Ambiente spatializing plugin by Audiomodeling

[RobS]

not much talking about this plugin, as far as I know... I think that for chamber music it's really good. Instruments can be loaded as mono or stereo (specifying the stereo width), assigned a name and a color. There are several rooms or halls which as far as I can tell is the same model but with different sizes and reflectivity of the walls, I may be wrong though.
anyway, here are a couple of examples, the beginning of Stravinsky's Octet for woodwinds and an improvisation for vibraphone and piano, both in the "concert hall " preset. Vibes and piano very close, woods more back

Octet-VSL-studio-woods.mp3

(3.82 MiB) Downloaded 45 times

Improvvisazioni per vibrafono e piano.mp3

(3.51 MiB) Downloaded 38 times

[Piet De Ridder]

Aaah, the Octuor! One of my Desert Island pieces. If you’d like to hear a really great version — my favourite among all the ones available on YouTube —, have a listen to Les Musiciens de l'Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France (video below). Breathtakingly brilliant from the first second to the last, I find.

Ambiente — you’re right, this plugin hasn’t received much attention; I watched a few videos when it was first released but then never returned to it — indeed seems to work quite well for chamber-type spatialization, although I don’t really hear it doing something so unique or exceptional that I want to have it. (And, off-topic, I also don’t find the VSL woodwinds a suitable collection of sampled instruments for this music. The video below answers why.)
That vibraphone is nicely spatialized though. At least, very much in a way I like: close-up yet convincingly enveloped by a space.

After a long and increasingly depressing struggle trying to integrate SPAT Revolution in my set-up, in a way that's both effective and reliable, I’ve turned to Apulsoft’s apVerb for 80% of the spatializing duties, and I’m pretty happy with the results. What I’m using now most of the time is, after first inserting Goodhertz PanPot, a combination of apVerb and Seventh Heaven (an edit of one of its chamber presets), the first one for the early cluster of reflections and the second (usually very subtly) for some more spacious bloom. I’ll try and post an example.



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[RobS]

hehe I should have said that, since I had the VSL woods open, I swapped the trumpet and trombones with english horn and bass clarinets... a very different kind of sound. Add to that the fact I simply loaded a midifile found on the web... The point for me was testing the plugin. I played the Octet when I was in conservatory, as a flutist, splendid composition.
Very good performance by the musicians of Radio France, probably a better recording technically than the one I had and used to listen to in my youth (but still love)

[RobS]

off to check Apulsoft verb

[Piet De Ridder]

I already figured that, using only woodwind libraries, you had to replace the brass with some ww or other. That substitution, bold as it is, has got nothing to do with why I find the VSL woodwinds less suited for this music though. To my ears, they simply lack the required definition, crispness of articulation, clear outline of timbre and lightness of tone for these Octuor parts. They also blend — but in their defense: all woodwind libraries do — into a kind of smeary, sticky, diffused and to my ears rather unattractive sound which, while bearable in some music I suppose, is completely alien to what Stravinsky wrote down for this piece.

My all-time favourite Octuor remains the one conducted by its composer (Columbia Records). People keep insisting that Stravinsky is a terrible conductor, and I keep disagreeing in the strongest possible way. I also happen to really like the recorded sound the Columbia engineers managed to capture during these historic early-and-mid-60’s sessions. It’s not hi-fi, but it’s gorgeous. In fact, the album “Stravinsky conducts Music for Chamber and Jazz Ensembles” sits, unthreatened, in my top 3 of most important records of my life. Can’t function without it.
Another version I’ve always liked — a Dutch one and a rrrrrrrreally good one (though also fairly old) — is Edo De Waart conducting the Netherlands Wind Ensemble (Philips Records).



But back to reverbs (or spatializing). If you’re going to watch apVerb videos — there aren’t that many — please don’t get alarmed by the tendency in some of these videos to highlight the special fx powers of apVerb. Yes, that’s something that apVerb can do too, and do very well, but I assume that’s not what you’re looking for. So, take it from me, apVerb is first and foremost an outstanding and incredibly powerful algorithmic reverb. Not the easiest one to master, I immediately agree (the first step is to get your head around its somewhat unusual interface and the many hidden or below-the-surface possibilities), but once you do: immensely satisfying tool.

Another thing I want to mention again on the subject of techniques to spatialize instruments in smaller spaces (particularly rooms), is the use of delay. Not reverb, but delay. Often, a well-set delay — something very short (maybe start around 90-100ms, not too much feedback, and darkened to taste — is in fact all you need, I often find. Or 98% delay and just a pinch of reverb. The Goodhertz DC19 has a great starter preset that has these settings (or something thereabouts anyway) and whenever I need to place something in a room, that’s often the only plugin I use. Seriously. That said, and before my posts in this thread begin to sound like a Goodhertz commercial: any decent delay should be able to give you what it takes.

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[RobS]

Thank you Piet, I appreciate your comments (though I don’t agree with you on the VSL woodwinds) and I am with you about S. as a conductor, always liked his dry, essential and awkward way of conducting. Apollon Musagete another composition of his that I have under his conducting that I really enjoy

[mr anxiety]

Piet, Would love to hear your apVerb / GoodHertz spatiality setup. I to have had to leave my SPAT behind.

Stravinsky is the Man!

[Piet De Ridder]

I'll prepare something. Should be ready this weekend.

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[Lawrence]

off to check Apulsoft verb

What happened to the development of Room 360, I wonder? It seemed promising.

[RobS]

off to check Apulsoft verb

What happened to the development of Room 360, I wonder? It seemed promising.

I wonder myself, it was promising... I seem to remember it was the work of a single person. Maybe too big for him. He was constantly pushing deadlines and then nothing

[Markus K]

This Apulsoft Verb looks pretty interesting.
Piet, I'd like to ask why you use Seventh Heaven as a tail and not the build in from ApVerb? In the videos it looks like you can do a lot with it.

[Piet De Ridder]

No specific reason, Markus. Yes, I could use apVerb too, or TC’s VSS4, Ircam’s Verb or any of the good software reverbs I have, but the reason I picked Seventh Heaven is that, after I’ve been neglecting it for years (*never* using, in fact), a month or so ago, I decided to revisit it and I came across a Chamber preset that I really like for how I use reverberation — barely audible, is a good description — so that’s my choice now. Flavour of the month, you could call it. But it’s a flavour I’m very happy with, so it might last longer than a month.

Whichever I pick, for typical spatialization, I tend to work with two reverbs (or one delay and a reverb), and apVerb has now firmly claimed the first slot as the main source of depth/spatial suggestion, while the second reverb (which, as I said, I only use for a subliminal dose of roomy or chamber-y bloom) can be, well, any of the good ones. Currently, I’m going with Seventh Heaven.

Actually, my favourite reverb for that duty is Acustica’s Silver, but to run that extremely resource-hungry piece of software, I need to load it in AudioGridder (outside of Logic), which works great but inevitably brings with it too much latency to be practical. So Silver’s sadly out as the second reverb. (Whenever I use Silver, and I often do, it’s on Logic’s MasterOut — again barely audible, but doing its thing — where increased latency doesn’t matter.)

- - -

I’m almost ready with that apVerb demo I said I’d be making, but I’m not sure I’ll get it done today. But if not, then it’ll be tomorrow or, at the very-very latest, the day after.

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[Piet De Ridder]

Here’s a little piece — let’s call it ‘apWaltz’ — illustrating the use of a dedicated panner (Goodhertz PanPot) and apulSoft’s apVerb, plus a hint of room provided by a Seventh Heaven chamber, to bring some space, depth and a fairly wide stereo image to a mix. (It’s far from perfectly done, but I think, at least I hope, you will get some idea of the possibilities.) If you were hoping for a demonstration of a bigger space and/or something more orchestral, I’m afraid I have to disappoint you: this is a rather small, close-up ‘studio’ affair.

I didn’t use any other tools for spatializing the instruments in this mix, except for one delay (the one I described earlier in this thread) on the upright bass.
Not too many plug-ins on the StereoOut either: an EQ (Acustica’s Ruby3), TokyoDawn’s elliptical highpass filter and TC Electronic’s MD4 HD.)

As far as the woodwinds were concerned — English Horn, Bass Clarinet, Bb Clarinet and Flute —, I was a bit limited in my choices because I had to work with instruments that were available in a very dry version. And since I may have been vaccinated somewhere in my youth — C. Plummer: “Or childhood?” — against most things VSL, I didn’t fancy using those. Not for this piece anyway. So I ended up with a combination of two instruments from OT’s Woodwind Soloists 1 (which are quite dry) and a few AcousticSamples VWinds, plus a very old BassClarinet staccato patch from Donnie Christian.
The other sounds are the Chocolate Audio Model7 (piano), the Pianoteq celesta, the SonicCouture marimba, my hardware electric organ module (Viscount Legend Exp.), AuthenticSamples upright bass, a brushes kit from TT’s JazzSessions and a handful of synth sounds. Oh, and one triangle hit (also from a very old Donnie Christian library — well, *all* of DC’s libraries are very old.)

So, there’s two mixes: the first one completely dry (or as dry as the out-of-the box patches are anyway), without any processing whatsoever and all of its sounds panned in the centre — which makes for an almost mono-ish result — and the second one making use of the above mentioned tools to suggest depth and width.
(For my taste, the wet mix is too wet already, but I had to show some difference between the spatialized and the dry mix, didn’t I? If I were to do a mix that’s more to my liking, it would be closer to the dry one than the wet one, except for the pannings.)

- apWaltz - Dry Mix
- apWaltz - Spatialized Mix

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[RobS]

Thank you for the example Piet, I was expecting a more reverberant sound, but I like this kind of studio-like recording too. Surprised to read that you consider it to be too wet already. Love the piano, the clarinet, the marimba and drums, slightly less the rest. The english horn staccato at the beginning, though not particularly beautiful, helps to perceive the ambience... close but with some air around the instruments

[Piet De Ridder]

I don't like the opening Eng. horn staccato either, but I quite like the Eng. Horn that repeats the piano melody later on in the piece. Which is why I didn't replace the opening one cause the timbres would be too different.

I'm mostly happy with the piece (especially that piano melody), but if I were to do this the way I like it — and not in a hurry like I did now — I would replace a lot of the sounds. And depending on those choices, the space might have to be adjusted as well. For example, I hear a part for (French) horn in my head for certain lines, and that would immediately also suggest the idea of a bigger room, because horns sound better in bigger rooms.

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[mr anxiety]

Thanks for putting the time in for this example.

[Luke]

Hey Piet,

Thanks for putting together that example (I'm always fascinated by your willingness to compose something new just as an exercise for an example!).

Very nice piece, as we are accustomed from you. I agree that it's a bit too wet for the sound of the piece, but necessary to illustrate your point about the effectiveness. On that, are you finding this combo to be as quick and as convincing as using SPAT?

My own, numerous attempts to incorporate SPATRev into a decent workflow have also failed, and finding a suitable replacement that sounds as good and fits the quick workflow, has been challenging. For the latest project, I'm using a combo of either
Ideal Ambience (https://endeavorfx.com/ideal-ambience.html) or 7th Heaven for ERs and several others for late reflections, depending on what the style of the cue requires. But I am most definitely missing a sort of all-in-one solution of the highest quality and would switch in a heartbeat.

Using SPAT v3 through Audio Gridder connected on my old MacPro does work, but again, the workflow is not great.

P.S. Your suggestion about how to use a delay to create ERs was great and yielded some very usable results in the right context.

[Piet De Ridder]

Luke,
Mr. Anxiety,

Thanks for the appreciation!

Luke,

SPAT v3 is irreplaceable. I'm actually toying with the idea of looking for someone, and hopefully finding him/her, who has the knowledge and skill, and is willing to try and write a wrapper for SPAT v3, so that I can use it again. (I doubt that knocking on Flux's door will yield any result.) I am prepared to pay rather a lot of money for a plugin that works in the latest version of LogicPro AND can load/wrap the old SPAT, fully functional.

NuGEN's SigMod and DDMF's Metaplugin used to be able to do just that, but neither of them still can. I can't recall exactly when it stopped working, it might have been a MacOS-update that did it, or maybe it's the MacStudio M1 technical specs, I don't know, but the fact is: it no longer works. I mean, SigMod and Metaplugin can still load the plug-in but SPAT's interface freezes immediately and becomes impossible to use. (I've tried a few other hosts, but nothing works. And AudioGridder gives the same result as SigMod and Metaplugin: frozen interface.)

I *much* preferred working with SPAT to having to fiddle with two or three plugins to achieve similar but mostly inferior results. That said, if I'm forced to work that way, apVerb will definitely be one of the plugins I choose to do it with.

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