Positioning effects - spatial reverb and/or similar to mimic a live performance?

I want to say VSL's MIR, though I don't have it. It is on my wishlist. if you decide to get it, I would buy the vouchers first. They are buy 3, get one free, so an automatic 25% off.

They other one I know of is the Breeze/Precedence combination. However, the guy that sells it and the guy that wrote the actual programming are not on speaking terms. If you are on Windows, you should be fine.

dzilizzi said:

I want to say VSL's MIR, though I don't have it. It is on my wishlist. if you decide to get it, I would buy the vouchers first. They are buy 3, get one free, so an automatic 25% off.

They other one I know of is the Breeze/Precedence combination. However, the guy that sells it and the guy that wrote the actual programming are not on speaking terms. If you are on Windows, you should be fine.

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There are unfortunately relatively few options for this that aren't abandoned or really big investments.

You might check out MeldaProductions reverbs, which are still 50% off for one more day and have demos. I think MReverb ($20 right now) and MTurboReverbLE ($75 right now) have some positioning capabilities that you might want to check out before going all the way to MIR. (I haven't tried them yet, since I already have MIR.)

EAReverb is another option, but I've never used it.

Panagrment 2 seems like it could do it? I only tried it briefly so I'm not 100% sure but it's free so wortg checking out.

Smiling-Mo said:

add occasional movement to them them like a performer going up front as the focus giving a 'live' feel.

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Most of the bigger versions of these (MIR, Precedence) don't have automation to move players around the space, since they need to calculate each new position. You can always put sections on different tracks and fade between them, though.

MIR is the best for this, but obviously an investment. Honestly I don't know that I'd bother with anything else in this realm, just regular pans and a good standard reverb (Valhalla, Exponential, Liquidsonics, there's 90000000 threads in the Mixing forum) will work fine enough. MIR is absolutely worth it if you find yourself needing more.

VSL also has a great series of pans and imagers in their Vienna Suite Pro. Can throw that signal just about anywhere with practice.

Smiling-Mo said:

(...) add occasional movement to them them like a performer going up front as the focus giving a 'live' feel.

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Flux's Ircam SPAT (v3) excels at this. Not just generating a very believable space (as believable as anything convolution-based and sonically often much more solid too), but also moving things around in it, as slow or as fast as you like and in any direction, without the software ever indicating by way of clicks or crackles that it struggles with what it’s being asked to do. Quite amazing. (One of the ways I like to use it, is to mimick ‘microphone technique’, viz. when a singer or instrumentalist adjusts his/her projection direction or the distance to microphone depending on how loud the next phrase is going to be. Can be simulated to absolute perfection in SPAT.)

Here’s a 4 minute example with SampleModeling’s The Trumpet exploring every corner of the space this little excercise lives in. (The second part of the video, from the moment I switch to SPAT sporting its light GUI, shows the snaredrum being moved around as well.)
(The example is a few years old and was fairly quickly made at the time, so please allow for a bit of roughness in both the music and the video.)

The sad problem is that this software isn’t available anymore. (That is, v3 isn ’t available anymore since it was replaced by SPAT Revolution which is even more powerful but also much more unwieldy to work with.) Very rarely you may come across a copy of v3 second-hand, in which case I would suggest jumping at the chance with all the speed and funds you can gather, but it’s only very, very, very rarely.

Should you be so fortunate to happen to be able to lay your hands on it, and you’re working on a Mac of recent build and running a recent OS, you will also discover that the AudioUnit of SPAT v3 (which is fairly old software) doesn’t get validated in LogicPro. But there’s perfect work-around for this by loading the AU (or even the VST-version of the plugin) in DDMF Metaplug or, my current choice, Nugen’s SigMod, both of which *can* be loaded in LogicPro and function flawlessly as hosts for otherwise incompatible AU-plugins.

_

Well, there is also Inspirata with tons of spaces and positioning feature. It is fantastic reverb but it's heavy on resources (both RAM and CPU) and development seems to be stuck (no new version since February). Also only very expensive Professional version allows to route multiple instruments into one Inspirata instance. Also I paid for Personal version much less than current sale price so take that into consideration as well, not sure if I will buy it at current price. But at it's core it is really great tool.

This simple but effective plugin is getting a lot of love at Gearspace, and seems well suited to contemporary band/pop/jazz applications. It’s a reverb & positioning plugin - cost is 40 Euros:

Smiling-Mo said:

I've seen a few options floating around (Virtual Sound Stage, etc) and I'm honestly not 100% sure what I really need., or even what I should be looking for.

I'm not the best at figuring out reflections/tails/etc from reverb effects to nail positioning, so am hoping to find something that will do it for me visually like VSS, but without the bloat -- just something simple that is believable 'enough'.

My plan is simple -- Piano main with 2-3 solo instruments backing, occasionally drums. I just want the solo instruments to sound like they actually are around or in front of the piano, and add occasional movement to them them like a performer going up front as the focus giving a 'live' feel.

Any suggestions would be most helpful and appreciated.

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https://www.meldaproduction.com/MReverbMB 24 euros for 3 hours

Some of the suggestions in this thread might be useful.


I tend to use DearVR Pro unless I am just doing it with standard low pass, pan and volume, alteration of early reflections.

DearVR Pro can sometimes be bought for about $30-40 from Plugin Alliance. But it does not have an overall view showing every instance. You have to look at the different instances separately.

It is definitely worth trialling a few likely prospects, so you can identify one that might work best for you. Then you can keep an eye out for any sales.

Thank you all for your thoughtful replies, really appreciate it! I'll try a few of those out, I'm sure to find something I could use from your suggestions.

By the way, folks around here are the most helpful community of all the music communities/forums (gs, kvr, etc) around by miles. Thanks again.

@Kent just posted this donationware plugin: