Anyone Using Altiverb?

[Oliver_Codd]

Hey all,

I recently got my hands on Altiverb...some really nice impulse responses in there! I was wondering if anyone has any experience using it with EW products and could share some of their knowledge. I've been using it on the master channel but haven't quite been able to get the right sound.. It's more complicated then any other reverb plugin I've used before. Any advice would be great!

-Oliver

[A.Leung]

Altiverb really excels when using dryer samples and since East West is pretty wet the reverb is usually good enough.

Altiverb might help in adding a sort of overall reverb to your mix to help ‘gel’ it if your using different samples libraries.

The below tips are mainly for dry samples (like VSL) East West takes less work to get it to sound good and after seeing the below you may appreciate East West more. Dryer samples do take more work but are more flexible in your mix. Of course if your using close mics on your east West material the below can apply as well.
The signal must be completely wet--because the mixing of reverb to original signal is done inside Altiverb, along with all the other processing.
if your mix sounds too wet and too distant, you need to use a smaller room or keep the one you have chosen, but move the stage positioning speakers closer downstage (to the front). Also, sometimes with some IR's we loose the detail of the instruments, we can get that back by using a reasonable amount of high frequency boost in Altiverb's EQ.

Ideally, every individual midi track gets recorded to it's own audio track.

All Woodwinds audio tracks get routed to a stereo group fader and named accordingnly.
All Brass........ audio tracks get routed to a stereo group fader and named accordingnly.
All Percussion. audio tracks get routed to a stereo group fader and named accordingnly.
All Strings...... audio tracks get routed to a stereo group fader and named accordingnly.

Each of these "group" faders are not routed to the final master or mix track, instead, they are routed to four additional stereo groups where the same Altiverb Room IR is inserted into each but with different mic distance to accommodate each section properly. It is critical that each of these four separate Altiverb IR's be modified (with stage positioning) to suite your own taste for the distance that you want to achieve of each orchestral section...
Here are some examples:

AUDIO TRACKS TO GROUPS
all woodwinds. audio tracks output should be assigned to bus 1-2
all brass.........audio tracks output should be assigned to.bus 3-4
all percussion. audio tracks output should be assigned to.bus 5-6
all strings.......audio tracks output should be assigned to.bus 7-8

GROUP MASTER INPUTS
woods. group master input should be assigned to.bus 1-2
brass.. group master input should be assigned to.bus 3-4
perc... group master input should be assigned to.bus 5-6
strings group master input should be assigned to.bus 7-8

GROUP MASTER OUTPUTS
woods. group master output should be assigned to.bus 9-10
brass.. group master output should be assigned to.bus 11-12
perc... group master output should be assigned to.bus 13-14
strings group master output should be assigned to.bus 15-16

REVERB GROUP INPUTS
woodverb input should be assigned to bus 9-10
brassverb input should be assigned to bus 11-12
percverb input should be assigned to bus 13-14
stringverb input should be assigned to bus 15-16

REVERB GROUPS OUTPUT
All four should be assigned to your final stereo "MIX" audio track.

I actually like using my Altiverbs PREFADER which means the level (fader) of each individul tracl controls the AMOUNT of reverb on that instrument.

I also use 4 Altiverbs per instrument family to shape the sound more exactly. THere are templates out there for these types of settings and some of them are quite excellent. I recently had a template sent to me that put me right into a room we used to record at and I was blown away by how much it sounded like the room. Of course a tremendous amount of horsepower is required to run that many instances of Altiverb.

(*thanks to DP DAN for for outlining some of the above.)

[Oliver_Codd]

Hi Allen,

First of all thank you very much for the help! I have a basic understanding of what your saying but I get a little confused when it comes to the input/output parts. So I get the part where I group my sections to separate buses and give each bus it's own instance of Altiverb. I'm assuming I would locate each group as they would be on stage as an orchestra. One thing I have noticed is that some of the IRs are stereo while others are mono. Which should I use for the individual groups? It would be very convenient if you could route all of your buses to different locations in the room on only one instance of Altiverb instead of spreading it out to 4 instances... I worry that having them separated prevents them from blending the way they would in reality. Now I'm having trouble understanding the master in and outs and the reverb in and outs.. If you could explain that a little more i would be very thankful!

[A.Leung]

Oliver. The first thing you want to do is decide how you want to work with Altiverb. Do you want the track level Prefader to control the amount of reverb or are you working post fader? Did you want to record the parts first -render to audio then treat them with reverb or did you want all of your midid tracks to be affected with reverb? All of your choices determine what settings should be enabled on Altiverb itself. Many parts of Altiverb can be 'turned off' or disabled depending on how your working.

To answer your questions off the top of my head: Yes you locate the instruments as they would appear on a stage using altiverb although (and this is important) East Wests instruments are recorded PANNED already. AND if your using Logic if you wanted to PAN something more you need to use the DirMixer to properly place things center before using altiverb.

You would use the Stereo irs of Altiverb not the monos (Unless you were after some sort of mono effect)

I don't know how recently you picked up Altiverb but before recommending Altiverb to anyone these days I would first suggest a look at The Vienna suite series since the power panning and IR reverb convos are great. (A bit costly mind you)

But Altiverb is a powerful unit and the number of IRs available are unprecedented in any IR plugin.

I think there are a series of tutorials on the Audio Ease site. Those help quite a bit. I can also scrounge around for another series of tutorials that may be more helpful in terms of Altiverb used in an orchestral application. PM me to remind me-I'll see what I can find.

I'll be honest and say that most people who get the most out of Altiverb tend to be mixing dryer samples or various sample libraries together. If your using strictly East West Play orchestra for example your Altiverb set-up would be minimal at best.

[Oliver_Codd]

Great I will start watching these tutorials...Thanks again for all your help Allen

[Benedict Nichols]

hey allen

you mention using DirMixer for panning EWs pre-panned instruments inside logic. Is that because you want to pan pre-fader/pan (even tho there is a sep setting for that) of is there some mathematical acoustic reason? does DirMixer's panning do something different to track panner? its something ive often wondered about.

Thanks

[A.Leung]

@ Oliver, I PM'ed you with some good orchestral tutorials reg. Altiverb

@ Benedict, Logic has an odd way of panning in its track panning column. It is not a TRUE panning of the stereo signal. If you want a true panning of the stereo signal you have to set the pan in the track column at Zero then instantiate a Dir Mixer and use IT to set your spread. This is not the case in other DAWs.

But again - since East West instruments are already panned its best to not try and change that because you would be trying to pan a signal thats already set to a locked stereo field. But if you HAD to I would use a Directional mixer rather than Logics panner. It would be more accurate and the stereo data thats there would be more intact and preserved then if you used Logics track panner.

Thats also why most of the advice given above really relates to dryer samples.

Theres nothing WRONG with using Altiverb with EWQLSO. If you were to do that you could use the close mics only and then add your favorite Altiverb setting to that. Eastr West has a realy good convo built in though. One of the smoothest I've heard.

[Composer_1984]

My question's a little off topic, but still to do with Altiverb -

Allen - do you know if there's a way that presets saved with the AU version of Altiverb can be used/imported into a VST instance of Altiverb?

Or if there's a converter app out there? Or will I have to manually recreate all my presets again from within the VST instance of Altiverb?

Thanks for the help!

[claude]

Originally Posted by A.Leung

@ Oliver, I PM'ed you with some good orchestral tutorials reg. Altiverb

Hey Allen, any chance you may post these publicly? I'm real interested too ; )

Best,

Claude

[Benedict Nichols]

cheers allen