like the ones mentioned above.

To this list I'm adding Eventide SP2016. I got it because @Joël Dollié recommended it to me. It's magical how it puts even driest samples in a room and tames those transients. It has become my second most used insert effect plugin.

I will add Altiverb and Liquidsonics to the list of plug-in possibilities. +1 for the Berlin Studio plugin.

Apologies if this has already been addressed! It's not just about which specific reverb tool you use (which is predominantly determined by personal taste), but how specifically you implement it that can spell the difference between a successful feeling of space/dimension/depth or not. I presume some of the videos linked above go into this. But it's important to use one instance of a good reverb algorithm on an aux channel and "send" all your instruments through that channel, rather than using a reverb as an insert on each channel. Not just to save on CPU use, either: by doing the preferred approach, the reverb behaves more like a virtual "space" in which the sounds going into it interact with each other and the space itself.

This makes for a much more convincing sense of depth and atmosphere, versus having it all sound like an overt "effect," which tends to happen when you just layer channels with insert-reverb-effect with different parameters. Which, don't get me wrong, can produce cool-sounding productions! Just not very realistic-sounding. Sometimes I don't want realistic, I want otherworldly imagination-land. But most of the time, the bussing your reverb is the way to go.

I don't really think the specific reverb matters all THAT much as long as it's beyond a certain quality threshold, which I think every product mentioned above meets. In addition to those, I'd recommend Valhalla Room for this purpose. It's easy to use and sounds damn pleasant.

TomDabrowski said:

I always struggle getting dry samples or samples that have been recorded in small studios in a big room. I don't mean reverb, I just mean depth.

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Tom, please don’t take this the wrong way but if you prefer a spacious, wide stringssound in your mixes, perhaps Tokyo Strings and/or CSS aren’t the best choices to begin with (no matter how fine both these libraries are). The Tokyos especially have a pronounced studio character — it’s part of their identity —, meaning it’s a sound with plenty of early reflections and if there’s one thing which screams “confinement”, it’s early reflections. (And you may not hear or recognize it as reverb, but it *is* reverb. Only, it’s a very short reverb rich in distinct early reflections. Unlike the reverb of a hall, which is typically much longer and has most of the early reflections (which aren’t nearly as early as those in a room) dissolved in the tail.

To add to your problems, early reflections are incredibly difficult to get rid off in samples. It’s that ‘room-y’ sound which is essentialy incompatible with a larger-than-room-y stage. People who use Spitfire’s Studio Series face similar difficulties everytime they want to use these libraries in a mix that’s spatially larger than the room the libraries were recorded in.

(For some reason, CSS’s spatial imprint is much more forgiving in this respect than that of either the Tokyos or the SF Studio Series, I find. I've heard examples of CSS that convincingly convey a larger-than-studio space.)

Adding still further to your Tokyo problem is the fact that this library doesn’t offer mic perspectives. Which, of course, makes complete sense for a library recorded in a smaller space, but which also robs you of the option to lower the signal of the room microphones (where nearly all the early reflections, and thus that feeling of confinement, reside) and focus on the close signal instead. A well-recorded close signal usually contains much less room and is therefore better suited for spatialization and imaging purposes. (The disadvantage here is that a close signal often also lacks the full-blooded presence of the recorded instrument. Especially noticeable with brass instruments.)

UA’s Ocean Way wouldn’t have been of much help here. Powerful tool, absolutely, but not the one to choose when hoping to enlarge the space and the image of roomy samples. Ocean Way has two modes of operation: one as a regular reverb (giving you the spatial response of Ocean Way) and the other being more a sort of re-mic’ing kind of process. Neither of these modes will get rid of the spatial confinement in samples. A bit maybe, yes, but certainly not to the extent that you're hoping for.

I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer in the way of solutions. Early reflections are very troublesome buggars if you don’t want them. One obvious solution — and the best one, really — is to use different libraries. Pick a library recorded in a bigger space and your problems are over.

And if that’s not an option, maybe you can experiment with a deverberation tool; a sophisticated expander/filter, in other words. I can’t guarantee success, in fact, I'm not very optimistic to be honest, but maybe, just maybe a good deverberation tool might get rid of some of the most pronounced early reflections, after which it should be easier to add some degree of the depth and width to your string tracks that you’re looking for.

__

re-peat said:

(For some reason, CSS’s spatial imprint is much more forgiving in this respect than that of either the Tokyos or the SF Studio Series, I find. I've heard examples of CSS that convincingly convey a larger-than-studio space.)

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That's because the Simon Leadley Scoring Stage at Trackdown Studios, where the Cinematic "Studio" series was recorded, is 440 sqm which is nearly the size of Teldex. It's a horribly deceptive name for the series as it's nothing like a studio sound.

I'm no expert but I've had some success using LX480 Essentials (got it for free with my audio interface) with an ambient preset to push stuff back a bit. There's many decent algorithmic reverbs that could do it. You can then put a larger reverb on as you see fit.

EQ, panning and compression all can work to create width and depth to the imaging.

Here is my first result using the Berlin Studio Reverb.
I've used TSS (only close mics), CSB (main mics) and EW Hollywood Orchestra Timpani.

I pretty like this plugin so far!

In addition to reverbs and eq, I really like using Proximity by Tokyo Dawn Labs (it's one of their free plugins, though I think it's considered a legacy plugin now). It's seems to be a collection of different effects used to give the impression of distance all wrapped in one plugin and you adjust all sorts of different things. Probably best when used fairly subtly, but I've got it on almost every one of my instruments in my template to one degree or another.

syrinx said:

I'm no expert but I've had some success using LX480 Essentials (got it for free with my audio interface) with an ambient preset to push stuff back a bit. There's many decent algorithmic reverbs that could do it. You can then put a larger reverb on as you see fit.

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That's essentially my standard MO for reverbs for almost everything. One for ambience to put the sound "in the room", and another with a longer tail.

The UA 480L Reverb is excellent for dialing this up. I would recommend it over the Ocean Way plugin.