Reverb and Echo … extreme examples

[AudioHTIT]

As a guitar player who started in the ‘primitive’ analog days, tremolo and reverb were the first effects most of us had access to, and often these effects were built into our guitar amps. Echo used to require a three head tape deck and mixer (which wasn’t very convenient), but eventually it made its way to effect pedals as well — first in analog, then digital form.

Here are a couple (acoustic) examples of extremely long reverb, and echo (the latter used as a second musician).

www.bksv.com/en/knowledge/blog/perspectives/longest-reverb

[405x5]

Apr 20, 2023 11:44:11 GMT -5 AudioHTIT said:

As a guitar player who started in the ‘primitive’ analog days, tremolo and reverb were the first effects most of us had access to, and often these effects were built into our guitar amps. Echo used to require a three head tape deck and mixer (which wasn’t very convenient), but eventually it made its way to effect pedals as well — first in analog, then digital form.

Here are a couple (acoustic) examples of extremely long reverb, and echo (the latter used as a second musician).

www.bksv.com/en/knowledge/blog/perspectives/longest-reverb

That was extremely cool and fun… Something that in the wake of Dolby, Atmos, and other things, is largely lost, IMHO.

If those special effects can be used in recording live performance, which they often are, one could then ask why is it such a mortal sin to have such capability in your own home playback system?

All of today’s competing processors go out of their way to force the hand of everything being bit perfect reproduction. That’s fine, but I miss having the sheer fun of playing with the sound effects that I had in my former AV processor…….will just call it echo now for the moment.

Not only was it tons of fun (I actually still have my Sunfire boxed away). But it added some very redeeming quality to old recordings, that just plain sucked not to put to find a point on it. now there’s nothing left to do but to live with the “Accuracy”.

[KeithL]

I should point out that...
If you really like that sort of thing...
And if your vintage recordings are already in digital format...
ALL of those cool effects are available in various plugins for your favorite digital audio editor...
And lots more... lots cooler... and many of them are even free...
Just load in the file, tweak it until it sounds exactly the way you want, and then save a new copy...

And, to be quite blunt, what's available now is sooooo much cooler than what used to be available...

You want a recording to sound like it was recorded in Winchester Cathedral?
No problem...
Load up a Convolver program... and an impulse file for Winchester Cathedral...
And now your recording sounds like that's where it was recorded.
Want it to sound like it was recorded at the bottom of a cave?
Someone's probably got an impulse file for that too.

Want reverb?
Forget setting how much and how long...
Now you get to design the virtual room, including its shape, what the walls are made of, and where the microphones are...

Got a nice vocal recording with too much reverb... and you'd like to dial DOWN the reverb...?
There's a program that can do that too.
(And it actually works pretty good.)

And check out some of the insane plugins these guys have:
www.quikquak.com/

And, yes, a lot of the new stuff is expensive...
But there is also a lot of it that is absolutely free...

I just did a Google search on "free reverb plugins"... and got back over six MILLION hits...
Here's just one... listing one website's ten favorite free reverb plugins...
www.whippedcreamsounds.com/free-reverb-plugins/
 
But, if you want to keep it relatively simple, you can just pick one editor, and one reverb plugin that you like the sound of.....
(And, since you're adding your adjustments to the audio file, you can play that file on any system after you get done.)

Apr 20, 2023 14:14:29 GMT -5 405x5 said:

Apr 20, 2023 11:44:11 GMT -5 AudioHTIT said:

As a guitar player who started in the ‘primitive’ analog days, tremolo and reverb were the first effects most of us had access to, and often these effects were built into our guitar amps. Echo used to require a three head tape deck and mixer (which wasn’t very convenient), but eventually it made its way to effect pedals as well — first in analog, then digital form.

Here are a couple (acoustic) examples of extremely long reverb, and echo (the latter used as a second musician).

www.bksv.com/en/knowledge/blog/perspectives/longest-reverb

That was extremely cool and fun… Something that in the wake of Dolby, Atmos, and other things, is largely lost, IMHO.

If those special effects can be used in recording live performance, which they often are, one could then ask why is it such a mortal sin to have such capability in your own home playback system?

All of today’s competing processors go out of their way to force the hand of everything being bit perfect reproduction. That’s fine, but I miss having the sheer fun of playing with the sound effects that I had in my former AV processor…….will just call it echo now for the moment.

Not only was it tons of fun (I actually still have my Sunfire boxed away). But it added some very redeeming quality to old recordings, that just plain sucked not to put to find a point on it. now there’s nothing left to do but to live with the “Accuracy”.

[AudioHTIT]

Apr 20, 2023 14:14:29 GMT -5 405x5 said:

Apr 20, 2023 11:44:11 GMT -5 AudioHTIT said:

As a guitar player who started in the ‘primitive’ analog days, tremolo and reverb were the first effects most of us had access to, and often these effects were built into our guitar amps. Echo used to require a three head tape deck and mixer (which wasn’t very convenient), but eventually it made its way to effect pedals as well — first in analog, then digital form.

Here are a couple (acoustic) examples of extremely long reverb, and echo (the latter used as a second musician).

www.bksv.com/en/knowledge/blog/perspectives/longest-reverb

That was extremely cool and fun… Something that in the wake of Dolby, Atmos, and other things, is largely lost, IMHO.

If those special effects can be used in recording live performance, which they often are, one could then ask why is it such a mortal sin to have such capability in your own home playback system?

All of today’s competing processors go out of their way to force the hand of everything being bit perfect reproduction. That’s fine, but I miss having the sheer fun of playing with the sound effects that I had in my former AV processor…….will just call it echo now for the moment.
Not only was it tons of fun (I actually still have my Sunfire boxed away). But it added some very redeeming quality to old recordings, that just plain sucked not to put to find a point on it. now there’s nothing left to do but to live with the “Accuracy”.

I personally find with my 7.2.4 system, that when I want ‘enhancement’ the DSU does a good job in simulating a more live environment, so I can choose between ‘clean stereo’ or DSU (full surround w/heights). Though I also understand wanting more from certain recordings, I doubt I’d want to go to the trouble of re-recording to add the enhancements, nor pay (much) for them to be added to a processor.

I doubt if the companies (like Emotiva) go out of their way to limit us, but rather choose to license a product (whatever the Dolby/Atmos processor suite is called), which brings certain implementation requirements and limitations. Having an alternate upmixer (like Neural:X) was always something we wanted (and expect with the G4P), and it would seem that could open things up to other surround ‘synthesizers’ (like Auro 3d). I’d expect it comes down to demand, if we were all writing in wanting this it might be on the table, but likely the count is low (though a former member did also lament the passing of the effects he had in his AVR).

Edit: Another solution would be to build multiple systems, one in each acoustic environment you want to hear, like the rooms used in the recordings above … yeah, I’m kidding.

[405x5]

…… all very cool and interesting alternatives, and when I did more listening on the computer out of necessity, I have the ability (as many do) to alter the sound more to my liking with the onboard mixer. But when I’m kicked back and away from the computer in front of my really good speakers, I enjoyed that shift on the fly and I’m not so into this, that I would go to the trouble of creating a set of files to play on the main system. Simply enjoy those relatively primitive enhancements that were once available on my old processor. today’s audio is so sweet that in retrospect I really don’t think about this a whole lot only when going back to some of those old recordings that weren’t very good.